Bela Lugosi's Dracula
Last sunday I walked down to my local shopping centre and bought a
DVD of the 1931 film version of Dracula. It was
an impulse buy and I bought it because the film had a score by
Phillip Glass. It is a restored and digitally enhanced
version.
It was £3 and i am sure can be bought cheaper on the 'internet' There is a bonus track which explains the origins of the film and it's relationship to Bram Stoker's book.
The film seems rather 'stage' bound to me, with many scenes set in large drawing rooms, but the opening scenes are very effective and 'black and white' certainly adds to the gothic atmosphere. There is no blood and no sex - everything is suggested - which may have been due to the morality of the time.
The Sunday before, I had listened to Goethe's 'Faust' which was broadcast on 'Radio Three' from about half past six to half past eleven. I must confess my attention began to waver after the first part and I didn't listen to the end. The rhyming couplets were easy to follow and I believe the original text had been edited somewhat. If anybody wants to get to grips with this verse drama - this play would seem to be the best option. BBC radio sometimes produce CDs of their plays and, perhaps, they might do so with this production.
Those of you who have welcomed Autumn, and those of you who lament it from abroad, have omitted the downside. What could be called the water-colour effect - white and grey washes in the sky! And then there are the approaching fuel bills - and the early, dark evenings. Jacaranda trees and the sun are welcoming too!
It was £3 and i am sure can be bought cheaper on the 'internet' There is a bonus track which explains the origins of the film and it's relationship to Bram Stoker's book.
The film seems rather 'stage' bound to me, with many scenes set in large drawing rooms, but the opening scenes are very effective and 'black and white' certainly adds to the gothic atmosphere. There is no blood and no sex - everything is suggested - which may have been due to the morality of the time.
The Sunday before, I had listened to Goethe's 'Faust' which was broadcast on 'Radio Three' from about half past six to half past eleven. I must confess my attention began to waver after the first part and I didn't listen to the end. The rhyming couplets were easy to follow and I believe the original text had been edited somewhat. If anybody wants to get to grips with this verse drama - this play would seem to be the best option. BBC radio sometimes produce CDs of their plays and, perhaps, they might do so with this production.
Those of you who have welcomed Autumn, and those of you who lament it from abroad, have omitted the downside. What could be called the water-colour effect - white and grey washes in the sky! And then there are the approaching fuel bills - and the early, dark evenings. Jacaranda trees and the sun are welcoming too!
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Universal's original plan was to make a big-budget adaptation of "Dracula" that would strictly adhere to the Bram Stoker novel. However, after the stock market crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression, Universal chose not to risk an investment on such a sprawling film. Instead, it adapted the much less expensive Hamilton Deane stage play.
Lon Chaney was considered for the title role, but he died on August 26, 1930.
Before he was cast as Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi acted as an unpaid intermediary for Universal Pictures in negotiating with the widow of author Bram Stoker in an attempt to persuade her to lower her asking price for the filming rights to the Dracula property. After two months of negotiations, Mrs. Stoker reportedly lowered her price from $200,000 to $60,000. This, however, further demonstrated to Universal how desperate Lugosi was to repeat his stage success as Count Dracula and secure the film role for himself. Lugosi was so desperate to repeat his stage success in the film that he agreed an insultingly small amount to secure the role.
Cinematographer Karl Freund achieved the effect of Dracula's hypnotic stare by aiming two pencil-spot-lights into actor Bela Lugosi's eyes.
Lugosi never blinks even once throughout the film.
When Lugosi died in 1956, he was buried wearing the black silk cape he wore for this film.
Bette Davis (who had a contract at Universal at the time) was considered to play the part of Mina Harker. However, Universal head Carl Laemmle Jr. didn't think too highly of her sex appeal.
Similar to the prologue in Frankenstein (1931), the original release featured an epilogue with Edward Van Sloan talking to the audience about what they have just seen. This was removed for the 1936 re-release and is now assumed to be lost.
The spider webs in Dracula's castle were created by shooting rubber cement from a rotary gun.
The opening music to this film is from Act 2 of Swan Lake.
There was no real musical soundtrack in the film because it was believed that, with sound being such a recent innovation in films, the audience would not accept hearing music in a scene if there was no explanation for it being there (e.g., the orchestra playing off camera when Dracula meets Mina at the theatre).
The peasants inside the inn are praying The Lord's Prayer in Hungarian.
A Spanish-language version, Drácula (1931), was filmed at night on the same set at the same time, with Spanish-speaking actors.
Several famous elements often associated with Dracula are not visible in this film. At no point does Dracula display fangs. Also, the famous vampire bite mark on the neck is never shown either (though it is visible in the Spanish version).
The studio did not want the scene where Dracula attacks Renfield to be filmed due to the perceived gay subtext of the situation. A memo was sent to the director stating "Dracula is only to attack women".
The Phillip Glass score is quite unobtrusive but I cannot help feeling some pastiche of Berlioz would have been more suitable as a musical accompaniment. Wagner is used in one theatrical scene and i thought it more effective than Phillip Glass.
I never saw the film at the cinema but I must have watched it on TV. I enjoy silent films and this film does contain many scenes, and the actors do sometimes act , as though they are in a silent film.
According to the extras on the DVD, a silent version had been released at the same time, as many cinemas were not equipped to play the sound track.
I still wonder why a musical version has not been staged? Andrew Lloyd Webber is interested in the Gothic and I remember seeing a modern version - on TV - of one of the early operettas which had, I believe, inlfuenced Wagner.
I would use a pastiche of Byron for a linking narrative - a bit like using Che in 'Evita' and give Dracula more of the voice of a romantic outsider. In my version Dracula wishes for death. He is in hell and curses that, in order to have life, he must kill those he loves. The ending of Nostrafatau is far more satisfactory in that the heroine willingly goes to her death to keep Count Orlocv occupied until the suns rises. Now, Andrew Llloyd Webber could certainly get his teeth into that death scene!
The grey is depressing, and I hate the low cloud, it is even depressing at the coast as the sea is grey too. One day as I parked the car and sighed, four dolphins leapt out of the water. At the same time one tiny glimmer of sunlight broke through the cloud and shimmered silver on the water.
I waited and waited and searched and searched but that was my glimpse and it was one of those moments.
Cloud will keep you from lonely nights MIke. But lighting a nice big candle with a chosen aroma is nice too.
One of the scenes in Oliver - the one set in a pub where Mancy sings - has a song very similar to one of my grandfather's ballads. Nothing intended by this. The song in 'Oliver' deliberately echoes a song-a-long of the nineteenth century.
Steve - we could a very interesting conversation as I have some really obscure vampire films, foreign and English speaking. I also have a few from the Blacksploitation era; Blackula is particularly amazing.
Mike - I love Faust and have been to see the play twice on Halloween, Fabulous. There is a modern Faust beingplayed all over the country at the moment.
You have good taste Mike
I contemplated a Dracula novel but I don't think it will get off the ground. In this version the vampire would have some sort of pact with fMestophales and have more of the character of Faust. Although I don't read them, some modern versions of the story make little sense. The vampire has to be old and The Lugosi film shows scenes of rats, armidollos, large spiders etc -to suggest the decay around the coffin. When the vampire drinks blood he becomes young again. A similar pact is also evident in the first Warewolf story.
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