Weirdhouse Cinema: Dracula (1931)

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob.

Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House we're tackling a classic. We're going to be talking about the nineteen thirty one Universal Pictures adaptation of Dracula, directed by Todd Browning starring Bella Lagosi. Now, Rob, this was your pick for this week. I had always assumed if we talked about Dracula, it would happen in October. But I'm not complaining. Happy to talk about Dracula in January or whatever month it still is. Yeah, we're still January.

Well, this is how it went down. So, yeah, this is a film I had actually never seen before. You know, sometimes a film I think is so iconic, so genre defining, so all present in popular culture that it kind of fades in to a personal obscurity. You know, you haven't seen it, but you kind of feel like you've seen it, or you know you're just overly familiar with its themes.

Yeah, that's sort of interesting. I might talk more about this later. But something I find interesting about this Dracula is I've probably seen it at least five or six times, but I still forget things about it. And the reason is that there are so many different adaptations of Dracula it becomes hard to keep straight which elements are from which version. True.

True, Yeah, what deviations are made is what is intensified and what is condensed and so forth.

Yeah.

So yeah, I had this realization over the weekend. So my kid has really gotten into Dungeons and Dragons and has set their sight so not only DMING A Campaign

I have no familiarity at all. Basically, all I know is that vampires are a big deal in D and D. You can confirm this that they're not like your standard you know, you're just staking them left and right kind of enemies that you might expect from some like horror video games or whatever. Like if you meet a vampire in D and D, this is like one of the most devastating and dangerous enemies you could possibly face.

Absolutely, especially like a true vampire as opposed to just a vampire spawn.

But okay, yeah, any.

Rate, I told you know, I'm supportive. I'm a supportive dad, So I'm like, okay, that sounds good. But one doesn't simply run Curse of Straw without seeing at least one Dracula movie. And I think the most they'd seen was Bart Simpson's Dracula on Treehouse of Horror.

Oh yeah, which is a take on a lot of the jokes on that are tied into the Francis Ford Coppola adaptation from the nineties.

Absolutely, yes, yeah, And so you know, I was looking at my options, and I was considering the Copola one as well, because I'm like, all right, my wife's going to be out of town, it's just the two of us. We've got to watch a Dracula film. And then I started really thinking about It's like, you know, I haven't actually seen the nineteen thirty one classic in full. You know, I've seen so many Dracula films over the years, and

Well, I think that's what you want. I okay, let's see. I'm trying to search my feelings and know and find what I know to be true. Have I ever really been scared by the Universal Dracula.

No.

I think maybe I'm just too hardened by horror movies that would come later. But I do love it, and I appreciate the craft of the horror in it, and I feel like I can see how it would be scary if I hadn't been so desensitized by all of the edgy or hor horror movies that would come later.

Yeah, to be clear, they're fine, They're almost thirteen. They were able to handle it, But I was. It did bring me much joy that they enjoyed it as much as they did, and they weren't bored with it or anything. And yeah, I don't think there's really a boring moment in this one. If it flies right along, sometimes literally on the wings of a bat. So I don't really have an elevator picture this one, Joe, other than it's Dracula.

Dracula comes to the talkies fully licensed.

That's right, that's right. Let's see if we're able to. Let's go ahead and listen to just a little bit of the trailer audio.

Here.

I am Dracula. I mention of the name brings to my I'm things so evil, so fantastic, so degrading. You wonder if it isn't all a dream, a nightmare.

Breath.

Rap now.

Millions of them.

The original terrifying story of a maniac and a man who lived after death, lived on human blood, took the form of a vampire bat and lured innocent girls to a fate truly worse than death.

Became to me over the same of his arm, and he made me dream.

All right. Well, you might be wondering, well, where can I want watch nineteen thirty one's Dracula. Well, I watched it on the Universal Dracula Complete Legacy Collection Blu ray Set. I rented this from Videodrome. I think you have the same addition, right, Joe.

No, I've got a slightly different thing. I've got the Universal Classic Monsters Essential Collection Blu ray set, which I highly recommend. It's got a lot of great extra I mean, all the films look beautiful. It's got a ton of great extras, documentaries and commentary tracks and all that comes with a nice little booklet. So yeah, I've enjoyed this set for years.

All Right, I think we have some of the same extras and special features. They'll share it, so definitely, you know, Universal Horror release.

Here might just be a partial repackaging kind of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, because the extras on this day and there's some great extras. They're a little bit older, but charming in ways that sometimes things from nineteen ninety nine are not. But there's a really good document short documentary called The Road to Dracula, and it's hosted by Carla Limley, who lived you know, nine through twenty fourteen. She was the niece of Universal founder Carl Limley and cousin of producer Carl Limley Junior.

And she's in the movie.

She is she has the first line of dialogue.

Yeah, she's just riding in the carriage in the borgo pass. Yes. Yeah.

So it's really fun and you know, you got some of the usual suspects, various film historians. Some will refer to Joe Dante of course shows up to talk a little about horror films, and it's a lot of fun. So these Blu rays are great. But this is of course a very famous film. It's generally available for digital purchase in rental, and it's one one of those classics that you will also periodically get to see on the big screen, which is a treat.

While we're on the subject of disc extras, I just wanted to say a couple of times I've watched this movie with a commentary track that's on the disc version I have by the film and horror historian David J. Skull. Some of the things, like probably a lot of the behind the scenes things I know know about the movie, I learned through Skall's commentary, so credit to him. That's a source of a lot of my just general information.

Yes, Skall, who sadly passed away last year, is also an important part of the documentary shorts on the disc and among his many books you'll find vas for Vampire and a to Z Guide to Everything Undead that was published in ninety six. I've already added a used copy of that to my cart I think I need that in my collection.

Uh huh, they're all undead. Okay, trying to think what the X is?

Oh yeah, might be a tough pull. Yeah, all right, Well let's talk about the connections here, the people behind this film. I do have to note that, as usual, we can't cover everyone and a film this big. I feel like there's been so much written about it and explored about the picture. Every little part has probably been explored to some degree or another, and you know, we just don't have time for all of that. So my apologies to anyone whose efforts and talent we left out here.

Yes, also worth noting that this film is incredibly huge and important in Hollywood history, and we're not going to be able to explore all of this. This is not your complete history lesson on the universal monsters in Dracula. We can't do that today. We're not really qualified for that. But we're going to do what we can, absolutely all right.

Starting at the top, the director is, of course Todd Browning, who ofd eighteen eighty through nineteen sixty two American director who was quite successful during the Silent Era and by some estimates less sure of himself entering into the talky era, and that's something you'll pick up on with this film and its frequent use of silence and at times a kind of like stagy ritualistic framing that feels very you know, in keeping with this film's roots on the stage as

Yeah, I guess we can talk more later about the different musical compositions that have been paired with the movie over the years, but one thing that will feel kind of unusual about it to a lot of modern audiences

Up, Yeah, I mean you almost it's almost unheard. Off when you compare it to modern films, like so many films are just non stop blaring music and sound effects and explosions. And it depends on the genre obviously, but yeah, it can be almost shocking how silent this picture is.

That would There would be so many There's a lot of dialogue in this movie, because generally talkies had more dialogue in them than silent films. Did I feel like that would extend the run time a lot if you had to have an intertitle for every line.

Yeah, they must have. I haven't seen it in full myself. I've just seen some clips. I'm not sure if a full version exists, but yeah, they would have to cut some stuff.

Right, I would think so, well, I don't know who knows. I've never edited a talkie into a silent film, but yeah, I would think it would. It would end up running really long and they'd have to cut some stuff down.

They should. They should do that. When the new Nosferatu film that came out, they need to do a silent film cut of it. You know, people directors keep doing like black and white cuts of films. It's like, that's great, but let's see the silent Cut's see.

What that's like.

Anyway, back to Todd Browning. Browning wrote and directed his first full length silent picture in nineteen seventeen, and found success with nineteen twenties The Virgin of Stambul. His first talkie was nineteen twenty nine's The Thirteenth Chair. That was a murder mystery that had Legosi in it as So We'll come back to and Dracula of course, followed shortly

At the time. When Browning was younger, he had some experience working with circus performers, I believe, and this sort of came out in an ongoing obsession that appears in many of his works. Certainly there in nineteen thirty two's Freaks, which is a Oh man. I haven't seen that movie in many years, but I'd be very interested to see what modern critics think about that as a retrospective. I mean, it's a very surprising film for the nineteen thirties in many ways.

Yeah, this Wears is famous for the one of Us song, right, Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of a chant. I guess it's a.

Song Google gobble one of Us.

Yeah, yeah, all right. Dracula. If you're not aware, the original novel is by Bram Stoker, who lived eighteen forty seven through nineteen twelve, Irish author and theater critic who's eighteen ninety seven novel was Seeming, You know that a lot has been written and discussed about where this novel arises.

Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't doctor Seward in the book doing like phonograph diaries or something? He was? Yes.

Another detail that we often overlook I was reading about this is that the novel was only a moderate success at the time, and Merritt's only brief mention in Stoker's nineteen twelve obituary It wasn't until the copyright battle over a little nineteen twenty two film titled Nosferatu stirred everything out.

Now, wait a minute, did bram Stoker not himself adapt the novel to the stage? I thought there was at least one play version that he wrote, but I could be wrong. Well, folks, neither of us knew the answer for sure, so I just looked it up to find out. Yes, bram Stoker did create at least one version of the novel for the stage that apparently debuted before the novel

Oh wow. So yeah, it can be little surprising to realize that the popularity of the novel really rises alongside it's sent the book cinematic history. And I think part of the sort of confusion that can occur in my opinion anyway, is the fact that we often love Dracula and Frankenstein together. But Mary Shelley's book was published in eighteen eighteen. That's seventy nine years earlier.

Yeah. So another weird thing to think about is that when this movie was made, the movie we're talking about today, the universal Dracula, the novel was only like thirty three or thirty four years old. Wow, Dracula feels like an ancient story to us. But it is the equivalent of making a movie today based on a novel that was

Yeah, yeah, that man, that's mind blowing for sure. All right, now getting into the various adaptations here, So yes, we have the authorized initial stage adaptation of Dracula by Hamilton Dean who lived eighteen seventy nine through nineteen fifty eight. He was a family friend. He was Bram Stoker's widow's

It's funny that there are so many different versions of Dracula before it even makes it to the movie that made it so famous, you know. So like, you've got the original novel, You've got Bram Stoker's stage adaptation, You've got multiple different Oh, there are play versions of the play. You got the Hamilton Dean play. You got at least a couple of versions. You said that went through revisions

Yeah, and you know, Nosfaratu was not even the first adaptation. There was a nineteen twenty one film called Dracula's Death. It was a Hungarian silent film that apparently had very little to do with the actual plot of Dracula, but still there it was.

But surely once we get the play version on Broadway starring Bella Lagosi, then that's exactly what we get in the film, right.

No, no, not no, probably not so the Broadway revision though. That's where John L. Balderston comes in. Lived eighteen eighty nine through nineteen fifty four playwriting screenwriter, and he'd later work on the screenplays for Frankenstein and also in thirty one, thirty two Is the Mummy, thirty five is Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, Dracula's Daughter, Gaslight, and many others.

Wrote a lot of my favorites of the era.

Yeah, and as we've alluded to this already and we'll keep mentioning this, the play is already a notable condensing of Dracula, which if you've ever read it, you already know that. You know. It's only like four hundred and something pages long. It's not a sprawling book in terms of length, but it can kind of feel sprawling at times, just the way that it's written composed of these overlapping correspondences,

Yeah, that's right. I mean, Dracula is the bad guy of the movie, but he is much more of the Bella Lagosi. Dracula is much more charming and interesting than the Dracula of the novel, who is a filthy, repulsive demon. Just you know, there's not the Dracula in the book is just not lovable.

Now, he's a creature of dust. He's he's more in line with this. He's an grotesque, undead warrior king. And here this is the kind of Dracula that can stand shoulder to shoulder with London's elite later on and is greeted as as an equal and is charming and erotic in ways that the original Dracula in the script in the in the novel is not.

Yeah, all right.

Garrett Fort is the screenplay credit who lived nineteen hundred and nineteen forty five. American screenwriter, playwright, and author. His credits include Franken and Dracula's Daughter The Devil Doll. Both of those Dracula's Daughter and Devil Doll were thirty six and nineteen forties, The Mark of Zaro, just to name a few.

Okay, well we got to talk about Beyla now.

Yes, Beila Legosi plays Count Dracula. Of course, lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen fifty six. So we've discussed some films with iconic, even career defining performances here on Weird House before. But the case of bel Lugosi and Dracula, I feel like this is on an entirely different level, like even compared to things like Carlos Frankenstein. It's because it's not only career defining, its genre defining. He not only becomes Dracula in this picture, but defines what Dracula

He brings a lot to the role that I think you wouldn't necessarily get about the character on the page. I don't know if Bela Legosi is the sexiest Dracula there has ever been, but he does bring a kind of interesting suaveness and attractiveness to the role. He brings a smile and a sense of humor to the character that I think was not really there previously. Was certainly not there in the previous film adaptation, like in nos Faratu.

Yeah, the sexiness of Dracula. It brings me back to what I said earlier about the about being you can be overly familiar with this picture and you can also just be more accustomed to stills from it, and maybe even stills of an older Legosi playing Count Dracula dressing up as Count Dracula. But I feel like you really

There is Dracula's embrace. Yeah, I would say that that is implicit in the film. It's not explicit like it is in a lot of the later Dracula adaptations which make him overtly sexual and stuff. But it's a strong subtext here. And to emphasize again what we said earlier that like, whatever sexual themes about Dracula are there in the novel or whatever, I do not think there's really much about him being potentially like alluring in any way. I mean, dude, whatever's there is just purely predatory.

Yeah. Yeah, again nineteen twenty two, nos Faratu not really sexy. And as we were discussing off Mike earlier, twenty twenty four, nos Faratu maybe perhaps sexy. I haven't seen it yet, But if that Nosfaratu is sexy, it's because that Nosfaratu stands in the long shadow of Bella Lagosi's.

Dracula, because that one is remixing different themes that have come through in all the different interpretations of Dracula over the years. Yes, I would argue that the new Robert Eggers knows Feratu, which I have seen and I greatly enjoyed. In fact, I was talking about this with Rachel and we were trying to say, like, is Dracula sexy in that I think the goal, actually, the specific thing they were trying to accomplish, was to go for maximally disgusting

Awesome. Well, I look forward to seeing it at some point here.

And if you look up fan reception on the internet, definitely there are a lot of people who find this, this rotting, decomposing plague corpse somewhat somewhat exciting for some reason. All right, well, I'm not knocking it, you know.

Well back to Legosi again, an immortal performance, no two ways about it. And now we've talked about Lagosi twice on the show before, in our episodes on the Devil Bat and Son of Frankenstein. He's wonderful and Son of Frankenstein, and even in Devil of bat As with many of his other like later lesser roles, he still finds a way to shine through it all. But here he is at the height of his powers, and it is a thing to behold, richly charismatic, frightening, erotic, and above all hypnotic.

What they do? Actually, I meant to bring this up in the plot section. If you know anything about this shot they do. It's a recurring visual theme where we come in on Dracula's face. Maybe the camera is moving zooming in on him, or it's just still on Dracula's face, but most of the shot is dark and there's sort of a beam of light falling over his eyes. It's just the eyes and it's just there, scowling with the

Yeah, it really adds to this like otherworldly hypnotizing power of the character. And yeah, on top of that, Legosi's performance is just one thing that's pointed out by by some of the Dracula experts is that there are no small moments at all in it. Every annunciation, but every

You know?

It's what music they make, you know. Like the choices there are so absolutely cryptic, and it feels like perfectly the perfectly calculated way that this cold, immortal being would be, you know, cutting through to our fear and desire with every word and every movement.

I couldn't agree more. I've really loved that the annunciation of the lines does add this mystery to the intended meaning of them, which lends itself well to something that is here in Legosi's performance. And actually I noticed, in all three of the movies we've covered of his, two of them much better than the other one. I mean, I really enjoyed all three. But Son of frank and

Absolutely so. As we discussed in the previous Legosi episodes, he started at a Hungarian theater in silent films before making his way to Germany and finally America via New Orleans. He's made his way to New York. He became very active in the theater, seen there, did some silent films, and eventually lands that lead role in the Broadway. Played Dracula in twenty seven, ends up moving to la in twenty eight part of the tour, and this kicks off

But I want to be clear again, not his only great performance. I mean, his turn as Igor and son of Frankenstein is fantastic, hilarious, is so good in that.

Yeah, and there are a number of other ones that are often cited. Is like strong Legosi performances. So we may have to come back to two more Legosi in the future. All right, Getting into the rest of the cast here, I'm gonna spend less time with the remainders here. But how Allan Chandler plays Mina. She lived nineteen oh six through nineteen sixty five, American actress of stage and screen,

He just as we was shadowed by the script.

Yeah, I mean, he's just he's overshadowed by yeah, other performances and also the writings. He's not sent to the castle in the opening. He does not have the Keanu Reeves version of Jonathan Harker here.

No, we need to talk about this later in the plot. But it's almost like, why is this character even in the story exactly.

He's best remembered for his roles in Dracula nineteen thirty two is the Mummy and nineteen thirty four as the Black.

Cat now Rob Again. I was surprised to find out that you'd never seen Dracula in its entirety before, but it caused me to remember back back to the first time I saw Dracula. Like you, I grew up, you know, knowing bits of it, seeing bits of it on TV and things like that, especially in clip show type things. But when I finally saw it in full honestly, one of the things that made the biggest impression on me was Dwight Frye as Renfield absolutely.

This is a just Bonker's performance by the great Dwight Frye lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen forty three, American character actor of steven screen with broad range, but best remembered for his outlandish horror roles and certainly typecast to those. After a while, he went on to play Fritz in thirty ones Frankenstein, Carl in thirty five's Bride of Frankenstein,

Renfield is really a highlight of the movie apart from Lagosi here, because in multiple ways, like the way the character is written is both intentionally and unintentionally funny, the unintentional part being like the fourth time he escapes from the sanitarium and just wanders into a scene in the house, It's like, what, how how does this guy keep getting out of his cell?

Yeah, he's kind of like the Cramer of the picture, just gonna randomly busts in whenever they need need a little uh need a little Renfield action.

Yeah, Yeah, he slides in and he's got the crazy hair and he's like, oh, the Master is gonna give me blood this time. Oh, but it's but also just he has these deranged monologues about needing lives and blood and wanting to eat spiders, and then also has kind of a you know, he's mostly a heel after being turned by the Count, but he has a face turn at one point that doesn't quite stick. It's yeah, it's it's just great. I love d white Fry here it thumbs up, thumbs up.

Yeah, if not for Legosi, he would be the most memorable performer in the piece. Yeah, totally all right. It's a Dracula movies who also have to have a Van Helsing. You have to have a Dracula slayer, and that's Edward Van Sloan, who lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen sixty four American character actor, here reprising the role that he

So he was just always the professor who shows up too to know about the monster.

Yeah, I mean, probably a little bit of typecasting going on here as well, but it's another strong performance. I really like him in this part of it is the haircut in the glasses.

Yeah, I don't know if he's ever made as huge an impression on me, but he does certainly drive the scenes in the middle of the movie that would, I think otherwise be the weakest links in the film, Basically, the investigation scenes where the heroes are trying to figure out what's going on. They're the scenes that either don't have Legosi or don't have a Dwight Fry in them yet until he burn later in the scene. Those would be the dullest parts. But he does pretty well there.

He feels a little unhinged in a great way, you know, like one of the first people to believe that we're actually dealing with vampires. You know, it's probably somebody who lives their life a little bit on the.

Edge, and later adaptations would generally take this principle a lot further, I'd say, compared to later Van Helsing portrayals, Edward Van Sloan is a pretty straight shooter. I mean, thinking about Anthony Hopkins, and Coppola's Dracula, where Van Helsing is borderline insane thinking about Willem Dafoe in the New nos Ferratu. I mean they later really embraced the idea that the professor who knows how to fight evil is himself an extremely eccentric figure.

All right. The other principal investigator here is, of course, doctor Seward, played by Herbert Bunston, who had eighteen seventy four through nineteen thirty five British actor best remembered for

His role in this movie is I say, could it be true? All right?

You can't have a Mina unless you have a Lucy. And that's where Francis Dad comes in. She lived nineteen ten through nineteen sixty eight, American actress, only active in the late twenties and early thirties. This was her most memorable role, but she has a supporting role in the nineteen thirty one Anime Wong film Daughter of the Dragon.

Like many characters in this version, Lucy's role is greatly reduced from what it is in the novel. You know, a big part of the investigation in the middle of the novel is like the character is trying to figure out what the cause of Lucy's wasting disease is. You know, why is she losing blood? What's going on? In this movie, they just like acts all that. It's done in like ninety seconds of screen time.

We of course have the brides. We'll talk more about the brides later. But Geraldine Devoric, Dorothy Tree, and Cornelia Thaw those are your brides. Let's see getting behind the scenes here a bit. Carl Fround, of course, did the cinematography, rather famous for his work on this picture and subsequent films. Lived eighteen ninety through nineteen sixty nine. Legendary Austrian Hungarian born cinematographer and director, two time Oscar winner, four time nominee.

Freud did the cinematography on most of the movies that from the nineteen thirties that I think look the best, Like a lot of the thirties movies that I see, I'm like, wow, this is gorgeous. It's like, oh, that was Carl Freud, so yeah, and the movie does look great. There are typically like the scenes in it that look the best tend to be the ones that film historians say this is like a signature Carl Freun type shot.

It's often pointed out that the not also nineteen thirty one Mexican Dracula film that they shot at night on the same sets is more technically proficient and maybe more daring and force. Part of that is that apparently they could look back at what the day crew was doing and figure out how to one up it.

Right. Yeah, So the English language production would shoot, and then they would shoot afterwards, and so they could look at all the mistakes made in the earlier shoots and like figure out ways to correct them before they before they set up.

Yeah, spice things up sometimes and so forth.

All right.

Set decoration. Russell A Gossman who lived eighteen ninety two through nineteen sixty three, Oscar winner for his work on forty fourth Phantom of the Opera and sixty one Spartacus. He also worked on other major and minor universal horror films.

Jack P.

Pierce did the makeup eighteen eighty nine through nineteen sixty eight Monster Makeup Master of the Day, who worked on like Frankenstein, The Man Who Laughs, The Invisible Man, The wolf Man, and so many others. I guess on the surface it might seem like he had less to do here. There's not There's there's no monster makeup on the level of Frankenstein in this picture, but clearly makeup is a part of bringing Count Dracula and the brides to their

I mainly associate Dracula with Swan Lake due to this movie, but I have actually seen it with the Philip Glass score that was done later. I don't know when, was that in the nineteen nineties.

Yeah, that was ninety eight legendary Philip Glass composed. It was performed by the Kronos Quartet. I've never never seen it, but I did listen to part of that while I was researching and writing up notes here, and it sounds quite good.

Oh hey, mentioning Swan Lake by the way. That is what plays over the opening credits, at least in the version I watched. And another thing I wanted to call attention to in the opening credits I don't recall if I've ever really noticed this before, is the stylized bat in the background of the title card.

Here.

You know, it works fine if you're not paying very close attention, but when you really look at it, this illustration does seem kind of odd. It looks like something that would be on like the Adam West Batman TV show. There's a whimsical, comic bookiness to it. It does not look super gothic. Yeah, yeah, it.

Looked a little art deco, I guess. But interesting that you would bring up Batman because Batman wouldn't be invented till nineteen thirty nine and first committed to the screen in forty three, So I don't know. It's not impossible that this had an influence on the Cape Crusader.

Oh yeah, I can see that, But like, do you see that the shape of the ears on the head looks exactly like the Batman logo or not the logo, like the costume.

It looks like Batman. Yeah.

Also, speaking of bats, you know, there are so many things that the like in the Dracula movie tradition that are different from how they are in the book. When I was watching this, I genuinely could not remember if Dracula transforms into a bat in the book, and I had to look it up and oh, yeah, he definitely does. That's there in the novel. The book is in fact

Yeah.

Yeah, And we get this feeling a few different points at a few different points in the picture, So this is a great point.

Yeah. Apparently this shot was accomplished by a kind of composite effect where you can bine a real, live moving photography shot of a carriage and road in the foreground and then the mountains in the background or a painted backdrop. I think I believe it was painted on a piece of glass that may actually have been done in the camera, with the painted glass positioned over the camera lens. I'm not sure about that in this shot, but Skyll talks about that for at least some of these exterior shots

Not only have I seen it, I like a lot of liberal arts majors had this on my dormitory wall. Okay, as a post or form, because I guess a lot of liberal arts majors probably see themselves like this. Sure, A lone figure standing atop a mysterious, you know, craggy environment above the mists, surveying everything. That's kind of like a gentleman scholar vibe.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, but so, how would you describe the like the landscape here, It's it's like very active and emotional and dramatic, right you mentioned the crags.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, very emotionally charged. There's a sense of wonder and possibility here, it's maybe inverted to a certain extent, or at least there's a darker sense of wonder and possibility in Dracula. But yeah, similar vibes in a way, similar.

Frequency exactly and realized through these like very jagged edged depictions of nature, you know, like just like the rocks are infused with drama. A lot of Romantic landscape paintings, I think, have this feeling depicting natural objects like mountains in particular, mountains are very popular subject of you know, painters of this style from this era, but also of rocks,

Yes, and really even in the opening here in a sense a stranger in a strange land, what's going to happen?

So anyway, we're down with the people now in the carriage, and this is the part what I think this is Carla Lemley, isn't it. Who's reading reading from like a travel book. Here there are like five or six people, one of them is Dwight Fry. They're in this carriage. Dwight Fry is in a tidy suit and tie with a white fedora, and I was just thinking, dude, you're going to go in a full three piece suit to the Borgo Pass.

It's just how you traveled back then.

So the other woman in the carriage, she's reading from the travel book, and she says, among the rugged peaks that frowned down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age and a little real world. Note this is a real mountain pass. The Borgo Pass exists. It's called some different today, but it is located in modern day Romania. At the time the novel was written, this was part of the region of Transylvania, which I believe at the time was part of Hungary. Bramstoker almost

Right right. I've often heard it pointed out that there's really more Irish mythology than Eastern European mythology. I mean, there's a bit of it the vampire of Eastern European origins, but there's a lot of Irish mythology bound up in what brown Stoker is creating here.

That's right. So Dwight Fry looks bored and annoyed. Everybody in the carriage is getting tossed around by the bumpy road, and he calls out to the driver to slow down. But another man in the carriage, a local with a mustache, leans over to sharply rebuke him, and he says, we must reach the inn before sundown. So ain't no slowing down this carriage. That is the wrong choice. We've got to go as fast as we can to get to shelter. Now,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I applaud the adaptation for doubling down on weird Renfield, and it makes for the intro to be I think, in a way more horrifying because it is going to me it will end in madness for him. He's not truly going to escape the count. But yeah, Harker is reduced to almost nothing in the picture.

I'm not trying to be mean to the actor or anything, but it's just he he has strong like why is he here energy? Yeah. One note I wanted to make about Renfield and the actor Dwight Frye who plays him here. This is from David Skal's commentary Scout talks about how you know, really Dwight Frye had the makings of a dashing leading man of Hollywood. He had good looks, he had, you know, good acting skills, like he could have been

Yeah yeah, I mean you can make some comparisons to Lugosi there as well. But yeah, a shame. It's also a shame that he died rather young heart attack or heart condition, and yeah, it's you know, what could we have gotten out of him had we had ten or twenty more years of him as an active actor.

Yeah yeah. Anyway, so back to the scene that the locals try to warn Renfield away, but he insists that he has to meet the count because he's made. He's got an appointment with Count Dracula's carriage and they've got to meet at the Borgo Pass at midnight. It sounds like fun. By the way. One of the people who tries to warn him off is this innkeeper here who is the actor is great. I love this scene where he's he's like telling him all of the vampire lore.

Yeah, yeah, I had to look this guy at. Michael Visarov, Russian born actor most mostly active in did parts in the thirties and forties.

Anyway, after this, Renfield does take off in the carriage again to meet Dracula's carriage at the Borgo Pass at midnight, and we get another great dramatic landscape shot. This was once again by combining real photography and painting. It's the

This, I believe is one of a few shots that is pointed out as being clearly inspired by twenty two's Nosferatu.

Oh yeah, okay, I don't think I would have made that connection, but that sounds right to me. Now. Interesting note, we don't see Dracula's face in this moment where the hand is coming out of the coffin. In fact, before we see his face, we see the face of one of his wives. So, despite what some movie trivia sources say, the first on screen vampire in a talkie was not Bela Lagosi, but one of his three demon brides. I'm almost certain this is the one played by Geraldine de Vorak.

However, she does not talkie herself.

That's true. Very quiet. Also in the scene possums, you know, yes, but Dracula's castles, it's full of possums. They're crawling around in the bones, they're getting up all in all the cracks, crevices. They've got a real possum issue. Oh, man.

When I started watching Dracula the other day with my kid, I wasn't fully considering it for this week's Weird House Cinema until the possums and the armadillos showed up, rooting around caskets and generally just infesting Dracula's castle. So the possums show up first, and I was like, okay, fair enough, possums look like big gross rats. I'll allow it. But then there are armadillas as well, armadillos as well. And to be clear, possums and armadillos are both endemic to

I look this up.

They can carry a number of diseases that are transferable to humans, and Armadilla's of course, can carry leprosy. Furthermore, there are slash were apparently tall tales of Armadilla's digging up graves and eating corpses.

What I've never heard that.

I mean, they do root around, and I think the idea is that this led to tall tales of them digging up and eating corpses. And you know, there may be some accounts of them, you know, eating non insect meat, scavenging it if the availability is there. I mean, we've seen that in other animals, but it seems to be just a myth and a legend. But yeah, despite all the other aspects of this adaptation of Dracula, that becomes set in stone. The inclusion of possums and Armadilla's doesn't

I do not recall it. But anyway, so after that, we finally get to the iconic shot where we first see Bella Legosi in full. He's standing tall in a black cloak with the tall collar and the dark catacombs under the stone arches and the cobwebs, with the light curiously falling on his face in a way that makes him look unnaturally pale. And the camera closes in and it brings us closer and closer to him, and it's almost like he's floating through the air toward us as

Yeah, it's like he is floating towards us. We are being drawn towards him. Yeah, we are already captivated.

We also see Dracula's brides for the first time in this scene. They're like creeping along through the catacombs, also under these arches and very very unsettling as well. So the next scene is the one where Dracula picks up Renfield at the Borgo Pass at midnight. Dracula is supposed to be in disguise as the coachman here in the novel.

Yeah, basically just as a scarf and a hat.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, maybe if you never seen in Belli lagosi before, just like, okay, it's another guy. Renfield meets the carriage in a haunted, misty landscape filled with crooked trees, and then he gets aboard. The driver does not speak. At one point along the way, Renfield looks out the window and sees the team of horses being led by a bat in flight. Good, good little moment.

Yeah.

I want to add a note here about the you know, their rubber bats on yea, on the strings. Essentially, we've seen so many flapping rubber bats on strings and various films. But here they do look really good. I mean there's never any doubt that you're watching an effect and not a real animal, but it looks really good. I absolute props.

It's a rubber bat. But I like this rubber bat. Yeah, the rubber bat is better than the rubber spider that climbs the wall in a few minutes.

Oh, it's true. Yeah, they couldn't keep live spider. They tried to use live spiders. There are some. There are some live crickets as well, but yeah, live spiders. That's got to eaten up pretty quickly.

Okay, some notes about the scene where where Renfield arrives at the castle. It's great. You know, the door creaks open by itself. Again, most people have probably seen some kind of adaptation of Dracula, so you know this scene. Renfield cautiously steps into the main hall, which looks as if it had been deserted for century. Everything's covered in just ages worth of dust, giant spiderwebs. You got bats bobbing and cheapening outside the window. Here's where we meet

Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous. The depth is amazing and is noted in the Road to Dracula documentary. This look, this set, like this really sets the tone for the look of horror films, all the horror films that come afterwards, particularly gothic horror films to come. This cathedral of the macabre. It just, yeah, you know what you're looking at here, and it just resonates through horror cinema and things adjacent to horror cinema. This is like your basic Scooby Doo

Yeah, that's right. I mean it is beautiful and it's the mother of all movie haunted castles. So we get the introductory scene he Dracula comes down the stairs with the candelabra. He says, I am Dracula. He says to Renfield, I bid you welcome. Renfield says, is just kind of nervously stammering and you know, saying a bunch of stuff

Yeah, yeah, and again yeah, the cryptic nature of it and the fact that Lugosi makes every syllable count. And I think it was Joe Dante who made the point in the Road to Dracula that Legosi also had a great ability to find every possible syllable in a word yes and bring it to full life.

The scene also has the moment where Dracula is going up the stairs and he passes through the spider web without parting it, and then Renfield going through. You know, there's a spider web across the Dracula is already gone and he has to split the web and go through, which is eerie, but there are actually no special effects needed. It's just a nominous cut. You see him walking up toward it, and it cuts away and suddenly he's on the other side of it, but it's still intact. Yeah,

It seems like he would take four.

Right.

I must be missing something here, because he needs one for each bride and then himself. But maybe there's I.

Don't know, that's a good point. Yeah.

Even then there were carry on lints and so forth. So it was like, I have four boxes and they're like, well, we have to charge you for the fourth, when he's like, I can make do with three.

So Renfield in this scene, of course, you know, he gets a paper cut all those documents. That's a little dangerous. You're gonna cut your fingers, and he does, and drac can't help himself. He starts creeping up to him, but then the sign of the cross, the crucifix given to him by the woman at the end, makes Dracula recoil and around here's where we start getting these great close ups on Dracula's face with the light just falling over his eyes where he seems to be hypnotizing the person

We know what he drinks.

So after this, Dracula leaves Renfield for the evening, but he's not leaving for long. Renfield, when finally alone, looks moderately disconcerted. But then immediately some trouble starts creeping in. So we see Dracula's three demon brides approaching the door through a misty hallway, and then Renfield goes to the window of his outside of which there are these crooked tree branches and it's a I don't know, just a very creepy kind of landscape out there again, like mists

Yeah, it's great. Steveuince and we never actually see him like bite into Renfield. Correct me if I'm wrong, But do we ever see fangs in nineteen thirty one Stracula at all?

I that's a very good point. I'm afraid to be wrong, But I think you never do. Yeah, I think you never see them. Yeah yeah.

If you do see them there, it's not much as made out of it, And it almost seems like they couldn't show for things, you know, like that would be too much for thirty one, and therefore it's implied rather than shown. And I mean you don't miss them because your imagination takes you there already.

That's right. So we get the standard interlude of a ship on route to England. A difference from most versions here is that because it's w Renfield rather than Harker who went to the castle, Renfield is on the ship with Dracula. There's like there are two creeps on this journey and he's a full on vampire thrawle already. You know, he's crouching next to the to the vampire's coffin, saying, you will keep your promise when we get to London, won't you? Master? You will see that I get lives.

I think for some reason, it's not the Demeter as well, like it has a different vent. Yeah, because they I guess, you know, they didn't give themselves enough time to make that particular ship, so they had to deal with the deal with another one.

Yeah. Yeah. So so Dracula is like he never answers the question about whether he's going to get lives, does he. He just gives him this withering look like no promises, kid.

Yeah, we've already talked about this. We're not going through all this again. Yeah, you get what you get. You don't pitch a fit.

We've got lives at home. So of course Dracula, you know, he eats the crew along the way when they arrived. The only sailors left on the ship are dead. There's one tied to the wheel, which we only see in silhouette. But here we start to get Dwight Fry's deranged high energy performance. Like they throw open the doors down into the hold and DWIGHTE. Fry is just standing there at the bottom of the of the stairs, laughing maniacally with

Yeah, it makes me think of some of the later scenes where we see him using his full power of enthrallment over victims. You know, he doesn't have to lunge, he doesn't have to move quickly because he has already snared you with his eyes. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good comparison. I don't know, I'll have to think more about that anyway. Dracula makes his way to an auditorium in the city center where a symphony performance is taking place. He eventually makes his way to the box bearing our main good characters. These are Mina Seward and Lucy Weston, two young women close friends since childhood who will become the targets of Count Dracula's blood hunt in London. Jonathan Harker again with

Yeah, unnecessary love triangle removed.

I'm in favor love Pentagon.

Yeah, Pentagon.

So Dracula uses a ploy to talk himself into the sort of opera box here to meet these characters. I think one thing I was a little unclear on is like why he's trying to meet them, And I think the issue is that he knows Renfield, his vampire Thrall, has been committed to the sanitarium the doctor Seward runs, and so he's trying to to like influence them related to that, or maybe because they're neighbors. Now, maybe that's why.

Yeah, their neighbors. He's just being neighborly. This is neighborly d.

That's exactly yes. So he introduces himself to the three younger Londoners. Doctor Seward takes a phone call, and you know, they bring up that he's moving into Carfax Abbey and Harker's like, oh, that's very old. Will it need repairs? And Dracula says, I shall do very little repairing.

This is such a great everyone plays. The next time you move to a new new town or new home, keep this one with you. When someone, when a neighbor like subtly brings up some sort of repair that might need to happen, be like, I should do very little repair.

Very good. Yeah. So, but he explains it's because he likes the way that the abbey reminds him of the old broken battlements of his castle in Transylvania. And then Lucy says, oh, you know, that reminds me of an old toast. I don't remember everything she says, but it ends with a line about dying, and then Dracula says, to die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.

Oh that's so good. And there's more too. That's great because then Mina says, why Count Dracula, and that alone is excellent. I love, oh Dracula. But then then the Count says, they are far worse things awaiting men, then death, and oh my god, this is another moment where I just love the ambiguity and the cryptic nature of it. Is he talking about hell? Is he talking about undeath?

Yes, that's right. So in this scene, Dracula somewhat charms them clearly he becomes fixated on Lucy, and in a later scene at home between Mina and Lucy, we see that Lucy's kind of fixated on him, like they're making jokes about his accent, but Lucy talks about how she's fascinated by the Count.

Yeah, they're just both kind of hanging out crushing on Dracula.

I love it. Yeah. But then later that night, in Lucy's bedroom while she sleeps, there's a bat floating out the window. You don't want that, And then he appears in Legosi form in her room, standing over her bed, and once again, he slowly descends and we cut away right as he's over her. I guess here's a good part in the in the plot to kind of take a step back and acknowledge the plot falls a follows a similar structure to most Dracula adaptations, and we can

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a quick test. But yeah, the van Helsing here, I guess maybe it's the chemistry set in the glasses kind of helps give him a slight mad scientist air for me, and I guess, like the van Helsing that I'm mostly familiar with is Peter Cushing's, and Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, of course, is very prim and proper.

Very yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy's weirder than Peter Cushing definitely. So the mystery in this is not whether it's a vampire. I mean, I guess some of the other like Seward and Harker take some convincing, but Van Helsing gets there immediately. So the miss is not like what is hurting Lucy? But it is who is the vampire? Renfield is the initial subject, and this is plausible because Renfield keeps escaping

Yeah, yeah, this is like, this is the scene where you would see the things. I feel like if we were going to see things. But yeah, it's horrifying and he's coming right at us.

Yeah, yeah. And this scene leads to doctor van Helsing doing a throat check on me and he takes her scarf off, and what do you know, She's got some punctures on the neck. She was hiding them behind a scarf. Something kind of interesting there. The movie doesn't really draw a lot of attention to it, but why was Mina hiding the wounds? Anyway, this scene is suddenly interrupted by a visit from Count Dracula. Mina kind of perks up

Well, you know, Van Helsing probably publishes in the various occult journals and you know, Dracula and his kind read up. They want to stay abreast of new findings in vampire sciences.

Of course, yeah, you got to know your enemy, right, So read what van Helsing writes. Another great thing in the scene the mirror in the cigarette case. I love this part. So Van Helsing first notices that Dracula has no reflection in the mirrored lid of a cigarette case, and then he sets a trap for Dracula where before they're parting ways, he suddenly opens the case in front of him, And I love the way Legosi reacts to

They I guess they just have a trust policy, you know, yeah, the sanatorium, like stop leaving. You're not gonna leave this time, right, Okay, I.

Promise they're on the honor system. Yeah. But Renfield in this scene, this is the part I was talking about, where he does a face turn, like he explains to the heroes that Dracula is targeting Mina and he can't let Dracula take Mina. I guess maybe Renfield loves her or just feels protective of her in some way.

I guess so.

But in this scene, Dracula reappears in bat form and menaces Renfield, which makes him clam up and declare his loyalty wants more to the Master. And then suddenly everybody goes running because a maid calls out that Mina has

Yeah, like he's an anaconda that is going to go to swallow her hole. It's super creepy.

Love it. Yeah, But fortunately we find out that Mina is not dead. She was near death, but they got there just in time. So some other stuff goes on. There's a side plot with Lucy being a vampire who's running around, you know, stealing children and stuff. But one thing that they do in this movie is there's no garlic for Mina. When they set a trap for Dracula and Mina's chambers with stuff to repel him. It's wolf Spain. It's just all wolf Spain.

Yeah, I mean, I can understand people being a little bit too familiar with garlic, and why would this scare away of vampires. Maybe we go with wolf Spaine because it has a little more mistique to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that too. Now here's where we get to. There's another Renfield escape scene, of course, and then he is describing the appeal that Dracula made to him. He says, he came and stood below my window in the moonlight, and he promised me things, not in words, but by doing them. He's talking to Van Helsing. He says, by making them happen. A red mist spread over the lawn, coming on like a flame of fire.

Yeah, in that line, he promised me things, not in words, but by doing them, like oh, this just perfect.

But promised in return for what I think it's for. I believe Renfield sabotaged the protections that against Dracula that were in Mina's room, like he got rid of the wolf Spain or something. I don't know. Somehow Dracula got into Mina's room and I think Renfield was involved, and whoops, he has turned to Mina into a vampire now, and so this is going to accelerate us toward the conclusion. The only way to get Mina back is to destroy

Absolutely.

She's talking about like I love the fog. I love nights with the fog. And it's like you never you said in the past that you hated the night time in the fog, and she's like, well, I like it now. But anyway, we're going on toward the conclusion. We know that we got have a final showdown where the heroes find Dracula's coffins in Carfax Abbey, and drive the steak

Great saint, Great Saint again. Like this said, the set is amazing that there's real tension in minutes there.

Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful. And then of course we get the final staking, the final staking of Dracula in his coffin, and Mina is rescued from her demonic fate and reunited with John. So there is a happy ending. But like many adaptations of Dracula, I thought we would mention this, the final staking of Dracula in his coffin has always felt a bit anti climactic. You know, in this case, it's not even done by the young hero who's to be reunited with his love, is done by Van Helsing.

Yeah, it's kind of like what happens to the villain. Well, we hunted him down and killed him in his sleep, like it's you know, it's it doesn't feel as heroic. I still love it, but but you know, it makes

I absolutely see what you're saying. And of course Bella Lagosi makes the character more interesting and fun and likable than he would be otherwise. I still think the universal Dracula in this movie is a less sympathetathetic character than the other monster. As you mentioned, he's less sympathetic than Frankenstein's creature. Certainly, I would also say less sympathetic than the creature from the Black Lagoon who's just hanging out

And I think that's ultimately the way I like my I mean, I like some romantic Draculas. Gary Oldman's Dracula is terrific, and that in Coppola's version, and you know, that plays up the tragic aspects of the character. But you know, I love it when when you have like a Christopher Lee Dracula or the Bell of GHOSTU Dracula that is that is more just absolutely evil, or even the Dracula in Blacula that we previously talked about in the show where that is a really evil Dracula.

Oh oh, you're talking about Dracula himself, not not the not Mama Waade.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the racist Dracula from the film.

Evil racist Dracula who's like I love drinking blood and I approve of the slave trade. Yes, that Dracula. But anyway, coming back to this thing about the anti climactic ending of staking the Dracula in his coffin, I feel like this is actually a change from the nineteen twenty two nos Feratu that was like a good a good change to you know, to invert the ending where instead of attacking the vampire in his sleep, you force him to

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

Anyway, that's the universal Dracula.

Love it absolutely. I mean, it's a classic. It's an icon for a reason, and if you haven't seen it, if you haven't seen it in a long time, it's well worth looking up. I mean, maybe save it for Halloween. But you know, why deprive yourself, go ahead and watch it now, all right, We're gonna go ahead and close the book on nineteen thirty one's Dracula. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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