DRACULA (1931)

Director: Tod Browning

Writers: Garrett Fort adapting the stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston based on Bram Stoker’s original novel

Producers: Tod Browning, Carl Laemmle, Jr.

Cast: Bela Lugosi, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloane, David Manners, Helen Chandler, Herbert Bunston, Frances Dade, Charles K. Gerrard, Joan Standing, Halliwell Hobbes, (and uncredited cast) Carla Laemmle, Geraldine Dvorak, Cornelia Thaw, Dorothy Tree, Michael Visaroff, Bunny Beatty, Moon Carroll, Tod Browning, Nicholas Bela, Daisy Belmore, Barbara Bozoky, John George, Wyndham Standing, Josefina Velez, Anna Bakacs, William A. Boardway, Anita Harder, Florence Wix

A solicitor named Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to the remote castle of Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) in Transylvania. Renfield presents Dracula with the lease to Carfax Abbey, a property just outside of London, England. Dracula is a vampire who soon dominates the will of Renfield. The pair sail to England where the vampire takes up residence in his newly acquired property. Dracula soon begins feeding on the English citizens. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

During the silent film era, Universal Pictures had made a name for themselves with macabre thrillers like The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Cat and the Canary (1927). Oddly, they seemed a bit skittish about producing a sound film based on Bram Stoker’s popular 1897 horror novel, Dracula, which had recently been the subject of successful stage plays in both England and the United States. Purely supernatural threats in American movies were considered either too distasteful or too far-fetched. Fortunately, Universal Pictures founder’s son, producer Carl Laemmle, Jr., was a horror fan and convinced his father that Dracula would work. It became Universal’s most profitable film in 1931 and established horror as a viable film genre in the new talkies era. 

Dracula was originally planned as a much more lavish project, but Universal Pictures was having a tough time turning a profit during the Great Depression. It was probably considered too big of a gamble to risk a massive investment on a supernatural thriller, so the original concept was reworked to be more derivative of the Dracula stage production. That resulted in a lot of drawing room drama that would be more economical from a set design and filming standpoint. 

Nevertheless, the opening scenes in Transylvania can’t be beat for Gothic spectacle. They are so iconic and satisfying, raising our anticipation to such heights, that we are bound to be let down by the more mundane settings once the story moves to England. This has long been the most common criticism of this film. 

However, the main fault is not so much with the change of scenery as with the minimal character and plot developments. There seems to have been quite a bit of editing done just to pick up the pace, yet a bit more time to flesh out some of the characters would be appreciated. We never really get a chance to know Lucy Weston (Frances Dade) before she becomes Dracula’s victim. Hence, her death and the loss her friend Mina Seward should feel is barely touched upon. Lucy’s resurrection is also given short shrift in this film’s need to economize or to keep things moving. Most perplexing is the treatment of Renfield. He becomes Dracula’s slave, yet he really serves no story purpose in England except to act crazy and tormented. Why does Dracula maintain contact with Renfield? Once Renfield has been confined to Dr. Seward’s (Herbert Bunston) sanitarium, all he seems capable of is annoying the staff and bungling Dracula’s plans. Renfield also keeps lapsing into despair pleading for Mina Seward’s safety when he never shares a single scene with her. Just how does this lunatic inmate of Dr. Seward’s sanitarium develop any compassion for his daughter? Another likely casualty of this reportedly chaotic production’s economy was the story’s climax. It seems rather abrupt and all too convenient for our heroes. 

Rumor has it that Universal hoped the silent film star who specialized in grotesque characters, Lon Chaney, would play Dracula. Since Chaney had also worked with director Tod Browning many times before, he should have been well suited to working with Dracula’s eventual director. Unfortunately, Chaney died prematurely of bronchial cancer before production began. 

Selecting Tod Browning to direct Dracula seemed like a good fit. Browning had a long and successful career in silent films with grotesque characters and bizarre plots. He had even directed the vampire-themed London After Midnight (1927) starring the Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney. 

Yet many say that Browning had trouble adapting to directing sound films. He was often criticized for a static shooting style. I think that Browning relied on his strange plots and the actors’ performances to maintain our interest. In the case of his most famous film, Dracula, the visuals greatly benefitted from Karl Freund’s cinematography. In fact, some cast members said that Freund actually directed them more than Browning. 

While many bemoan the heavy reliance on the stage play script for this film adaptation, we must credit the play as the source for two of this film’s stars. Bela Lugosi played Dracula and Edward Van Sloan was Professor Van Helsing in the 1927 Broadway production. 

Universal approached other seasoned film actors before hiring Bela Lugosi to play Dracula. Apparently, despite Lugosi’s fine notices playing the famous vampire on the stage, he wasn’t considered enough of a name to sell the film. However, Lugosi persistently sought the part and eventually won the role. 

If ever there was a case of familiarity breeds contempt, it is exemplified by many film buffs for at least the last fifty years regarding this film and Bela Lugosi’s starring role. The Lugosi-Dracula character and film have been around for so many generations that it is considered as traditional as Santa Claus. Now people take the film and its star for granted. They can’t appreciate the merits of 1931’s Dracula, since its success established what has become cliché after countless imitations. 

That often leads to disdain for the work Lugosi does here and he gets dismissed as hammy or inept. Lugosi is certainly giving a stylized performance that is trying to embody an extraordinary being of the supernatural. I would also stress that, in a picture directed in Tod Browning’s mostly prosaic fashion, Lugosi’s undead intensity is very welcome. I do agree with the criticism that some of Lugosi’s lines during his first meeting with Renfield are spoken with excruciating slowness for no good reason. Certainly the highlight of the film, once the story moves to the mundane London setting, is Lugosi’s performance. 

Of course this led to Lugosi becoming a horror film icon starring in many more films for Universal Pictures and other studios. Despite the frustration Lugosi always felt being typecast for horror roles by his Dracula success, that part has given him lasting fame beyond most of his contemporaries.

Lugosi’s fellow Dracula stage play performer, Edward Van Sloan, plays the rather one-note role of scientist and the count’s chief nemesis, Professor Van Helsing. He imparts his arcane knowledge about vampires to the other characters (and the film audience) as he tries to expose and defeat Dracula. Like the rest of the cast, Van Sloane is playing an underwritten character, but he shares the best scene in the whole film with Lugosi. When Dracula employs his hypnotic power to try dominating the professor, we are seeing a situation play out that seems ideal for the stage. Yet Van Sloan employs very subtle body language and facial expressions to show the struggle of his will to resist his vampire foe. 

After the huge success of Dracula, Van Sloan would appear in the Universal horror classics Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and the Dracula sequel, Dracula’s Daughter (1936). 

The character every bit as attention-getting as Dracula is everyone’s favorite fly-eating maniac, Renfield, the solicitor that the vampire count has enslaved and driven mad. One of the film’s best moments is Renfield being discovered in the hold of the doomed schooner that brought him and Dracula back to England. We hear that creepy Renfield laugh before we stare down into the hold to see his eyes blazing with madness. Dwight Frye is always fun to watch, even if most of his antics as the insane Renfield are inexplicable or unjustified. 

Frye made an indelible impression with his performance in Dracula. Like his co-star Lugosi, Frye was worried that he would be typecast, for he would continue to play demented and despicable underlings and simpletons in the horror films Frankenstein (1931), The Vampire Bat (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Dead Men Walk (1943). 

Helen Chandler plays Dracula’s main course, Mina Seward. Like just about every one else in the film, she is written as more of a type than a well-rounded character; in her case, it is the damsel in distress. Chandler never gets any respect for her work here, but I think she does as well as could be expected with what little she is given to do. Even the damsel in distress can be interesting if we are given enough time to get to know her. For all of the complaints about Dracula being a slow film, there is no time spent getting to really know anyone. Chandler’s best moment is when we see her succumbing to Dracula’s influence. She is treated to an eerie, prolonged close-up with her unblinking gaze focused on the throat of her fiancé as she slowly leans in closer and closer… 

As Mina’s fiancé, John Harker, David Manners makes his hapless-and-helpless-horror-movie-hero debut. Harker is probably the most derided character in this film. Aside from trying to comfort the distraught Mina, he accomplishes nothing and only creates a bit of conflict arguing with Professor Van Helsing and sulking. I actually think such behavior would be pretty reasonable up to a point. Most of us would be unlikely to accept our loved one being upset by supernatural claptrap from a stranger. Ultimately, he is also just another movie type: the handsome love interest. I guess that means Harker and Mina were made for each other. 

David Manners would continue playing similar, if more likable, characters in two more Universal horror classics: The Mummy (1932) and The Black Cat (1934), the latter also starring Bela Lugosi. 

Regardless of a lot of modern-day griping, 1931’s Dracula is still deserving of classic status. The sound era’s first American, supernatural thriller still boasts some great moments and established an immortal horror icon with Bela Lugosi’s role. The success of this film led to Universal Pictures’ fear-factory reputation as they continued producing more horror features throughout the ’30s and ’40s that endure as popular culture folklore. The importance of 1931’s Dracula as the foundation of cinematic horror ever since can’t be underestimated.