Dracula [1931]

Country of Origin: USA
Year of Production: 1931
Running Times: 75 mins
Format: black and white
Ratio:
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Universal
Presented By: Carl Laemmle
Producers: Tod Browning, Carl Laemmle Jr
Associate Producer: E.M. Asher

SCRIPT
Script: Garrett Fort, Tod Browning [uncredited]
Adaption: Louis Stevens [uncredited]
Scenario Supervisor: Charles A. Logue [uncredited]
Treatments: Frederick Stephani [uncredited], Louis Bromfield [uncredited]
Additional Dialogue: Dudley Murphy [uncredited]
Novel: Bram Stoker
Play: Hamilton Deane, John L. Balderston

DIRECTION
Director: Tod Browning

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Karl Freund

EDITING
Supervising Editor: Maurice Pivar
Editor: Milton Carruth

MUSIC
Music: Franz Schubert [from Symphony no.8 - uncredited]; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky [from Swan Lake -uncredited]; Richard Wagner [uncredited]; Philip Glass [new score for 1999 re-issue]
Conductor: Heinz Roemheld [uncredited]

SOUND
Recording Supervisor: C. Roy Hunter

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Jack P. Pierce [uncredited]
Costumes: Ed Ware [uncredited], Vera West [uncredited]

SPECIAL EFFECTS
Photographic Effects: Frank H. Booth [uncredited]
Miniatures: William Davidson [uncredited]

DESIGN
Art Director: Charles D. Hall
Set Designers: Herman Rosse, John Hoffman [uncredited]
Set Decorator: Russell A. Gausman [uncredited]
Title Art: Max Cohen

MISCELLANEOUS
Continuity: Louis Bromfield [uncredited]; Dudley Murphy [uncredited]
Researcher: Nan Grant

LOCATIONS
Locations: Los Angeles, California, USA

CASTING
Casting: Phil M. Friedman [uncredited]

CAST
Bela Lugosi [Count Dracula]
David Manners [John Harker]
Helen Chandler [Mina Seward]
Dwight Frye [Renfield]
Edward Van Sloan [Professor Van Helsing]
Herbert Bunston [Dr Seward]
Frances Dade [Lucy Weston]
Joan Standing [maid]
Charles Gerrard [Martin]
Moon Carroll [maid - uncredited]
Josephine Velez [English nurse - uncredited]
Michael Visaroff [innkeeper - uncredited]
Daisy Belmore [English coach passenger - uncredited]
Nicholas Bela [Transylvanian passenger - uncredited]
Carla Laemmle [girl passenger - uncredited]
Donald Murphy [passenger - uncredited]
Tod Browning [voice of harbour master - uncredited]
Anna Bakacs [innkeeper's daughter - uncredited]
Geraldine Dvorak, Dorothy Tree [Dracula's wives - uncredited]

When estate agent John Harker visits the Count Dracula at his castle in Transylvania, he sets in motion a tragic series of events that brings the undead Dracula to England and in conflict with vampire expert Professor Van Helsing.

This adaptation of the popular stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston never escapes its stage roots and creaks along arthritically under the lumbering direction of Tod Browning. For many, Lugosi remains the definitive screen Dracula, but he's just too stodgy and mannered to be truly frightening - he would do much better work in the genre later. This certainly isn't the classic it's often claimed to be. [Full Review]

UK
Theatrical Distributor: Universal

USA
Theatrical Distributors: Universal Pictures; Realart Pictures Inc
Video / Laserdisc Distributor: MCA

CENSORSHIP HISTORY

Australia
Rating: PG

USA
Rating: unrated

1930
September
29: Production begins

October
10: Filming starts

November
8: Filming ends

1931
February
12: USA - theatrical release, New York City
14: USA - theatrical release

1974
February
8: UK - television broadcast [on ITV]

1977
July
2: UK - television broadcast [on BBC2]

1983
July
9: UK - television broadcast [on BBC2]

1986
January
11: UK - television broadcast [on Channel Four]

1996
October
28: UK - television broadcast [on ITV]

1998
March
4: UK - television broadcast [on ITV]

1999
January
5: UK - television broadcast [on ITV]

Drácula - Spanish title
Drakula - Hungarian title
Ksiaze Dracula - Polish title

The story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!

The Vampire Thriller

SEQUELS
Dracula's Daughter [1936]
House of Dracula [1945]
House of Frankenstein [1944]
Son of Dracula [1943]

SEE ALSO
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948]
Batman [1989]
Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla [1952]
Bram Stoker's Dracula [1973]
Bram Stoker's Dracula [1992]
Bride of the Monster [1956]
Casper [1995]
El Castillo de los monstruos [1957]
El conde Drácula [1970]
Count Dracula [1977]
Dr Terror's House of Horrors [1965]
Dracula [1958]
Dracula [1979]
Dracula vs. Frankenstein [1971]
Dracula: Dead and Loving It [1995]
Draftee Daffy [1945]
Drakula halála [1921]
Ed Wood [1994]
Films That Suck [1999]
Gremlins 2: The New Batch [1990]
The Hare-Brained Hypnotist [1942]
Hair-Raising Hare [1946]
Here Come the Munsters [1995]
Hookers In a Haunted House [1999]
If a Body Meets a Body [1945]
Latin Boys Go to Hell [1997]
Love at First Bite [1979]
Mad Monster Party? [1967]
The Many Faces of Christopher Lee [1996]
MGM's Big Parade of Comedy [1964]
Mickey's Gala Premier [1933]
The Monster Squad [1987]
Necronomicon - Geträumte Sünden [1967]
Noroi no yakata: Chi o suu me [1971]
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens [1922]
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht [1979]
Plan 9 from Outer Space [1958]
The Rocky Horror Picture Show [1975]
Rue cases nègres [1983]
Tempi duri per i vampiri [1959]
Vampire Hunter D [1985]
Wolfman [1979]

ALTERNATE LANGUAGE VERSION
Drácula [1931b]

FOOTAGE INCLUDED IN
100 Years of Horror [1996]
The American Nightmare [2000]
Coming Soon [1982]
Heartstoppers: Horror at the Movies [1992]
Innocent Blood [1992]
The Many Faces of Christopher Lee [1996]
The Road to Dracula [1999]
Universal Horror [1998]

MAGAZINES

Dark Side April 1993 p.44
review

Filmfax 57 p.18

BOOKS

Hoffman's Guide to Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Movies 1991 - 1992 p.112
credits, review

Hollywood Gothic: The tangled web of Dracula from novel to stage to screen
article [by David J. Skal]

Illustrated Vampire Movie Guide pp.16-17
illustrated credits, review [by Stephen Jones]

Universal Horrors
article [by Michael Brunas, John Brunas and Tom Weaver]

KEYWORDS

abbeys, bats, book into film, castles, dracula, scientists, ships, shipwrecks, vampires

Last Updated: 6 March, 2007