(Double Dose is two films from the same director, writer or star...or genre or theme...pretty simple. Today: it's two Dracula movies, shot at the same time, on the same sets, but by different people, in different languages, with two surprisingly different results....)
Dracula (1931) dir. Tod Browning - CriterionChannel
Dracula (1931) dir. George Melford - CriterionChannel
I last probably watched the classic Bela Legosi-starring Dracula back around the time that the Francis Ford Coppola version came out, in the early-to-mid 90's. It didn't make much of an impression. All I retained of the film was what everyone remembers, that incredible dolly shot pushing in on Legosi in his dungeon, and those many insert shots of Legosi's eyes with the light highlighting them. The rest of the film - any other story or performances - were completely lost to me. It didn't leave much of an impression.
For October the Criterion Channel is presenting all the main Universal Monsters horror movies, starting with the classic Dracula. But the classic is backed up with the lesser known Carlos Villarías-starring Spanish-language Dracula that was using the same sets and script. What resulted was two unsurprisingly similar film, yet still drastically different viewing experiences.
To start, the Browning version clocks in at a should-be-brisk 75 minutes, but the Spanish version is a whopping 1 hour and 43 minutes long. That roughly 30 minutes does indeed make a big difference.
Renfield manages to get dropped off at his meeting point, where Dracula, posing as the carriage driver, picks him up and escorts him to the mansion, where he greets him inside in a different form (to be clear, he transforms into a bat, which then carries Renfields luggage indoors, and he quick-changes into his finest tie-n-tails...it's pretty comical when you think about this charade Drac puts on for Renfield's benefit). Renfield is there to solidify a legal deal for the purchase/rental of an estate in England for some reason, which, after Renfield is drugged and molested by Drac's wives, he goes nuts and becomes his servant. While in transport from Transylvania to England by boat, Drac kills all the crew, and Renfield is institutionalized upon arrival. Drac murders a girl on the street then greets his neighbours at a ballet. The rest of the film is basically Drac preying upon Mina Seward, and Professor Van Helsing deducing who the culprit of all these neck-bite-murders is (that makes it sound more exciting than it is).
The film, upon leaving Transylvania, gets real boring, real quick. There's no real character development to any of the players, they have no personality and their motivations are largely absent. The performers, to a one, are all just delivering lines (or pausing while they think of their next line) and its some of the most stilted acting I've seen in a big Hollywood movie. It's truly like nobody cared about how this production came off.
The editing of the film leads to a lot of memorable imagery, but most of which has been co-opted and parodied to such an extent that it all feels kind of hack and corny. At the same time the editing has trimmed much of the story down to largely its bare bones exposition, which makes for dull, dull viewing. I'm also assuming there was some censorship as a lot of references to murder, blood sucking or people raising from the dead seem starkly absent (which can be found in the Spanish version). As a result, the events of the film seem disconnected from scene to scene at times, or laughably disjointed.
Legosi really crafted something unique in his interpretation of Dracula, but unique doesn't equal good. Dracula, with his slicked-back hair, cape, pressed shirt, cummerbund and tuxedo tails, is supposed to perhaps be debonnaire and suave, but he just seems like a weirdo (which is what Mina tells her friend Lucy who seems ridiculously smitten with him and his bizarre accent). Dare I say it, I think Dracula is a loser. This Legosi version is clearly the template upon which Nandor in What We Do In The Shadows was built.
Dwight Frye's Renfield goes from zero to sixty once he's turned into the vampire's servant. He's annoyingly manic and doing way too much. Much more than what the film asks for or needs. The rest of the cast are dull, dull, dull, lacking in any real charm or personality. Edward Van Sloane's Van Helsing is an exposition machine, and he has zero chemistry when facing off with Legosi.
The sets of the production, and the accompanying lighting, are all really great, and it's a shame a better film wasn't using them... except there was.
It would be easy to say that the Spanish language Dracula was just a pale ape of the English version, but it's truly the superior picture. It's not even close. Don't get me wrong, some of the same problems with the characters and story exist in both versions - motivations are thin, and the story really doesn't ever take off with any intensity - but the performances and the direction are not just different, but really, really good.
Melford was able to see the dailies from Browning's shoot, and in the initial minutes, it seems like Melford is directly aping what Browning had done. But it becomes starkly clear in the first big reveal of Dracula that he's not going to be content with mirroring, and that he has his own ideas for the picture. Rather than pan away every time Dracula emerges from a coffin (as Browning does, and it makes me laugh thinking about Legosi's Dracula clumsily crawling up from the dirt to stand so upright trying to present as if he didn't just have that awkward moment), instead Melford cuts to Dracula emerging from behind the coffin lid to a dramatically different effect.
It's also clear Pablo Álvarez Rubio as Renfield is a much better actor than Frye, or at least a more sensitive actor. He plays Renfield a bit comically in the opening moment, but after his turn, he plays him as a tortured being, which is a much different, more nuanced portray than just playing manic.
With the additional length, there are expanded scenes which allow the characters to breath, and interact more. While Villarias' Dracula isn't all that different from Legosi's, his performance isn't as cartoony, and there's a bit more menace, though perhaps a little less danger as a result. But the difference comes in Mina - or rather Ava as she is called here - and her relationships with her father, as well as her boyfirend Juan Harker,
In the Browning version, when Mina is recounting her "dream" of Dracula assaulting her to Van Helsing, it's treated coldly like exposition or a victim reciting their ordeal to a disinterested cop taking a statement. In the Spanish version, Van Helsing and Ava's father enter the room to overhear her telling Juan of her experience, and her father, with great tenderness and compassion embraces her and helps gently convince her to show Van Helsing her wound. It's a tremendously better and more affecting scene and really underscores the differences between the two films.
The English version used a lot of rubber bats and spiders in the production. Melford wisely limits their use. His bats, as well, swoop around the sound stage, in and out quickly, where Browning's would just flap in place in a static shot, looking every bit as cheap as they were.
I can't overstate how much more engaging the Spanish language Dracula is. Just superior in every aspect. Sure, Legosi is the archetype for the role, but he's pretty much his own punchline at this point. There's next to nothing in the Browning version that isn't bettered by the Melford version. It's just taking the whole endeavour more seriously, and it comes across as a much more engaging production as a result.
BUT IS IT HORROR?
(yes that's right, this Double Dose has just become a surprise horror, not horror column)
I guess it's olde timey horror, but it's not scary in the slightest. The Browning Dracula is basically self-parodying at this stage, but the Melford version is, if only a little bit, suspenseful.
I must have sidestepped from one universe to the next, my version of America Chavez's power, just less dramatic and always to a universe with little differences only. In my previous one, "Tod Browning's Dracula" is not the 30s one, but something from the late 60s more akin to Andy Warhol's version with a Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet look & feel. I don't know why that is such a strong (fake) memory.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Lugosi's Dracula did the character from the novel a major injustice. That image became so cemented in our collective consciousness that it is the default costume made from plastic for Halloween. The Stoker Dracula was more bestial, and I am not sure has ever been depicted as such. Maybe Gary Oldman's ?