Dracula (1931) Film Review

Dracula (1931) Director: Tod Browning

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”

★★★★★

After the unfortunate passing of Lon Chaney due to lung cancer, Hungarian-born Bela Lugosi was chosen out of a large group of contenders to star in Universal’s newest picture, a risky niche horror film under the direction of Tod Browning called Dracula. It was to be an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel of the same name which was then running as a popular theatrical play (also starring Bela Lugosi). Universal’s original plan was to make a big-budget adaptation of “Dracula” that would strictly adhere to the Bram Stoker novel, however, with the stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the studio chose not to risk an investment on such a sprawling film. Instead, it focused its adaptation primarily on the much less expensive Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston stage play. At the time, leadership at Universal had passed from “Uncle Carl” Laemmle to his 23-year-old son, Carl Laemmle Jr., who sought to modernize the studio and take a risk on the horror genre. And as it turns out, the risk was worth the reward. In the film, Bela Lugosi offers a seminal performance as Count Dracula, a performance which has forever entered into the public consciousness –the actor and the character are often seen as one and the same. His intensely pale stone-face looms large over the film as his piercing, unflinching eyes and extreme close-ups haunt and mesmerize the screen. The success of his performance in Dracula is actually what launched the Universal Studios classic horror craze –or “creature features”– with a string of subsequent films including Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and many others. Today, some critics look back on films like Dracula as being “so bad it’s good” with its echoing sound stages and dangling bats hanging on strings and so on, however, as much as I love Bela Lugosi’s performance, I will admit this film is clunky and awkward at points (the scenes of the storm-wrecked ship were even lazily lifted from another film) but that is part of what make this a truly endearing gem. With cheap, cost-cutting measures replete throughout the production, and reports of a somewhat chaotic production behind the scenes, it’s somewhat astounding Dracula managed to become a hit film. Dracula also pays homage to its classic silent predecessor, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors by F.W. Murnau. However, in contrast to the legal issues facing Nosferatu, Carl Laemmle Jr. made sure to acquire the full rights for Dracula before producing this film (he was greatly aided by Bela Lugosi who served as intermediary between Universal Pictures and Stoker family). Today, Dracula still manages to haunt and delight audiences and it certainly is a film worth studying, if for nothing else, then for Bela Lugosi’s absolutely iconic performance as Count Dracula, a role he later regretted for forever typecasting him.

In Dracula, we are introduced to a cold, elemental fear of the outsider –Count Dracula represents a polite foreign aristocratic predator who is calmly hiding in plain sight, profaning the sacred, corrupting the innocent, and preying upon unsuspecting citizens. The overt eroticism of his neck-biting predates the Hay’s Code, and unlike the hideous monstrosities of modern science which result in stories like Frankenstein, Dracula points us toward something more natural, primordial, and darkly evil. In this way, not unlike Greek tragedy, classic horror movies remind us of the inherent chaos and unpredictability of life.

The film begins as a carriage full of travelers races through the Borgo Pass in Transylvania to arrive at a remote Inn before sundown. The Borgo Pass is a craggy mountainous pass littered with stone castles. The locals describe a deep fear of evil happenings here –Walpurgis Night– where an ancient Nosferatu lurks after sundown. One traveler, Renfield (Dwight Frye), is unafraid of the dark and he commissions his driver to take him further up the road to Count Dracula’s castle in spite of the creeping nighttime. Renfield says he has important business to transact with the Count. One of the villagers hands Renfield a crucifix for protection while making the sign of the cross. As the carriage approaches the castle, we are offered an initial glimpse of a 500-year-old vampire emerging from his coffin along with his three undead brides. Suddenly Dracula, himself, appears before the coachman as the buggy arrives at the castle (in the novel and the script Dracula is said to be obscured and hidden by his robes, though he is identity is quite evident in the film). Renfield sticks his head out the window of the carriage to find that no one is driving, but rather a bat is merely leading the way.

“There are far worse things awaiting man than death.”

When Renfield enters the hazy, creaking, shadowy, cob-web-filled castle, Renfield is greeted by a tuxedo wearing Dracula who slowly leads him up to a bedroom as they discuss the sale of London real estate. Dracula drugs Renfield with “very old wine,” before Dracula and his wives close in on the body to harvest his blood. This turns Renfield into Dracula’s earthly servant. Days later, Renfield and his “master” Dracula board the stormy ship called the Vesta as they head for London. The scenes of the Vesta were lifted from the Universal Pictures silent film called The Storm Breaker (1925), which accounts for the sudden change in the film’s frame rate. That night, a tempest strikes and Renfield opens Dracula’s crypt in the dark, hoping for favor from his “master.” Amazingly, the ship survives the storm and enters the Whitby Harbor in England with everyone aboard dead, excluding Dracula and Renfield. As the locals inspect the ship, they find Renfied hiding below deck with a menacing smile on his face (this scene may have been improvised), and they believe him to be raving mad. On the streets of London, Dracula preys on a woman selling flowers and he meets a group of aristocrats at the opera house after announcing he has purchased an old building, the dilapidated Carfax Abbey. Meanwhile, Renfield has been moved to the Seward Sanitarium where he now feeds on the blood of flies and other small creatures.

“For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you are a wise man, Mr. Van Helsing.”

The doctors in London have trouble identifying the cause of the mysterious marks that have begun appearing on peoples’ necks around London until Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) accurately attributes them to a Nosferatu Vampire. “I may be able to bring you proof that the superstition of yesterday can become the scientific reality of today,” he remarks as he begins researching deterrent methods, like the herb known as “wolf’s bane.” When he first meets Dracula, Van Helsing notices that Dracula does not actually appear in mirrors, which forces Dracula to quickly excuse himself from the room so he can claim another victim, Mina Seward (Helen Chandler), while Renfield takes a victim of his own, the maid. Dracula takes Mina back to his crypt, but he is followed by Van Helsing and Doctor Harker. Dracula, feeling betrayed by servant, kills Renfield and flees to his coffin. Shortly thereafter, Van Helsing and Harker drive a wooden stake through Dracula’s heart offscreen and they escape with Mina as church bells ring off in the distance.

---

Credits:

• Director: Tod Browning
  • Born Charles Albert Browning Jr., “Tod Browning” (1880-1962) was an American actor, Circus performer, vaudevillian, and film director known for directing numerous silent movies including a successful partnership with Lon Chaney from 1925–1929 at MGM under the auspices of Irving Thalberg. He reportedly struggled to adjust to the talkie era, though he directed some of his greatest films in the period, including Dracula (1931) and Freaks (1932). He worked with Bela Lugosi again in Mark of the Vampire (1935). He retired from filmmaking a few years later between 1939-1942. He was married twice and had one child. His second wife Alice died in 1944 of complications from pneumonia, leaving Browning an “alcoholic recluse” for some twenty years at his Malibu Beach home. In 1962, he was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx and the subsequent surgery rendered him effectively mute. He died alone in Malibu in 1962 at the age of 82.
• Screenplay by: Garrett Fort
• Based on: Dracula by Bram Stoker; and the stage play Dracula written by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston
• Produced by: Tod Browning and Carl Laemmle Jr.
• Starring:
  • Bela Lugosi…..Count Dracula
    • Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, or “Bela Lugosi” (1882-1956) was a Hungarian expatriate and classically-trained actor who appeared in various Hungarian stage productions and silent films, until he was forced to flee his home country after the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919. He fled to Germany due to his union-organizing activities (he risked execution if he stayed in Hungary). There, he acted in several Weimar films before arriving in New Orleans as a seaman on a merchant ship and made his way north to New York City and Ellis Island. He worked in Broadway productions and later acting in film acting in Hollywood. The original Broadway production of “Dracula” starring Bela Lugosi opened at the Fulton Theater on October 5, 1927 and ran for 261 performances. Also in the original Broadway cast was Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing and Herbert Bunston as Doctor Seward. These three were the only actors from the original 1927 Broadway production to reprise their roles in the film. Before he was cast as Count Dracula in the film, Bela Lugosi acted as an unpaid intermediary between Universal Pictures and the widow of author Bram Stoker (Florence Stoker), attempting to persuade her to lower her asking price for the filming rights to the Dracula property. After two months of negotiations, Mrs. Stoker reportedly lowered her price from $200,000 to $60,000. This further demonstrated to Universal what an asset Lugosi was, and how eager he was to continue his stage success as Count Dracula and secure the film role for himself. Although it wound up being his most famous role, Lugosi played Dracula only once more onscreen in the Universal comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). However, he played Dracula-like characters in movies like Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire (1935) and The Return of the Vampire (1943) and he co-starred in a number of films with fellow Universal horror icon Boris Karloff, including The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). In his later years, Lugosi experienced a career decline after being typecast as Dracula and he started receiving regular medication for sciatic neuritis, leading to an addiction to doctor-prescribed morphine and methadone. This drug dependence (and his gradually worsening alcoholism) affected his ability to secure roles. He was married five times –first to a 19-year-old Hungarian girl named Ilona Szmik in 1917 who refused to flee Hungary with him (she later remarried, had two children, moved to Iran, and died 1991), he then married Hungarian actress Ilona von Montagh in New York City in 1921, but she filed for divorce a few years later (she was last heard after getting arrested for shoplifting with a friend), then he married he married wealthy San Franciscan Beatrice Woodruff Weeks in 1929, widow of the great architect Charles Peter Weeks, but four months later she filed for divorce accusing Lugosi of having affairs with other women (including Clara Bow) and attempting to steal her money while he accused her of alcoholism and cavorting with men at clubs (17 months after the divorce, Beatrice died of alcoholism in Panama), then In 1933, 51-year-old, financially struggling Lugosi married 22-year-old Lillian Arch, daughter of Hungarian immigrants. They were married for twenty years and had one son before she filed for divorce in 1953 partly due to Lugosi’s excessive drinking, while Lugosi was reportedly jealous of her decision to work as an assistant to actor Brian Donlevy on Donlevy’s radio and television series “Dangerous Assignment” (she later married Donlevey, who was also an alcoholic, and she obtained custody of her son with Lugosi), and in 1955, Lugosi married his fifth and final wife Hope Lininger, a fan who was was 37 years his junior, while he recuperated in a hospital from his addiction. They remained together until Lugosi died the following year in 1956 of a heart attack in his sleep while napping. For many years, there was a popular myth that Bela Lugosi intended to be buried in one of the capes he wore in the film Dracula, however this is false. He did wear a black cape, but his Dracula cape was owned by his descendants. They attempted to sell it at auction for $1.2M in 2011, but it failed to sell. In 2019, the family donated it to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
  • David Manners…..Doctor John Harker
    • Born Rauff de Ryther Duan Acklom, David Joseph Manners (1900-1998) was a Canadian-American actor who appeared in films like Tod Browning’s Frankenstein (1931), Frank Capra’s The Miracle Woman (1931), Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932), and Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934). Despite a brief marriage to a woman, Manning was gay. In later years, he took an interest in writing novels, studying philosophy, and painting. He died in 1998 at the age of 98 in Santa Barbara, California. Although he lived for 67 years after Dracula was released, David Manners claimed that he never watched the film. Initially, John Ayres was first cast in the role of John Harker in Dracula, but he was reassigned to another Universal film so he was replaced with Robert Ames, but unfortunately Ames’s sensational divorce from actor and singer Vivienne Segal was given too much press. So the role was given to up-and-coming actor David Manners.
  • Helen Chandler…..Mina Seward
    • Helen Chandler (1906-1965) who played Mina Seward, was convinced she was heading for superstardom after making “Dracula.” She was sometimes described as suffering from delusions of grandeur and with “her head up in the clouds.” She was struggling with alcoholism at the time of filming and was said to regularly forget her lines of dialogue. Years after the release of Dracula, Chandler was not shy about her distaste for Dracula, and the fact that it typecast her as a helpless maiden archetype. At the time Dracula was filmed, she was married to Cyril Hume, screenwriter of the Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956), among other films. They divorced in 1934. She then married actor Bramwell Fletcher in 1935, known for his brief appearance in The Mummy (1932), but they divorced in 1940. She married for a third time, this time to a merchant seaman, and fell into obscurity. She struggled with severe alcoholism and drug addiction. She was hospitalized and spent time in an asylum, but was unable to gain control of her life. In 1950, Chandler was severely burned in a house fire, caused when she fell asleep while smoking. She survived but her body was badly disfigured and led to further hospitalization. Her alcoholism continued unabated after the accident. By the time Chandler died in 1965, she had long been forgotten. She was cremated according to her wishes, but her ashes were never claimed. But after an online fundraising effort led by researcher Jessica Wahl and Hollywood Graveyard YouTube channel creator Arthur Dark, and with the permission of her surviving family, Chandler’s ashes were reinterred in the Cathedral Mausoleum of Hollywood Forever Cemetery on July 13, 2023.
  • Dwight Frye…..Renfield
    • Dwight Frye (1899-1943) was best known for his portrayals of neurotic, jittery, murderous, unbalanced villains in the Universal Monster films, in roles like Renfield in Dracula (1931) and Fritz in Frankenstein (1931). At first, stage actor Bernard Jukes fought to reprise his role as Renfield on the big screen, but he was overshadowed by Dwight Frye. He also appeared as a reporter in The Invisible Man (1933), as Karl in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and in minor roles in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), the latter of which was a deleted scene. Frye died of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 1943 while traveling by bus in Hollywood, a few days before he was scheduled to begin filming the biopic Wilson. He had one child. After playing Renfield, Dwight Frye found himself typecast, restricted to playing eccentric or jittery characters that had a manic edge to them or criminal lunatic types. He and Edward Van Sloan are the only two actors to have appeared in both Dracula and Frankenstein.
  • Edward Van Sloan…..Van Helsing
    • Edward Van Sloan (1882-1964) was best remembered for his roles in the Universal Monster series, in films like Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932). Apparently, he was always quick to point out the flaws in his movies like Dracula (he never thought much of the film). He and his wife had one child. He died in 1964 at the age of 81. He and Dwight Frye are the only two actors to have appeared in both Dracula and Frankenstein.
  • Herbert Bunston…..Doctor Seward
    • verteran English actor who reprised his role at Doctor Seward from the stage play
  • Frances Dade…..Lucy
  • Joan Standing…..Maid
  • Charles K. Gerrard…..Martin (as Charles Gerrard)
  • Michael Visaroff…..Innkeeper (uncredited)
    • Michael Visaroff (1889-1951) was born in the Russian Empire who is best known for his uncredited appearance in Dracula. He also appeared in Tod Browning’s Freaks and Sam Wood’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. His exact age caused some confusion during his lifetime when he claimed to have been born in 1892, though in reality researchers confirmed he was born in 1889. He was married twice, and had one daughter. He died in Hollywood from pneumonia in 1951 at the age of 61.
  • Carla Laemmle…..teenage coach passenger (uncredited)
    • Born Rebekah “Beth” Isabelle Laemmle, Carla Laemmle (1909-2014) was an actress and dancer, and the niece of Universal Pictures studio founder Carl Laemmle. She is known primarily for her roles as a ballerina in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and a young coach passenger in Dracula (1931). She never married nor had children, but was the companion of actor-writer Raymond Cannon until his death in 1977. At the time of her death, she was one of the last surviving actors of the silent film era, with her career spanning nearly 90 years, also with one of the longest gaps. When she died on June 12, 2014 at the age of 104, Carla Laemmle was the last surviving cast member of Dracula. She played the role of the ungainly teenage coach passenger reading the history of Transylvania aloud. She rightly claimed that she was the first woman in talking pictures to have the first line of dialogue in a horror film. She was the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle. At the time, Universal was very much a family operation, with Laemmle employing dozens of family members. She was born Rebecca but changed her name to Carla to honor her uncle.
  • Geraldine Dvorak…..Dracula’s Wife #1 (uncredited)
    • Geraldine Dvorak (1904-1985), whose name was sometimes listed as “De Vorak,” was often used as a stand-in for Greta Garbo since they both had the same measurements within an inch and their facial features were starkly similar. She was the first vampire to emerge from her coffin in Dracula, thus making her one of the first vampires to appear onscreen in Hollywood.
  • Cornelia Thaw…..Dracula’s Wife #2 (uncredited)
    • Cornelia Thaw (1908-1981), whose real name was actually Mildred Pierce, only had two uncredited film appearances —Paris (1929) and Dracula (1931). Her sister was silent film actress Evelyn Pierce.
  • Dorothy Tree…..Dracula’s Wife #3 (uncredited)
    • Born Dorothy Estelle Triebitz, or “Dorothy Tree” (1906-1992) appeared in a wide range of character roles between 1927 and 1951. But after being blacklisted as a communist because of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings –she was a supporter of Adlai Stevenson– she began a second career as a voice teacher in New York. She married screenwriter and story editor Michael Uris and they had one son together. She died of heart failure at age 85 in 1992.
  • Anna Bakacs…..Innkeeper’s Daughter (uncredited)
  • Bunny Beatty…..Flower Girl (uncredited)
  • Nicholas Bela…..Coach Passenger (uncredited)
  • Daisy Belmore…..Coach Passenger (uncredited)
    • Daisy Belmore (1874-1954) was an English actress and the sister of Lionel Belmore who famously played Herr Vogel, the town Burgomaster in the following Universal Monster film Frankenstein (1931).
  • William A. Boardway…..Concertgoer Outside Theatre (uncredited)
  • Barbara Bozoky…..Innkeeper’s Wife (uncredited)
  • Moon Carroll…..Maid (uncredited)
  • John George…..Small Scientist (uncredited)
  • Anita Harder…..Bit (uncredited)
  • Wyndham Standing…..Surgeon (uncredited)
  • Josefina Velez…..Grace, an English Nurse (uncredited)
  • Florence Wix…..Concertgoer Outside Theatre (uncredited)
• Cinematography: Karl Freund
  • German Bohemian-born cinematographer Karl Freund (1890-1969) also shot silent classics like The Golem (1920), Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924). He was a pioneer of the moving camera (or “unchained camera”). However, director Tod Browning preferred a static camera, which is why the few moving shots that are shown in Dracula are crane shots and tracking shots for establishing purposes. He directed the Universal classic The Mummy (1932) and episodes of television’s I Love Lucy. He was married twice and had one daughter whom he rescued from Germany in 1937 –she almost certainly would have been sent off to a concentration camp. His ex-wife Susette remained in Germany, where she was imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp and then ultimately murdered at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in March 1942. Freund died in Santa Monica at the age of 79 in 1969.
• Distributed by: Universal Pictures

---

Film Notes:

• The original release of Dracula featured an epilogue with Edward Van Sloan (who played Van Helsing) speaking to the audience. This epilogue was removed for the 1936 re-release and is now assumed to be lost. Apparently, it was eventually removed by the censors (the Hays Code) out of fear that religious groups would be offended because it encouraged belief in the supernatural. Later, Frankenstein (1931) copied the same model by featuring a prologue.
• The opening music to this film is a shortened version from Act 2 of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Only a year later, Universal Pictures would also use the “Swan Lake” theme for the opening credits to The Mummy (1932) and then for the Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). Contrary to popular belief, Dracula does not contain the famous Organ Piece Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.” The film that does contain the organ piece is The Black Cat (1934) which also stars Bela Lugosi and David Manners. Roemheld
• The music heard when Dracula first enters the theater is the beginning of Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” (it can be heard playing again later). The opera performed when Dracula first meets Dr Seward is Wagner’s Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Royal Albert Hall sequence of the movie was filmed on the same stage where 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney had been filmed).
• Due to studio demands and as a cost-cutting measure amidst the Great Depression, Dracula was shot in sequence.
• Initially, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis Bromfield was hired to write the screenplay for Laemmle’s grand elaborate plan for Dracula. But Universal apparently rejected most of his contributions. Note: I read Bromfield’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Early Autumn as part of my Pulitzer Prize reading project.
• If you look closely, you will notice Dracula never once blinks his eyes in this film, an effect which only enhances his eerie, otherworldly character. Cinematographer Karl Freund achieved the effect of Dracula’s hypnotic stare by aiming two pencil-spot-lights into actor Bela Lugosi’s eyes.
• The innkeeper, played by Michael Visaroff, says to Renfield: “The driver – he is afraid – Walpurgis Night.” This is an anglicized form of the German superstition ‘Walpurgis-Nacht,’ the Eve of Saint Walpurgis (on the evening of April 30), also known as “May Eve” (the eve of May Day). This night is one of several during the year in which supernatural beings of various kinds are said to roam at large. Saint Walpurga was a female 8th century Anglo-Saxon missionary to the Frankish Empire and was hailed by the Christians of Germany for battling “pest, rabies, and whooping cough, as well as against witchcraft.”
• The peasants inside the inn can be heard praying “The Lord’s Prayer” in Hungarian and the signs of the village are also in Hungarian.
• A wide array of actors were considered for the part of Dracula after Lon Chaney’s passing –including William Courtney, Paul Muni, Chester Morris, and John Wray to name a few. Lugosi was a more affordable actor, and he was also incredibly passionate about the part. Lugosi was paid the relatively small salary of $500 per week, or $3,500 for his performance in Dracula (or about $66,000 when adjusted for inflation).
• Dracula’s castle was actually a painting on glass in front of the camera. The coach traveling along the road was real but the background was not (another glass matte painting). The phptograph effects were completed by Frank Booth and the paintings themselves were said to have been created by Conrad Tritschler, though has never been officially confirmed. The spider webs in Dracula’s castle were 18-foot wide wiring with filaments of rubber cements shot out of a rotary gun like cotton candy.
• In the novel, Dracula takes great pains to speak clear English (this is one of several differences between the film and novel).
• The Borgo Pass is a real place, but not one Bram Stoker had ever visited.
• Contrary to what has been written by both Jewish and anti-Semitic writers, the neck medallion worn by Dracula is not a Star of David. It was likely adde by costume designers Ed Ware and Vera West, though some rumors suggest it was a prop added by Lugosi himself. The original medallion has never been recovered and it presumed lost.
• In the scene where Dracula and Renfield are traveling to London by boat (aboard the “Vesta”), the footage shown is borrowed from a Universal Pictures silent film called The Storm Breaker (1925). However, silent films were projected at a different frames-per-second speed from that later adopted for sound films, accounting for the jerky movements and quicker-than-normal action of these shots. Director Tod Browning provides the voice of the harbormaster (uncredited) which can be heard delivering the discovery of the ghost ship, he comments on the shadow of the captain impaled at the helm.
• Among the many living creatures spotted in Dracula’s castle in Transylvania include: opossums, armadillos, bees, and an insect known as the “Jerusalem Cricket” (Stenopalmatus fuscus). This insect was common in Southern California. The inclusion of armadillos in the film was because they had occasionally been seen digging in graveyards, which led to a popular mistaken belief that they would dig their way into coffins and eat the cadavers.
• The scene of Renfield and Dracula entering the dining room was delayed for hours due to the huge roaring fire which needed to die down since the crackling wood interfered with sound recording.
• Dracula’s infamous line “I never drink… wine” was not in either the book or the stage play. However, after it became popular in the film, it was added to the dialogue of the stage play.
• Bela Lugosi was so eager to repeat his stage success and play the Count Dracula role for the film version, that he agreed to a contract paying him $500 per week for a seven-week shooting schedule, a paltry sum even during the days of the Depression.
• During an interview with film historian David J. Skal, actor David Manners (who played Doctor John Harker) recounted how the production of Dracula was often disorganized and that director Tod Browning showed little interest in directing the film. He was apparently morose over the loss of his friend and collaborator, Lon Chaney (who died in 1930 of lung cancer), and he was struggling with severe alcoholism. Tod Browning, though normally meticulous, was said to have been sullen and unprofessional during the shoot. He would suddenly abandon the set, leaving cinematographer Karl Freund to direct certain scenes (Dwight Frye later claimed Tod Browning actually directed none of his scenes), and Browning would also recklessly tear pages out of the script if he felt them too redundant. None of the cast members took the filming too seriously (except for Bela Lugosi), David Manners and Helen Chandler had to stifle their own laughter during shooting. But Manners described witnessing Lugosi strolling up and down the set with his cloak wrapped around him saying, “I am Dracula” and gazing into the mirror at himself as a method of staying focused and in character.
• The young woman who is selling flowers on the streets on London before being attacked by Count Dracula was apparently intended to be Polish as she says: “Kwiatki pachnace” in Polish (or “Fragrant flowers”). Her accent is not perfect though. She was played by English actress Bunny Beatty (1913-1996).
• The shot of Renfield below deck at the bottom of the stairs was not in the script but likely an on-set improvisation. And the famous shot of him crawling toward the fainted maid is not as sexual or violent as it first appears. In fact, he is trying to catch a fly that has landed on her. This was edited out of the English-language version but left in the Spanish-language one.
• In this version of the Dracula story, the woman partially transformed into a vampire is Mina Seward. In Bram Stoker’s original novel, her name is Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray, and she has no relation to Dr. Seward. In the novel, she works as a school mistress (schoolteacher) and she had lost both of her parents at a young age.
• The large, expansive sets built for the Transylvania castle and Carfax Abbey sequences remained standing after filming was completed, and were used by Universal Pictures for many other movies for over a decade.
• Interestingly enough, Bette Davis (who had a contract with Universal Pictures at the time) was considered to play the part of Mina Harker, however, Universal head Carl Laemmle Jr. didn’t think too highly of her sex appeal.
• Dracula’s death groans were edited out of early prints by the censors. They were eventually put back into the film for its laserdisc release.
• Famed science fiction writer Richard Matheson once claimed in an interview with the Archive of American Television to have conceived of his highly-regarded science fiction story I Am Legend after viewing this film: “My mind drifted off, and I thought, ‘If one vampire is scary, what if the whole world is full of vampires?”
• Contrary to popular belief, Lon Chaney never actually agreed to play the role of Dracula, but rather he was simply under consideration for the role. Unfortunately, he died in 1930 and the role went to Bela Lugosi. Lon Chaney’s son, Lon Chaney Jr., would later play Count Alucard, the son of Count Dracula, in Son of Dracula (1943). “Alucard” is Dracula spelled backwards.
• Dracula had appeared twice before in film, both times unauthorized by Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence Stoker. The first was in a 1921 Hungarian film called Dracula’s Death (1921) and notoriously in the silent classic F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922).
• Among the many nods to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), Tod Browning’s Dracula features a similar scene of Renfield accidentally pricking his finger and drawing blood which fascinates the vampire. However, the Spanish version of Dracula actually contained more direct references (at the time, Universal was releasing foreign language films concurrently with its English originals).
• The so-called “Spanish Dracula” was 29-minutes longer than the English version. It was directed by George Melford and stars Carlos Villarías and Lupita Tovar. The Spanish scenes were filmed at night while the English scenes were shot during the day. A print of the film was found in a warehouse in New Jersey in the 1970s and it was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978. The film was then restored and since then, many critics have often compared the two films, praising Bela Lugosi’s performance in the English version, but acknowledging the superior aesthetic and tone of the Spanish version.
• Actor John Carradine claimed to be among the actors considered for the title role, however, there is little corroborating evidence for this from the time period. He also claimed to have turned down a makeup test for the Monster in Frankenstein (1931), due to the absence of dialogue. He worked for Universal in the late spring-early summer of 1931 in films like Heaven on Earth (1931) and Carradine would later play Dracula in Universal’s House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945), as well as in the independent films Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966) and Nocturna (1979).
• Even though the word “nosferatu” is used throughout the book and the film, it is not a legitimate word in Romanian. Bram Stoker had read a book about folklore by Emily Gerard who claimed it was the Romanian word for “vampire” and simply took her word for it.
• Notably, Dracula isn’t shown with fangs in this film.
• The elaborate sets for Dracula were conceptualized by studio art director Charles D. Hall. He primarily reused leftover sets from medieval productions.
• Among the many actors who were considered for the titular role, one was German silent film star Conrad Veidt, known for portraying the horrifying somnambulist in the German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). However, he decided to leave Hollywood in the 1930s and return to his home country of Germany. But in the ensuing years, with the rise of Hitler, he and his Jewish wife fled to London and then to the United States where he was famously cast as Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942), his last film role to be released during his lifetime.
• Universal commissioned a wide variety of large, colorful posters to be displayed at theaters throughout the United States for Dracula. One of the original Dracula posters became the highest selling movie poster at auction when it was sold for over $525,000 at Heritage Auctions in February 2020.
• Dracula became Universal’s highest grossing feature of 1931, rescuing Universal from financial ruin.

---

Click here to return to my reviews of Universal’s classic monster movies.

Click here to return to my film reviews.