Dracula

DRACULA

(1931)

Dir - Tod Browning

Overall: GREAT

 

Universal's Dracula is of course not the first horror movie ever made, and it owes much of its look and mood to German Expressionism, not least of all from F. W. Murnau's earlier unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  Dracula's cinematographer Karl Freund had even collaborated together with Murnau seven years previously on The Last Laugh.  Yet all of the macabre cinematic works that proceeded Dracula, (several like the aforementioned Nosferatu being masterpieces in their own right), were setting the stage for what Universal would do here.  That is to say that this is the granddaddy of horror talkies, and a film that solidified the genre's popularity as well as nearly a century's worth of on screen vampire iconography.  So much came from the movie that we can easily take it for granted.  It is also easy to look past the film's shortcomings since it remains an atmospheric triumph, not to mention the fact that it features one of the screen's most memorable performances, that of Béla Lugosi's in the title role.
 
As the world entered the 1930s, was knee-deep in the Great Depression, and sound films had just recently become the norm, Universal's then boss Carl Laemmle had no interest or faith in anything "horror" related.  Thankfully, he had delegated his son Carl Laemmle Jr. as studio head around this time, and Junior was ambitious to say the least about bringing Stoker's novel, (as well as Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston's stage play of the same name), to the screen.  He purchased the rights to both in order to hold a monopoly on the property, and originally envisioned it as an A-production full of various locations, sets, extras, costumes, and one that would adapt most aspects of Stoker's source material.  The initial, (and unused), script by Louis Bromfield even featured the idea that Dracula would be played by two different actors, one old and gnarly looking, another younger and more dashing as his blood intake increased.  Yet because Papa Laemmle had reservations, (and that whole global recession thing was going on), everything was scaled back.  This in turn made the finished product more accommodating to Deane and Balderston's play, which streamlined many of the original story's aspects and allowed for a significant portion of it to be shot as a drawing-room drama.

"Fuck Dracula" - Carl Laemmle (citation needed).

Because the film was ultimately done in this matter, it invites criticism whenever we cut away from Lugosi to let the rest of the cast talk in unassuming wide or medium shots in heavily-lit interiors.  While many can argue that this slows down the pacing and provides an unfortunate contrast to the fantastic and eerie mood setting in the first act, such a breather is far from a bore.  This is for two reasons.  One, Lugosi never stays off screen for too long, and he is so effortlessly dynamic that one is easily captivated by him when he appears again and again, even when it is in one of those heavily-lit interiors.  The other reason that the movie maintains momentum once the setting switches from Transylvania and the doomed schooner to contemporary England and Carfax Abbey is because the film as a whole does not feature a musical soundtrack.
 
This was both a cost-cutting measure at the time and a product of those times.  Since talkies were a new medium in many respects, the industry was still working out the kinks just to get dialog recorded and mixed properly.  Adding a musical score to the proceedings would complicate matters, as well as inflate the already tight budgets being utilized.  This mattered because again, the Great Depression.  In only a few short years, full-fledged dramatic scores would become, (and stay), the norm.  1933's RKO's King Kong demonstrated this with a vengeance, per example.  Yet in 1931, restraint was mercifully utilized, and Dracula, Frankenstein, and Paramount's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde all benefited from the minimal amount of music that was thrown onto them.

 

Just imagine how much Christopher Nolan would ruin such a moment if he were behind the lens and drowned everything out with Hans Zimmer's help.

 

As would also be the case in Universal's Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mummy, (both released the following year), an excerpt from Act II of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" is utilized over the opening credits, which provides a romantic introduction that simultaneously hints at the sinister.  Some Wagner and Schubert sections briefly pop up as diegetic music during the opera scene where Dracula introduces himself to his new neighbors, but otherwise, the film's soundtrack is exclusively made up of set noise and whatever the actors are saying.  This gives it an intimacy that conventionally scored movies by design can never have.  We lean in during every quiet pause, during every transition, and all without any orchestral hoopla dictating what we are supposed to feel.  Freund's visuals do that for us, as do the actor's portrayals, some who lay on the appropriate amount of melodrama, some who are more reserved, some who provide a few comic relief moments, and of course Lugosi who seems either plucked out of another planet or from a bygone era.
 
Everything has been said about the Hungarian thespian's performance here, the one that made him a household name, typecast him, and solidified his Hollywood legacy.  Lugosi had been working on the stage and in films for nearly fifteen years already once he landed the title role here at the age of forty-nine.  His acting chops well-tuned then, (not to mention the fact that he had already been portraying the Count on stage for more than two years by the time that shooting on the film began), Lugosi also had the advantage of being from the same area of the native country, (roughly), where Dracula was from.  Also, English was a second language to him.  In other words, this made Lugosi both look and sound the part, and boy did he do both.

 

None more Dracula than he.

Consider that before this movie was made, Dracula was just another book, one that was popular yet hardly in the zeitgeist.  Max Schreck's turn in Nosferatu was worlds removed from Lugosi's, as Murnau chose to design him as a rodent-faced monstrosity and someone who could only lurk in the shadows and emerge at night.  Which is to say someone who could never suavely charm the pants off the English public while walking amongst them.  Lugosi on the other hand utilized his own face, his own voice, and his own stilted English, not to mention his own intentionally patient mannerisms.  Blessed with a movie star face to begin with, his natural good looks coupled with that unearthly delivery of his dialog all enhanced his intimidating European nobleman swagger.  Lugosi had charisma in spades, and it was never suited better than as the evil, sexy, determined, and fascinating Count.  He could hypnotize you by his piercing stare, (heightened by the over-the-top eye light that Freund routinely gives him), make you hang on his every word as he slowly and almost phonetically delivered them, and also looked like a man that would take over a room just by entering it.
 
It was not the Dracula of Stoker's novel who changed appearances, had a thick flowing mustache, and spoke without an accent, but the cinema is not the books.  Lugosi made the role his own, (to coin a cliche), and no matter how many other reinterpretations of the source material or screen variants of the Count we have had in the near century since this film came out, Lugosi's voice, look, and behavior is still what most people associate with the character.  That is one hell of an accomplishment, one that few other actors have been able to do with any other role.  Sure, the flat-topped, bolts-in-the-neck, eyes barely open appearance that Boris Karloff had as the Monster in Frankenstein likewise solidified the look of THAT character, but that was mostly due to make-up man Jack Pierce.  Lugosi's Dracula is all him, and it is a wonder to think that as a mere bit player who was little known in Hollywood, he had to lobby for a part that Universal originally considered numerous other actors for.  How different Sesame Street and breakfast packaging would be if they went that route instead, one can only ponder.

 

Somehow Paul Muni would just look all wrong on a cereal box.

 

Of course Dracula is not limited to but one scene-stealing performer.  Dwight Frye was another character actor who had a fine career on the stage when he scored the role of Renfield here, and he was another character actor that just like Lugosi, did such a good job that casting agents from that point on could only see him in such a part.  Frye's transformation from a polite and effeminate real estate agent that is unfazed by superstitious warnings or the dilapidated state of Dracula's castle to that of a wide-eyed, pathetic-yet-terrifying, cackling, bug-eating lunatic is one of cinema's most memorable.  Frye is more overtly creepy than Lugosi, the latter utilizing his foreign magnetism to get in close with his victims while Frye's Renfield is about as far removed from charming as you can get.  Yet just as Lugosi defined the on-screen vampire for eons to come, Frye did the same with the demented stooge, delivering a wacky and heightened performance, elevated that much more due to the overall low-key, (and again, music-less), presentation.
 
Though Tod Browning was the official director on Dracula, accounts vary as to how involved or even enthusiastic he was about the assignment.  Actor David Manners, (playing John Harker more as a dead fish than anything), went on record as saying that he barely recalled Browning even being around, and that he took any direction that he got from cinematographer Freund.  Browning was no slouch from behind the director's chair mind you, having done a number of successful collaborations with Lon Chaney who was the initial choice to play Dracula until his quick demise due to lung cancer permanently squashed that idea.  Browning would also go on to make Freaks of course, a film that was infamous for decades and tanked his career, yet also one that has been rightfully reappraised as his most personal, quirky, and disturbing.  Yet as many from the era were, Browning was more comfortable with silent films and allegedly, he was not fond of elaborate shots or non-stationary camera set ups.  We can conclude then that the film's several flowing camera maneuvers were the work of Feund, a director of photography who was literally German and knew the ins and outs of Expressionism.

 

Because any many who could also shoot I Love Lucy clearly knew a thing or two about Gothic horror.

The first act of Dracula which takes place in Transylvania is where Freud shines best, and it is easily the film's most memorable, establishing a mysterious aura during Renfield's trek through the mountains before we visit the catacombs where the Count, his brides, some bugs, and even armadillos emerge from their coffins.  Then of course we see the outside and inside of Castle Dracula itself, a crumbling abode that set the template for every creepy and ancient horror location from there on out.  The horror eye candy is popping off the screen during these moments, and when Lugosi finally emerges with his illuminated eyes before bidding Renfield welcome and walking through a spider web off screen, the film has already established its legacy for uncanny mood-setting.
 

Later on, various other shots are sprinkled throughout that equally evoke such spookiness.  Renfield cackling with his locked grin as he is discovered with the cargo on the schooner, Lugosi emerging from his boxes of native soil underground as wolves howl in the distance, the strange look in Helen Chandler's eyes when she is under Dracula's spell and about to pounce on Manners, Lugosi slowly maneuvering towards Frances Dade as she slumbers, Renfield crawling towards the fainted maid, etc.  In contrast, we even get a few nyuck nyucks delivered by Charles K. Gerrard as the mental hospital orderly who is constantly confounded by Renfield's bug-munching antics, though such moments of deliberate comedy are minuscule and underplayed.  This shows a level of determination on producer Laemmle Jr.'s part to make this a "serious" picture that had a paramount supernatural theme, not one that would be undone Scooby-Doo style in the finale to let audiences relax, (see Browning and Lugosi's London After Midnight remake Mark of the Vampire from 1935).  Count Dracula was the real deal when it came to being a vampire, and the events of the film can afford only sporadic chuckles along the way to emphasis this.

 

A comedic duo for the ages.

There are several lines of dialog in the film that were exclusive to it at the time, not found in Stoker's novel yet lingering in Dracula mythos ever since.  "For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you're a wise man, Van Helsing", "Rats! Rats! Rats! Thousands! Millions of them!", "There are far worse things awaiting man than death", and "I never drink...wine", are a handful that stem from Garrett Fort's screenplay.  Also, the scene where Renfield pricks his finger upon meeting Dracula in his home and the Count zeros in on the wound with a noticeable blood-lust in his eyes comes from Murnau's Nosferatu, not the novel.  Like in the Deane and Balderston play, the plot changes much to compact things, but the small scale production benefits from these tweaks.  It even afforded Universal to make a Spanish language version at the same time, shot at night and with the same script and sets yet with an entirely different crew and cast.  The Spanish Dracula is nearly thirty minutes longer and has its own advantages over Browning's, (the shot construction is more elaborate, the sexuality more pronounced, the plot more fleshed-out), and much of the cast deliver equally solid if not superior performances, sans Carlos Villarías who does fine work as the Count, yet obviously had no prayer of holding a candle to what Lugosi did in the role.
 
As stated, Dracula maintains a level of chilled eeriness throughout, not just during its opening and most explicitly gothic sequences.  The fact that so much of it unfolds silently only draws the viewer further in, Browning, (or whoever one wants to credit), being able to evoke subtle suspense without the use of bombastic music or hectic editing.  Dracula only runs for seventy-four minutes, and the spry running time means that there is little room for dilly-dallying.  Even when Edward Van Sloan is delivering his stern exposition as to the nature of vampires, (information that is obviously redundant to modern viewers), Lugosi and an overall sense of dread is never too far away.  There are precious few horror films from this era that were allowed to permeate with such dread sans a score cluttering things up, but Dracula was not only the first, but also the best of them.  The genre would likely be different without it, yet thankfully it is as influential as it is enjoyable all these decades later.

 

By all means Mr. Lugosi, bid us welcome.