Cinema
Dracula
Tod Browning · 1931
Synopsis
Renfield, an English solicitor's clerk, travels to the Carpathians to conclude with Count Dracula the lease of Carfax Abbey, in England. The villagers warn him. The count receives him, hypnotises him and makes him his servant, then reaches England by sea with his coffin; on arrival the whole crew is dead and Renfield, the only one alive on board, is committed to Dr Seward's clinic, next to Carfax. In London the count turns on Lucy, then on Mina, Seward's daughter, and Professor Van Helsing begins to suspect the truth.
Context
The film adapts the play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, drawn from Bram Stoker's novel. A Spanish-language version was shot at the same time, at night, on the same sets, by George Melford with a different cast; several critics judge it better filmed. Bela Lugosi had created the role on Broadway in 1927. The film has no original score: an extract from Swan Lake accompanies the opening credits, and a few concert pieces are heard on screen. Fifty thousand tickets sold in two days at the Roxy in New York, and about seven hundred thousand dollars in profit for Universal.
Who it is for
A film of an hour and a quarter, almost without music. The version shot in Spanish can be seen as a supplement on the Universal discs, and the French Blu-ray of 2014 carries a dubbed track.
Prizes and reception
Added in 2000 to the National Film Registry, like its Spanish-language twin; it made Universal the great studio of horror.
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