Drácula (1931/I)

Director:

George Melford

Writers:

Bram Stoker (novel)
Baltasar Fernández Cué (Spanish adaptation)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror

Plot:

At midnight on Walpurgis Night, an English clerk, Renfield, arrives at Count Dracula's castle in the Carpathian Mountains...

Plot Keywords:

Ghoul | Abbey | Dracula | Vampire | Armadillo

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Carlos Villarías	...	Conde Drácula (as Carlos Villar)
Lupita Tovar	...	Eva
Barry Norton	...	Juan Harker
Pablo Álvarez Rubio	...	Renfield
Eduardo Arozamena	...	Van Helsing
José Soriano Viosca	...	Doctor Seward
Carmen Guerrero	...	Lucía
Amelia Senisterra	...	Marta
Manuel Arbó	...	Martín

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

Spanish | Hungarian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System)

Certification:

Spain:13 | Finland:K-11 (2004) | USA:Unrated | Sweden:7

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Although this version was shot in Spanish, it became a mixture of dialects since the cast came from Mexico, Spain, Central and South America.

Goofs:

Factual errors: "Carlos Villarías" is misspelled in the opening credits as "Carlos Villar".

Quotes:

Eva: [English subtitle] The next morning, I felt very weak as if I had lost my virginity.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Road to Dracula (1999)

I Vant To Suk Your ... SANGRE!

The most interesting thing about the Spanish version of Dracula is the modest & informative introduction of main actress Lupita Tovar. I don't know when exactly this brief interview with her was shot, but it can't be too long ago judging by the picture quality, which makes it all the more impressive that she still looks relatively good! According to the IMDb, she's still alive and kicking, though nearly reaching the age of 100 and not having made any movies in more than 60 years. With great pride, Tovar explains how the Spanish crew exclusively worked during the nights, using the exact same sets of the English version, how the director didn't understood the language of his cast & crew and – most notably – how her costumes and wardrobes were a lot sexier and more revealing than those of her English speaking colleagues. Interesting! She also claims that the Spanish version is superior and that is, of course, debatable since many of the plot lines seem unnecessarily stretched and on the verge of being very tedious. The story is exactly the same, but this version pays more attention to the extended drawing of characters that are merely supportive, like Renfield for example. The film eventually runs half an hour longer than its English counterpart, 104 minutes in total, and that is simply too long for a horror movie of that era. Part of the Universal monster movies' charm is that they are short, straightforward and to the point. "Drácula" is the first, and to my knowledge, only contemporary Universal movie that features needless padding. Naturally Carlos Villarias is no patch on Bela Lugosi when it comes to depicting the legendary infamous Count. Lugosi literally owned the character; whereas Villarias is hardly menacing at all and most of the time he appears to pull funny grimaces and sneering expressions. There are so numberless versions of Bram Stoker's immortal novel available on the market, so I'm not entirely sure why Universal didn't simply dub the American version instead of producing yet another different film, but it still has many fans. And it made Mrs. Lupita Tovar proud to be an actress, which is a good thing as well, I guess.