I rewatched both the Bela Lugosi and the Carlos Villarias versions of Dracula, both from 1931. The Villarias is the Spanish-language version made at the same time, on the same sets. Both are interesting films, and both are interesting cases in movie making. Neither is a simple, straightforward adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, and it’s interesting to note how and why this is.
I refer here mainly to the English-language version, with which I am more familiar. I grew up with the damned thing.
1.) Bela Lugosi is still, overall, the best Dracula. Probably because he was himself Hungarian, he carries with conviction the aura of being an Eastern European nobleman. There are defects in his performance, but they’re mostly small compared to the way he inhabited the role. Sadly, it overshadowed everything else he did, even though Lugosi was a varied and versatile performer (He played Jesus Christ once!) Even in the field of horror, he gave us The Speaker in Island of Lost Souls, the original Ygor in two of the Frankenstein movies, the Frankenstein Monster himself in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman , and a host of other evil characters.)
2.) The movie is based on a succession of plays – Hamilton Deane’s original British drama (Deane had hoped to play Dracula himself, as he had played the Frankenstein monster in Peggy Webling’s play, but ended up playing Van Helsing), which John Balderston greatly rewrote for Broadway. Garrett Fort then wrote the screenplay based on this last version of the play. He added the scenes in Transylvania and adapted the rest for the screen.
3.) Bram Stoker’s novel is a sprawling mess. Its epistolary nature is interesting (especially when it includes transcriptions from wax recording cylinders), but it contains far too many characters and covers far too much area. Outside of Transylvania, most of the action takes place in Whitby or London. Anyone watching this film (or many other adaptations) can be forgiven for thinking that Whitby is near London – the characters act that way. But, in fact, the two are 250 miles apart. Even today it’s a five hour auto trip between the two. It just makes dramatic sense to shrink the distance. Similarly, there are too damned many characters to keep straight, and it’s hard to justify all of them, so Lucy’s suitors all completely disappear except for Dr. Seward, who is made much older and not a suitor. To give some reason for Mina to be involved with the rest of the cast, she becomes Dr. Seward’s daughter. In order to explain why Dracula is concerned with one particular inmate at the insane asylum, Renfield becomes the real estate agent Dracula deals with, a role Harker plays in the novel. Renfield is driven insane during the voyage, and conveniently drops into Seward’s booby hatch. Harker is left to become the window dressing do-nothing suitor of Mina.
4.) Dracula attacks a flower girl who tries to sell him a violet(Shades of Eliza Doolittle!) right after he arrives in London. (But not in the Spanish version) He then seeks out DR. Seward and company at a concert hall. No reason is given for his knowing they are there. He meets Seward, Lucy, Mina, nd Harker. That night he flies in through Lucy’s window in the form of a bat, drinks her blood, and kills her. At least it appears that it only takes one sessiuon to do Lucy in. The film , if you pay attention, hints at considerable lapses of time between several scenes, and it’s easy to miss these cues. Everything seems to happen in rapid succession. Lucy and the flower girl are considered to be the victims of the same killer. (The Spanish version has the doctors speak of “these crimes”, even though Lucy’s is the only one we hear of. There were presumably others. Lucy’s last name, by the way, gets changed from “Westenra” to “Western”. ). In the novel Lucy rises from her grave and starts stalking little children. This is shown, but not her final fate. The english-language version just sort of drops her. In the Spanish version, Harker and Van Helsing near the climax talk of putting a stake into her.
5.) This brings up an interesting and rarely-addressed point. The folks at Universal were pretty clearly nervous about making this “Monster” film. Even though the play had been a big success in London and Broadway, and even though they were even then finishing up Frankenstein (Webling’s play had been a London success, too. Balderston’s rewrite of it never got produced on Broadway), they hadn’t done anything like this before, and they were afraid of offending the audiences in Middle America. And it shows in how the film was made and what got cut out.
They shot a prologue with Edward van Sloane, talking about the subject matter of the film, and hinting that it was real. This prologue no longer exists, and was cut out early on (Van Sloane did a similar in-front-of=the-curtain, out of character address at the beginning of Frankenstein. It still exists, but this used to be customarily cut from the versions shown on TV because it took up too much time that could be sold to commercials). I doubt if they ever shot a scene of them driving a stake into Lucy, but they probably shot a scene where they talked about it (as in the extant Spanish version), but that, too, was thought too graphic for the folks in Peoria, and got cut out. The play ends with an extravagant effect where DRacula is staked on stage in his coffin, and his bodies collapses into dust. In the film, the staking is implied, but takes places discreetly off-camera, with only the sound of pounding and a groan to indicate that it took place. I’m a little surprised even that much stayed in.
6.) At times you think they were simply filming the play, instead of making a movie. The camera stays damnably still in the English-language version (although George Melford moved it around a lot more for the Spanish version).The camera does move a little, though, chiefly when Dracula transforms from a bat to a human. Te camera also is used to indicate Dracula’s non-appearance in a mirror. But when Harker goes to the window and reports seeiung a wolf or large dog, the camera doesn’t show this – it’s as if they were content with having it described, as in the play.
7.) Although they did some wonderful matte and glass painting effects in the first part of the film, they at other times seemed to scrimp abominably on effects. The giant spider Renfield sees in Castle DRacula is so obviously a model on a string that it’s laughable. The bats always look like rubber bats (they look a helluva lot more realistic and convincing in the stage play). For some reason Tod Browning put armadillos and opossums in Dracula’s castle (along with a wasp with its own miniature coffin – what was THAT about?). When Mina is first attacxked by Dracula flying as a bat into her bedroom, they used exactly the same shot that they used when Lucy was attacked, even though it’s a different room and the decor doesn’t match. Were they too cheap to re-shoot their damned rubber bat for a different bedroom?
8.) The ending is kinda dumb. Harker and Van Helsing are walking around outside for no good reason (in the Spanish version, as I say, they speak of haviung just staked Lucy as a vampire, but that dialogue is cut here) and see REnfield – who escapes far too easily from his cell – fleeing toward Carfax Abbey, Dracula’s summer home in England. He goes inside to find Dracula and Mina at the top of a long winding stair, and shouts that he is there to serve. Immediately Harker and Van Helsing shout to Mina. Renfield expostulates that he didn’t bring them to the Abbey, and climbs the stairs to tell DRacula this, and incredibly stupid action. DRacula kills REnfield, but basically shoving him down the stairs (thus giving him an acceptably bloodless death), then climbs down leading the almost comatose Mina, who he takes into the crypt. Harker and Van Helsing breakl in through the basement door, then into the crypt. They find Dracula in his box of earth and he gets staked (off camera, as noted). Mina is released from her spell. She and Harker then start climbing those long damned stairs, instead of just leaving through the basement door.
In the Spanish version you see that at the top of the stairs is the normal ground-level entrance to Carfax, but that scene isn’t in the English edition. Besides, thius gives Browning a chance to show Harker leading MIna upwards into the light of day. The end.
