Talk:Dracula (1931 English-language film)

Page move
This page was moved from "Dracula (1931 movie)" to "Dracula (1931 film)" as per the naming convention set out at Naming conventions (films) – Ianblair23 (talk) 11:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Appearance of Dracula
The now-iconic depiction of Dracula with the widows peak and slicked back, black hair and the high collar is very similar to how Mephisto appears in the German silent film Faust (1926), by F. W. Murnau (beginning with the scene where he gives Faust his youth). Is this anywhere cited as an influence on Dracula, or were these features already internationally common in depictions of evil characters by then? Postdlf 00:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Commentaries in the bonus section of the DVD release mention Dracula's appearance to have been changed by the playwrights, having in mind the typical vaudeville magician of the 1920s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.180.109.163 (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Summary?
Why is there no summary of the story? It differs slightly from the novel, so naturally I would assume there'd be a summary. --St jimmy86 17:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

At Walpurgis Night, after a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferral of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Jack Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina's health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina's fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.216.104.112 (talk) 01:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Dracula's Transformations
It is mentioned in the movie that Dracula changes into a wolf. In the scene after Van Helsing confronts him with the mirror, Dracula goes out of the room to the balcony. Jonathan Harker looks out and remarks about a big black dog bounding across the yard. WerewolfSatanist 18:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Two plot sections (summary vs detailed)
Is it really advisable to have two plot sections, one summarized and one detailed? This seems rather needless! Isn't one enough? Dutzi (talk) 21:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Listen to them...
...children of the night. What music they make. --62.216.118.84 (talk) 14:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

censorship
van Sloan's adress to the audience is featured in the bonus material of the dvd release. It is of rather poor quality, maybe that is the reason for not being included in the restored movie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.180.109.163 (talk) 12:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

opening music
I was just listening to Tchaikovsky, and I believe it is the same music used in the title sequence of Dracula. I think the piece I was listening to was his Sleeping Beauty ballet. although, I'm not certain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Photoactivist (talk • contribs) 21:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Language
I discovered a mistake in connection with the film. I have seen the film, and the willagers on the beginning of the film are speaking Hungarian, not romanian. Béla Lugosi was a hungarian-born actor, so he spoked hungarian and he worked with hungarians in many of his films ( like in the The Black Cat (1934 film)). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Illes.a88 (talk • contribs) 08:07, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Weird, skewed POV.
"The film also employs extended periods of silence and character close-ups for dramatic effect, and employs several intertitles "

Since when is "two" considered "several"? "Aboard the Vesta" and "London." These comments are POV and skewed to make the thing sound like a movie made in 1920.

"Intertitles" are a card which contains only text, appearing between movie images, not superimposed location identification. The latter is hardly some sort of obsolete remnant from the silent era; it's still used today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted Newsom (talk • contribs) 20:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced material
Below information was tagged in 2013 for needing sources. Feel free to reinsert with appropriate references.

{| class="collapsible collapsed" style="width:100%;font-size:88%;text-align: left; border: 1px solid silver; margin-top: 0.2em;" ! style="background-color: #CFC;" | Background/Production ==Background/Production== Enthusiastic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. also saw the box office potential in Stoker's gothic chiller, and he legally acquired the novel's film rights. Initially, he wanted Dracula to be a spectacle on a scale with the lavish silent films The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
 * style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white; " |
 * style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white; " |

Like those films, Laemmle insisted it must star Lon Chaney, despite Chaney being under contract at MGM. Tod Browning was then approached to direct this new Universal epic. Browning had already directed Chaney as a fake vampire in the (lost) 1927 silent London After Midnight. However, a number of factors would limit Laemmle's plans: Firstly, Chaney himself, who had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 1928, succumbed to his terminal illness. Furthermore, studio financial difficulties, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, caused a drastic reduction in budget, forcing Laemmle to look at a cheaper alternative, which meant several grand scenes that closely followed the Stoker storyline had to be abandoned.

Already a huge hit on Broadway, the tried and tested Deane/Balderston Dracula play would become the blueprint as the production gained momentum. The screenwriters carefully studied the silent, unauthorized version, Nosferatu for inspiration. One bit of business lifted directly from a nearly identical scene in Nosferatu that does not appear in Stoker's novel was the early scene at the Count's castle when Renfield accidentally pricks his finger on a paper clip and it starts to bleed, and Dracula creeps toward him with glee, only to be repelled when the crucifix falls in front of the bleeding finger. In the analogous scene in the book, Jonathon cuts himself while shaving and is wearing the crucifix which stops Dracula.

The eerie speech pattern of Lugosi's Dracula was said to have resulted from the fact that Lugosi did not speak English, and therefore had to learn and speak his lines phonetically. This is a bit of an urban legend. While it was true Lugosi did not speak English at the time of his first English-language play in 1919 and had learned his lines to that play in this manner, by the time of Dracula Lugosi spoke English as well as he ever would.

Moreover, the despondent Browning would simply tear out of the script pages that he felt were redundant; such was his seeming contempt for the screenplay. It is possible, however, given that Browning had originally intended Dracula as a collaboration between him and Lon Chaney, his apparent lack of interest on the set was due to losing his friend and original leading man, rather than any actual aversion to the subject matter.

Cinematic process
The film/negative format used in the creation of this film was 35 mm. The aspect ratio is the 1930 standard of 0.800 in. by 0.600 in. Original prints were tinted Verdante, a color film stock of the Sonochrome by Kodak.
 * }DonIago (talk) 12:58, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

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Requested move 10 March 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: '''Not moved. RM closed with nominator's agreement.''' (Non-admin closure). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:50, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Dracula (1931 English-language film) → Dracula (1931 film) – This article should be called Dracula (1931 film) or Dracula (film). The Dracula (1931 film) is an unnecessary disambiguation page created by Fortdj33 in 2014 to "To disambiguate from Spanish-language film". However, the Spanish language film is simply called Dracula (film) which makes this disambiguation page unnecessary and makes things more complicated while titles should be kept as simple as possible. Or, Dracula (1931 English-language film) could be simply moved to Dracula (film) since the article for the English-language film was created before and the English-language film is way more recognizable than the Spanish-language film, hence, people searching on Wikipedia search way more for the English-language film. SirEdimon (talk) 22:14, 10 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear the Spanish language film was renamed a couple times since 2007 and is now called Drácula (film) so removing the "English-language" dab from this article makes sense. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:25, 10 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose: The Spanish-language film is called Drácula (film), not Dracula (film) as stated by the nominator. It is very common for people seeking information in English about topics to drop diacritics (e.g., as was done by this nominator when writing the proposal), so disambiguation is needed for the English-language film. It is not just a matter of what the article name is on Wikipedia, but also how people would look for it. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It should be noted that Wikipedia's article delineating the Spanish-language Dracula did not have an accent in the title from the article's creation on December 31, 2006 until July 2, 2016 when it was unilaterally moved from Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film) to Drácula (1931 Spanish-language film). It remained under that main title header for over three years, until October 11, 2019, when it was again unilaterally moved to Drácula (film). Even if the name of the Transylvanian count is accented in the Spanish-speaking world, it is not accented in the poster accompanying the Spanish Dracula nor, most importantly, is it accented in the opening credits of Spanish Dracula, itself. Thus, the main header of the Spanish Dracula article should be moved back to its unaccented form, Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film), although an argument could be made that the main header Dracula (Spanish-language film) would be sufficient, especially in view of the fact that its main header was Dracula (Spanish-language version) from January 4, 2008 until September 30, 2014, when it was moved to Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film), thus making it analogous to Dracula (1931 English-language film). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above, and Drácula (film) should be moved back to Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film) where it was for over a decade. There is no need for diacritics, which cannot be readily typed by the layperson reader. Without diacritics in the picture, disambiguating the 1931 films from each other is necessary. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose and early close nom is factually incorrect, rendering discussion unnecessary. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree however in restoring the pre-October title of the Spanish film. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:41, 13 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment - First of all the AFI Catalog list the Spanish version as Drácula. Second, do you people will really leave the English version as Dracula (1931 English-language film) and the Spanish version as Drácula (film)? Really?--SirEdimon (talk) 22:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * AFI's Drácula write-up offers no explanation why the usually (but not always) reliable Catalog accents the film title which depicts the iconic name of the Transylvanian vampire count. Another such inexplicable accenting (over the "e") occurs in the Catalogs main title header for Greta Garbo's 1935 portrayal of the tragic Russian socialite Anna Karenina. Other film resources, such as AllMovie, TVGuide or Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide do not accent the "a" in their write-ups of the Spanish version and, most importantly, the Spanish version does not accent "Dracula" in its on-screen credits. Wikipedia's main title header for the Spanish version should therefore be restored to Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film), thus obviating the need to move the main header for Dracula (1931 English-language film). —Roman Spinner' (talk • contribs) 23:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment - Ok, I'm sold. Having two articles: Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film) (moving it back to its "original" name) and Dracula (1931 English-language film) seems to be the best solution here. If everybody is ok with that I have no further objections. If someone wants to close it, it's ok for me.--SirEdimon (talk) 00:50, 14 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Re-write
Just a heads-up to people, i'm slowly working on an entire re-write of this article in my draft page here]. Although I'd rather people not edit it until its ready, I figured i'd give anyone a heads up if they are planning to do some major edits to the article. [[User:Andrzejbanas|Andrzejbanas (talk) 13:42, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Colorized "stills".
I have changed the image caption from "colorized stills" to "colorized lobby cards" (per the credit and description accompanying the images), lest anyone think they were from a "colorized" version of the film. (The images are cropped, but including that info in the caption would be too verbose.)

When I first saw these, I was aghast thinking that Wikipedia would stoop to including film stills from a "colorized" version; fortunately that was not the case. BMJ-pdx (talk) 11:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Cast
I tried to explain the characters in this movie and add facts about the characters they're playing, here they are, the facts from IMDB:

94.201.206.212 (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, Before he was cast as Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi acted as an unpaid intermediary for Universal Pictures in negotiating with the widow of author Bram Stoker in an attempt to persuade her to lower her asking price for the filming rights to the Dracula property. After two months of negotiations, Mrs. Stoker reportedly lowered her price from $200,000 to $60,000. This further demonstrated to Universal what an asset to them he was, and how eager Lugosi was to repeat his stage success as Count Dracula and secure the film role for himself.
 * Helen Chandler as Mina Seward, Helen Chandler, who played Mina Seward, was convinced she was heading for superstardom after making "Dracula." She was described as suffering from delusions of grandeur and with "her head up in the clouds." By the time Chandler died in the 1960s, she had long been forgotten. Bette Davis (who had a contract at Universal at the time) was considered to play the part of Mina Harker. However, Universal head Carl Laemmle Jr. didn't think too highly of her sex appeal.
 * David Manners as Jonathan Harker, Although he lived for 67 years after the film was released, David Manners (John Harker) claimed that he never watched it.
 * Dwight Frye as Renfield, After playing Renfield, Dwight Frye would find himself typecast. He found himself restricted to playing eccentric or jittery characters that had a manic edge to them - or criminal lunatic types.
 * Edward Van Sloan as Professor Van Helsing
 * Herbert Bunston as Dr. Seward
 * Frances Dade as Lucy Weston
 * Joan Standing as Nurse Briggs
 * Charles K. Gerrard as Martin
 * Michael Visaroff as Townsman
 * Barbara Bozoky as Townswoman
 * Cornelia Thaw, Dorothy Tree And Geraldine Dvorak as Dracula's Brides


 * You haven't provided sources for your info. DonIago (talk) 15:50, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * You have also included all manner of info not relevant to the film. Those items belong in the articles for the actors if it isn't already there. A simple cast list is best. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 22:29, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly, IMDB is unreliable. PrisonerB (talk) 13:09, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Faked lobby card
Why use a digitally colored lobby card when the original file was black and white? Somebody felt artistic? 2A02:AA1:1646:F9C8:716C:C9FF:C998:1262 (talk) 01:27, 24 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Perhaps black and white versions of them aren't available for display here? DonIago (talk) 18:16, 26 December 2023 (UTC)