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Director: George Melford
Screenplay: Baltasar Fernández
Cué (based on the Bram Stoker novel and the theatrical play by John L.
Balderston, Hamilton Deane and Garrett Fort)
Cast: Carlos Villarías (AS Conde
Drácula); Lupita Tovar (as Eva); Barry Norton (as Juan Harker); Pablo Álvarez
Rubio (as Renfield); Eduardo Arozamena (as Van Helsing)
Synopsis: Change the "a" to an accented one and you get
the Spanish language version of the Universal
horror film, shot at the same time at night whilst Tod Browning's more well known version with Bela Lugosi was being filmed before in the day. As with that film,
Conde Dracula (Villarías) moves to England, terrorising Eva (Tovar) the fiancée of Juan Harker (Norton). However with the help of the
wise Van Helsing (Arozamena) the
Conte may have his comeuppance.
(Spanish) Dracula is certainly a curiosity which has blossomed into
its own fan base, from a brief period when sound had been introduced into
cinema where, instead of dubbing, it was viewed as wiser to film two versions
of the same film in different languages. (One of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse
films, the second, is another example of this). It's been a very long time
since I viewed the Lugosi version, so
attempting to compare the two would be misinformed, only a few things from
memory visibly mirroring each other. (Spanish)
Dracula however is noticeably longer in running time and, in a great irony
considering the film was once thought lost, its seen as been superior because
a) shooting at night time on the same Universal
sets was seen as more atmospheric and, b) along with the longer running time,
the Spanish production could learn from what was being done in the takes for
the English version and change things. I cannot help, though my knowledge of
this region of cinema is vague, but think of how this film would've been taken
in Spain itself as well, and in a Spanish speaking country like Mexico if a
print ever travelled down there, as even with this film the potential influence
of horror films could've been significant.
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| From https://terrymalloyspigeoncoop.files.wordpress.com/ 2012/10/carlos_villarias-dracula.jpg |
It's peculiar watching a film
where everyone in Transylvania and England are able to speak fluent Spanish,
but this is as much an issue with how England is usually depicted with many of
my ilk speaking without thick regional accents. If anything, here with (Spanish) Dracula as well as the other Universal horror movies the entire film
exists in its own world, a monochrome filmed one where the sets from the
English language version are immediately gothic and evocative of a place far
removed from the viewer. The only regret with this film in terms of depicting
the Dracula story is that, even if
the film is nearly ninety minutes already, it skips through Dracula's castle
almost completely, recasting Renfield (Rubio)
as the one who travels to Transylvania
to meet the Conte. Nonetheless the film still has a great deal of mood to it,
of people walking between mist covered cemetery gates, to the ruin that Dracula occupies including a
giant staircase that seems to lift up into the sky itself, able to feed viewers'
imaginations of a vast environment on manmade, small ones.
There's a lot to like in the alternative
casting in (Spanish) Dracula too. Not
only do you have the very charismatic Lupita
Tovar as Eva, the Mina role, but for the villains of the piece you have
enough madness between them to fill a padded room. Though he's not Lugosi, Villarías does have suitably maniacal eyes which are wisely
emphasised in extreme close-ups, and as for Reinfeld, I've now come across a
candidate as the most deranged take on the character I've seen in an adaptation
from Rubio. Whether he's laughing
like a lunatic, shouting or switching between pleasantness and despair like a
flipping coin, Rubio is special, his
role so intense that the filming crew, in Tovar's
post-film recollections, were worried he was cracking up for real.
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Technical Details:
At first jarring, there's no
musical score at all during (Spanish)
Dracula barring an orchestral piece in the beginning credits. This lack of non-diegetic
music to tell you when to feel scared or react to anything onscreen is noticeable
in its absence, instead the bare sound of what was recorded left. It does add a
lot of atmosphere to moments of environment building, but it's something you
have to soak up for a while if you grew up like I did with horror films that
use music either perfectly or badly.
Also of surprise is that, while
horror films still use a look of dialogue scenes now, (Spanish) Dracula contains a lot of dialogue and scenes of
characters standing around having conversations. Even Dracula and Van Helsing
during an intense point decided to have a chatter at one point. This in all
honesty weakens the experience of watching the film, and that this alongside
the English language version were based on a stage play adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel is possibly the
cause of this. That said, if there's any defence of this, from my vague
memories of the Browning adaptation
it was just as weakened by these facts as well. Also by coincidental luck I've
just seen a new horror documentary, Fear
Itself (2015), and its comments on this type of dialogue proved to be
inspired and apt with watching (Spanish)
Dracula, that there's so much dialogue in films like it to ground their
content, in fear of not knowing the cause of the terror preying on the
characters if it wasn't explained. In fact the dialogue scenes developed a
purpose in that once you pass them, the moments of creepiness and mood where
Dracula prowls after victims become more meaningful. It's as if the
ordinariness of the morally good characters with their lengthy dialogues scenes
get briefly cut down by the fear of what's after them. In fact in one case, due
to a good performance in the scene from Tovar,
a lengthy conversation turns into the worse when someone is suspiciously too bright
and optimistic for what has happened to them.
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Abstract Spectrum: Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Nothing of mention, but even if covering an unconventional
choice for a Universal horror movie,
these films have had an incredible and profound influence on both horror cinema
and also the types of cinema I cover on this site. The Universal films have created an entire aesthetic that will have
even inspired underground avant-garde works with the symbolism used to depict
the like of Frankenstein's monster to Dracula. The images here of dank, shadow
covered environments are also visibly influenced by German Expressionism
as well, the trail of a family tree to be found that also contains the more
abstract horror films I've watched over the years and would appear on this
blog.
Personal Opinion:
There're certainly flaws in
pacing, but I cannot help but find (Spanish)
Dracula charming and also rewarding. It's not a scary film now, but like Guy Maddin's Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary (2002), it's now more about
the gothic mood of the story in this interpretation that captivates you, like a
feint chill of a night's wind on the back of your bared neck. It's also nice to
see this version of Dracula for the
first time. Each of the (good) ones I've seen, from this to Francis Ford Coppola's, have all had
their unique personalities, and after years of presumably being lost forever, (Spanish) Dracula was preserved and
made available in all the recent Universal
horror box sets even if as an extra. Appropriately, some suggest this is the superior
version of the two versions made in 1931, even if the English version had Lugosi, something which I'll have to
decide upon myself when I revisit that version at some point.
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