Directed by Tod Browning
Written by Garrett Fort adapted from a play by John L. Balderson and Hamilton Dean and the novel by Bram Stoker
1931/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Count Dracula: [hearing wolves howling in the distance] Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
Iconic film is perhaps the worst of the classic Universal films. Nonetheless, it continues to entertain all these years later.
Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) lives in a remote castle in Transylvania with his undead brides. He wants to expand his horizons and calls real estate agent Renfield (Dwight Frye) from London so he can buy an estate there. Between Dracula and his brides Renfield becomes Dracula’s abject slave. Renfield is installed in the insane asylum next to the estate where the staff have a hard time preventing him from eating flies and spiders.
Doctor Seward, director of the asylum, has a lovely daughter named Mina (Helen Chandler) who is engaged to handsome John Harker (David Manners). Dracula first attacks her friend Lucy, whose corpse is found drained of blood. Then Dracula begins a slow attack on Mina, draining her blood gradually over several days. Esteemed scientist Van Helsing (Edward van Sloane) is called in to help identify Mina’s mysterious illness. Fortunately, Van Helsing is a vampire specialist and he instantly knows the cause. We spend the rest of the movie following Van Helsing’s attempt to save Mina and slay the vampire once and for all.
By all rights this movie just shouldn’t be a classic. The acting is over the top when it isn’t wooden and the effects are laughable (I am especially fond of the armadillos in Dracula’s crypt and the rubber bats). It isn’t even scary. So why is it so darned entertaining??? Beats me. Every time I watch it I enjoy it all over again.
This film has elements of German Expressionism and is a definate classic. In retrospect it was more frightening in 1931 then today, yet we are compelled by Dracula to watch it again and again.
I recently viewed it with the score by Phillip Glass performed by the Kronos Quartet and it impressed me as revitalized Dracula
For true Camp view Blacula.
It must have been great to see it with that music! Agree that this film has worked its way into the collective consciousness and in that sense is a classic.
I’ve been watching Dracula (1931) over and over again since I was eight years old. (That would have been 1972.) I bet I’ve seen it forty or fifty times over the years.
I’ve possibly seen it ten times.
It is a strange charm, no? Definitely the poorest of the monster movies, yet it is difficult to be upset by it. On a general basis i avoid vampire movies if possible, the theme has been beaten to death, but this one , well, charms me.
Yes, it has a lot in common with the good/bad movies I love so much. More of a budget but just kind of goofy and endearing.