31 Days of Dracula- Day 4: Universal 1931

Bela Lugosi's Dracula. Where it all started.  I was a little hard pressed on what to write... there are dozens of books on the movie- I'll be looking at those books during the month- not to mention the coverage it gets in other books.  In fact, when I picked up a used copy of Tom Weaver's Universal Horrors, the chapter on Dracula was mostly missing, but I had a copy of David Skal's Hollywood Gothic that certainly compensated for the missing text.

What I'm sure I've read somewhere, but didn't actually occur to me until my rewatchings was how different the family movies (Daughter of... Son of...) were from the original, which, thanks to it's basis in a stage play based on the novel, seems like a drawing room melodrama.

Lugosi`sets the bar high in this, creating a Dracula by which all subsequent portrayals are judged, fascinating, hypnotic, menacing but suave and sophisticated.  He only played Dracula one more time- in Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein- but played variants on the theme in Mark of the Vampire and Return of the Vampire... I'll be passing on them this season since I'm focusing on Dracula specific pieces.