DRACULA 1931 Horror Film English Version B/W 75 mins

The original Dracula starring Bela Lugosi as the Count. Directed by Tod Browning for Univeral Pictures and released 1931. Not much in the way of horror by todays standards although heavy on the atmosphere especially the countryside scenery and the castle. Though place yourself back in time to the 1930s and you'll get an idea of how it was viewed back then. The four stand out characters for me are Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, Dwight Frye as Renfield, Edward Van Sloan as Professor Van Helsing and Charles Gerrard as Martin, Renfield's attendant at the sanatorium (he has the best comedy lines).

My favourite line from the film is when Dracula is showing Jonathan Harker the way up the staircase. He hears the wolves howling outside the castle turns to Harker and says, "listen to them, children of the night. What music they make." This was not my first time watching this film though it has been a long time. I did notice something I had missed before. In the book Bram Stoker's Dracula 1897 the ship that brought Dracula to Whitby, England was called the Demeter in the film this has been changed to the Vesta. Recently I discovered that at the same time this film was being produced a Spanish language version directed by George Melford and released the same year was also being made. Tod Browning shot his film during the day and George used the same sets and did his filming at night. This was made as part of Universal studios attempt to make films for foreign-language audiences, the Spanish version is also half an hour longer. This film was taken from my list to watch called Universal Horror Films.