Dracula

Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane which in turn is based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

 The film is about Renfield, a British solicitor which travels through the Carpathian Mountains. Arriving there safely before sundown, Renfield refuses to stay at the inn and asks the driver to take him to the Borgo Pass. The innkeeper and his wife seem to be afraid of Renfield’s destination, Castle Dracula, and warn him about vampires. During the trip, Renfield asks the driver to slow down, but is startled to see that the driver has disappeared, and a bat is leading the horses.

Renfield enters the castle welcomed by charming but odd nobleman Count Dracula; however Renfield knows that he is a vampire. They discuss Dracula's intention to lease Carfax Abbey in London, where he intends to travel the next day. Dracula then leaves and Renfield goes to his bedroom. Dracula hypnotizes Renfield into opening a window and then causes him to faint. A bat is seen at the window, which then morphs into Dracula. Dracula's three wives suddenly appear and start to move toward Renfield to attack him, but Dracula waves them away, and he attacks Renfield himself.

Renfield has become the slave of Dracula, who is hidden in a coffin and gets out for feeding on the ship's crew while on the way to London. When the ship arrives in England, Renfield is discovered to be the only living person in it. Dracula meets Dr. Seward and his wife Lucy Weston. Lucy is fascinated by Count Dracula, and that night, Dracula enters her room as a bat and feasts on her blood. She dies in an autopsy theatre the next day after a string of transfusions, and two tiny marks on her throat are discovered.

Renfield starts talking about vampires to Professor Van Helsing. Dracula tried address him however Van Helsing was showing him a branch of wolfbane saying that it stops wolves, and is also used for protection from vampires. Dracula visits Mina, Dr. Seward’s daughter, who was sleeping, and bites her, leaving neck marks similar to those on Lucy. Mina leaves her room, after she told everyone about her dream and runs to Dracula in the garden, where he wraps his cape around her and attacks her

Later that night, Dracula hypnotizes Nurse Briggs into removing the wolfbane wreath from Mina's neck and opening the windows so he can enter her room. Van Helsing and Harker see Renfield, having just escaped from his cell, heading for Carfax Abbey. They see Dracula with Mina in the abbey. Dracula sees them, thinking Renfield had trailed them. He strangles Renfield and tosses him down a staircase, and is hunted by Van Helsing and Harker. Dracula is forced to sleep in his coffin, as sunrise has come, and is trapped. Van Helsing prepares a wooden stake while Harker searches for Mina. He finds her in a strange stasis. Dracula moans in pain when Van Helsing impales him, and Mina returns to normal.

 

Some technical mistakes appear in the film. The bat enters on one side of the room and Dracula appears on the other after a cutaway to the sleeping Mina. In one shot, as Dracula leans over Mina to feed, a piece of cardboard can clearly be seen next to the bedside lamp.

The climax of the film is dull, not climatic at all. As Van Helsing drives the stake into Dracula's heart, we hear the strike of the metal against the stake, and a scream, but that is all. The film is made quite good as it was made in those times (1931) when technology wasn’t so great. Continuity editing is shown and shot show the basic environment and character’s feelings, but not always.