Violence/Gore: Nothing visible, everything implied, and the film is all the more effective for that restraint.

Sex/Nudity: Similarly, there is a very subtle but unmistakable sexual component to the vampirism seen here, but nothing especially racy is seen on screen.

Best Line: “I never drink…wine.” (although “To die. To be really dead. That must be glorious.” was a close second)

Score:

I have long been a less than enthusiastic fan of the original Universal DRACULA, the launching point for one of our most beloved horror film series and the foundation of Bela Lugosi’s eternal fame as an iconic cult cinema figure (bookended by his final feature, the delightfully awful PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE). But I have always loved the Universal series (except the Mummy movies, they’re painfully dull), and even though this languid exsanguination epic ranked low on my list after such cherished childhood adventures as FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN and HOUSE OF DRACULA, I still recognized its right to a certain level of prestige amongst those of us who value our cultural history.

But then I watched it again recently with the intention of reviewing it for Cinejunkie, courtesy of the superb Universal DVD box set (the over-packaged one with the collectible busts). Really watched it, and I mean intently. It wasn’t just background atmosphere, a role the early Universals have so often fulfilled for me while I’m concentrating on other things. And I rediscovered the movie in all its (still somewhat stilted) glory, so I’m here to say that DRACULA is indeed an enduring piece of true horror film making. It magically transforms the moral restrictions of the day into cinematic virtues like men metamorphosizing (off-screen) into bats, and it captures an all-consuming melancholy, mind-chilling mood that would guide all of the future Universal installments and even later attempts to adapt the original Bram Stoker novel that inspired this stage production-turned-film.

The crux of the movie for most is of course Lugosi, masterfully mesmerizing movie-watchers with the same magnetism that lures Mina to almost certain damnation. But it would be criminal not to acknowledge that this is really a double act, with Edward Van Sloan’s Van Helsing matching Lugosi’s charm despite his more subtle professorial demeanor. The scene with Van Helsing almost falling into Dracula’s hypnotic thrall and then regaining his composure is a beautiful bit of acting that leaps off the screen some seventy years after its first appearance. While the rest of the cast languishes in over-enunciated melodrama, a hallmark of early sound productions - even Dwight Frye’s well-remembered Renfield is little more than a hammy, over-the-top caricature - Lugosi and Sloan’s performances could anchor a film today and probably still emerge as the charismatic centerpiece of a truly epic horror showdown.

Despite its short running time of 75 minutes, the movie feels longer, the result not only of the film’s methodical pacing - almost a sin in today’s world of explosive summer cinema - but also of the almost total absence of a musical score. True, the movie was desecrated several years back by adding a newly composed score by atonal megahack Philip Glass, but although that score is on this disc, you can watch the movie without it. Whew. In any event, the moments of almost unbearable silence only add to the foreboding scenes of Dracula or Renfield poised on the brink of sullying the purity of some helpless damsel in distress. Perhaps the most effective sequence of silent stalking occurs when Mina herself - now under Dracula’s control - stares at Harker like a side of beef ready for the grill and slowly, leans toward him, smiling enigmatically…

I still maintain that just by virtue of the era in which it was produced, DRACULA comes across as just a bit too quiet and plodding for a modern sensibility. But put it on in a dark room on some rainswept Halloween night, and you’ll feel the tingles running up and down your spine before you can finish saying, “Oh, turn this boring thing off and put on HALLOWEEN 4.” As a horror classic, its power is eternal; as a document of early movie making, it’s an indispensable glimpse into an era as long-lost as the days when Dracula walked alive and free under the rays of the morning sun.

DVD Extras: As part of the complete Universal LEGACY box set or the more specific DRACULA - THE LEGACY COLLECTION box, this release comes with a second disc that features the superior Spanish version of this film (famously shot on the same sets at night), and the follow-ups DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, SON OF DRACULA, and the final Universal horror bash, HOUSE OF DRACULA (Abbott and Costello’s monster romp notwithstanding). If you can stand commentary recorded long after the fact by a “film historian,” there’s a track with David J. Skal. The documentary, “The Road to Dracula,” fills you in on the basics, and that much debated Philip Glass score is on an alternate audio track.

ATB