A positive review
of a movie should be more than just a laundry list of refutations
of other people's criticisms. It should, I think, point out what
works about the film. Browning's Dracula is one of those I have
trouble writing about because I always end up with the former, while
never quite being able to put my finger on the latter. It's a
deservedly well-loved movie, and it has just as many detractors as
fans. Strangely, it's the critics who best express what they think
doesn't work...I'm unsure whether I've ever read a take on it that
captures exactly why it does work. Maybe there's nothing exact about
it.
In fairness I
should start not with the movie itself but by acknowledging the film
that should have been. Universal had been planning a more epic and
more faithful movie starring Lon Chaney in the title role (I don't
know which part of that is the more mouthwatering). It's our great
loss that it fell apart. Chaney died and the studio changed hands,
and the project was scrapped in favor of a scaled-down production
based not on Stoker's book but one of the more popular stage
adaptations. Maybe the critics are right when they say Browning
lost all enthusiasm. No one really knows what his thoughts were,
we're all left guessing.
I grew up on
Dracula ('31) and had a child's ability to accept that he was a
monster simply because...well, just because. He's well-spoken,
well-dressed, exceptionally well-mannered, urbane...the perfect
dinner guest provided you're not the dinner. Still, you already know
going in that he's a blood-drinking creature that isn't really human
and isn't really alive either. It's just one of those things you
learn early on, Dracula is a culturally known quantity the world over
and you know this before ever seeing one of these movies. Some jaded
horror viewers may need something more, but to a kid an undead
blood-drinker is a lot. Children have a way of honing in on a
concept whether the frills are there or not.
Some of those
childhood movies no longer work for me, sad to say. Not so with
Browning's Dracula, if anything it's become much more frightening to
me in adulthood. When I was a child Dracula himself scared me
whenever he was onscreen. Now it's the whole movie that creeps me
out. It's no longer just a film about a monster. It's about
keeping a death vigil over people you can't save, about watching
someone you love fall under the sway of corruption and change into
someone who no longer cares about you. The ghoulish factor provided
by the literal vampirism completes the chill of nightmarishness, but
it isn't the only one.
Nightmarish is
exactly the right word. Have you ever tried examining a bad dream
upon waking? Not just the content, but the experience of it, the
tone and feel. Often the terror one feels comes not from what
happens in the dream but from the dread of what you expect to happen.
You feel yourself surrounded by mortal danger, impending death,
evil, an awareness or knowledge of things not spelled out in the
dream but that – in the way of dreams – you just happen to know.
Like...that there's a vampire in the house. Notice, also, that bad
dreams are often quiet. Your dreams don't have a score.
I don't know what
works for others but Dracula evokes exactly that experience for me,
due in no small part to the lack of music in the film. The effect is
unintended, the choice not to score the film a practical one, but the
effect is there all the same. If you're familiar with the dream
experience I'm talking about try watching Dracula at one in he
morning with the lights out, without the score Phillip Glass wrote
for it, and see if it doesn't feel creepily familiar. It's a talky
film, too, just like the most excruciating of bad dreams – you
drone when you want to scream, shamble when you want to run.
The copy I watched
was the 75th anniversary edition DVD, on my new HDTV.
I've never seen it look so good. Karl Freund's cinematography is consistent throughout the production, from the Carpathians in the
night fog to the night life of London or the estate of Seward's
sanitarium in Whitby. The camerawork is subdued but never static or
setbound: simply, it's about the ambiance more than the movement.
Friend and the set decorators create a living space with deep blacks,
strategic whites, and subtle grays. There's real depth of space
onscreen: check out the gorgeous scene of the “mysterious Lady in
White” walking through the foliage and other outdoors shots in the
films' latter half (no one complains of the opening sequence in
Transylvania for good reason) or the textured murk of the dungeons
that seem to go on forever. In older copies the interior of Seward's
mansion came across as flat, and the scenes duller for it. This
restoration was a revelation, now it's a space that's fluid and
expansive and enhancing the dream quality: I can feel the other
rooms of the house and the potential for unseen that's within them,
dark deeds taking place where no one's looking.
Casting
Lugosi was a bold move. He had proven popular in the role on stage
already, especially with the women, but it's a risky (risque)
departure to present a vampire with such undeniable sex appeal. I
can't imagine how heady this might have been for Thirties' audiences,
with vampirism already tacitly understood to be a sexual
transgression but this time involving not a monstrous parody of
humanity but a sex symbol that had women swooning. Lugosi was hired
for just that appeal. Take note, you who think recent adaptations
have erred in casting attractive, romantic leads! His
presence is undeniable. His Count has the supreme self-confidence of
unquestioned nobility.
Of course, Dwight
Frye is the other standout. As Renfield he's a nervous wreck full of
rapidly shifting moods, nervous amusement, sudden fits of threatening
mania. His terrible sick titter is unforgettable as his mad eyes
leer up the hatchway - “Eh-hnh-hnh-hnh-hnh-hnh-hnh-hnhhhh-h-h-h-h!”
If the rest of the cast lack for excitement, Frye makes up for all
of them.
I've grown less
fond of Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing over the years (though I love
him in Frankenstein and Freund's The Mummy). Stokers' character is
marked by a profound compassion for all he encounters, and I don't
see that at all in Van Sloan's portrayal. Not does he do a very
good job convincing Harker that they face a supernatural being. If
you tell people that the man they just met is a vampire and they say
there's no such thing, repeating 'but he's undead!' isn't a winning
argument. Still, he does exude a steadfast authority – the scene
of his confrontation with Dracula is still strong, and it helps that
Harker is a dull-witted drip. Helen Chandler as Mina...not my
favorite but her face does have a strange allure when she vamps out.
There
are nice touches throughout, like the nonchalant way Dracula leaves
the dead flowergirl behind, Dracula walking through a web without
breaking it, the vampiric bee. Determine the scale of the bee's
coffin by the stones on the wall it sits against: that is a
human-sized bee, predating Argento's mantis for sheer WTFness.
Making a tiny coffin for a bee might be a believable whimsy,
but who crafts a scale stone wall to go with it?
I love this movie
more than ever. It's far from a nostalgia thing.
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