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Dracula /Drâcula Dracula's Daughter / Son of Dracula / House of Dracula
(1936-1943 DVD)

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Frankenstein / Bride of / Son of / House of
(1931-1944 DVD)

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The cinematic history of  Dracula follows a similar pattern to that of Frankenstein. First we get the (mainly forgotten today) films from the silent era. These are followed by the "classic" Hollywood versions, the early black and white movies that established the figures of horror in the popular imagination. Then numerous sequels of varying quality over several decades of the mid-1900s. And then later in the century we find attempts to rediscover the original stories with serious films going back to the literary sources, as well as the inevitable parodies.

The first known filmic take on the Transylvanian vampire is an Hungarian moving picture, Drakula halála (The Death of Drakula, 1921), of which no copies are known to exist and which, anyway, was reportedly not based on Bram Stoker's novel.

Shortly after this however, the great German film Nosferatu (1922) appeared—and has been studied by film students ever since. Nosferatu was indeed based on the book but without the rights having been bought. Enough names and locales were changed  to keep the producers from being sued: it's Count Orlok instead of Dracula, Harkner becomes Hutter, and his wife (not fiancée) is Ellen.

Paradoxically, the appearance and character of the vampire in Nosferatu is closer to Stoker's conception than any of the approved films that followed. He's an ugly, selfish creature, played with legendary commitment by Max Shreck. He's just so ... different. His unblinking facial movements, his reactions ... they just perfectly express a being alien to ourselves. And when he walks the earth in his nightly forays, he seems to be in a trance, moving stiffly with his arms pressed straight down against the sides of his body. I wonder though ... does anyone else get the sense I do that he's also the stereotype of an evil Jew, with his outsized hooked nose, bald pate with unruly tufts of sidehair, and his grasping, secretive manner? A Shylock with a love for more than a pound of flesh, sucking the blood of the Aryan middleclass? Or is it just knowledge of Germany's tragic history to come that makes me see hints of anti-Semitism here?

In any case, director F.W. Murnau fashions a creepy expressionist film that's still worth watching if you can get past your reluctance to sit through silent, black-and-white films. It's surprising how many of the scenes seem more alive and real than later silent films and even more so than many of the early talkies.

There's quite a bit of explanatory text in German, and translated by subtitles. Most of the scenes appear to have been shot in daylight (which doesn't make sense for a vampire flick) but versions you are likely to see are tinted, so the night scenes are bluish, and others are in shades of sepia and pink—which is oddly effective.

The making of Nosferatu is the subject of a more recent fictional film, Shadow of the Vampire, reviewed in the second part of this commentary.

The most famous Dracula is actually only half a step away from being a silent film. The 1931 Hollywood movie with Bela Lugosi as the undead count was directed by Tod Browning, whose experience as a silent-era veteran shows. Long stretches of melodramatic lighting, exaggerated facial acting and swooping across stage, without anything being said, or without even much of a musical score. (In 1999 the film was re-released with a new score by Philip Glass.)

Strictly speaking, this Dracula is not a direct adaptation of the novel either, but rather of a play, based on the book, by one Hamilton Deane and subsequently revised by John L. Balderston for Broadway production. The drama turned Count Dracula into an suave, old-world, romantic figure. Lugosi, who was born in part of Hungary that later became Romania, fit the bill perfectly on Broadway with his heavy accent and devilish but dignified manner. He wasn't the first choice to carry the role into the film (Lon Chaney, who was, died before filming) but Lugosi eventually got the part. And a legend was born.

Forever after, Draculas—and video vampires in general—have had to struggle against the type established by Lugosi. Two images in particular are indelible. Dracula on the staircase of his spider-webbed castle delighting in the wolf howls. "Listen to them, the children of the night—what music they make!" And that lustful image of the cloaked vampire leaning over the bed of a young woman, baring his teeth at her neck.

These scenes like many others are similar to those in the novel, but are enhanced by the brilliant sweeping camera work of cinematographer Karl Freund, another German expressionist, who some say directed the film more than did Browning.

Much else has changed however in the transition from novel to play to rewritten play to screenplay. It is Renfield's, not Harker's, visit to Transylvania that is dramatized at the beginning, as Harker never leaves England. The death of Lucy comes quickly and there's a lot of mushy drama concerning Mina, who is saved by Van Helsing while Harker does very little besides fawn over her. There's no dramatic chase scene either in London or Transylvania. Much of the action is very stagy—people standing around, glaring at each other.

We never see the count turn into a wolf and his transformation into a bat is clumsy by standards of even ten years later. Anyone seeing that so-called bat bouncing around on the end of a fishing line today would laugh rather than flee in fright. But whenever Lugosi appears we forget all that nonsense. It's often said that an actor owns a role but it's never been more true than with Lugosi and Dracula. It's not that he's a great actor—he's not even as good as most others who donned the cloak after him—but just that he was a perfect match for the role at that time: with a few hammy gestures and a gleam in his eyes, he elevated the evil character of the book to the enchantingly evil character of the movies.

Such was his identification with the role that it's surprising to discover, despite all the sequels and remakes, Bela Lugosi never appeared as the count again after the first Dracula, except for comedy in the popular Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

But Lugosi isn't the only stand-out in Dracula. Dwight Frye as Renfield is as mesmerizing in his over-the-top insanity as Lugosi is in his evil. Edward Van Sloan is a decent old-school Van Helsing who gets to drive in the final stake. Bit of an anti-climax that though. The movie's over before we can really appreciate it.

One theory holds that the appeal of the novel Dracula arises from it being an allegory for the decaying hold of the aristocracy, those of noble bloodlines, on the emerging middle and working classes in the 1800s. Our modern heroes of doctors and other professional men of science finally put a stake through the heart of the old superstitions, to break the ties that try to drag us back from the Enlightenment to medieval times. Hollywood's Dracula, featuring Lugosi's seductive old-world charm, may be seen as confirmation of that interpretation. (We'll see other theories propounded through Dracula-related films in later years.)

At the same time as Dracula was being shot in English at Universal Studios, a Spanish version was also being made—on the same sets with the same screenplay (translated) and with all different actors. The English-speaking crew worked during the day and the Spanish at night. And guess what? The Spanish version is actually better. Drácula cleverly improves almost every scene over its English counterpart, a few cuts here and there, a few additions now and then, more dramatic staging, and some better effects. Carlos Villarías as the vampire doesn't have the commanding presence of Lugosi—a couple of times he seems almost comical—but he works well enough, and Mexican-born Lupita Tovar is sexier as Eva (as Mina is called in this version), while Pablo Álvarez Rubio is equally, if not more, over the edge as Renfield. This flick also is worth watching, especially on DVD where you can choose the language of subtitles.

After the wild success of Lugosi's Dracula, Universal continued, as they did with the Frankenstein franchise, to milk everything they could from the character. But the next effort, Dracula's Daughter (1936) doesn't quite fit the sequel mould. For one thing, the villain of the original didn't return. The action starts only minutes after the abrupt ending of the 1931 flick with Van Helsing (Van Sloan is the only reprising actor) being arrested for the murder of the count found with a stake through his chest. But after that, the story shifts to a mysterious woman, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), who steals and destroys Dracula's body in order to escape from his thrall. Her plan doesn't work of course and the rest of the film is about her attempts to battle her vampiric nature.

This film is supposedly based in part on a chapter that Stoker cut from the novel and which was published posthumously as a story called "Dracula's Guest". At least one of the scenes in the movie, when the female vampire seduces a young female victim, just as Daddy used to, seems to a twenty-first century audience to be an obvious reference to lesbianism and you could view the whole film as an allegory in that light. But in the end, Dracula's Daughter becomes another kill-the-vampire story. An interesting, unusual sequel for its time, though not one that really stays with you as Dracula did.

In 1943 the studio revived Dracula with Son of Dracula and a new story that ignored its first two films. I'm not sure where the "Son" in the title comes from but this time Lon Chaney Jr., son of the Lon Chaney sought for the first film, plays the immortal count. It's been a dozen years after the 1931 film and the whole production is more sophisticated, with better visual effects, better sound and more natural acting. Son of Dracula is a complicated story about a woman who pretends to fall for Dracula, marries him, and then plots to kill him. Chaney is not evil or dynamic enough to fill Lugosi's cape but the film is decent enough.

Dracula was also a character in 1944 monster fest House of Frankenstein with John Carradine as the vampire, Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man, and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's monster. The three were reunited the next year in House of Dracula. The franchise really falls apart with this one though. The plot goes all over the place with a well-intentioned doctor treating the count, curing the Wolf Man and trying to revive Frankenstein's monster. Dracula turns on his would-be saviour and is himself put down but not before managing to infuse himself into the doctor who becomes half-vampire and confronts the Frankenstein monster and the man who used to be the Wolf Man. Confused? Classic monster fans dig the film for all the elements it brings together and the actors give it what they've got, but as a movie for non-buffs it's a mess.