Dracula – 1931 Genre: Horror Not Rated
Synopsis:
Count Dracula, the ancient vampire from Transylvania, arrives in England and begins to prey upon the mind and body of the young and virtuous Mina.
Review:
This is another classic horror film, made the same year that Frankenstein came out. It is very old. The film is black and white and grainy, while the sound isn’t nearly as clear as today’s films. There is no music except for the beginning and ending credits. Films were made differently back then. That’s no one’s fault and it’s not even a bad thing. It’s just different.
However, I run into a similar conundrum that I faced when writing the review about Frankenstein. I’ve read much of the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. I have not finished it. It’s one of those novels that I have picked up and tried to read about three different times, but I have never got through it. Most of the novel is written in a series of letters from various people recounting their experiences with Dracula and with the people that he is stalking. It’s a strange way to read a book and I guess the style is just a little too off-putting for me.
However, we all know the story of Dracula, right?
A vampire with his brides as his minions, who can turn into bats or werewolves and either kill their prey or turn them into vampires by sucking their blood. We’ve seen enough vampire movies by now that we know how it works. Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Van Helsing and much, much more deal with this classic story.
What this one has going for it is it’s the first. Every vampire movie or television series, every costume you see on Halloween night with the kids in the black cape, the slicked back hair and the fangs all leads back to this movie.
Bela Lugosi is the Austrian actor who brought Count Dracula to life first on the screen. His first lines – “I am Dracula. I bid you welcome. Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” It’s the accent that everyone anywhere now mimics when trying to make a Dracula story. So this is a classic in every sense of that word.
But the movie moves too quickly through this story. We don’t get to see the back story of Jonathan Harker and his pure fiancee Mina, we don’t get to see the full scope of the physical and psychological changes that Mina goes through as we do in the book. At least up until the part where I gave up a couple different times.
Films were different then in length as well. Neither Frankenstein nor Dracula was longer than about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Probably due to budget constraints and more at the time, so the filmmakers were forced to rush through the story. Which is really too bad. As a result, even though it’s a classic, it feels rushed, it feels parts are missing out of the story and it feels completely anticlimactic at the end.
I thought Frankenstein still did a very good job given the time constraints it had to deal with. Dracula, not so much.
Most people know this part, but if not, consider this a spoiler alert: The best part of this story is the transformation of Mina after she gets Dracula’s blood going through her veins. It’s a fight of her will against Dracula’s, fighting insider her own body. Will she give in and become a creature of the night as well, as everything pure and holy and virtuous about her gives way to horror and evil?
It certainly is a juicy story to chew on for any storyteller today. But, again, the constraints of film studios and filmmaking back in the 1930s make this film more implied than actually felt or seen, which makes it hard to really feel the impact of the villainy of Dracula. Back then, censorships wouldn’t allow for the killings to be seen on the screen so it had to imply it heavily and fade out as soon as Dracula moved in for the kill.
It may sound macabre, but as a viewer, I want to see it. I want to feel the horror and experience it with the characters. That’s one of the things that make Dracula so scary. Another is his control over his victims. Once he gets inside their heads, or gets his blood running through his victim’s veins, he has an extremely powerful magnetism, getting them to do what he wants and yield all of their own will over to him.
We see that a little bit with Mina, as she goes from being afraid of the night to eventually saying that night is her favorite time of the day. We also see it with Dracula’s nearly overwhelming power as he almost controls Van Helsing to move him toward his fangs and Dracula’s total control.
But I needed to feel it more. I needed to see it more. I needed to feel my heart rush a little bit more. I understand that this may be a simple case of growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, when films were tailored to my age group and much of them had cuts and edits every couple of seconds. I get it. I’m sure Dracula was plenty scary enough for people who saw it in the 1930s.
I said yesterday that some movies shouldn’t be remade. I was speaking directly about Psycho, whose 1998 remake was laughable. The original was so good. However, Dracula is one of those movies that needed an update. It needed a little bit of 21st century film making techniques, some scary music, some color and suspense, and yes, even some blood and gore.
It has been attempted many times. Whatever you do, don’t go see Dracula 2000. That tries to put a spin on the story that doesn’t work well at all, in my opinion. The best one to see would be the Francis Ford Coppola version in 1992 with Gary Oldman in the title role, Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker and Winona Ryder as Mina. That one is my favorite of the Dracula-inspired films.
No matter what you do with Dracula, Bela Lugosi and this film will always be at the genesis of it all. That’s got to count for something. Other than that, however, it doesn’t translate that well to today’s audiences.
Grade: C+
scotthansensports 
Good thoughts all around. I too have a hard time with this version of Dracula, for several reasons, but I can’t help but be in awe of the atmosphere and scenery in the first half of the film. Tod Brownings influence (stealing) of German Expressionism in the film is magnificent. The second half of the film dragged and the sets soon appeared as being designed for a cheap theater production. Maybe they drained their budget on his castle?
That said, there is so much to appreciate in how it established and influenced the Universal horror film franchise and horror films in general for the next quarter century.
Couple suggestions…first off, watch the version with the Philip Glass score. It really adds a lot to the pace of the film. Second…watch the Spanish language version. The performances, psychological motivation and pacing is soooo much better. I went to a double feature of both versions last year at a TCM screening. I’m sure you’re aware that in the early days of sound, studios would shoot a couple of versions of films in the languages that would reap the greatest rewards in foreign distribution. (Usually Spanish, French and German). This was because they had not discovered dubbing yet, mostly because technology at the time wasn’t advanced enough.
I’d have to check, but I think Lugosi was Hungarian or Romanian…or at least claimed to be.
If you want to see a Tod Browning film that is sure to both fascinate and frighten you…watch Freaks!
“We accept you, one of us! Gooble Gobble! one of us! One of us!”