Dracula (1931)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Tod Browning
(more)

Writers:

Bram Stoker (novel)
Hamilton Deane (play) ...
(more)

Release Date:

14 February 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror

Tagline:

The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!

Plot:

The ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young Mina.

Plot Keywords:

Dracula | Vampire | Count | Abbey | Castle

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Bela Lugosi	...	Count Dracula
Helen Chandler	...	Mina Harker
David Manners	...	John Harker
Dwight Frye	...	Renfield
Edward Van Sloan	...	Prof. Abraham Van Helsing
Herbert Bunston	...	Dr. Jack Seward
Frances Dade	...	Lucy Weston
Joan Standing	...	Briggs (a nurse)
Charles K. Gerrard	...	Martin (as Charles Gerrard)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anna Bakacs	...	Innkeeper's daughter (uncredited)
Nicholas Bela	...	Coach passenger (uncredited)
Daisy Belmore	...	Coach passenger (uncredited)
Barbara Bozoky	...	Innkeepers wife (uncredited)
Tod Browning	...	Voice of Harbormaster (uncredited)
Moon Carroll	...	Maid (uncredited)
Geraldine Dvorak	...	Dracula's wife (uncredited)
John George	...	Small Scientist (uncredited)
Anita Harder	...	Flower Girl (uncredited)
Carla Laemmle	...	Coach passenger (uncredited)
Donald Murphy	...	Coach passenger (uncredited)
Wyndham Standing	...	Surgeon (uncredited)
Cornelia Thaw	...	Dracula's wife (uncredited)
Dorothy Tree	...	Dracula's wife (uncredited)
Josephine Velez	...	Grace (English nurse) (uncredited)
Michael Visaroff	...	Innkeeper (uncredited)

Directed by
Tod Browning
Karl Freund		(uncredited)

Writing credits
Bram Stoker		(novel)
Hamilton Deane		(play) &
John L. Balderston		(play)
Garrett Fort		(play script)
Dudley Murphy		(additional dialogue) uncredited
Louis Bromfield		uncredited
Tod Browning		uncredited
Max Cohen		titles (uncredited)
Louis Stevens		uncredited

Produced by
E.M. Asher	....	associate producer
Tod Browning	....	producer
Carl Laemmle Jr.	....	producer

Original Music by
Philip Glass		(1999)

Cinematography by
Karl Freund

Film Editing by
Milton Carruth
Maurice Pivar

Production Design by
John Hoffman		(uncredited)
Herman Rosse		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Charles D. Hall

Set Decoration by
Russell A. Gausman		(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Ed Ware		(uncredited)
Vera West		(uncredited)

Makeup Department
Jack P. Pierce	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Scott R. Beal	....	first assistant director (uncredited)
Herman Schlom	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
John Hoffman	....	set designer (uncredited)
Charles A. Logue	....	scenic artist (uncredited)
Herman Rosse	....	set designer (uncredited)

Sound Department
C. Roy Hunter	....	recording supervisor
Jack Bolger	....	boom operator (uncredited)
Jack Foley	....	foley artist (uncredited)
William Hedgcock	....	sound mixer (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Frank H. Booth	....	photographic effects
William Davidson	....	miniatures (uncredited)
John P. Fulton	....	matte artist (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Frank H. Booth	....	second assistant camera (uncredited)
Joseph Brotherton	....	director of photography: second unit (uncredited)
Roman Freulich	....	still photographer (uncredited)
King D. Gray	....	first assistant camera (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Maurice Pivar	....	supervising editor (uncredited)

Music Department
Heinz Roemheld	....	conductor (uncredited)
Heinz Roemheld	....	music supervisor (uncredited)

Other crew
Carl Laemmle	....	presenter
Max Cohen	....	title designer (uncredited)
Nan Grant	....	researcher (uncredited)
Charles Logue	....	scenario supervisor (uncredited)
Dudley Murphy	....	continuity (uncredited)
Aileen Webster	....	script supervisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Universal Pictures

Distributors

• Universal Pictures (1931) (USA) (theatrical)
• Universal Pictures (1938) (USA) (theatrical) (reissue)
• Universal Pictures (1947) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Realart Pictures (1951) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Screen Gems (1957) (USA) (TV)
• Universal Studios (1999) (USA) (VHS)
• Universal Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Emerald (2006) (Argentina) (DVD)
• MCA/Universal Home Video (USA) (VHS)
• MCA/Universal Home Video (USA) (laserdisc)

Other Companies

• Nonesuch Records  soundtrack

Runtime:

75 min (corrected release length)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Hungarian | Latin

Color:

Black and White (tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-15 (2004) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Iceland:12 | Canada:G (Nova Scotia/Quebec) | Spain:T | Norway:16 (1931) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Germany:12 | UK:PG | USA:Approved | Sweden:7

Filming Locations:

Chatham Historic Dockyard, Chatham, Kent, England, UK

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Bela Lugosi played Dracula only once more on screen, in the comedy Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Goofs:

Errors in geography: Dr. Seward's sanitarium is said to be both "near London" and "in Whitby." Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast in northern England, is nowhere near London.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Young Girl Passenger: [reading from a Transylvanian tourist brochure] "Among the rugged peaks that crown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age."

Movie Connections:

Featured in "SexTV: Dark Desires: Sexuality in the Horror Film (#5.15)" (2003)

Lugosi's Triumph

Tod Browning's film of the Stoker novel didn't so much eclipse Murnau's NOSFERATU (1922) as shove it into antiquity. One big reason was the technological advancement of sound. Roughly three years old by 1930, the public embraced the talking picture wholeheartedly over silents.

The other big reason for Dracula's success was that the star of the stage play had been cast as the star of the film. And movie history was made. Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula is now a seventy-four year old icon, outlasting all other interpretations before or since. The twist is that this Dracula looks nothing like Stoker's creation (read the book). Lugosi, either through his work with the playwrights or later at Universal with Browning, devised the most insidious form the character would ever take- a handsome, courtly, well-groomed, civilized aristocrat, so gracious and attractive that he projected an aura of well-being over the viewer. This was worlds away from the Murnau/Max Schreck approach of head-on abomination in NOSFERATU.

Sensibly, no one in their right mind would stay within viewing distance of Schreck (or Kinski in NOSFERATU, THE VAMPYRE and Dafoe in SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE) after the first glimpse. But Lugosi's Count would have you chatting and drinking wine- until he began to drink of you. That cape and those evening clothes are the perfect deception. Browning's Dracula is sometimes stagy and tentative in its continuity (it feels at times that the director was unsure where to go next in the progression of scenes). But Karl Freund's photography summons up a persistent mood of heavy gloom and enveloping dread.

Two other assets in the film are Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing and Dwight Frye as Renfield. Van Sloan was Universal's resident Learned Man, appearing as an Egyptologist in THE MUMMY (1933), and perhaps most famously as Dr. Waldman in FRANKENSTEIN (1931). A career-long character actor, Dwight Frye was an eccentric talent who appears to have worked exclusively at Universal. He had his best role as Renfield, producing a still blood-curdling, sneering laugh that seemed to come from the depths of a hellish insanity. If you haven't seen this Dracula please do so. The Count awaits.