It may not seem odd in an era of Dark Shadows reruns, Anne Rice novels, and the Twilight films, but one has to wonder what moviegoers thought on Valentine’s Day, 1931. Opening in theatres nationwide was a new Universal picture the studio was promoting with the tagline “The Story of the Strangest Passion the World Has Ever Known.” The film was, of course, director Tod Browning’s adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel Dracula, with a fairly unknown Hungarian-born actor named Bela Lugosi as the undead title count.
Much has been said over the past nine decades about Dracula: how it became a box office sensation that birthed the Universal Monsters franchises; how its success both made Lugosi a star and doomed him to be typecast as a “horror actor”; how no one can explain why there are opossums and armadillos living in Dracula’s Transylvanian castle ruins. But, since today is February 14th, our focus is going to be on how the movie holds up as a dark romance compared to Stoker’s 1897 tale. The answer, honestly, is “only so-so.”
Many liberties were taken in the transition from the original book to the 1920s stage plays produced in London and on Broadway (the latter featuring Lugosi) to the final film script. Among the more notable were how Mina (Helen Chandler), the object of Dracula’s attentions, was changed from simply being Jonathan Harker’s fiancée to also the daughter of sanitarium director Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston). Meanwhile, Mina’s friend Lucy (Frances Dade) becomes one of the Count’s first victims upon his arrival in England. Lucy is turned into a vampire herself, but she’s barely shown in her undead state and her cinematic final fate remains a mystery.
Modern audiences will notice that Lugosi’s Count is never actually seen biting Lucy–or Mina, or anyone else, for that matter–on the neck. It’s implied, of course, but such a “violation” apparently was considered too delicate a topic for 1930s audiences. Instead, the film simply fades out before Dracula gets a chance to sink his fangs (which are also never shown). Fun Fact: the first vampire movie to depict canine-tooth fangs was an unauthorized 1953 Turkish effort, Dracula in Istanbul.
Truth be told, the “love story” between Dracula and Mina is given surprisingly short shrift. We know that he is drawn to her and eventually carries her off to–one assumes–make her his newest bride (it looks like he left his three other spouses back in Transylvania). But the 1931 film comes up lacking in the romantic chemistry department, particularly when compared to such other iterations as Hammer Film’s 1957 Horror of Dracula with Christopher Lee, the 1979 Dracula (also based on the ’20s play) starring Frank Langella and Kate Nelligan, Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola, and even the Spanish-language version, shot at the same time as Browning’s with a different cast.
Still, the 1931 Dracula more than holds up as a horror classic. What’s more, Lugosi’s aristocratic performance firmly established the public perception of the vampire as a suave and seductive villain. After all, prior to this the silent era’s two most famous bloodsuckers were Max Schreck’s Count Orlock from 1922’s Nosferatu and Lon Chaney as “The Man in the Beaver Hat” in Browning’s London After Midnight from 1927. And let’s face it;
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The way these two guys look, neither of them are going to be getting a lot of valentines today.