| Dracula Released: 1931 MPAA Rating: None Genre: Vampire Nuts and Bolts: A London solicitor sells an old abbey in Purfleet to a strange Transylvanian count. But as Dracula arrives in England, people begin dying from strange blood illnesses. Only the learned Professor, Van Helsing knows what Dracula truly is. Will Van Helsing be able to stop the vampire in time before any more people die? Summary: A London solicitor known as Renfield is hired to broker a deal with Transylvanian Count Dracula for the sale of property at Purfleet. Dracula is buying Carfax Abbey, which lies adjacent to the Seward Sanitarium at Whitby. During the coach ride across the Borgo Pass, local gypsies warn Renfield against continuing his journey. They say the land is cursed by Nosferatu. But Renfield is determined and continues along anyway. An old woman gives Renfield a crucifix to wear “For his mother’s sake”. All throughout the journey Renfield takes notice of strange occurrences. Wolves howl constantly and his coach driver appears to have been replaced by a giant bat. He eventually arrives at the steps of Castle Dracula. The count bids him welcome and prepares a room for him. The strange mystique of the land seems to affect the count as well as Renfield watches him walk through a wall of spider-webs without disturbing a single one. Dracula has dinner prepared for Renfield but doesn’t eat himself. While handling the paperwork for the purchase, Renfield slices his finger on a paper clip. The site of blood sends Dracula’s taste buds into a tizzy and it takes all of his restraint to keep from leaping upon the poor man. Later that night, Renfield meets Dracula’s brides. (I guess polygamy is big in Transylvania. Who would of thought that ole Drac was a Mormon eh?) Before long, Renfield is bitten and becomes a hypnotic slave to Dracula’s whims. Dracula has Renfield book passage upon the Demeter and the two set sail for England. Arriving in London, all the crew aboard the Demeter are found dead; the only surviving passenger (aside from the four corpses in the cargo hold) is Renfield. Renfield is clearly insane by this point, cackling like a madman and eating beetles and flies. A few days later, Dracula makes his appearance known. At a London Opera House, Dracula meets Doctor John Seward, his daughter Mina, Mina’s fiancé Jonathan and Lucy Weston. Dracula informs Seward that he had purchased the abbey adjacent to his own sanitarium. Ironically enough, Renfield has since become a patient of Seward’s but no one suspects the connection between the two at this point. Later that night, Dracula enters Lucy Weston’s bedroom. While she is sleeping he leans over her and drinks all of the blood from her body. She dies over night and her body is taken to Doctor Seward’s (of all places). Most of the doctors are at a lost as to how she died, but a wily Hungarian Professor known as Van Helsing has suspicions. After conferring with Doctor Seward, Van Helsing suspects that Lucy’s killer was a vampire. Van Helsing also examines a sample of Renfield’s blood and concludes that Renfield is also in league with the vampire somehow. (Pretty smart guy the Prof, eh?) A few nights later, Dracula strikes again. This time it is Mina who has become his victim. Mina is only bitten once and survives the encounter. She doesn’t really remember anything but for a strange face that appeared from the fog like a dream. Van Helsing immediately suspects Count Dracula. As if on cue, Dracula enters the study at Seward Sanitarium. He rights off Mina’s ‘bad dreams’ as a by-product of some of the grim stories he had been telling her of Transylvania. As Dracula talks with Jonathan, Van Helsing reaches for his cigarette case. From the mirrored glass, he notices that Dracula casts no reflection. No he is certain that Dracula is Mina and Lucy’s attacker. He shows Dracula the cigarette case and the vampire reacts wildly, smacking it from his fingers. No longer living under any pretenses, Dracula leaves the hospital. Later that evening, Mina wanders from her room in a hypnotic daze. She enters the sanitarium gardens where Dracula drinks from her a second time. One more visit and Mina will start to become a vampire herself. Meanwhile, Renfield tries to warn Doctor Seward and Professor Van Helsing of the dangers that are going on. Despite his loyalty to his ‘master’, he is concerned for the welfare of Miss Mina. Over the next few days, reports begin flurrying about London of a strange ghastly woman in white who has been attacking small children. Even Mina sees this ghostly apparition for herself. Although she wants to deny it, she comes to realize that this ghost is actually her friend Lucy Weston, now a vampire. Lucy leaves Mina alone and Mina returns to Seward’s. Van Helsing knows that Dracula will come for Mina again. He orders the nurses to place Wolvesbane in Mina’s room and to keep the windows locked. As per usual horror movie dynamics, the day nurse will eventually remove all of the wolvesbane and open the windows. Ya know, you would think the night nurse would have left a sticky note or something telling the day shift personnel not to be doing dumb shit like that. Needless to say, Drac puts the bite on Mina yet again. Dracula enters the sanitarium once again. But this time it is not just Mina he’s after but that damned Van Helsing as well. Dracula tries to use hypnotic suggestion to get Van Helsing to do his bidding, but Van Helsing’s will proves too strong for him. Van Helsing repels Dracula with a cross. Drac is forced to leave the room. On a balcony outside Mina’s room, Jonathan comes to visit. Mina rambles on about some trite shit and Jonathan tries to play the dutiful boyfriend. But what Jonathan doesn’t realize is that Mina is now a pseudo-vampire and she is preparing to put the bite on him. Our hero Van Helsing bursts through the double doors wielding his cross like a broad sword. Mina is stricken and the Prof now knows that she is one step closer to being undead. The following evening, Dracula has decided that he has had enough of this shit. He bursts into the sanitarium and kidnaps Mina. He returns to Carfax Abbey where he finds that Renfield had escaped the sanitarium and returned home. Dracula remembers how Renfield tried to warn the others against him and chucks the toady’s simple ass down a flight of steps. Renfield dies. Professor Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker realize that Mina is missing and they take off towards Carfax Abbey. By this time it is just about daybreak and they know that Dracula and his wives need to get their beauty sleep. Harker pretty much proves himself to be a useless dick yet again by contributing nothing while Van Helsing does all the work. Using a stone and a wooden stake, Van Helsing finds all of the vampire coffins and begins driving stakes into their hearts. At last he comes upon Count Dracula’s and does away with him in similar fashion. Jonathan is reunited with Mina and everything is right in the world once again. Acting/Dialogue: It’s important to remember that barring Phantom of the Opera and London after Midnight, this is one of the earliest Horror films ever made. Many of the actors who starred in it were likely used to playing in silent films. As such, there is a certain inherent style from the silent era that makes its way into this film as well. There area lot of over-accentuated gestures and wild animated facial expressions. Many theatrical releases of Dracula were actually silent films as not all theaters had audio capabilities. Dwight Frye’s portrayal of Renfield is so over the top that it’s almost funny; although he does manage to pull off some pretty creepy vibes here and there. Bela Lugosi emotes almost entirely with his eyes and we really get to see this during the close up shots. The only part of Lugosi’s performance that falters is when he over dramatizes certain scenes; most notably: the moment when Renfield cuts his finger and when Van Helsing exposes him to the mirrored cigarette case. David Manners as Jonathan Harker produces one of the most eye gouging performances I have ever seen. Even by the standards of 1931, this acting really sucks rocks. The only other cast member that produces some decent work is Edward Van Sloan as Professor Van Helsing. Van Sloan appears in several of the early Universal Horror flicks (The Mummy, Bride of Frankenstein) and he is always entertaining to watch. The dialogue gets pretty choppy in this, but practically everything spoken by either Van Helsing or Drac himself is pretty cool. Check later on down by Great Lines. Gore: None! Not even a drop of blood. We don’t even see Van Helsing drive the stake into Dracula’s heart. All we see is the Professor leaning over the coffin and Dracula groaning in pain. Hell, we don’t even see Dracula actually bite any of his victims. He just draws in real close and pulls his cape up over his head. For a vampire flick, there is not one single drop of blood shown. Christ, Dracula doesn’t even have fangs. Guilty Pleasures: None. Well come on, this IS 1931 after all. What did you expect? The Good: This is the one that started it all. Dracula is considered the grandfather of modern horror movies and it’s easy to see why. This movie is all about atmosphere. (Yeah, I know. I use that phrase a lot don’t I?) Todd Browning makes excellent use of the camera and his set designs are some of the best I’ve ever seen. To this day, I still think that Dracula’s castle is probably one of the eeriest looking sets that have ever appeared in Horror. Browning leaves no stone unturned and makes the best use available of black and white cinematography. Heavy shadows and sharp textures punctuate each scene and he does an excellent job at showing the differences between Transylvania and Victorian era London. Now Dracula is a film that is certainly dated, but we should acknowledge it for its contributions to the genre. Todd Browning set the standard by which all other movies followed. He created the stereotype of the vampire being a well-dressed European who is eternally polite even when he plans on sinking his fangs into you. Through the years, nearly all of the imitators can trace their style back to Bela Lugosi in some way. In the original release of Dracula, there was no sound score. The only music heard throughout the film was in the opening credits and during the Swan Lake ballet scene. The lack of music really ham strung this films potential in many ways. In 1999, Universal re-distributed Dracula with a newly created film score composed by Philip Glass and the Chronos Quartet. This music adds the much-needed intensity that was lacking in earlier versions. While Glass’ work is tremendous, it’s crisp tenors sometime override the actual dialogue and becomes a bit distracting at time. Despite this however, it’s a healthy addition to the film and that’s why I place this part under ‘The Good’. The Bad: Considering its age, it’s probably very difficult for modern audiences to appreciate this film. It really has to be looked at through the eyes of someone of the 1930s. Some of the performances by the lesser characters are extremely difficult to watch, and Browning seems to lose control of himself about halfway through the film. This is a movie that really peters out after the first twenty minutes. All of Browning’s energy seems focused on the Transylvania scenes. But once we arrive in London, we have to deal with the humdrum Lucy and Jonathan. Most of these scenes would tank completely were it not for Edward Van Sloan’s entrance as Professor Van Helsing. There’s still some quality stuff here, but I always find myself getting a little bored at about the midway point. It’s difficult to watch any version of Dracula without comparing it to the original literary work by Bram Stoker. This, just like its followers, deviates greatly from the original source material. The novel never featured the original voyage of Renfield as shown in the movie. We only discover that he is an inmate at the Sanitarium due to some problems he had in Transylvania. In the novel it is Jonathan Harker’s journey to Transylvania that composes the first act of the story. In the film, Jonathan never even leaves London. The film also ignores the character of Quincy Morris. In the Stoker version, Morris is actually the one responsible for beheading the good Count. Yes that’s right. He was beheaded. Only in the Browning version did he receive a stake through the heart. Also, Mina was not Seward’s daughter. This is a forgivable detail, as I guess they needed to quickly establish why the secondary characters would hang around with one another. One more comment that I need to make concerning the 1999 re-release; by supplying the Philip Glass film score, the editors decided to remove the music from the Swan Lake sequence. I really wish they hadn’t done this since the ballet scene was a great way to open up the next act. My advice to all you Dracula fans is this: Buy both versions! The music-less version is becoming kind of tough to find, but if you hunt around you should be able to stir up a copy. Dracula is a classic and should be treated as such. Fans of older black and white horror flicks will greatly appreciate this film. But if you are the type that can only watch modern films, then you probably won’t enjoy this too much. Still, I think it’s an important film to watch so that we can appreciate where later directors like Fischer, Coppola, and Craven first drew their inspiration. This has been one of the more difficult films I’ve had to review. There’s a lot of negative stuff that can be said here, but I feel it prudent to give it a higher rating than I would normally in lieu of its contributions to the genre. Great Lines: “I never drink…wine.” --Dracula refusing a glass of wine from Renfield. “Lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter as though the dead were there.” --Lucy quoting an old toast. “To die, to be truly dead. That must be glorious. There are far worst things awaiting man than death.” --Dracula’s views on death. “For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you're a wise man, Van Helsing.” --Dracula to Van Helsing after the latter reveals what he knows of Dracula’s vampiric nature. “For your mother’s sake.” --Gypsy woman as she places a cross about Renfield’s neck. “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” --Dracula regarding the wolves howling outside his castle. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads. |
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