Trivia and facts about "Dracula" (1931)
The large, expansive sets built for the Transylvania castle and Carfax Abbey sequences remained standing after filming was completed, and were used by Universal Pictures for many other movies for over a decade.
Bela Lugosi played the role of Dracula on Broadway in the stage version in 1927, before touring the country with the play. Soon after the play began touring, Universal started to express interest in the script.
Bela Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan were the only two actors in the film who also starred in the stage version.
Bram Stoker’s novel had already been filmed as “Nosferatu” in 1922, without permisson, by German director F.W. Murnau. Stoker’s widow sued for infringement of rights and the courts decided in her favor, ordering that all prints of the film be destroyed. (Thank goodness they weren’t!). Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. wanted to insure that didn’t happen with his version of the story, and obtained the rights to the novel legally. He wanted it to be a lavish production, along the lines of silent horror classics “Phantom Of The Opera” (1925), and “The Hunchback Of Notre Dame” (1923), but by 1931, and in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929, Universal was unwilling to spend that sort of money on it. Many of the opulent scenes he wanted had to be abandoned.
Lon Chaney was the first choice for the lead role of Count Dracula, but he tragically died of throat cancer in 1930. Among the other actors considered for the part were Paul Muni, Chester Morris, Ian Keith, Joseph Schildkraut and William Courtenay. Bela Lugosi lobbied hard for the part, eventually winning the studiio executives over in part by offering to accept the paltry salary of $500.00 a week for 7 weeks of work, utimately adding up to only $3,500.00.
According to numerous accounts, Tod Browing was despondent during shooting, as Lon Chaney had been a close friend (Dracula was orignally to have been a collaberation between Chaney and Browning), and cinematographer Karl Freund took over a good deal of the directing.
The film employs several hold-overs from the Silent Era; the use of intertitles, extended bouts of silence, close-ups of characters faces, and much of the acting style of the actors. Tod Browning had a solid reputation as a silent director, having made silent films since 1915, and may have not felt that at ease with sound - he retired from making movies in 1939.
The Royal Albert Hall sequence of the movie, where Dracula meets Lucy and Mina, was filmed on the same stage where “Phantom Of The Opera” (1923) was shot.
An epilogue, very similar to the prologue in Frankenstein (1931), where Edward Van Sloan told the audience “There really are such things as vampires”, was cut in the 1936 re-release and is now considered lost.
Cinematographer Karl Freund achieved the effect of Bela’s hypnotic stare by aiming two pencil spot lights into the actor’s eyes.
Bela Lugosi never blinks once, throughout the film.
Although it was his most famous role, Bela never played Dracula again, except once in “Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein” (1948), although he played vampires in other films, such as “Mark Of The Vampire” (1935), which was also directed by Tod Browning. “Mark Of The Vampire” was a remake of Browning’s “London After Midnight” (1927), a lost film.
“Dracula” was a huge gamble for a studio to take, as it was uncertain if audiences would be receptive to a feature length supernatural thriller. It proved to be a huge box office success, selling 50,000 tickets in a 48 hour period after it’s debut at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.
When Bela Lugosi died in 1956, he was buried in one of the black silk capes he wore in the film.
Today, “Dracula” (1931) is widely regarded as a classic of it’s genre, and in 2000 was selected for preservation in United States Film Registry, by The Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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