Film Review - Dracula Film Review

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House review of Dracula (1931)

This is the classic version of the Dracula story on film. No other vampire movie, before or since, comes anywhere near this one for sheer iconic power. Popular culture has absorbed the image of the elegant Count Dracula, with his slicked-back hair and his high-collared cape. And his accent…Bela Lugosi’s Hungarian accent was the coup de grace on this smooth, terrifying character.

There are so many interesting pieces of trivia to know about this film and its actors. For instance, Lugosi was newly arrived in America and was cast in the movie because he had played the role of Count Dracula in Hungarian theater. Btu he spoke almost no English, so the lines that seem so definitive now are in many cases the result of Lugosi parroting his lines back without knowing how they should sound. The result was unforgettable, as in, “The children of the night…what music they make,” and the understatement of the film, “I dislike mirrors.”

It’s important to remove consideration of the movie from consideration of the book. Although this film bore the blessing of Bram Stoker’s widow (unlike its earlier counterpart, Nosferatu, which was obliged to change character names and identifying plot details), it bears only a slight resemblance to the book. Major characters are cut or rearranged, the details of Lucy’s sickness and death are completely ignored, and the epic clash between science and superstition is barely given a nod. The character of Dr. Van Helsing loses much of his power when he can’t be experienced as the one person who insists on incorporating both contemporary wisdom and wisdom of the ages into his work. Most sadly, in my experience, we lose Mina’s heroic virtue as she comes to understand what is happening to her and what it could cost her and those she loves.

Nevertheless, it is a remarkably effective movie. It no longer makes people swoon with fright, but the close-ups of Dracula’s glowing eyes still make the viewer shiver a bit. The pacing is at times too fast and steady to allow for the growing dread that such a story deserves, but at other times, director Tod Browning is not afraid to let a silence stretch, especially between Count Dracula and Dr. Van Helsing. In those silences the audience realizes that the Count’s secret is not safe, and if he’s not safe, he’s going to be dangerous. Those dramatic moments are priceless.

Although it is Lugosi as Dracula that everyone remembers from this film, even more than ¾ of a century later, there are other remarkable performances in this film that deserve to be lauded. Edward Van Sloan takes the lead as Dr. Van Helsing, with a strong and focused performance that lets everyone know that he’s not afraid of Dracula or what he can do. However, the most notable of the supporting performances is Dwight Frye as Renfield (really a Renfield/Harker combination character), and his transition from crisp English business-man to insect-blood-eating madman. His madness, and his enslavement to Dracula are marked by a hideous, unforgettable rhythmic laugh—certainly one that I would never want to hear after sundown. The way Frye plays him, it is his moments of sanity, when we almost believe what he says, that make him the most truly frightening and pitiful …and then he laughs that mad laugh again.

This movie isn’t as frightening as it was to audiences in 1931. Most of us have grown up watching these classic horror movies on Saturday afternoon television, where they don’t pack the same punch as they did when they were seen for the first time in darkened theaters. But there’s still something about it, about knowing that you’re seeing the cultural images at their beginning. And there will always be something about the suave, bloodthirsty Count Dracula that makes us shiver.

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