"This is David skal, and I bid you welcome to universal's Dracula." "I'm going to spend the next hour and 15 minutes as your tour guide to one of the most influential yet underappreciated films in hollywood history." "Introduced by novelist Bram Stoker in 1897," "dracula is one of the most durable fictional creations in modern times." "The universal film, directed by Tod Browning, secured the master vampire's image for the age of mass media." "But Stoker himself would barely have recognised most of the DracuIas we've known and loved in the 20th century, and therein lies a tale." "I'II discuss the simultaneously produced Spanish-Ianguage version, also included on this special edition, and will draw extensively from Stoker's original novel, from the stage adaptations, from universal's final shooting script, and earlier scripts and treatments," "all to better illuminate the creative processes and creative conflicts that forged the most indelible image of a vampire the world has ever known." "The coach rumbling our way is real, even if the mountains aren't." "The entire image was captured live in the camera in a single take, through an interesting process." "I'II explain a bit further on." "Here we meet carla LaemmIe, the niece of universal's founder carl LaemmIe, delivering the first lines of dialogue ever spoken in a supernatural horror talkie." "I should mention that carla is also the host and narrator of our special documentary supplement, The Road to Dracula, which you can access through the main menu." "..nosferatu." "The word "nosferatu" has a special significance in the history of Dracula, which we will explore in due time." "The peasants are reciting the Lord's Prayer in Hungarian." "The signage you will glimpse on the inn's exterior wall is also in Hungarian." "When Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, the region around the Borgo Pass was part of TransyIvanian Hungary." "Today it's in Romania, where DracuIa tourism is a big part of the economy." "Just like RenfieId, actor Dwight Frye is very much a stranger in a strange land, having only recently arrived in hollywood after a varied career as a Broadway actor." "And, Iike RenfieId, little does he know what he's in for." "More about that later." "In the film version, RenfieId has replaced the novel's hero Jonathan Harker as the reaI-estate agent who has come to TransyIvania to sell DracuIa a home." "The innkeeper is michael Visaroff, a Russian-born character actor who fled his homeland after the bolshevik revolt." "He acted on the New York stage for some years, coming to hollywood in 1924, at first working for Paramount." "Tod Browning used him in a parallel role in 1935's Mark of the Vampire for MGM." "He appeared in the opening sequence of Tod Browning's Freaks in 1932, and in dozens of colourful cameos in major productions such as Morocco, Anna Karenina, and Camille." "He was a mainstay of the Russian colony in hollywood for nearly three decades." "In a macabre endnote to his life and career," "Visaroff figuratively left his own coffin in 1951 , when a New York paper erroneously reported his death." "Finding his employment prospects suddenly curtailed," "Visaroff appealed to the columnist LoueIIa Parsons, who publicly confirmed that reports of the actor's death, Iike Mark Twain's, were greatly exaggerated." "But just a few weeks later, as Parsons was still contradicting reports of the actor's demise, she received the news that michael Visaroff actually had died, carried away by a sudden bout of pneumonia." "Today, TransyIvanian innkeepers will do almost anything to encourage travellers to visit the real DracuIa's castle." "Or at Ieast its designated surrogate." "The movies tell us that the crucifix is an effective vampire repellent, a representation to believers of the true death and Resurrection of Christ, as opposed to the blasphemous inversion of the Resurrection shown by a vampire." "In more recent films and novels, vampires are less likely to cower before the cross." "In universal's 1979 remake, for instance, the dynamic is completely reversed." "Not only is DracuIa unaffected by the symbol, but the cross itself bursts into flames in dracula's presence." "Cinematographer KarI Freund was a pioneer of the moving camera." "In Germany he had filmed Metropolis for Fritz Lang, and The Last Laugh for FW Murnau." "In Dracula he seems constrained, perhaps by director Browning, who was traditionally partial to a more static camera, and tracking shots like this appear only sporadically." "Coming up is the first supernatural vampire ever depicted in hollywood, actress GeraIdine Dvorak, formerly Greta Garbo's stand-in at MGM." "And here, in an unforgettable shot, the 1931 public first met Count DracuIa, in the person of BeIa Lugosi." "He seems to pull us toward him, each audience member a potential victim." "Notice that that shot was off-centre." "This results from the original fuII-aperture image being masked on one side, to make room for the optical soundtrack." "This next scene is highly atmospheric, but it does present a puzzle." "In the novel, the Spanish film version, and the antecedent film Nosferatu," "dracula's face is completely muffled." "It's incomprehensible that RenfieId later falls to recognise the driver at the castle." "The shooting script calls for dracula to be, quote:" ""almost completely hidden in the folds of his great cloak, and has a hat pulled down over his face, so that nothing of him is visible, save a pair of bright, almost feverish, eyes." Unquote." "The Borgo Pass is a real location, but not a place Stoker or his adaptors had actually visited." "In reality it's a lushly forested region, but both the novelist and the filmmakers wanted something more atmospheric." "From the shooting script, quote:" ""There are queer, grotesque-Iooking trees, with twisted black branches, huge misshapen rocks that in moonlight seem to take on fantastic shapes."" ""The whole area through which the coach is passing has a grim, macabre quality, as if taken bodily from a Dore steel engraving."" "As discussed in our documentary supplement, upcoming is a "glass shot"." "The upper portion of the image is painted on glass mounted in front of the camera, and photographed simultaneously with the live action." "The coach and rocky roadbed are live, and the rest of the image is an optical illusion." "The geological formations in the lower part of the picture can still be visited at Vasquez Rocks Park, in the antelope valley north of Los angeles." "The horses being led by a bat was the invention of screenwriter Fritz Stephani, who imagined the scene in universal's first treatment for Dracula in June, 1930." "RenfieId's cautious approach to the door of castle dracula is emblematic of hollywood's attitude toward DracuIa himself." "although the stage play had earned more than $2 million in America alone, the studios were as much repelled as attracted by the grotesque, frankly fantastic character and subject matter." "But once RenfieId had crossed DracuIa's cobwebby threshold, fantastic and uncanny themes would no Ionger be taboo in the American cinema." "A virtual land rush would follow at universal and other studios, with Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Mummy, and so many others." "This extraordinary set, magnified to soaring heights by another glass painting, was constructed on universal's Stage 12, a facility still in use today." "The 18ft-wide spider web was constructed on a wire framework, built up with filaments of rubber cement shot from a rotary gun, Iike cotton candy." "dracula's first appearance is much more theatrical in the Spanish version, but the simplicity of Stoker's introduction of the count is also worth consideration." "Quote: ".." "I heard a heavy step approaching from beyond the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light."" ""Then there was the sound of chains and the clanking of bolts drawn back."" ""A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back."" ""Within stood a tall old man, cIean-shaven save for a Iong white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour."" "I am Dracula." ""'welcome to my house!" "Enter freely and of your own will!"" ""He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone."" "I bid you welcome." ""The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength that made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice " "more like the hand of a dead than a living man."" "Listen to them - children of the night." "What music they make!" "It is fashionable in recent adaptations of Dracula to modify this famous line to:" ""what sad music they make" or "what sweet music they make", but Lugosi intones it with just the note of malevolent ambiguity that Stoker originally intended." "Today, dracula would probably have walked through the spider web with the aid of some digital effect, but consider how much more chilling it is not to see the action." "Prompted by what is unseen, we complete the uncanny event in our minds." "As shot, dracula's following line originally began, quote:" ""The eternal struggle for life, each living creature must have blood to live."" "The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly." "The blood is the life, Mr Renfield." "dracula is quoting from Deuteronomy 12.23, an injunction against consuming blood, one of many explicit and implicit biblical references in Stoker." "I'm sure you will find this part of my castle more inviting." "The sound technicians didn't find DracuIa's chambers hospitable at all." "According to studio publicity, this scene was delayed for hours, at some expense, until the loud crackling of the fire logs died down." "BeIa Lugosi, whose real name was BeIa BIaskó, was born in Lugos, Hungary, in 1882." "He became fascinated with the theatre at an early age, much to his parents' disappointment, and worked in provincial productions, and finally secured a company position with the national theatre in Budapest." "Contrary to some accounts, he played mainly minor roles at the national theatre, a source of endless frustration for him." "Postwar political upheaval and his activities as a union organiser forced him to flee his homeland in 1919." "He worked in German films before coming to the United States in 1920 to look for more rewarding work as a stage actor." "He learned many of his EngIish-Ianguage roles phoneticaIIy, resulting in the deliberate, oddIy-infIected diction we now forever associate with Count DracuIa." "curiously, this is another characteristic at odds with Stoker's vampire, who took great pains to speak english without any trace of an accent." "You may notice a continuity jump, as RenfieId's valise suddenly leapt from DracuIa's hands flat onto the table." "dracula's enquiry as to whether RenfieId has destroyed all his correspondence has been cut, resulting in an abrupt edit." "Another line, cut from an earlier script, would have revealed RenfieId as the sole proprietor of his reaI-estate practice, and therefore unlikely to be missed in the event of his disappearance." "I hope I've brought enough labels for your luggage." "I am taking with me only three... boxes." "In the novel, dracula takes no chances." "He packs 50 wooden boxes with his native soil." "Here are some more of Stoker's original descriptions of the count." "Quote:" ""His face was a strong - a very strong - aquiIine, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils;" "with lofty, domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the face and temples, but profusely elsewhere."" ""His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, with bushy hair that curled in its own profusion."" ""The mouth, so far as I couId see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather crueI-Iooking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth."" "End quote." "Stoker's dracula also has pointed ears, pointed fingernails, hair growing in his palms, and bad breath to boot." "The finger-cutting sequence is taken directly from" "FW Murnau's 1922 German film Nosferatu, an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, which universal studied closely." "The editing here reveals another continuity jump." "RenfieId's bed is suddenly turned down, although DracuIa has not had the time to perform the courtesy." "One of the most famous lines in Dracula is not taken from the novel or the play, but is original to the universal film." "When the play was revived on Broadway in 1977, the line was added to the script, presumably because audiences have come to expect it." "I never drink... wine." "Notice how many religious images have come together in this scene." "The churchIike architecture." "dracula's ritualistic demeanour before an aItarIike table." "The partaking of bread, wine and blood." "The display of a crucifix." "A very unusual, nearly 180-degree camera move." "incidentally, this is not the first time Dwight Frye had acted with BeIa Lugosi." "They had appeared together, along with Fredric March, in the Broadway comedy The Devil in the Cheese in 1926." "But after Dracula, both Lugosi and Frye would find comedy roles few and far between." "The novel Dracula is full of Shakespearean allusions, and dracula's three wives, as imagined by Stoker, are likely inspired by the weird sisters in Macbeth." "In addition to GeraIdine Dvorak, the other actresses are Dorothy Tree and CorneIia Thaw, whose real name was MiIdred Pierce." "Another continuity Iapse." "In the script," "RenfieId makes the fatal mistake of removing the crucifix, an action explicit in the Spanish version." "Here, the shot, if filmed, seems to have been deleted." "In the approved shooting script and in the Spanish version," "RenfieId is attacked by dracula's wives and not by dracula himself." "In a later script, though not the shooting script, a wonderful effect is proposed:" "that the camera be placed on the floor in RenfieId's helpless position as the ghostly faces of the women descend upon him." "The vision of dracula repeIIing the women and claiming the male visitor for himself is one of the earliest images that fired Bram Stoker's imagination." "It brings to completion the uneasy atmosphere of homoerotic seduction that has coloured the entire sequence." "In Bram Stoker's own theatrical adaptation, which he presented as a staged reading in 1897," "dracula goes so far as to sweep the unconscious visitor up into his arms and carry him into the shadows, much like Rhett butler's rape of scarlett O'Hara." "In the modernised stage play upon which the film is largely based," "dracula makes his risky journey to england in an aeroplane," "leaving TransyIvania at dusk and arriving at wimbledon aerodrome before dawn." "Fritz Stephani suggested that the plane have wings shaped like those of a bat." "This approach was wisely avoided." "Due to budget constraints, the sequence was constructed from footage taken from a universal silent called The Storm Breaker." "The jerky, speeded-up appearance of the film is the result of silents being shot and projected at a slower speed than taIkies." "Like RenfieId, and because of RenfieId," "Dwight Frye himself would soon be transformed into a lunatic, at Ieast from the standpoint of hollywood casting directors, who, after DracuIa, had little use for Frye's demonstrated versatility as a Broadway character actor." "also in 1931 , James whale cast him in another demented role, that of the hunchbacked laboratory assistant Fritz, in Frankenstein." "Thereafter, Frye found himself in a very narrow career groove, but, luckily for film fans, he gave some of the most enjoyable performances in the entire universal canon." "Had this scene followed the script and not been made from stock footage, we would have been treated to the following:" ""Large cIose-up." "dracula, fangs bared."" ""Medium shot." "sailor vauIting over the rail into the sea."" ""CIose-ups ad lib, to be worked out in detail later, ending with a huge and impressive shot of dracula, arms upraised, dark cloak billowing in the gale, about to close in on a screaming helpless wretch he has cornered."" "The voice of the harbour master is that of Dracula's director, Tod Browning." "Born charles albert Browning in louisville, Kentucky, in 1880," "Browning got a start in show business via travelling carnivals and freak shows, for which he had a morbid fascination" "long after he became one of the highest-paid directors in hollywood." "Browning's films are filled with outsiders and misfits, and disturbing images of physical deformity." "He forged a winning partnership in the 1920s with Lon Chaney, the famous "Man of a Thousand Faces", who was similarly drawn to themes of mutilation and disability." "universal hoped to have Chaney work with Browning on Dracula, where the actor's skill as a make-up artist would likely have created a dracula very much unlike the one we've come to know, but Chaney was stricken with terminal cancer before a contract was finalised." "This legendary shot was not scripted, and resulted from an inspired improvisation between Frye, Browning and Freund." "Frye's son, also named Dwight, told me that he is still startled from time to time by waiters and sales people who, recognising his name on a credit card, spontaneously regaIe him with imitations of his father's otherwise inimitable laugh." "The inclusion of this newspaper is the film's closest echo of Stoker's use of accumulated documents to tell his story:" "journals, diaries, letters and clippings." "Stoker modelled his shipwreck on an actual maritime disaster, and probably got the idea of a vampire arriving on a storm-tossed ship" "from an 1847 penny-dreadfuI novel called Varney the Vampire." "The sound of traffic is the first inkling we are seeing a film set in the 20th century." "An interesting bit of scripted action was cut here, though possibly shot." "There is no parallel scene in the Spanish version." "Quote: "He nods slowly, indicating that he'II take a flower, and makes a sign that she is to place it in his buttonhole."" ""She selects a flower, and with a haIf-timid, haIf-coquettish air starts to obey."" ""Camera moves forward to a Iarge cIose-up of her face, as her eyes start to move in a dizzy, circular movement under the spell of dracula's hypnotic stare."" "The shooting script also described DracuIa parting his lips to reveal fangIike teeth." "I'm virtually certain the flower girl was played by a young actress, Anita Dardour, who did not much longer pursue a hollywood career, but later, under her married name, Anita Harder, was active in Santa Barbara community theatre," "where she enjoyed recounting being BeIa Lugosi's first victim outside TransyIvania." "The script has a description here of a moving camera shot worthy of KarI Freund that was never quite realised." "Through dense fog, which starts slowly to clear, brilliant lights appear, and the crowd becomes denser." "We see men in top hats and the gleam of white shoulders, the richness of furs." "Music was used sparingly in early talkies," "limited to title sequences and scenes where music was actually performed." "We just heard a snippet of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, followed rather abruptly by the prelude to Wagner's Die Meistersinger." "The film's opening-titIe music is from Act Two of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which became a trademark for universal's early horror films." "It also opens Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mummy." "And here we meet the rest of the principal supporting cast." "From left to right, helen chandler as Mina Seward, David Manners as John Harker," "Herbert Bunston as Dr Seward, and Frances Dade as Lucy Weston." "dracula movies tend to be very cIass-conscious." "The aristocratic vampire invariably dominates working-cIass characters:" "maids, nurses, and other economically subservient women." "By 1931 the Depression had drawn sharp lines between the haves and have-nots, and perhaps this accounts for some of the film's fascination for audiences then." "It is very puzzling how KarI Freund could have set up such a badly composed shot, with dracula standing outside and below the box." "It was probably this shot that led one cleveland reviewer to conclude in print that Lugosi must be an actor of very short stature." "The young performers" " helen chandler, David Manners and Frances Dade - had only brief careers in hollywood, and all for very different reasons." "In Stoker's novel and the stage adaptations, Carfax is only a house, but in the universal film it becomes, for the first time, an abbey." "It is a stand-in, obviously, for Whitby Abbey, a ruin on the North Yorkshire coast that Stoker knew well, and features prominently in the first portion of his novel." "Frances Dade came from a prominent philadelphia family, acted in stock, and toured with the stage production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in the late '20s, before her short fling with hollywood." "Her first film was Raffles, with ronald colman." "In a later script draft, this exchange with dracula takes place at Lucy's home, where she has just given a harp recital." "Dade returned to philadelphia in the mid-'30s, married, and at the time of her death in the 1960s, was reported to have been working as a nurse." "A curious landmark moment, as helen chandler gives the first vocal imitation of Lugosi as dracula on record." "No one dreamed then that Lugosi's voice would become one of the most imitated and instantly recognisable in hollywood history." "In real life, chandler and Dade were the closest of friends." "chandler had acted professionally from age eight, and had an impressive list of stage credits in New York." "She had played one of the young princes in John Barrymore's Richard lll, and appeared as OpheIia in Horace Liverwright's modern-dress Hamlet." "Just prior to Dracula, she appeared in the screen adaptation of Sutton Vane's drama" "Outward Bound, about a ship whose passengers don't yet realise they're dead and sailing toward judgment." "chandler seemed to have a promising career ahead, but she also had her own private vampire - alcohol " "which would very soon begin to destroy her, personally and professionally." "An alternate take of this shot with Lugosi, along with many others, can be seen in the Spanish version, where they were used as a cost-cutting measure." "although bats have long been associated with the supernatural," "Bram Stoker was the first writer to suggest a human vampire's" "literal transformation into a vampire bat." "The association of vampires with werewolf transformations, however, had long been established in folklore and literature." "Here is the scene's description before being toned down for the shooting script." "Quote: "She has given up reading and is Iying back, eyes closed as if dreaming."" ""A slight smile plays upon her lips."" ""She breathes evenly, and as her head lies back we see her beautiful white throat and a suggestion of her weII-formed bosom."" "And moments later, as dracula approaches for the kill, quote:" ""His lips part and his head bends nearer to her throat."" ""The teeth seem to have an almost canine appearance, as his mouth is about to touch her neck." Unquote." "The Spanish film also avoids fangs, but more effectively ends the scene with dracula pulling his cape over his sleeping victim like a shroud." "In the novel, Lucy took weeks to die." "In hollywood, dracula worked much more efficiently." "More moving camera work from Freund, this shot made with an hydraulic crane, also used by cinematographer George Robinson for the dramatic staircase appearance of dracula in the Spanish version." "The ward attendant is charles Gerrard, an actor who had appeared the previous year, along with David Manners, in the film of RC Sheriff's acclaimed world War I drama Journey's End." "The director, James whale, would soon be recruited by universal, where he would eclipse Tod Browning, with an incomparable flair for films like" "Frankenstein, The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man." "Browning never seemed comfortable with taIkies or with directing dialogue, whereas whale had the advantage of being a stage director at a time when hollywood was actively recruiting new talent from theatre." "Here we are introduced to the unorthodox scientist Professor Van helsing, played by the character actor Edward Van SIoan." "Like Lugosi, Van SIoan created this part in the original Broadway production." "The producers had seen him portray a psychiatrist in a drama by Franz WerfeI, and thought he would be perfect." "He told a reporter that he had never been in a play that ran more than a few weeks, but the New York and road-show versions of Dracula kept him occupied for 22 months." "We are dealing with the... undead." "Nosferatu!" "Yes, nosferatu." ""Nosferatu" is a word Stoker found in a book by the Scottish foIkIorist emily Gerard, called The Land Beyond the Forest, the literal meaning, by the way, of the word "TransyIvania"." "Gerard mentioned that "nosferatu" was the Romanian term for vampire, and Stoker took her word for it." "He used the word authoritativeIy in his novel, and it was further popularised as the title of FW Murnau's unauthorised film adaptation of 1922." "The problem is, "nosferatu" cannot be found in any dictionary or lexicon," "Romanian or otherwise." "Its real meaning and derivation, therefore, are matters of conjecture and mystery." "Dr Seward is played by Herbert Bunston, who reprises his Broadway role." "Born in england, Bunston made his London stage debut in 1897, coincidentally the year of Dracula's first publication." "He's the only person connected with the 1931 film who also had a connection with Bram Stoker, who was acting as general manager of Sir Henry Irving's royal Lyceum Theatre when Bunston performed there at the turn of the century." "Bunston died in 1935." "With this scene, the pacing of the film slows considerably." "So, as Dr Seward and Professor Van helsing discuss vampire superstition," "I'II give a fuller outline of the genesis of Stoker's novel in folklore and literature, and its transformations via the theatre that resulted in the classic film we are now watching." "Legends of spirits who return from the dead to drain the blood of the living are as old as recorded history." "It is Eastern European folklore that most informs Dracula, but the image of the vampire as a decadent, predatory aristocrat is not part of the folklore tradition at all." "Rather, it derives from Romantic literature, in particular a short story called The Vampyre by John PoIidori, published in 1819." "PoIidori was the physician and travelling companion of Lord Byron, whose scandalous personal life was the inspiration for PoIidori's supernatural Iady-kiIIer, Lord Ruthven." "PoIidori's story inspired seven stage plays and two operas in the 19th century, and their influence on Dracula is considerable." "novelist Bram Stoker was born just outside of dublin in 1847." "He was a sickly child, and one can't read about his early life without being reminded of all the anxious sickbed scenes in Dracula." "Stoker overcame childhood illness, attended Trinity college, and afterward became a civil servant." "But his real passion was the theatre." "while working as an unpaid drama critic for a dublin paper, he met a rising english actor-manager named Henry Irving." "Stoker was overwhelmed with Irving's charisma, and devoted his professional life for the next three decades to managing Irving's company and its base of operations, the Lyceum Theatre." "almost all commentators on Stoker have noted his slavish devotion to Irving, a relationship that virtually eclipsed his own marriage." "Given the fact that Stoker was publishing vast amounts of fiction on the side, it is difficult to imagine what time for a domestic or personal life he had at all." "One is tempted to find an echo of his professional bondage in Dracula:" "the Lyceum as the castle and Henry Irving as the count," "Stoker as the imprisoned Jonathan Harker." "In fact, Stoker sorely wanted Irving to play DracuIa on the Lyceum stage." "Like PoIidori, Stoker also seems to have intended his vampire as a backhanded tribute to a difficult, controlling benefactor." "He spent nearly six years researching, writing and revising Dracula, apparently in the hope of achieving a creative collaboration with Irving, not just a business partnership." "In our documentary supplement you can see Stoker's working notes for Dracula, as well as some photos of Henry Irving." "Irving, however, spurned Stoker's efforts to recruit him as a vampire." "A Chicago drama critic recalled Stoker's complaints during one of Irving's tours." "Quote: "When the late Bram Stoker told me he had put endless hours in trying to persuade Henry Irving to have a play made from Dracula and act in it, he added that he had nothing in mind save the box office."" ""'If', he explained, 'I am able to have my name on the book, the governor can afford, with business bad, to have his name on the play."'" ""'But he laughs whenever I talk about it, and we have to go out and raise money to put on something in which the public has no interest."' End quote." "Stoker went on to describe Irving as dracula as a composite of the actor's celebrated villains:" "MephistopheIes in Faust," "ShyIock in The Merchant of Venice, and many others." "In his earliest outlines, Stoker structured his story like a Shakespearean play, in five acts, or "books" as he called them." "The vampire's name was originally Count Vampyre, until Stoker came across a reference to the ferocious 15th-century warlord named VIad Tepes, popularly known as dracula, meaning "son of the devil"." "although Stoker did little research into the historical DracuIa, appropriating the name was one of his greatest inspirations." "Back to the film for a scene or two." "There is controversy about the degree of Tod Browning's control over the film." "David Manners told me personally that Browning directed none of his scenes, that the production was disorganised, and that his only direction came from cameraman KarI Freund." "Freund must have been very distracted with extra responsibilities for this scene." "Notice the very ragged piece of cardboard some grip has obviously used to shield the practical lamp for a cIose-up." "Notice how it never goes away, even for the Iong shots." "One gets the feeling no one is in the director's chair or behind the viewfinder." "In fairness to Browning, even a more polished director like whale was capable of things just as sloppy." "In our special edition of Frankenstein, see the operating-tabIe shot, where a sheet has fallen off the monster's draped form, revealing someone's neatly polished dress shoe." "But back to DracuIa." "At the time helen chandler made this film, she was married to screenwriter CyriI Hume, who would eventually write the science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet." "The marriage failed quickly." "chandler next married the actor BramweII FIetcher, best remembered by universal horror fans as the young archaeologist who goes out of his mind after reviving Boris karloff in The Mummy." "This marriage crumbled, as she began a seIf-destructive spiral of drink, drugs and periodic commitment to sanitariums." "By 1935, her film career was essentially over." "She fell out of public view until 1950, when, heavily sedated with sleeping pills, she was badly burned in a hollywood bedroom fire, bringing a flurry of lurid press attention." "The world never heard from her again." "She died in 1965, following surgery for massively bleeding ulcers." "She was cremated, but her ashes were never claimed." "The novel Dracula was a departure from previous vampire stories, plays, operas, in that Stoker did not romanticise DracuIa, and our 20th-century image of the count is a hybrid of Stoker's character and vampires from other literary sources." "Stoker's dracula engenders disgust rather than attraction, and is an amalgam of qualities that Iate-Victorian england found repulsive." "There was a strong current of cultural xenophobia in the 1890s, and many Britons felt threatened by waves of immigration." "Foreigners were frequently viewed as a threat to cultural and racial purity, and demonised as biologically degenerate, according to a distorted understanding of the theories of charles Darwin." "dracula himself is a perfectly Darwinian monster, changing shape up and down the evolutionary scale." "He is an invading foreigner, with a strong anti-Semitic coloration, much like ShyIock, Fagin or SvengaIi." "How long have you had those little marks?" "Marks?" "Examination of the skin for telltale marks was a common anxiety ritual for sexually active Victorians." "Stoker may have been less familiar with "the blood is the life" as a biblical quote, than as an advertising tag line for a quack remedy for "bad blood", a euphemism for syphilis." "Some scholars argue that Stoker may have suffered from tertiary syphilis, then untreatabIe, which could have hastened his death in 1912." "The novel offers many strange reflections of other Victorian sexual anxieties as well." "Many Victorian men were disturbed by the growing assertiveness of women." "The concept of the "new woman" was routinely mocked and vilified in the mainstream press as monstrous and degenerate." "In Dracula, women's sexuality is shown as a kind of evolutionary throwback" "linked to blood contamination by a foreigner." "The lusty vampire women in Dracula are caricatures of Victorian prostitutes, who were popularly scapegoated as vectors of venereal disease and the destruction of the middIe-cIass family." "dracula's first two screen appearances were not authorised by Stoker's widow." "The first, in fact, probably escaped her notice." "Dracula's Death, directed in Hungary by KaroIy Lajthay in 1921 , concerned a musician, committed to an insane asylum, who believes he is the immortal vampire." "He makes the mistake of inviting someone to fire a bullet at him, hoping to prove his immortality." "Dracula's Death only used the name, but, the following year in Germany, FW Murnau directly adapted Stoker's novel as" "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, featuring a dracula more repulsive than anything Stoker envisioned, haIf-human and haIf-rat." "although Nosferatu disguised the character names," "Bram Stoker's widow convinced the German courts to declare the film a plagiarism and order all prints destroyed." "fortunately for film history, several copies did survive, and Nosferatu is now considered an Expressionist classic." "The scene with the mirror originated in Stoker's novel, when Jonathan Harker, interrupted by dracula while shaving, cannot see the count's reflection in his shaving glass." "The vampire, of course, reacts violently." "In the Deane/BaIderston version," "Van helsing makes the discovery in a waII-hung mirror, which DracuIa shatters with a vase." "In Deane's earlier stage version, apparently as a budgetary measure," "dracula only started to hurl the vase, but then thought better, saving his producer the cost of replacing an expensive prop for every performance." "Mirrors traditionally have many deep connections with the supernatural." "After all, mirror reflections split us into two aspects, and "the double" was always associated with the dark side of human nature, the side we don't want reflected." "In the Spanish version, dracula intensifies the mirror smashing by using his cane." "although we now regard DracuIa as a quintessential screen icon, modern DracuIa image is, in fact, largely a creation of the legitimate theatre." "When Deane wrote and produced the first authorised stage version in 1924, he introduced a radically reconstituted DracuIa, a suave man about town, who actively ingratiates himself into the lives of the other characters." "Deane added the accent that Stoker's dracula had worked so hard to overcome, as well as the now trademark evening clothes and satin-Iined cape, trappings borrowed from the familiar, faintly MephistopheIian persona of the standard stage magician." "Deane originally planned to play DracuIa, but soon realised that Van helsing had all the good speeches, so he took the role of the professor." "Beyond giving DracuIa some manners and a new wardrobe," "Deane completely eliminated Stoker's TransyIvania scenes and restructured the story as a modern drawing-room mystery melodrama, that could utilise stock scenery, and not require the expense of period costumes." "Deane's play toured Britain for three years before taking residence at the little Theatre, a weII-known haunt for horror and mystery plays in London's West End." "As a publicity stunt, audiences were greeted by a nurse in the lobby, on hand to administer smelling salts to the faint of heart." "The public loved it, but the snootier London critics were not kind, and reserved special brickbats for the play's more mechanical contrivances." "From the Daily Telegraph, quote:" ""If you shout loudly or strangely enough, and if only you can contrive to make the sound unexpected, somebody is sure to be terrified."" ""In that sense, at Ieast, this piece displays a sure sense of the theatre."" ""There is very little of Bram Stoker in it, but most of us jumped in our seats at Ieast once in every act." End quote." "Deane's play was more than a little hammy, but it was noticeable for introducing many of the fixtures we associate with dracula:" "swirling capes, swirling mists," "French windows, secret panels, and, perhaps most memorably, easiIy-hypnotisabIe maids, who can be relied upon to remove a variety of annoyances, ranging from crucifixes to garlic flowers to noxious necklaces of vampire-repeIIing woIfbane." "The American stage rights were secured by the pubIisher-producer H Liverwright, a flamboyant showman, ever on the prowl for sensational properties." "Rewritten for Broadway by pIaywright-journaIist John L BaIderston," "Dracula opened in New York in October 1927." "When the West End DracuIa, Raymond HuntIey, turned down the Broadway part in a salary dispute," "Liverwright, unable to afford a name performer, offered the role to the relatively unknown Hungarian expatriate actor BeIa Lugosi, despite Lugosi's shaky command of english." "BaIderston recalled that Lugosi had to be directed in French as a compromise." "Lugosi was an imposing presence in the part." "Liverwright insisted on adding touches of sickly eroticism." "Lugosi wore biIious green make-up as he bestowed a languorous kiss, before baring his victim's throat for the main course." "In the film, any suggestion of vampire foreplay is completely eliminated." "As in London, nurses and fainting patrons were both provided by the management." "A conflict of interest, perhaps, but one which drew no serious complaint." "hollywood studios had long toyed with the idea of filming Dracula, but were put off by the horrifying subject, and many studio readers considered it unfiImabIe for reasons of censorship." "What have you to do with Dracula?" "Dracula?" "Dwight Frye may well have regretted ever having heard the name DracuIa, given the effect it had on his career." "Though the roles he was offered after Dracula and Frankenstein may have been beneath his real talents, he gave wonderfully loony performances in such films as The Vampire Bat," "Bride of Frankenstein, and Dead Men Walk." "A devout Christian Scientist, who hid a serious heart condition from his friends and family, he died on a Los angeles public bus in 1943." "The maid, played by Moon carroll, is misidentified on the film's main titles as Joan Standing." "Standing actually plays the nurse Briggs, who will soon attend the ailing Mina." "This creepy scene of RenfieId crawling toward the maid is not what it seems." "For some reason, the scene ends prematurely." "What happens to the maid is never explained." "For the surprising answer to this mystery, refer to the parallel scene in the Spanish version." "When Dracula made its debut on Broadway in October 1927," "universal sent a representative to the opening-night performance." "He filed the following evaluation." "Quote:" ""So far as the picture value of the story goes, nothing has changed."" ""DracuIa is and always has been material for a great picture."" ""Great opportunity for actors, writers and director."" ""Great opportunity for photography of a wonderful sort and nature."" ""while it is picture material from the angle of the pictorial and dramatic, it is not picture material from the standpoint of the box office, nor of ethics of the industry."" ""It would be a thing which no child and, for that matter, no adult of delicate or nervous temperament should see, a thing beside which The Cabinet of Dr Caligari would seem like a pleasant fireside reverie." End quote." "Dracula ran for 33 weeks on Broadway, followed by two simultaneous American tours, one with BeIa Lugosi, and the other with Raymond HuntIey, the original London DracuIa." "Lugosi luckily played the part in Los angeles, home of the film industry." "Studio executives, afraid of the novel, realised that the tamer thrills of the stage play might be screenworthy after all." "following two years of often tempestuous negotiations between Bram Stoker's widow, hamilton Deane," "John L BaIderston and their agents, and the studios of universal," "Metro-GoIdwyn-Mayer, columbia, and Fox films," "universal purchased the film rights to the novel and stage adaptations for $40,000 in the summer of 1930." "This scene shows another puzzling Iapse of directorial judgment, or perhaps just pressure from the front office to keep the production moving." "The shot runs nearly four minutes without a cut." "When David Manners returns, he will have nothing to do but stare at helen chandler, waiting in vain for a cIose-up or reaction shot that never arrives." "I had the pleasure of making David's acquaintance during his last years, and I remember him saying how much he disliked film acting as against the stage." "He complained that the studios treated actors like mechanical props, not artists." "He was annoyed at being given chalk marks on the floor for positioning, and hated filming scripts out of sequence." "As a Broadway actor, he felt the performer controlled the drama." "But in hollywood actors sometimes weren't even told what was going on." "although it's not apparent on screen, in the days of slow film stocks sets like this were lit with huge arc lights, which could be painful for the actors, especially when shooting was going slowly, as it did on Dracula." "David Manners' real name was Rauff AkIom." "He was born in halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1901 , began a stage career in the 1920s, before switching to film." "A year before Dracula he appeared in seven pictures, including Journey's End, directed by James whale." "He is also remembered for appearing in other universal horror and mystery films, including The Mummy, The Black Cat, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood." "His six unhappy years in hollywood came to an end, he told me, when Joan Crawford hysterically screamed obscenities at him for having the temerity to turn down a script." "He told me he simply knelt down, placed the script silently at the screaming Crawford's feet, and left, never looking back." "After retiring from hollywood, he ran a guest ranch in the desert, published a few novels, and in his later years devoted his life to spiritual pursuits, and well into his nineties published a newsletter of metaphysical reflections." "He died in 1998, at the age of 97." "BeIa Lugosi was not the studio's first choice for dracula." "Trade papers had suggested the Austrian actor Conrad Veidt, who had played the vampireIike sIeepwaIker in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari." "But universal's president, carl LaemmIe, insisted that the part be played by silent superstar Lon Chaney, whose fame for grotesque characterisations would provide box-office insurance for the risky property." "Chaney had proven difficult and temperamental for universal in the past, but his films did make money." "Negotiations got as far as universal's offer of a three-picture deal, including a talking sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, but Chaney had already developed terminal cancer." "His death in August 1930, at the age of 47, shocked the film world." "universal had already convinced Tod Browning, Chaney's director at MGM, to helm Dracula, and considered a flurry of other actors for the lead role." "paul Muni was screen-tested." "His multiple characterisations in the film Seven Faces had briefly typed him as an heir to the mantle of the Man of a Thousand Faces." "william Courtenay, Ian Keith, and Chester Morris were also considered." "BeIa Lugosi had lobbied feverishIy for the screen part, even corresponded with Stoker's widow to try to bring down the purchase price, but the studio showed little interest until all other possibilities had fallen through." "Because he was not an established star, the studio felt confident that Lugosi could be signed cheaply." "They were right." "He accepted a take-it-or-Ieave-it offer of $500 a week for seven weeks of filming." "It was a quarter of the salary commanded by David Manners as the juvenile lead, but Lugosi had succeeded against all odds in making the screen part his own, and the studio did, in fact, bill him as "the new Lon Chaney"." "A number of screenwriters worked on Dracula." "following the previously discussed Stephani was the pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis BromfieId, who faithfully adapted Stoker's opening and closing sequences in transylvania, cleverly reconciling discrepancies with the stage play by having Stoker's withered old man rejuvenate, through blood drinking," "into the suave younger DracuIa popuIarised in the theatre." "carl LaemmIe Jr, who produced Dracula, had originally hoped for the project to be a lavish "superproduction", as universal's A-pictures were then known." "But BromfieId's panoramic adaptation would have bankrupted the studio." "virtually nothing remains of it in the final production." "DudIey Murphy, followed by Garett Fort, completely reworked the script, adding all its famous set pieces, as well as dracula's morbidly memorable lines." "Director Tod Browning received credit on the shooting script, though his writing credit was taken from the titles, with BromfieId's and Murphy's." "We can safely assume that it was Fort to whom we owe most thanks for Dracula." "He was also the main screenwriting force behind universal's Frankenstein, as well as Dracula's Daughter in 1936." "Because Dracula was a transitional film, reflecting the late silent era as much as the early talkies, it presented special problems to the studio." "Many theatres in early 1931 were still not wired for sound." "The foreign market, especially Spanish- speaking countries, wanted taIkies, but they wanted actors to speak in their native language." "Dubbing in those days was considered cheating." "You forget, Doctor, that madmen have great strength." "Dracula has great strength, eh, Renfield?" "Words, words, words!" "Another Shakespearean quotation, this time from Hamlet, Act II, as hamlet feigns madness to PoIonius." "dracula was produced in three separate versions:" "the Browning-Lugosi talkie, of course, but also an intertitIed silent version for theatres still without sound capability." "In our documentary supplement, we've re-created a scene from the silent version following universal's original cutting continuity." "As impressive as the scene RenfieId describes would have been, it wouId have been impossible in practice." "Rats were simply considered "bad theatre" by industry censors." "And I could see that there were thousands of rats..." "You'II note that those creatures scurrying about the castle dracula crypts weren't rats at all but opossums." "More biblical references here." "In St Matthew, chapter 4," "Satan takes Christ and tempts him with glorious visions of the material world." "Quote: "AII these things I will give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Unquote." "By offering blood communion as a means to physical immortality," "dracula perverseIy takes on aspects of both Satan and Christ." "All these will I give you, if you will obey me." "What did he want you to do?" "That which has already been done." "It is actually not clear at all what RenfieId is doing for dracula." "In the novel he serves as a kind of psychic informer for the vampire on doings within the sanitarium." "In traditional folklore, a vampire requires an invitation to enter a house, and the weak-minded RenfieId is happy to make the overture." "But in the stage and film versions, unlike the book," "dracula himself is quite adept at soliciting social calls." "The most intriguing variant version of Dracula is the Spanish-Ianguage film, shot simultaneously at night on the same sets, but with a completely different director, cinematographer, cast and crew." "Van helsing's confrontation with dracula is a good demonstration of the divergent approaches taken by the english and Spanish versions." "The Spanish film follows the shooting script, building suspense while intercutting scenes of Mina's seduction of Harker, while Van helsing attempts to resist DracuIa's hypnotic commands." "As you can see, Browning's version lets the sequences play independently." "Both are valid cinematic techniques, but they demonstrate very different cinematic sensibilities." "Many foreign-Ianguage versions were produced in hollywood in the '30s, but the Spanish version of Dracula is unique in that it amounts to a fuII-fIedged rival production, owing to the personalities and politics of universal at the time." "Despite carl LaemmIe Jr's name on the main title of the Spanish film, the de facto producer of this version was paul Kohner," "carl LaemmIe Sr's ambitious young protege and heir apparent, until LaemmIe Sr turned over the studio to his far less experienced son as a 21st birthday present." "Kohner was taken off the slate as producer of the english Dracula, for which he already had great plans." "He had hoped that paul Leni, director of Waxworks and The Cat and The Canary, would direct Dracula, with Conrad Veidt as the star." "Instead, Kohner was relegated to foreign versions of universal's domestic films." "meanwhile, he had fallen in love with the beautiful Mexican ingenue, Lupita Tovar, star of universal's Spanish version of The Cat Creeps, which he had also produced, and so effectively that LaemmIe ordered sections of the American version" "reshot to match the atmosphere of the Spanish production." "Kohner kept Tovar in hollywood long enough to convince her to be his wife." "The Spanish Dracula, included in this edition, along with a special introduction by Lupita Tovar Kohner, provides a rare opportunity to compare and contrast simultaneous studio interpretations of a single script." "Under paul Kohner, the Spanish crew was headed by director George MeIford." "MeIford had previously directed RudoIph VaIentino as The Sheik, effective preparation for the Spanish Dracula, a Latin lover if there ever was." "Kohner, MeIford, and cinematographer George Robinson reviewed Tod Browning's dailies and obsessively made their improvements." "The actors, however, could not view the rushes, except for carlos ViIIarias as dracula, whom the studio wanted to appear as Lugosi-Iike as possible." "ViIIarias' name was shortened to carlos ViIIar on the main titles, and his contract for the film was further Americanised to charles ViIIar." "You can also spot him, once again in formal attire, in the opening scenes of Bordertown, with Bette Davis and paul Muni, in 1935." "Tod Browning was reportedly furious at being upstaged by Kohner's production, but the Spanish film displays more technical sophistication than Browning's." "It lacks the poetry of Lugosi's majestic presence and unforgettable line readings, but visually often seems years ahead of its time." "The overall effect is aided immeasurably by the quality of the master element, based on universal's nearly pristine nitrate negative, save for the third reel, which had deteriorated beyond recovery, and was replaced by a multigenerational showprint found in Havana." "Nitrate was a very unstable film stock, but its high silver content produced an extraordinary image, difficult to reproduce on safety film." "Notice in the Spanish Dracula the deep velvety blacks and crystalline highlights evident everywhere throughout the film." "Notice the special care given to lighting, especially the back lighting of spider webs and mist." "Notice shots cut from the Browning film, including an extraordinary glass shot of Carfax Abbey perched on a cliff above a pounding sea." "Notice George Robinson's use of the moving camera, inspired, no doubt, by karl Freund but often eclipsing their inspiration." "Notice how many times Lugosi appears in long shots and medium long shots:" "outtakes, not duplicates, from the Browning film." "Lupita Tovar's negIigees are much more revealing than those of helen chandler, and the rats are real, not stand-in opossums." "universal didn't have to worry about the censor for its non-domestic product." "The Spanish film was produced at the amazing cost of $66,000, as compared to the $341 ,000 Iavished on the EngIish-Ianguage film." "The EngIish-Ianguage Dracula was premiered at New York's Roxy Theater on February 12, 1931 ." "An oft-repeated story suggesting a valentine's Day tie-in is without basis." "The initial advertising campaign traded instead on the bogus moving back of the premiere from Friday 13." "The film was a surprise hit across the country, and contributed to universal having its one profitable year during the Depression." "According to David Manners, neither he or his co-star helen chandler took the filming of Dracula very seriously, and had to stifle laughter throughout the production." "And there once more is the KarI Freund memorial piece of cardboard, which nobody in the film ever seems to notice." "David Manners told me that Lugosi was particularly aloof and unapproachable, wrapped up in the dracula mystique as he was wrapped up in his DracuIa cape, walking in front of a fuII-Iength mirror intoning to himself" ""I am DracuIa" over and over." "David insisted that he had never even bothered to see Dracula, but I'm not sure I really believed him." "He was, in any case, flabbergasted at the fan mail he continued to receive more than 60 years after the film's release." "I hope I'm not making him out to be a curmudgeon." "He was an elegant, accomplished and very charming man, but he never understood why, with all the things he had done in his long life, people only seemed to want to talk to him about Dracula." "One of the more lurid passages in Stoker's novel involved DracuIa feeding blood from a wound in his chest to Mina Harker as a mystical, quasi-sexuaI sacrament." "Not surprisingly, helen chandler only describes the action, rather as RenfieId described the rats." "Deane had had trouble with the British stage censors over Mina's recollections." "Here's dialogue the Lord ChamberIain's office considered beyond the pale." "Quote: "I screamed out and fell on the floor."" ""I can remember his bending over me and - oh, my God, pity me!" " he placed his reeking lips on my throat."" ""I have a vague memory of something very sweet all round me, and I seemed to be sinking into deep, green water." "Everything went black."" ""How long this horrible thing lasted I don't know, but it seemed ages before I came to and saw him withdraw his awful sneering mouth."" ""And as I Iooked, it was dripping with fresh blood." Unquote." "The most gruesome scene in Stoker's novel, the destruction of Lucy, is not shown in the english version, and only briefly indicated in the Spanish version." "The shooting script makes matters much more clear." "while DracuIa is busy hypnotising the nurse and abducting Mina, intercut is a scene of Van helsing and Harker visiting Lucy's graveyard, and they there observe her returning to her mausoleum." "Quote: "As the door of the vault closes slowly with a faint creaking sound, behind Lucy and from somewhere near at hand an owl hoots."" ""Camera swings around to medium close shot of Harker and Van helsing behind a tombstone, and we get over Harker's reaction to Lucy's appearance, which has left him speechless and shaken."" ""He stares at the closed door of the vault with an expression of stupefaction, can't credit his senses."" ""There is a faintly pitiful look in his eyes, as if he almost suspected his own sanity."" ""Van helsing does not speak." "He studies Harker gravely, narrowly, watching to see the effect this has upon him, his manner paternal."" ""One hand goes out, steadying, to Harker's trembling shoulder."" ""For the first time we see that Van helsing has an oblong paper-wrapped parcel."" ""He indicates parcel, pointing to vault, and says gravely:" "'I would have spared you this but I wanted you to see for yourself."' End quote." "The script cuts back to DracuIa's abduction of Mina, returning to a shot of the churchyard, Lucy's vault in the foreground." "Quote: "Through the open door there comes the sound of a heavy blow, followed by a piercing unearthIy scream."" ""An owl, disturbed by the sound, fIutters across the scene."" ""For a moment there is absolute silence, then slowly the figure of Harker appears, a ghastly, stricken look on his face."" ""He emerges and leans against the door of the vault, head bowed, body sagging."" ""Van helsing follows, backing out, eyes looking back to the darkness of the vault."" ""Van helsing, quote: 'Driving that stake in her heart was an act of mercy."'" ""'May her soul rest in peace."' End quote." "For both Tod Browning and BeIa Lugosi, dracula was a problematic milestone." "It would be the most commercially successful film either would make, and yet for both of them it was a high point that would never be repeated." "Browning made one more film for universal, then returned to MGM, where he produced Freaks, which Irving ThaIberg intended as the ultimate horror film." "But it was a commercial disaster." "No other hits followed for Browning, though his 1935 Mark of the Vampire proved an atmospheric homage to his earlier triumphs, featuring Lugosi as a cloaked vampire bearing an uncanny resemblance to a certain Count You Know Who." "Tired of studio politics, he directed his last picture," "Miracles For Sale, in 1939, and then retired to malibu and lived a comfortable, if recIusive, existence until his death in 1962." "Due in part to the indelible impression he made with the role," "BeIa Lugosi never escaped the shadow of dracula, although he played the role on screen only one more time, in the 1948 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." "His heavy accent hampered him, and his star in hollywood was soon eclipsed by Boris karloff's, who, by the time of Frankenstein's release at the end of 1931 , was the new new Lon Chaney." "Off screen and on, Lugosi looked and sounded like dracula." "It was his own face, after all, his own voice that he had given to the part, not the creation of the make-up department." "In rare films like Son of Frankenstein in 1939," "Lugosi was able to show his true versatility as a character actor, but these were only the exceptions that proved the typecasting rule." "A Iong-standing medical addiction to painkillers became tabloid news in 1955, when Lugosi publicly sought treatment." "A few years later, when Dracula was released to television and discovered by a new generation of fans, he might have had a twilight revival of his career." "But he died on August 16, 1956, taking one of his beloved DracuIa capes to the grave with him." "In the novel, the destruction of dracula took place after an exciting sea and land chase back to TransyIvania." "Just before sunset and just before reaching his castle, his earth box is thrown from a wagon and pried open by Jonathan Harker and his fatally wounded American compatriot Quincey Morris." "According to Mina Harker, quote:" ""I saw the count lying with the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him."" ""He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well."" ""As I Iooked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph."" ""But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife."" ""I shrieked as I saw it tear through the throat, whilst at the same moment Mr Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart."" ""It was like a miracle, but before our eyes and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight."" ""I shall be glad as long as I Iive that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there." End quote." "In the film Nosferatu, dracula was destroyed by the first rays of sunlight, which would have surprised Stoker, since his DracuIa walked around London in broad daylight." "In the first stage version, dracula was stabbed through the heart and evaporated into dust with the aid of a trick coffin, built on the principles of a magician's disappearing cabinet." "For the Broadway version, a wooden stake was substituted for the knife." "But the New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson complained, quote:" ""They kill him with one blow on a stake driven through his heart."" ""several additional blows, given with a hearty grunt or two, would seem to be a good deal more conclusive."" ""Count DracuIa deserves a steam hammer." Unquote." "unfortunately, hollywood censors did not agree with Atkinson, and most of dracula's death groans went unheard for nearly 60 years until universal finally restored them on laser disc." "As the actors took their bows during the curtain call of the stage version, it was customary for Professor Van helsing to step forward, raising his hand to stop the applause, and deliver a special message." "original cast member Ivan butler told me that provincial audiences, familiar with the speech from repeated touring, eventually recited it aloud, as in a 1920s version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show." "It was included in the original release of the film, but the censors demanded its removal, fearful it might offend religious groups by encouraging belief in the supernatural." "So, to get a better idea of exactly what Professor Van helsing had to say," "I suggest you visit our documentary supplement, The Road to Dracula, where we've done our best to re-create this lost cinematic moment." "This is David skal, and this was Dracula."