Dracula/Frankenstein

In the early 1930’s, as studios made their transition into sound, each tried to find its identity in the rapidly changing film world. Universal, along with Paramount already a longtime tenant in Hollywood, made a marked decision at that time: to create popular franchises out of classic horror stories, allowing the monsters to be the stars. Envisioned as a cost cutting measure (a forward thinking strategy that is almost der rigeur in today’s Hollywood of tentpole/franchise filmmaking), Universal quickly discovered they were sitting on a goldmine and throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s would bring Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, among others, to the big screen. The first horror icons to make it to the big screen were Dracula and Frankenstein, based on the gothic novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, respectively. Released only a few months apart, the films catapulted their otherwise anonymous stars (both of whom had done extensive work in silent film and theater, but nothing history would have remembered them for) to genre superstardom: Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula and Boris Karloff as The Monster, and for the next 20-30 years, each would star in countless horror films, many of which made at Universal and unfortunately almost all of declining quality (to the point that Legosi ended up starring in a few Ed Wood films, dramatized poignantly in Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood”). After each film’s smash success, Universal wasted no time launching their next franchises and soon “The Mummy” and “The Invisible Man” were in theaters. In terms of iconic films though, 1931’s “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” are the pinnacle of Universal’s monster conveyor belt, thanks mainly to their dynamic source material, whereas their sequels were inevitably watered down (if still entertaining) retellings of the previous tales. For Legosi, this would be the only time he played the role of Dracula on film, and the subsequent depths to which his career plummeted makes this performance all the more entrancing. For Karloff, who much to Legosi’s dismay, enjoyed a stronger, longer, more diverse career, his first turn as The Monster would not be his last, and it was not even a year later before he was back in makeup for Universal as The Mummy.

The film version of “Dracula” almost did not make it to the big screen. Bram Stoker’s widow controlled the rights to the film and was seeking an exorbitant price for any adaptation. Universal, always thinking frugally first and creatively second, instead bought the rights to Hamilton Deane’s stage play of the same name, itself an unofficial adaptation that drastically scaled down the novel’s expansive action. Fearful of a lawsuit, Universal acquired the novel’s rights as well, after Stoker’s widow reduced her asking price; in an interesting twist, Bela Legosi, the pending star of the film and former star of the stage adaptation, personally visited Stoker’s widow to convince her to lower her price, such was his desperation at possibly losing out on the star making role. Despite having access to Stoker’s elaborate and colorful plot, the film still stuck closely to Deane’s stripped down storytelling, foregoing, among other things, the novel’s action climax back in the forests of Transylvania. What Universal did not cut costs on was the film’s sets, especially Dracula’s castle, which is quite elaborate, and would be used for a number of subsequent films for the studio, including the Spanish language version of the film shot concurrently. While the action is pared down, the plot is still Stoker’s: a young real estate broker journeys to Transylvania on behalf of his client, the mysterious Count Dracula, who is purchasing extensive land in England. Upon arriving at the castle, the broker, Jonathan Harker, quickly finds he is imprisoned by Dracula, a creature of evil who sails to England in a coffin which he must return to at sunrise every day. Upon arriving in England, Dracula quickly seeks out Mina Harker, Jonathan’s fiancée, who it is suggested is the reincarnated love of Count Dracula’s long dead wife. Dracula appears in her window one night while she is asleep and soon Mina falls gravely ill with a mysterious ailment (notice the popularized Dracula trademarks of biting his victims on their necks is not portrayed here). A beleaguered Jonathan returns, and with the help of Dr. Seward, Mina’s private doctor, and the enigmatic Professor Van Helsing (played by early character actor Edward Van Sloan, who portrayed the same “wise, old, ‘insert monster here’ expert in “Frankenstein” as well as “The Mummy”), they seek out Dracula’s crypt and kill him by a stake through the heart (one of the now famous trademarks that does make an appearance here). The real story of the film is Legosi, however, who so clearly relishes his role, and the mystery and sinister nature of the character is given a big lift by Karl Freund’s moody cinematography (extensive closeups of Legosi’s piercing eyes), which so impressed Universal they rewarded him with directing duties on “The Mummy”.

For “Frankenstein”, Universal stepped further away from the source material, instead relying on another play, but one which differed extensively from the novel of the same name. Watching the film, it is apparent how closely Universal wanted to stick to the simple formula used in “Dracula”, eschewing far flung locations for a streamlined tale. As the film opens, Dr. Henry Frankenstein is performing mysterious science experiments that involve grave robbing and stealing brains from medical colleges. Late one evening, his fiancée, Elizabeth (natch), best friend, Victor (natch twice) and former mentor, Dr. Waldman, played by Edward Van Sloan (natch thrice) show up unannounced at the castle Frankenstein is conducting his research, demanding to know what he is doing and why he has shut himself away for months, withdrawing from the university, shunning his fiancée and father and foregoing the advice of his teacher and friend. Reluctantly Frankenstein admits them and the crew is shocked to discover the full extent of his plans: to re-animate a dead human being, a composite actually of human body parts, through thousands of volts of electricity channeled directly to the brain via a lightning bolt. Upon successful completion of the experiment, the monster’s hand twitches with life, Frankenstein erupts with his now classic line “Its alive!” and the more controversial “Now I know what it’s like to BE God!”, which was muffled from subsequent re-releases of the film by a convenient thunderclap, but restored when the film was released on dvd some 70 years later. Frankenstein’s euphoria is short lived however, as he quickly realizes the brain the Monster possesses is that of a violent criminal, prompting the monster to kill Frankenstein’s assistant and go on a rampage throughout the countryside, controversially killing a small girl by throwing her into a lake after innocently playing with her moments before. It should be noted that the director, James Whale, attempts to sympathize with his monster, portraying him as merely confused and scared; these traits are further established in the film’s superior sequel “The Bride of Frankenstein”. After murdering the child, the monster is chased into a remote windmill, where Frankenstein attempts to subdue him while a violent mob forms outside. Unable to overwhelm the physically superior monster, he is thrown from the roof of the windmill, and in what must have been shocking for the time, is splayed across one of the blades before crashing to the ground. Frankenstein no longer at risk, the mob launches torches onto the thatch roof of the windmill, burning it to the ground with the monster trapped inside. An unconscious Frankenstein is brought back to his family’s castle to recuperate as his father toasts to the family name, an ending far more optimistic than Shelley’s original, and one that is largely ignored considering the sequel produced two years later.