Day 1: Dracula (1931), directed by Tod Browning
Streaming availability: Tubi
The legend of the European Vampire dates back to at least the 1700s. The dead rising to feast on the living is an ancient fear that goes back to the very beginning of our species. For centuries though, people feared a creature they called "vampire". In their imaginations, it had a thousand forms and a thousand faces.
That is until 1931. After 1931, the Vampire had one face. Even after ninety years of subsequent movies and reinventions of the character of Count Dracula, there is still an Ur-Vampire in popular imagination, one that will never be supplanted. Even now, seventy years after his death, the Ur-Vampire lives on, as immortal as the character he played. When you close your eyes and picture a vampire, inevitably you see one man, and that is Bela Lugosi.
There were vampire movies before 1931’s Dracula, of course.
There were several silent film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel made
across Europe. That includes, of course, the silent classic, Nosferatu: A Symphony
of Horror. But this vampire movie was uniquely special and had an impact the others did not. The vampire emoji on your phone right now does not depict Max Schreck, it depicts Bela Lugosi. Even Sesame Street's vampire is a play on this icon. Dracula along with Frankenstein a year later, launched the
Universal horror boom of the 1930s, the first great era of horror cinema. Dracula captured the vampire myth and solidified it down to one figure with a cape, a widow's peak, a Hungarian accent, and a piercing stare.
With a movie this old, you do need some patience with it. This kind of filmmaking was already ancient even when our grandparents were born. However, Dracula,
does hold up. It is legitimately surprisingly how a movie this old can be
successful as an unnerving Gothic Horror journey.
There are a few issues, I’ll admit. We’re two years into
Talking Pictures, and director Tod Browning does not seem sure how to use sound
in his movie other than for dialog and sound effects. You know that famous organ
piece that everybody thinks is from Dracula? "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"? Yeah,
that's not in this. (I think people are confused since it does appear in Fantasia.) Over the
opening credits we get some music from Swan Lake, and later there is some diegetic music at an
opera. Otherwise, there is no score. This is legitimately unsettling,
especially when Dracula is creeping the streets of London biting women. It's like the soundless space destruction in Gravity, there's an unnatural quality to it.
But that does not stop the movie from dragging in places,
especially the third act. As the story becomes less about Dracula, moves away from his spooky castle, and more about
the good Londoners, we lose a lot of energy. The heroes mostly lacking in personality. If you’re somebody
who mocked Keanu Reeves or Winona Ryder’s attempts at Britishness in Bram
Stoker’s Dracula, they're doing much better than the original actors. In 1931, they counterparts did nothing to disguise
their American accents. The one even remotely interesting exception is the champion
of modernity, Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), who is given at some eccentric
quirk of charisma.
On the other hand, the simplicity of the effects adds to the
movie. Dracula’s bat form is clearly a puppet on strings, it is very silly to
modern eyes. Yet, in one sequence we cut from a sleeping Lucy (Frances Dade) over to a flapping bat in her massive open window. And there’s something deeply
terrifying about this unreal, immensely large bat framed in the open night, approaching
our innocent and doomed heroine. To complete the horror though, we get a
close-up on Lugosi lunging towards the sleeping woman. We don’t see fangs, but
the empty darkness we see inside his opening maw might be even more disturbing.
In human form though, Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is fully
deserving of iconic status. This is one of those rare moments where an actor was born to play a character. He’s such a powerful, theatrical presence that even
the hero characters are over-awed by his charisma. Lugosi’s piercing hypnotic stare
reminds me of pictures of Rasputin. His clawed-hands make little dances in the air as he reaches out
of his coffin. There’s a reason the movie keeps giving him tight close-ups with a light shining on his face, so his
eyes can dominate the audience. Much of his dialog has become iconic of the
Dracula character itself. “I bid you welcome.” “What music they make.” “I never
drink… wine.” This is an actor who can be cute with his little threats and also
a horrifying unforgettable silhouette of pure evil.
The underrated incredible performance Dracula has to go to
Dwight Frye as Renfield. Renfield in this version has an expanded role from the
novel, replacing Jonathan Harker as the one to travel to Castle Dracula. And you want this Renfield on screen more. He’s as terrifying as his master at
times, with bulging eyes and gleeful manic energy. In fact, I’d argue Renfield
is the main character of Dracula, the character that falls the farthest
into evil and humiliation, but still retains some humanity by the end. He's certainly the character with the most dimension.
Dracula is an immensely important classic. Better writers than me have sung this movie's praise and in the future, even better writers will have their take on it. As long as we love movies, Dracula will be with us.
Next time: Dracula’s Daughter, the 1936 direct sequel, and first dip into queer themes - and certainly not our last.
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