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Dracula is a classic horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Béla Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal Pictures Co. Inc. and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
alpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), Renfield (Dwight Frye) goes to the Borgo Pass where he is met by Count Dracula's coach. The next day, Renfield and Dracula (Bela Lugosi) take 'the Vesta' to England.
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Quotations
For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you're a wise man, Van Helsing.
Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
No, no, master. I wasn't going to say anything, I told them nothing. I am loyal to you master.
The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly... The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.
The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!
I do not drink...wine.
Encyclopedia
Dracula is a classic horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Béla Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal Pictures Co. Inc. and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Plot
Summary
On Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), Renfield (Dwight Frye) goes to the Borgo Pass where he is met by Count Dracula's coach. The next day, Renfield and Dracula (Bela Lugosi) take 'the Vesta' to England. Ship arrives in Whitby harbor in a storm, captain lashed to boat, everyone dead, Renfield mad. Renfield is taken to Dr Jack Seward (Herbert Bunston)'s sanitarium near London. Newspaper clipping notes Renfield's strange desire to eat small living things.
Dracula arrives in London. He goes to a play where he is introduced to Dr Seward, daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), Lucy Weston (Frances Dade) and John Harker (David Manners). Dracula announces he has taken Carfax Abbey which adjoins the Sanitarium. Shortly thereafter, Lucy dies of blood loss. Professor Van Helsing arrives to examine her. At the same time, Dracula visits, and Van Helsing notes no reflection in mirror. While Van Helsing, Seward and Harker discuss vampires, Dracula summons Mina outside. She is found in a faint on the lawn.
Detailed plot
Renfield (Dwight Frye), a British solicitor, travels through the Carpathian Mountains via stagecoach. The people in the stagecoach are fearful that the coach won’t reach the local inn before sundown. Arriving there safely before sundown, Renfield refuses to stay at the inn and asks the driver to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper and his wife seem to be afraid of Renfield’s destination, Castle Dracula, and warn him about vampires. The innkeeper's wife gives Renfield a Crucifix for protection before he leaves for Borgo Pass, whence he is driven to the castle by Dracula's coach, which was awaiting him at Borgo Pass, with Dracula himself disguised as the driver.
Renfield enters the castle after his driver and his luggage disappear, and is bid welcomed by charming but weird nobleman Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi), who is a vampire. Dracula and Renfield discuss the purchase of Carfax Abbey in England, and afterwards Dracula departs. Renfield faints when he opens a window and a bat comes in, and Dracula, morphed from bat, forces his wives to get away from Renfield. He then bites him.
Aboard the Vesta, bound for England, Renfield has now became a raving lunatic slave to Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship's crew. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered the only living person in it; the captain is lashed on the wheel and none of the ship’s crew is discovered. Renfield is sent to Dr. Seward’s sanitarium.
Some nights later, Dracula hypnotizes an usherette and tells her to inform Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston) that he is wanted on the telephone. Before leaving, Dracula meets with Dr. Seward, who introduces him to his daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners), and the family friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade). Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, after Lucy has a talk with Mina and falls asleep in bed, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered.
Several days later, it is seen that Renfield is obsessed with eating flies and spiders, devouring their lives also. Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) analyzes Renfield's blood, discovering Renfield’s obsession. He starts talking about vampires, and that afternoon chats with Renfield, who begs Dr. Seward to send him away, because his nightly cries may disturb Mina’s dreams. When Dracula awakes and calls Renfield with wolf howling, Renfield is disturbed by Van Helsing showing him a branch of wolfbane. It stops wolves, as Van Helsing says, and also is used for vampire protection.
Dracula visits a sleeping Mina in her bedroom and bites her, leaving her the same marks Lucy had. She talks to the others about a dream of hers, when Dracula visited her. Then, Dracula enters for a night's visit at the Sewards. Van Helsing and Harker notice that Dracula does not have a reflection in the mirrored top of the cigarette case. When Van Helsing shows that "most amazing phenomenon" to Dracula, he smashes the mirror and excuses himself, leaving. Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is the vampire.
Meanwhile, Mina leaves her room and runs into Dracula’s hug in the garden, and is discovered there unconscious. The next day, newspapers write about a “beautiful lady” who lured little children playing in the park with chocolate and then bit them. Mina recognizes the beautiful lady as Lucy, who has risen as a vampire. Harker wants to take Mina at London for safety, but he is finally convinced to leave Mina with them. Van Helsing orders nurse Briggs (Joan Standing) to take care of Mina when she is sleeping, and not to remove the garland of wolfbane around her neck.
Renfield again escapes from his cell and listens to the three men discussing vampires. Before Martin (Charles K. Gerrard), his attendant, arrives to take Renfield back to his cell, Renfield narrarates to Van Helsing, Harker and Seward how Dracula convinced Renfield to allow him enter the sanitarium by promising him thousands of rats with blood and life in them.
Dracula enters the Seward parlour and talks with Van Helsing. Dracula tells him that Mina is now his after fusing his blood with hers, and Van Helsing swears revenge by sterilizing Carfax Abbey and finding the box where he sleeps; he will then thrust a stake through his heart. Dracula tries to hypnotize Van Helsing, almost succeeding, but Van Helsing shows a crucifix to the vampire and turns away.
Mina is visited in her bedroom by Harker, and they talk about the night. Harker notices Mina’s changes, as she now becomes step by step a vampire, and when a bat (Dracula) enters the room and squeaks to Mina, she answers and tries to attack Harker. Fortunately, Van Helsing and Dr. Seward arrive just in time to save Harker. Mina confesses what Dracula has done to her, and tries to tell Harker that their love is finished.
Later that night, Dracula hypnotizes Briggs into removing the wolfbane from Mina’s room so he can enter. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield, having just escaped from his cell, heading for Carfax Abbey. They see Dracula with Mina in the abbey, and when Harker shouts to Mina, Dracula sees them thinking Renfield had trailed them. He strangles Renfield and tosses him from the staircase, and is hunted by Van Helsing and Harker. Dracula is forced to sleepin his coffin, as sunrise has come, and is trapped. Van Helsing prepares a wooden stake while Harker searches for Mina. He finds her in a strange stasis, and when Dracula moans in pain when Van Helsing impales him, she returns to her old self. Harker leaves with Mina while Van Helsing stays. The sound of church bells is heard.
Background/Production
Bram Stoker's novel had already been filmed without permission as Nosferatu in 1922 by expressionist German film maker F. W. Murnau. Enthusiastic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. also saw the box office potential in Stoker's gothic chiller. Unlike the German counterpart, this would be a fully authorized version, since Murnau's film had fallen under the wrath of Stoker's widow, who had tried to destroy all prints of Nosferatu. He intended it would be a spectacle to rival the lavish Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera.
Like those films, Laemmle insisted it must star Lon Chaney, despite Chaney being under contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Tod Browning was then approached to direct this new Universal epic. Browning, incidentally, had already directed Chaney as a (fake) vampire in the lost 1927 silent movie London after Midnight. However, a number of factors would limit Laemmle's plans: Firstly, Chaney himself, who had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 1928, had sadly succumbed to his terminal illness. Furthermore, studio financial difficulties, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, caused a drastic reduction in budget, forcing Laemmle to look at a cheaper alternative, which meant several grand scenes that closely followed the Stoker storyline had to be abandoned.
Already a huge hit on Broadway, the tried and tested Deane/Balderston Dracula play would become the blueprint as the production gained momentum. However, the question of who should play the Count remained. This would fall to the then current broadway Dracula, Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, but not without controversy. Originally, Laemmle stated he was not at all interested in Lugosi, in spite of the warm reviews his stage portrayal had received, and instead sought to hire other actors, including Paul Muni, Chester Morris, Ian Keith, John Wray, Joseph Schildkraut, Arthur Edmund Carewe and stage actor William Courtney. Against the tide of studio opinion, Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to him accepting a salary far less than his co-stars.
The eerie speech pattern of Lugosi's Dracula was said to have resulted from the fact that Lugosi did not speak English, and therefore had to learn and speak his lines phonetically. This is a bit of an urban legend. While it was true Lugosi did not speak English at the time of his first English-language play in 1919 and he had learned his lines to that play in this manner, but by the time of Dracula Lugosi spoke English as well as he ever would. Lugosi's speech pattern would be imitated countless times by other Dracula portrayers, most often in an exaggerated or comical way.
According to numerous accounts, the production is alleged to have been a mostly disorganized affair, with the usually meticulous Tod Browning leaving cinematographer Karl Freund to take over during much of the shoot. Moreover, the despondent Browning would simply tear out pages from the script which he felt were redundant, such was his seeming contempt for the screenplay. It is possible however, given that Browning had originally intended Dracula as collaboration between him and Lon Chaney, his apparent lack of interest on the set was due to losing his friend and original leading man, rather than any actual aversion to the subject matter.
Cinematic process
The film/negative format used in the creation of this film was 35 mm. The cinematographic process used was the Spherical film format..
Cast
Reception
When the film finally premiered on Valentine's Day 1931, newspapers reported that members of the audiences fainted in shock at the horror onscreen. This publicity, shrewdly orchestrated by the film studio, helped ensure people came to see the film, if for no other reason than curiosity. Dracula was a big gamble for a major Hollywood studio to undertake. In spite of the literary credentials of the source material, it was uncertain if an American audience was prepared for a serious full length supernatural chiller. Though America had been exposed to other chillers before, such as The Cat and the Canary, this was a horror story with no comic relief or trick ending that downplayed the supernatural.
Nervous executives breathed a collective sigh of relief when Dracula proved to be a huge box office sensation, and later that year Universal would release Frankenstein to even greater acclaim. Universal in particular would become the forefront of early horror cinema, with a canon of films including, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man.
A number of scenes were later cut from the film, the most famous being an epilogue which played only during the film's initial run. In a sequence similar to the prologue from Frankenstein, and again featuring Universal stalwart Edward Van Sloan, he appeared as a narrator to re-assure the audience that what they’d seen wouldn’t give them nightmares. Van Sloan would then calmly inform those with a nervous disposition that... "There really are such things as Vampires!"
Today, Dracula is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi's portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula. Lugosi had a powerful presence and authority onscreen. The slow, deliberate pacing of his performance ("I … bid you … welcome!" and "I never drink … wine!") gave his Dracula the air of a walking, talking corpse, which terrified 1930s movie audiences. He was just as compelling with no dialogue, and the many closeups of Lugosi's face in icy silence jumped off the screen. With this mesmerizing performance, Dracula became Bela Lugosi's signature role, his Dracula a cultural icon, and he himself a legend in the classic Universal Horror film series.
However, Dracula would ultimately become a rôle which would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. Despite his earlier stage successes in a variety of rôles, from the moment Lugosi donned the cape on screen, it would forever see him typecast as the Count.
Tod Browning would go on to direct Bela Lugosi once more in another vampire thriller, Mark of the Vampire, a 1935 remake of his lost film London after Midnight.
Sequels
Five years after the release of the film, Universal released Dracula's Daughter, a direct sequel that starts immediately after the end of the first film. A second sequel, Son of Dracula, starring Lon Chaney, Jr. followed in 1943. Despite his apparent death in the 1931 film, the Count returned to life in three more Universal films of the mid-1940s: 1944's House of Frankenstein, 1945's House of Dracula and 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Ironically, Universal would only cast Lugosi as Dracula in one more film, the 1948 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, inscrutably giving the role to John Carradine in any movies featuring Dracula made between 1931 and 1948, although Carradine admittedly more closely resembled Stoker's physical description from the book. Many of the familiar images of Dracula are from stills of the older Lugosi made during the filming of the postwar comedy, so there remain two confusingly distinct incarnations of Lugosi as Dracula, seventeen years apart in age. While Lugosi had played a vampire in two other movies during the 1930s and 1940s, it was only in this final film that he played Count Dracula onscreen for the second (and final) time.
Soundtrack
Due to the limitations of adding a musical score to a film's soundtrack during 1930 and 1931, no score had ever been composed specifically for the film.
1998 musical score by Philip Glass
In 1998 composer Philip Glass was commissioned to compose a musical score for the classic film. The score was performed by the Kronos Quartet under direction of Michael Reisman, Glass's usual conductor.
Of the project, Glass said:
- "The film is considered a classic. I felt the score needed to evoke the feeling of the world of the 19th century — for that reason I decided a string quartet would be the most evocative and effective. I wanted to stay away from the obvious effects associated with horror films. With [the Kronos Quartet] we were able to add depth to the emotional layers of the film."
The film, with this new score, was released by Universal Studios Home Video in 1999 in the VHS format. Universal's DVD releases allow the viewer to choose between the unscored soundtrack or the Glass score.
Glass and the Kronos Quartet performed live during showings of the film in the late 1990s.
Spanish language version
In the early days of sound, it was common for Hollywood studios to produce Spanish-language versions of their films using the same sets, costumes and etc. Unfortunately, many of these versions no longer exist. The Spanish version of Dracula is an exception.
The Spanish version was included as a bonus feature on the Classic Monster Collection DVD in 1999, the Legacy Collection DVD in 2004 and the 75th Anniversary Edition DVD set in 2006.
See also
Further reading
- Skal, David. Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. Paperback ed. New York: Faber & Faber, 2004. ISBN 0571211585
External links
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