Dracula (1931)

The whole 'Universal Monsters' franchise, which spawned such revered films as Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Wolf Man (1941) began in 1931 when the studios' young new head of production Carl Laemmle Jr. authorised Todd Browning's adaption of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The Dracula novel had been put to film before, when F.W. Murnau made the eerie 1922 silent, Nosferatu. Stoker's widow successfully sued the film studio after they decided to save money by not paying for the rights to the novel, and it was ordered that all prints were to be destroyed. Fortunately, the film survived, and the popularity of the novel ensured that it would not be long until the production of another adaptation would be underway. As early as 1924, an authorised stage play adapted from Stoker's novel by Hamilton Deane was doing the rounds in London, after successfully touring England. America was not blind to the play's success, and in 1927 John L. Balderston was recruited to oversee the adaptation for American audiences, and the play enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, with 261 shows before it began touring the country. The role of Dracula himself was then played by Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, in a role that gave him enough exposure to ensure that he was soon being offered parts in early talkies. By 1930 Universal realised the commercial potential of a Hollywood adaption of the play and Tod Browning, who had made dozens of films since 1915, was to produce it. It seems that the idea was for the great actor Lon Chaney to play the title role, and Browning was good friends with the actor after he had played a vampire in Browning's hugely popular 1927 film London After Midnight. It was also envisaged that Dracula would be an expensive, large-budget epic horror film, but a couple of incidents were to change the films' fate. First of all, Lon Chaney (who was contracted to MGM anyway) passed away in the summer in 1930, after succumbing to throat cancer. Secondly, the Wall Street Crash had hit in October 1929, and America was in the early stages of the Great Depression, severely limiting the funds available for filming Dracula.

This left the question of who would play the vampire himself, and a large number of popular actors were considered. The play of Dracula happened to be running in Los Angeles at the same time as the film was being cast there and it was suggested that Bela Lugosi, who was playing Dracula in the play, might make be a good choice for the film. Despite strong resistance from Universal studio executives at having an almost unknown foreign actor in the main part, Lugosi was eventually cast.
The initial script was also toned down to ensure that it could be filmed on a more modest budget, and much of the theatricality of the stage was maintained.

I was expecting quite a lot from Dracula, after being a big fan of Nosferatu, but it seems that a lot of things conspired against the film, and despite a couple of things done very well, it's obvious that the production was dragged down by these external factors. Though he was far from first choice, Lugosi is actually the best thing about the film. His pondering Hungarian accent fits the character perfectly, and though it is a world away from Max Schrek's otherworldly visage, it's obvious that he's had a lot of time to hone the character and he certainly imbues the role with his own distinctive style.

There are some lovely little touches too which add to the film - such as when the solicitor Renfield follows Dracula upstairs in his Transylvanian castle, and the door slowly closes of its own accord behind the vampire. Renfield, a role that is usually dismissed in Dracula adaptations, is absolutely brilliant here, and Dwight Frye does an excellent job of showing the rambling madman slave that Dracula turns him into, and next to Lugosi himself he is easily the best actor in the film.
It's interesting to see in the early scene when Renfield arrives at Dracula's castle, and accidentally pricks his finger, the vampire getting excited by the sight of blood. This is a shot that was repeated in the other major adaptation of the novel, in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oddly, the scene is not to be found in the original novel, and it was in Murnau's Nosferatu where the scene was created, and every subsequent Dracula film has paid homage to it.
Though it's easy to see the shortcuts that were made for budgetary reasons (and the bats look laughably bad, even by 1931 standards), Browning really did carry a lot of the story's theatrical roots into the film, and at times it is almost like watching a recording of a stage play. This wasn't helped by a fact that afflicted all films made in the early 30s - directors were still desperately trying to keep up with the technological advances that had made silent films obsolete almost overnight. Suddenly they had to worry about noise being made on set, and had to ensure that all actors' voices were able to be recorded. Because of the cumbersome cameras of the time, suddenly moving, sweeping shots that had made films like Sunrise look so spectacular were impractical due to the sound of the camera moving around the set. Browning had made the vast majority of his films during the silent period, and he always struggled with sound film. After his 1932 film Freaks, he struggled to gain the studios' backing to make further sound films and would never again enjoy the same success he had by the end of the silent period.

Even the ending of the story is unsatisfactory. Dracula is killed by Van Helsing as he sleeps in his coffin, but at the moment we have been looking forward to when we finally see the evil vampire exterminated, what does Browning do? He cuts to Jonathan Harker, who's looking for Mina. We hear an off-camera groan from Dracula as Van Helsing drives a stake through his chest, and Mina is released from the vampire's spell. That's it. And this was years before the Hays Code censored cinema, so it just comes across as very bad direction. Indeed, it seems possible that Browning had so little interest in Dracula that he was content to leave cinematographer Karl Freund to carry out most of the directing duties.
At the time Universal disliked the finished film, preferring the longer Spanish version which was shot using the same sets, but different actors, at night when shooting on the English version had wrapped. Though later critics hailed the English version of Dracula as a classic, I personally find this hard to agree with. Dracula is memorable for the unique but massively influential version of the vampire that Bela Lugosi portrayed, but as a complete film there is far too much wrong with it to be considered a true classic.