Dracula (1931) (Blu-ray) |
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Dracula (1931) (Blu-ray) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Horror |
Featurette-The Road To Dracula (35:04) Audio Commentary-David J. Skal (Film Historian) Alternate Audio-New Music by Philip Glass performed by Kronos Quartet Alternative Version-Dracula (1931) Spanish Version (103:16) Theatrical Trailer-Lugosi: The Dark Prince (35:04) Trivia-Monster Tracks Trivia Track Featurette-Dracula: The Restoration (8:46) Gallery-Dracula Archives (9:11) Trailer-Trailers for four of the Universal Dracula films |
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| Year Of Production | 1931 | ||
| Running Time | 74:26 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Tod Browning |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Bela Lugosi Helen Chandler David Manners Dwight Frye Edward Van Sloan Herbert Bunston Frances Dade |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | None Given |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English DTS HD Master Audio 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 French dts 2.0 German dts 2.0 Italian dts 2.0 Spanish dts 2.0 |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 1080p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.37:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English for the Hearing Impaired German French Italian Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
"Listen to them.
Children of the night.
What music they make."
In the 1930s Universal hit the jackpot with their monster / horror pictures starting with Dracula and Frankenstein (both 1931), The Mummy (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933). These were not the first horror films of course; there was a silent Frankenstein as early as 1910, the Dracula story had been filmed as Nosferatu in 1922 and Universal themselves had produced The Werewolf in 1913. However it was Universal in the 1930s that put monsters into the mainstream and Dracula was the film that set everything in motion.
Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to Transylvania to visit Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) with the documents for the Abbey Dracula has leased near Whitby in England. Renfield ignores the warnings of the locals, who say that Dracula is a vampire, and in Dracula’s gloomy castle that night Renfield becomes his slave, helping Dracula and his boxes of soil onto a ship bound for England. What the ship arrives in Whitby all the crew are dead and only a very demented Renfield is alive on board, who is transferred to the nearby sanatorium for the insane run by Doctor Seward (Herbert Bunston).
As a new neighbour Dracula later introduces himself to Doctor Seward, Seward’s daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners) and her friend Lucy (Frances Dade). Dracula soon drinks the blood of Lucy, making her one of the undead, but his eyes are really on Mina, whom he also bites. Her father and fiancé cannot understand her change in character but visiting Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), who has come to the sanatorium to examine the insane Renfield, suspects that Dracula is a vampire. But can he get the others to believe him before Mina is lost to become undead forever?
Dracula was released in 1931 when talking films were very new, indeed many theatres were not yet equipped for sound so a silent version of the film was also released. Dracula’s genesis was, of course, the novel by Bran Stoker but the film was itself based on the stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston; three of the performers in the 1927 American version of the stage play, Bela Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan and Herbert Bunston, reprised their roles in the film. As a result, Dracula is very stagey in performance with slow and deliberate dialogue, expressive mannerisms and only a handful of tracking camera moves. Filmmakers at the time also did not think that audiences would accept music playing over the visuals, so in Dracula there is only Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake over the opening credits plus some other music when the characters meet during a symphony performance at Covent Garden.
But what amazing visuals. Filmed by cinematographer Karl Freund this is German expressionist in Hollywood; Dracula’s castle with its sweeping staircase, cobwebs, shafts of light and shadow, his ghostly “wives” in white, flickering candles is visually stunning and atmospheric. Equally so the presence of Bela Lugosi, his deliberate dialogue delivery and accent, aristocratic and charming demeanour, piercing eyes and that black cloak all have become synonymous with Dracula ever since. Indeed, it is Lugosi and this film that has settled the iconography of Dracula for the last 90 years through many other filmed treatments while Lugosi, even for those who have not seen this version of the picture, will always be the vision one has of Dracula, which is pretty amazing as Lugosi played Dracula only once more, in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). The other standout performance is by Dwight Frye as the insane fly and spider eating Renfield, as maniacal as Lugosi is still and controlled. Frye gets as much screen time as anyone and is so effective that he, like Lugosi, became thereafter typecast.
Dracula made a horror icon of Bela Lugosi and left a legacy and an iconography that survives to this day, almost 90 years after its release, which is not something that can be said of many films. What’s more Dracula, with its fabulous black and white atmospheric visuals and the mesmerising performances of Lugosi and Dwight Frye, remains a film that is still spooky and well worth watching today. This is really classic cinema and a film for the ages.
Dracula is presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.
This is an almost 90 year old film which I doubt has ever looked better! This is a very clean restored print; there are some tiny flecks, a little aliasing against vertical surfaces and minor edge enhancement in one scene but nothing obvious or very noticeable. Many scenes take place at night, in Dracula’s castle, the crypt of the Abbey or outdoors, where the blacks, greyscale and shadow detail are excellent. Painted glass backgrounds in the mountains and elsewhere do look predictably soft but Dracula’s cloak is solid black, while the darkness in sequences is highlighted by sections of brilliant white, such as Renfield’s hat, Dracula’s white dinner shirt or the whites of the dresses of Mina and the “wives” in the castle. There is grain, mostly nicely controlled except for a few outside sequences in the fog.
English for the hearing impaired, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles are available for both the film and the audio commentary.
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Audio choices are English DTS-HD MA 2.0 (mono), Italian, French, German and Spanish dubs in DTS 2.0, plus the English audio commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0).
Dialogue was always easy to understand. There was little by way of effects except carriage wheels, the roaring wind in the storm sequence, bat’s wings flapping or wolf howls in the distance and many scenes were silent without effects or music which, as noted in the review, only accompanied the opening credits and one scene at the symphony orchestra. Obviously there is no surround or subwoofer use.
With little effects and no music some scenes had a very slight hiss although no crackle was present.
Lip synchronisation was fine.
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This promotion for Universal Pictures plays on start-up.
A fabulous extra, this Spanish version was made simultaneously with the English version, using the same sets; English crew by day, Spanish by night but as the Spanish crew had been able to watch the dailies of the English version they make their own improvements, so much so that some maintain that this Spanish version is technically a better film. Starring Carlos Villarias (Count Dracula), Lupita Tovar (Eva), Eduardo Arozamena (Van Helsing), Barry Norton (Harker) and Pablo Alvarez Rubio (Renfield), directed by George Melford, this Dracula is certainly a sexier version and runs 30 minutes longer with extended and additional scenes containing a fair bit of exposition; some is useful, but others slow down the pacing of the film. This version can be played with or without a lively introduction by actress Lupita Tover Kohner (4:14); it is also restored by Universal and looks very good except for scenes when Renfield visits Dracula’s castle which have a wide range of artefacts; the restoration extra mentions having to source some poor elements. In any case, this is a wonderful opportunity to compare versions. Audio is Spanish DTS-MA HD 2.0, and with the same range of subtitles available as for the English language film.
Made in 1999, this extra is hosted by Carla Laemmle, niece of Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures. As a young girl Carla had a small part in Dracula and in fact spoke the first words in the film. Using stills, drawings, posters and film footage, plus comments by a range of film historians, including David J. Skal, author / filmmaker Clive Barker, Bela Lugosi’s son, make-up artist Rick Baker, Universal archivist Jan-Christopher Horak and others, the featurette looks at Bram Stoker’s novel, including his working notes, the development of the character of Dracula through early film treatments including Nosferatu, the various stage adaptations in England and America, Bela Lugosi was Dracula on stage but was not first choice to play him on screen, the other cast of Dracula and the director Tod Browning, filming the English and Spanish versions at the same time and some of the differences between the two versions, the impact of the film and how Lugosi set the mould for all future Draculas. Still an excellent companion piece to the film.
Made in 2006, a range of people including authors / screenwriters Gregory William Mank, Peter Atkins, Kim Newman, Christopher Wicking, Ramsey Campbell, film historian Sir Christopher Frayling, producer Richard Gordon and directors Joe Dante, Jimmy Sangster talk about Lugosi the man, his performance as Dracula that became the model for all those who followed and his subsequent, often sad, film career including the number of films Lugosi and Boris Karloff appeared in together, Lugosi’s legacy. This extra includes film clips and posters from a number of those films.
For Universal’s 100th Anniversary their centennial project was to restore 100 of their classic films. Dracula (both English and Spanish versions) was one. Made in 2012 various individuals at Universal explain how the restoration was done including some before and after comparisons.
Watch the film with a trivia and information track.
The Swan Lake music over the opening credits is dispensed with and the film plays with an score by Philip Glass performed by the Kronos Quartet. The music is almost continuous; sometimes it aids to the atmosphere but to my mind it often feels intrusive and strident when a more restrained score might have been a better match. Each to their own, of course, and it is good to have this track as an option.
Film historian David J. Skal provides a non-stop, entertaining, and well researched commentary. He talks about the careers of the stars of the film and the director, identifies minor players, continuity lapses and Biblical and Shakespearian references, he reviews vampire literature and lore from the early 1800s and discusses the variations between the novel, the various stage plays and the English and Spanish versions of the film. Along the way he quotes from the novel, the play’s script and the film’s shooting script. This is fabulous, a recommended listen.
Over 250 colour film posters in various languages, black and white film stills and publicity stills which advance automatically with music.
Trailers for four of the Universal Dracula films. All are unrestored. There is a play all option:
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
There have been numerous releases of Dracula over the years. This Blu-ray release has most of the extras currently available in the US except for an additional commentary by Steve Haberman. The film is also included in the Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection (see the summary below).
How good is this original Dracula? The answer is very good! Released in 1931, with its fabulous black and white expressionist visuals and mesmerising performances it made a horror icon of Bela Lugosi and left a legacy that survives to this day. All subsequent Dracula films, and they have been numerous, owe their iconography to this, original, Dracula, the film whose success paved the way for all the subsequent Universal monsters.
Here is your chance to check out the classic original film in glorious HD. The film looks marvellous on Blu-ray, the audio is the original mono, and the extras are extensive, interesting and informative, resulting in a fabulous Blu-ray package.
Dracula is available as a stand-alone Blu-ray but it is also included in Universal’s 4 disc Dracula: Complete Legacy Collection which also has Dracula’s Daughter (1936), and Son of Dracula (1943) on one Blu-ray, House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945) on another Blu-ray, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) by itself on the fourth, a collection that is great value for fans of Universal horror.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony BDP-S580, using HDMI output |
| Display | LG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | NAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated. |
| Amplification | NAD T737 |
| Speakers | Studio Acoustics 5.1 |