Tod Browning - Dracula [+Extras] (1931)

The first official Dracula movie was directed by Tod Browning, with a screenplay based on the stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The title role was played by Bela Lugosi. Also starring in the film were David Manners as Jonathan Harker, Helen Chandler as Mina Murray/Harker and Dwight Frye as Renfield.

Carl Laemmle Jr had originally intended the movie to be a lavish production to rival both The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, and, like those films, Laemmle insisted it must star Lon Chaney (despite him being under contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Tod Browning was then approached to direct this new Universal epic, however, a number of factors would limit Laemmle's plans: Firstly, Chaney (who had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 1928) had sadly succumbed to his terminal illness.
Furthermore, studio financial difficulties, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, caused a drastic reduction in the budget, forcing Laemmle to look at a cheaper alternative (this meant several grand scenes that closely followed the Stoker storyline had to be abandoned). Already a huge hit on Broadway, the tried and tested Hamilton Deane/John L. Balderston Dracula play would become the blueprint and the production gained momentum. However, the question of who would play the Count remained. This would fall to the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, but not without controversy. Originally Carl Laemmle Jr had stated that he was not interested in Lugosi, despite him receiving warm reviews from his already famed portrayal on the stage, and sought to hire another actor. However, Universal eventually went ahead with Lugosi (at a reduced salary), and his portrayal is widely viewed as the definitive Dracula. In fact, despite his earlier stage successes in a variety of roles, the Dracula role would forever typecast him.

The eerie speech pattern of Lugosi's "Dracula" was said to have resulted from the fact that Lugosi did not speak English, and therefore had to learn and speak his lines phonetically. This is a bit of an an urban legend. While it is true that Lugosi did not speak English at the time of his first english-language play in 1919, and he had learned his lines to that play in this manner. By the time of his filming this role Lugosi spoke English as well as he ever would.

The film was a great success, and newspapers reported that members of the audiences fainted in shock at the horror onscreen. This publicity, shrewdly orchestrated by the film studio, helped ensure people came to see the film, if for no other reason than curiosity.

A box office success in its day, which has come to be regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre, it has been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry, and was one of a group of films (including Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man) that formed the bedrock of Universal Studios' horror movie series of the 1930s and 1940s.