WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Dracula (1931)

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob.

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<v Speaker 3>Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird

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<v Speaker 3>House we're tackling a classic. We're going to be talking

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<v Speaker 3>about the nineteen thirty one Universal Pictures adaptation of Dracula,

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<v Speaker 3>directed by Todd Browning starring Bella Lagosi. Now, Rob, this

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<v Speaker 3>was your pick for this week. I had always assumed

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<v Speaker 3>if we talked about Dracula, it would happen in October.

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<v Speaker 3>But I'm not complaining. Happy to talk about Dracula in

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<v Speaker 3>January or whatever month it still is. Yeah, we're still January.

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<v Speaker 3>So what's going on? How'd you get to Dracula?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, this is how it went down. So, yeah, this

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<v Speaker 2>is a film I had actually never seen before. You know,

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<v Speaker 2>sometimes a film I think is so iconic, so genre defining,

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<v Speaker 2>so all present in popular culture that it kind of

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<v Speaker 2>fades in to a personal obscurity. You know, you haven't

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<v Speaker 2>seen it, but you kind of feel like you've seen it,

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<v Speaker 2>or you know you're just overly familiar with its themes.

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<v Speaker 2>It's cast its place in film history, and therefore when

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<v Speaker 2>it comes time to watch something, you're like, well, I

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<v Speaker 2>just want to watch something fresh, or you want to

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<v Speaker 2>watch something you really do know, and films like this

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<v Speaker 2>can kind of fall through the cracks.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's sort of interesting. I might talk more about

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<v Speaker 3>this later. But something I find interesting about this Dracula

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<v Speaker 3>is I've probably seen it at least five or six times,

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<v Speaker 3>but I still forget things about it. And the reason

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<v Speaker 3>is that there are so many different adaptations of Dracula

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<v Speaker 3>it becomes hard to keep straight which elements are from

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<v Speaker 3>which version. True.

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<v Speaker 2>True, Yeah, what deviations are made is what is intensified

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<v Speaker 2>and what is condensed and so forth.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>So yeah, I had this realization over the weekend. So

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<v Speaker 2>my kid has really gotten into Dungeons and Dragons and

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<v Speaker 2>has set their sight so not only DMING A Campaign

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<v Speaker 2>for Friends, but DMING Curse of Strawed. For those of

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<v Speaker 2>you who are unfamiliar, the Dark Lord Strata of aon

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<v Speaker 2>Zardovich is D and d's take on Dracula, essentially a

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<v Speaker 2>Dracula esque vampire lord character created in the late nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>seventies by Tracy and Laura Hickman and based in part

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<v Speaker 2>on Bela Lugosi's iconic portrayal in nineteen thirty one's Dracula.

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<v Speaker 3>I have no familiarity at all. Basically, all I know

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<v Speaker 3>is that vampires are a big deal in D and D.

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<v Speaker 3>You can confirm this that they're not like your standard

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<v Speaker 3>you know, you're just staking them left and right kind

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<v Speaker 3>of enemies that you might expect from some like horror

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<v Speaker 3>video games or whatever. Like if you meet a vampire

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<v Speaker 3>in D and D, this is like one of the

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<v Speaker 3>most devastating and dangerous enemies you could possibly face.

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<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, especially like a true vampire as opposed to just

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<v Speaker 2>a vampire spawn.

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<v Speaker 3>But okay, yeah, any.

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<v Speaker 2>Rate, I told you know, I'm supportive. I'm a supportive dad,

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<v Speaker 2>So I'm like, okay, that sounds good. But one doesn't

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<v Speaker 2>simply run Curse of Straw without seeing at least one

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<v Speaker 2>Dracula movie. And I think the most they'd seen was

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<v Speaker 2>Bart Simpson's Dracula on Treehouse of Horror.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, which is a take on a lot of

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<v Speaker 3>the jokes on that are tied into the Francis Ford

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<v Speaker 3>Coppola adaptation from the nineties.

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<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, yes, yeah, And so you know, I was looking

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<v Speaker 2>at my options, and I was considering the Copola one

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<v Speaker 2>as well, because I'm like, all right, my wife's going

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<v Speaker 2>to be out of town, it's just the two of us.

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<v Speaker 2>We've got to watch a Dracula film. And then I

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<v Speaker 2>started really thinking about It's like, you know, I haven't

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<v Speaker 2>actually seen the nineteen thirty one classic in full. You know,

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<v Speaker 2>I've seen so many Dracula films over the years, and

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<v Speaker 2>this one has just fallen through the cracks. So given

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<v Speaker 2>that that they enjoyed Son of Frankenstein back in October,

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<v Speaker 2>I was like, well, it makes sense to watch another

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<v Speaker 2>black and white horror classic. It's maybe not too scary.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, they can handle stranger things and aliens at

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<v Speaker 2>this point, so I'm not too worried about that. But

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<v Speaker 2>you know, some of these Dracula movies hit pretty hard.

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<v Speaker 2>So yeah, we watched Dracula. For my own part, I

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<v Speaker 2>feel like, absolutely holds up stunning, atmospherically, creepy, absolutely rooted

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<v Speaker 2>in Lugosi's mesmerizing performance, and it's pretty weird in its

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<v Speaker 2>own right too. I'm also happy to report that my

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<v Speaker 2>kid also really enjoyed the film, resulting in many a

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<v Speaker 2>oh my, whenever Dracula or Renfield made crazy or intense eyes,

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<v Speaker 2>they told me after we were viewing that they half

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<v Speaker 2>expected Dracula to creep out of the shadows in the house.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, I think that's what you want. I okay, let's see.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm trying to search my feelings and know and find

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<v Speaker 3>what I know to be true. Have I ever really

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<v Speaker 3>been scared by the Universal Dracula.

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<v Speaker 4>No.

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<v Speaker 3>I think maybe I'm just too hardened by horror movies

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<v Speaker 3>that would come later. But I do love it, and

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<v Speaker 3>I appreciate the craft of the horror in it, and

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<v Speaker 3>I feel like I can see how it would be

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<v Speaker 3>scary if I hadn't been so desensitized by all of

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<v Speaker 3>the edgy or hor horror movies that would come later.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, to be clear, they're fine, They're almost thirteen. They

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<v Speaker 2>were able to handle it, But I was. It did

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<v Speaker 2>bring me much joy that they enjoyed it as much

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<v Speaker 2>as they did, and they weren't bored with it or anything.

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<v Speaker 2>And yeah, I don't think there's really a boring moment

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<v Speaker 2>in this one. If it flies right along, sometimes literally

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<v Speaker 2>on the wings of a bat. So I don't really

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<v Speaker 2>have an elevator picture this one, Joe, other than it's Dracula.

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<v Speaker 2>This is the big one. This is a Titan of

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<v Speaker 2>not only cinema enlarge, but also horror cinema specifically.

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<v Speaker 3>Dracula comes to the talkies fully licensed.

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<v Speaker 2>That's right, that's right. Let's see if we're able to.

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<v Speaker 2>Let's go ahead and listen to just a little bit

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<v Speaker 2>of the trailer audio.

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<v Speaker 3>Here.

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<v Speaker 5>I am Dracula. I mention of the name brings to

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<v Speaker 5>my I'm things so evil, so fantastic, so degrading. You

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<v Speaker 5>wonder if it isn't all a dream, a nightmare.

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<v Speaker 2>Breath.

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<v Speaker 5>Rap now.

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<v Speaker 3>Millions of them.

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<v Speaker 5>The original terrifying story of a maniac and a man

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<v Speaker 5>who lived after death, lived on human blood, took the

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<v Speaker 5>form of a vampire bat and lured innocent girls to

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<v Speaker 5>a fate truly worse than death.

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<v Speaker 4>Became to me over the same of his arm, and

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<v Speaker 4>he made me dream.

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<v Speaker 2>All right. Well, you might be wondering, well, where can

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<v Speaker 2>I want watch nineteen thirty one's Dracula. Well, I watched

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<v Speaker 2>it on the Universal Dracula Complete Legacy Collection Blu ray Set.

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<v Speaker 2>I rented this from Videodrome. I think you have the

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<v Speaker 2>same addition, right, Joe.

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<v Speaker 3>No, I've got a slightly different thing. I've got the

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<v Speaker 3>Universal Classic Monsters Essential Collection Blu ray set, which I

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<v Speaker 3>highly recommend. It's got a lot of great extra I mean,

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<v Speaker 3>all the films look beautiful. It's got a ton of

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<v Speaker 3>great extras, documentaries and commentary tracks and all that comes

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<v Speaker 3>with a nice little booklet. So yeah, I've enjoyed this

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<v Speaker 3>set for years.

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<v Speaker 2>All Right, I think we have some of the same

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<v Speaker 2>extras and special features. They'll share it, so definitely, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>Universal Horror release.

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<v Speaker 3>Here might just be a partial repackaging kind of thing.

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<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because the extras on this day and there's some

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<v Speaker 2>great extras. They're a little bit older, but charming in

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<v Speaker 2>ways that sometimes things from nineteen ninety nine are not.

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<v Speaker 2>But there's a really good document short documentary called The

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<v Speaker 2>Road to Dracula, and it's hosted by Carla Limley, who

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<v Speaker 2>lived you know, nine through twenty fourteen. She was the

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<v Speaker 2>niece of Universal founder Carl Limley and cousin of producer

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<v Speaker 2>Carl Limley Junior.

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<v Speaker 3>And she's in the movie.

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<v Speaker 2>She is she has the first line of dialogue.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, she's just riding in the carriage in the borgo pass. Yes. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's really fun and you know, you got some

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<v Speaker 2>of the usual suspects, various film historians. Some will refer

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<v Speaker 2>to Joe Dante of course shows up to talk a

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<v Speaker 2>little about horror films, and it's a lot of fun.

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<v Speaker 2>So these Blu rays are great. But this is of

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<v Speaker 2>course a very famous film. It's generally available for digital

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<v Speaker 2>purchase in rental, and it's one one of those classics

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<v Speaker 2>that you will also periodically get to see on the

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<v Speaker 2>big screen, which is a treat.

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<v Speaker 3>While we're on the subject of disc extras, I just

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<v Speaker 3>wanted to say a couple of times I've watched this

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<v Speaker 3>movie with a commentary track that's on the disc version

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<v Speaker 3>I have by the film and horror historian David J. Skull.

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<v Speaker 3>Some of the things, like probably a lot of the

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<v Speaker 3>behind the scenes things I know know about the movie,

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<v Speaker 3>I learned through Skall's commentary, so credit to him. That's

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<v Speaker 3>a source of a lot of my just general information.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, Skall, who sadly passed away last year, is also

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<v Speaker 2>an important part of the documentary shorts on the disc

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<v Speaker 2>and among his many books you'll find vas for Vampire

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<v Speaker 2>and a to Z Guide to Everything Undead that was

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<v Speaker 2>published in ninety six. I've already added a used copy

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<v Speaker 2>of that to my cart I think I need that

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<v Speaker 2>in my collection.

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<v Speaker 3>Uh huh, they're all undead. Okay, trying to think what

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<v Speaker 3>the X is?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, might be a tough pull. Yeah, all right,

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<v Speaker 2>Well let's talk about the connections here, the people behind

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<v Speaker 2>this film. I do have to note that, as usual,

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<v Speaker 2>we can't cover everyone and a film this big. I

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<v Speaker 2>feel like there's been so much written about it and

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<v Speaker 2>explored about the picture. Every little part has probably been

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<v Speaker 2>explored to some degree or another, and you know, we

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<v Speaker 2>just don't have time for all of that. So my

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<v Speaker 2>apologies to anyone whose efforts and talent we left out here.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, also worth noting that this film is incredibly huge

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<v Speaker 3>and important in Hollywood history, and we're not going to

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<v Speaker 3>be able to explore all of this. This is not

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<v Speaker 3>your complete history lesson on the universal monsters in Dracula.

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<v Speaker 3>We can't do that today. We're not really qualified for that.

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<v Speaker 3>But we're going to do what we can, absolutely all right.

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<v Speaker 2>Starting at the top, the director is, of course Todd Browning,

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<v Speaker 2>who ofd eighteen eighty through nineteen sixty two American director

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<v Speaker 2>who was quite successful during the Silent Era and by

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<v Speaker 2>some estimates less sure of himself entering into the talky era,

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<v Speaker 2>and that's something you'll pick up on with this film

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<v Speaker 2>and its frequent use of silence and at times a

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<v Speaker 2>kind of like stagy ritualistic framing that feels very you know,

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<v Speaker 2>in keeping with this film's roots on the stage as

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<v Speaker 2>a play, but also fitting for the silent era as well.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I guess we can talk more later about the

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<v Speaker 3>different musical compositions that have been paired with the movie

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<v Speaker 3>over the years, but one thing that will feel kind

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<v Speaker 3>of unusual about it to a lot of modern audiences

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<v Speaker 3>is the lack of music throughout the film. There are

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<v Speaker 3>a couple of scenes with music, you know, with the

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<v Speaker 3>credits and the old version you get the Swan Lake,

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<v Speaker 3>and there's a scene that takes place at a at

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<v Speaker 3>a symphony performance where there's music in the background because

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<v Speaker 3>it's diegetic music, it's supposed to be part of the narrative.

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<v Speaker 3>But most of the scenes it's just kind of silence

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<v Speaker 3>and the characters talking, and some of the most dramatic

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<v Speaker 3>scenes in the film there's nothing at all to listen to.

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<v Speaker 3>It's just utterly silent. Well, like you know, the vampire creeps.

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<v Speaker 2>Up, Yeah, I mean you almost it's almost unheard. Off

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<v Speaker 2>when you compare it to modern films, like so many

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<v Speaker 2>films are just non stop blaring music and sound effects

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<v Speaker 2>and explosions. And it depends on the genre obviously, but yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>it can be almost shocking how silent this picture is.

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<v Speaker 2>But you're also you're not missing the cacophony either. It's

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<v Speaker 2>also worth noting that films of this era were also

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<v Speaker 2>released in silent film versions, in part for older theaters,

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<v Speaker 2>but also for international markets since dubbing subtitles were not

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<v Speaker 2>really all that established yet. So you'll find versions of

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<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirty one's Dracula that have the full like silent

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<v Speaker 2>film dialogue set up, where you know, the inter titles. Yeah, yeah, oh,

0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:20.920
<v Speaker 2>I feel like.

0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.960
<v Speaker 3>That would There would be so many There's a lot

0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.040
<v Speaker 3>of dialogue in this movie, because generally talkies had more

0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.600
<v Speaker 3>dialogue in them than silent films. Did I feel like

0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.800
<v Speaker 3>that would extend the run time a lot if you

0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:33.920
<v Speaker 3>had to have an intertitle for every line.

0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they must have. I haven't seen it in full myself.

0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:38.160
<v Speaker 2>I've just seen some clips. I'm not sure if a

0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.800
<v Speaker 2>full version exists, but yeah, they would have to cut

0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:42.520
<v Speaker 2>some stuff.

0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.680
<v Speaker 3>Right, I would think so, well, I don't know who knows.

0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.600
<v Speaker 3>I've never edited a talkie into a silent film, but yeah,

0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:51.760
<v Speaker 3>I would think it would. It would end up running

0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:53.720
<v Speaker 3>really long and they'd have to cut some stuff down.

0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.400
<v Speaker 2>They should. They should do that. When the new Nosferatu

0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.319
<v Speaker 2>film that came out, they need to do a silent

0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.000
<v Speaker 2>film cut of it. You know, people directors keep doing

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.480
<v Speaker 2>like black and white cuts of films. It's like, that's great,

0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.360
<v Speaker 2>but let's see the silent Cut's see.

0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:06.720
<v Speaker 3>What that's like.

0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.680
<v Speaker 2>Anyway, back to Todd Browning. Browning wrote and directed his

0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.319
<v Speaker 2>first full length silent picture in nineteen seventeen, and found

0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.880
<v Speaker 2>success with nineteen twenties The Virgin of Stambul. His first

0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.839
<v Speaker 2>talkie was nineteen twenty nine's The Thirteenth Chair. That was

0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:22.960
<v Speaker 2>a murder mystery that had Legosi in it as So

0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.120
<v Speaker 2>We'll come back to and Dracula of course, followed shortly

0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.320
<v Speaker 2>after that. His other films include the notable loss film

0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.040
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twenty sevens London After Midnight, nineteen thirty Two's Freaks

0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.440
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirty five's Mark of the Vampire in nineteen thirty

0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.280
<v Speaker 2>six is The Devil Doll. His last film was nineteen

0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.520
<v Speaker 2>thirty nine's Miracles for Sale, and he retired in nineteen

0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.480
<v Speaker 2>forty two, with Hollywood trends and tastes drifting further away

0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:47.439
<v Speaker 2>from his sensibilities.

0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.880
<v Speaker 3>At the time. When Browning was younger, he had some

0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:57.800
<v Speaker 3>experience working with circus performers, I believe, and this sort

0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.640
<v Speaker 3>of came out in an ongoing obsession that appears in

0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.960
<v Speaker 3>many of his works. Certainly there in nineteen thirty two's Freaks,

0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.960
<v Speaker 3>which is a Oh man. I haven't seen that movie

0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.520
<v Speaker 3>in many years, but I'd be very interested to see

0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.920
<v Speaker 3>what modern critics think about that as a retrospective. I mean,

0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:20.160
<v Speaker 3>it's a very surprising film for the nineteen thirties in

0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:20.760
<v Speaker 3>many ways.

0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this Wears is famous for the one of Us song, right, Yeah, Yeah,

0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:26.880
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of a chant. I guess it's a.

0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.280
<v Speaker 3>Song Google gobble one of Us.

0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, all right. Dracula. If you're not aware, the

0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.760
<v Speaker 2>original novel is by Bram Stoker, who lived eighteen forty

0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.360
<v Speaker 2>seven through nineteen twelve, Irish author and theater critic who's

0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.600
<v Speaker 2>eighteen ninety seven novel was Seeming, You know that a

0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.280
<v Speaker 2>lot has been written and discussed about where this novel arises.

0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.479
<v Speaker 2>You know, in the in Bram Stoker's life and mindset,

0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.040
<v Speaker 2>but seems to have spun out of various accounts and

0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:58.560
<v Speaker 2>experiences of disease in the world around him, and perhaps

0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:00.760
<v Speaker 2>you know he was sick as a child, that sort

0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:05.760
<v Speaker 2>of thing. Also folklore of Ireland as well as mainland Europe.

0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.960
<v Speaker 2>And of course it's also worth noting that in the

0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.480
<v Speaker 2>book there's a lot of use of phonographs. It's often

0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.040
<v Speaker 2>crazy to realize how thoroughly modern the novel was at

0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.720
<v Speaker 2>its release. If he had written it today, Mino would

0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:20.880
<v Speaker 2>have been on TikTok I feel.

0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't doctor Seward in the book doing like

0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.680
<v Speaker 3>phonograph diaries or something? He was? Yes.

0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.440
<v Speaker 2>Another detail that we often overlook I was reading about

0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.680
<v Speaker 2>this is that the novel was only a moderate success

0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.760
<v Speaker 2>at the time, and Merritt's only brief mention in Stoker's

0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:44.600
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twelve obituary It wasn't until the copyright battle over

0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.760
<v Speaker 2>a little nineteen twenty two film titled Nosferatu stirred everything out.

0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:54.280
<v Speaker 2>That's when the Stoker's widow, Florence Balcombe, gave approval to

0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:59.200
<v Speaker 2>Hamilton Dean for this stage adaptation of Dracula and of

0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.680
<v Speaker 2>course from that this film eventually and all this blossoms,

0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:07.600
<v Speaker 2>Dracula cinematic legacy in the novel truly becomes a popular classic.

0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.840
<v Speaker 3>Now, wait a minute, did bram Stoker not himself adapt

0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.320
<v Speaker 3>the novel to the stage? I thought there was at

0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.840
<v Speaker 3>least one play version that he wrote, but I could

0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.920
<v Speaker 3>be wrong. Well, folks, neither of us knew the answer

0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.320
<v Speaker 3>for sure, so I just looked it up to find out. Yes,

0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.600
<v Speaker 3>bram Stoker did create at least one version of the

0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.800
<v Speaker 3>novel for the stage that apparently debuted before the novel

0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.320
<v Speaker 3>was even released, or at least the same year. So

0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.800
<v Speaker 3>he wrote the novel then made a stage adaptation which

0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:41.560
<v Speaker 3>debuted under the title Dracula or the Undead, and that

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.520
<v Speaker 3>was performed in May eighteen ninety seven, the same month

0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.640
<v Speaker 3>that the novel was released, And according to an article

0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.280
<v Speaker 3>that I just dug up about this, apparently only two

0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.080
<v Speaker 3>people came and showed up in the audience to watch it.

0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:01.320
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow. So yeah, it can be little surprising to

0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:08.280
<v Speaker 2>realize that the popularity of the novel really rises alongside

0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.720
<v Speaker 2>it's sent the book cinematic history. And I think part

0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.199
<v Speaker 2>of the sort of confusion that can occur in my

0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.920
<v Speaker 2>opinion anyway, is the fact that we often love Dracula

0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.280
<v Speaker 2>and Frankenstein together. But Mary Shelley's book was published in

0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.920
<v Speaker 2>eighteen eighteen. That's seventy nine years earlier.

0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. So another weird thing to think about is that

0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.080
<v Speaker 3>when this movie was made, the movie we're talking about today,

0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.400
<v Speaker 3>the universal Dracula, the novel was only like thirty three

0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.080
<v Speaker 3>or thirty four years old. Wow, Dracula feels like an

0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.639
<v Speaker 3>ancient story to us. But it is the equivalent of

0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.160
<v Speaker 3>making a movie today based on a novel that was

0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.320
<v Speaker 3>originally published like in the early nineties. I looked up, like,

0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.479
<v Speaker 3>what were the big novels on the bestseller lists in

0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.320
<v Speaker 3>like nineteen ninety one, So it would be like today

0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.400
<v Speaker 3>making an adaptation of The Sum of All Fear by

0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.800
<v Speaker 3>Tom Clancy, Which that really puts it in a different

0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:04.720
<v Speaker 3>perspective for me.

0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:10.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that man, that's mind blowing for sure. All right,

0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.760
<v Speaker 2>now getting into the various adaptations here, So yes, we

0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:19.360
<v Speaker 2>have the authorized initial stage adaptation of Dracula by Hamilton

0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.200
<v Speaker 2>Dean who lived eighteen seventy nine through nineteen fifty eight.

0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.000
<v Speaker 2>He was a family friend. He was Bram Stoker's widow's

0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.400
<v Speaker 2>choice to make the official stage adaptation. Dean himself initially

0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.000
<v Speaker 2>played Van Helsing and the nineteen twenty four play here

0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.320
<v Speaker 2>became popular, but some revisions proved necessary before it could

0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.240
<v Speaker 2>really make that move to Broadway in nineteen twenty seven.

0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.280
<v Speaker 2>That's also when Bella Lagosi comes on board to play

0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:43.800
<v Speaker 2>the Count.

0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.520
<v Speaker 3>It's funny that there are so many different versions of

0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.560
<v Speaker 3>Dracula before it even makes it to the movie that

0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.399
<v Speaker 3>made it so famous, you know. So like, you've got

0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.440
<v Speaker 3>the original novel, You've got Bram Stoker's stage adaptation, You've

0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.520
<v Speaker 3>got multiple different Oh, there are play versions of the play.

0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:03.760
<v Speaker 3>You got the Hamilton Dean play. You got at least

0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.159
<v Speaker 3>a couple of versions. You said that went through revisions

0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:11.400
<v Speaker 3>going on to Broadway. And then also you've got No Speratu,

0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.160
<v Speaker 3>the FW Murnow movie, which we said, as we said,

0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.320
<v Speaker 3>is an unofficial adaptation of the story making some changes.

0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.320
<v Speaker 3>So it's like this novel that is not even thirty

0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.439
<v Speaker 3>years old, is getting all of these different rewrites in

0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.840
<v Speaker 3>different versions before it even reaches its best known form.

0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and you know, Nosfaratu was not even the first adaptation.

0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.880
<v Speaker 2>There was a nineteen twenty one film called Dracula's Death.

0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.119
<v Speaker 2>It was a Hungarian silent film that apparently had very

0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.000
<v Speaker 2>little to do with the actual plot of Dracula, but

0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:41.199
<v Speaker 2>still there it was.

0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.040
<v Speaker 3>But surely once we get the play version on Broadway

0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.840
<v Speaker 3>starring Bella Lagosi, then that's exactly what we get in

0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:48.679
<v Speaker 3>the film, right.

0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.920
<v Speaker 2>No, no, not no, probably not so the Broadway revision though.

0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.720
<v Speaker 2>That's where John L. Balderston comes in. Lived eighteen eighty

0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.960
<v Speaker 2>nine through nineteen fifty four playwriting screenwriter, and he'd later

0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.119
<v Speaker 2>work on the screenplays for Frankenstein and also in thirty one,

0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.520
<v Speaker 2>thirty two Is the Mummy, thirty five is Bride of Frankenstein,

0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.840
<v Speaker 2>Mad Love, Dracula's Daughter, Gaslight, and many others.

0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.240
<v Speaker 3>Wrote a lot of my favorites of the era.

0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:17.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and as we've alluded to this already and we'll

0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.600
<v Speaker 2>keep mentioning this, the play is already a notable condensing

0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.199
<v Speaker 2>of Dracula, which if you've ever read it, you already

0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:26.919
<v Speaker 2>know that. You know. It's only like four hundred and

0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.160
<v Speaker 2>something pages long. It's not a sprawling book in terms

0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.119
<v Speaker 2>of length, but it can kind of feel sprawling at times,

0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.800
<v Speaker 2>just the way that it's written composed of these overlapping correspondences,

0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:43.439
<v Speaker 2>diary entries, and phonograph recordings. The beginning of the novel

0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.000
<v Speaker 2>is arguably a lot more exciting than some of the

0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.199
<v Speaker 2>latter stretches and so forth. And we should also know

0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.879
<v Speaker 2>the other like major influential change that is made in

0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.439
<v Speaker 2>the stage adaptation of Dracula here is our change is

0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.000
<v Speaker 2>to what Dracula is. The way Dracula is presented as

0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:02.320
<v Speaker 2>a creature and a character.

0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's right. I mean, Dracula is the bad guy

0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.240
<v Speaker 3>of the movie, but he is much more of the

0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.280
<v Speaker 3>Bella Lagosi. Dracula is much more charming and interesting than

0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:18.400
<v Speaker 3>the Dracula of the novel, who is a filthy, repulsive demon.

0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.320
<v Speaker 3>Just you know, there's not the Dracula in the book

0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.000
<v Speaker 3>is just not lovable.

0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.919
<v Speaker 2>Now, he's a creature of dust. He's he's more in

0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:32.199
<v Speaker 2>line with this. He's an grotesque, undead warrior king. And

0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.880
<v Speaker 2>here this is the kind of Dracula that can stand

0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.600
<v Speaker 2>shoulder to shoulder with London's elite later on and is

0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:44.920
<v Speaker 2>greeted as as an equal and is charming and erotic

0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.199
<v Speaker 2>in ways that the original Dracula in the script in

0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:50.360
<v Speaker 2>the in the novel is not.

0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:52.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, all right.

0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.800
<v Speaker 2>Garrett Fort is the screenplay credit who lived nineteen hundred

0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.040
<v Speaker 2>and nineteen forty five. American screenwriter, playwright, and author. His

0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:03.080
<v Speaker 2>credits include Franken and Dracula's Daughter The Devil Doll. Both

0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.359
<v Speaker 2>of those Dracula's Daughter and Devil Doll were thirty six

0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.280
<v Speaker 2>and nineteen forties, The Mark of Zaro, just to name

0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:08.680
<v Speaker 2>a few.

0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:18.960
<v Speaker 3>Okay, well we got to talk about Beyla now.

0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.600
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Beila Legosi plays Count Dracula. Of course, lived eighteen

0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:27.080
<v Speaker 2>eighty two through nineteen fifty six. So we've discussed some

0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.640
<v Speaker 2>films with iconic, even career defining performances here on Weird

0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.880
<v Speaker 2>House before. But the case of bel Lugosi and Dracula,

0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.040
<v Speaker 2>I feel like this is on an entirely different level,

0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.720
<v Speaker 2>like even compared to things like Carlos Frankenstein. It's because

0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.440
<v Speaker 2>it's not only career defining, its genre defining. He not

0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.560
<v Speaker 2>only becomes Dracula in this picture, but defines what Dracula

0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.840
<v Speaker 2>is for the next one hundred years and beyond. Anyone

0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:57.320
<v Speaker 2>else playing Dracula in the shadow of this film has

0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.399
<v Speaker 2>no choice but to either embrace Legosi's performance or to

0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:05.480
<v Speaker 2>play against it, which is what you often see, but

0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:09.840
<v Speaker 2>you absolutely cannot ignore it. Like this really sets the

0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:14.440
<v Speaker 2>tone and sets the course for not only Dracula films,

0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.360
<v Speaker 2>not only vampire films, but horror cinema in large.

0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.040
<v Speaker 3>He brings a lot to the role that I think

0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.840
<v Speaker 3>you wouldn't necessarily get about the character on the page.

0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:28.400
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if Bela Legosi is the sexiest Dracula

0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:30.320
<v Speaker 3>there has ever been, but he does bring a kind

0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:34.520
<v Speaker 3>of interesting suaveness and attractiveness to the role. He brings

0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.000
<v Speaker 3>a smile and a sense of humor to the character

0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.160
<v Speaker 3>that I think was not really there previously. Was certainly

0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:46.800
<v Speaker 3>not there in the previous film adaptation, like in nos Faratu.

0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.719
<v Speaker 3>You know Max Shrek no attacking Max Shrek's performance as

0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.199
<v Speaker 3>count Orlock there, but that's a totally different take on

0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:57.080
<v Speaker 3>the character. Does not have the kind of charm and

0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.560
<v Speaker 3>sense of humor that Bella Legosi brings to this role.

0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:04.800
<v Speaker 3>That actually makes it much more sinister. In those rare

0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:08.440
<v Speaker 3>moments where in this movie you get flashes of anger

0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:10.960
<v Speaker 3>and malice from Dracula, like in the moment where he

0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:13.680
<v Speaker 3>slaps down the after they pulled the trick on him

0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:16.600
<v Speaker 3>by opening the cigarette box and shining the mirror in

0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:19.359
<v Speaker 3>his face, smacks it away, and you see him, you know,

0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:22.560
<v Speaker 3>scowling at Van Helsing and the other men, and that

0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:27.080
<v Speaker 3>moment is quite shocking. And it's because of the you know,

0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:31.480
<v Speaker 3>the calmness and the coolness that Legosi brings to this character.

0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:34.560
<v Speaker 3>He's kind of like it's he's in on a joke

0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:37.919
<v Speaker 3>that only he gets, and the joke is that you

0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:38.800
<v Speaker 3>will serve him.

0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the sexiness of Dracula. It brings me back to

0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.359
<v Speaker 2>what I said earlier about the about being you can

0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:47.600
<v Speaker 2>be overly familiar with this picture and you can also

0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.080
<v Speaker 2>just be more accustomed to stills from it, and maybe

0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:54.000
<v Speaker 2>even stills of an older Legosi playing Count Dracula dressing

0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.960
<v Speaker 2>up as Count Dracula. But I feel like you really

0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:58.800
<v Speaker 2>have to see the full performance. You have to see

0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:03.360
<v Speaker 2>him in motion, you have to hear him make every

0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:07.720
<v Speaker 2>little enunciation to the Dracula dialogue, and it all adds

0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:10.760
<v Speaker 2>up to what, especially for the time period, is like

0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:15.600
<v Speaker 2>a very erotically charged performance, Like there is a hypnotic

0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.480
<v Speaker 2>charisma to him, and there is I think a strong

0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:23.639
<v Speaker 2>like pan sexual eroticism to him as he you know,

0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:26.280
<v Speaker 2>because he doesn't see gender or anything. He sees blood.

0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.159
<v Speaker 2>Doesn't matter if you're a if you're a male, female

0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.240
<v Speaker 2>or what have you. Dracula is going to come for you.

0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:35.919
<v Speaker 3>There is Dracula's embrace. Yeah, I would say that that

0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:39.119
<v Speaker 3>is implicit in the film. It's not explicit like it

0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:41.359
<v Speaker 3>is in a lot of the later Dracula adaptations which

0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:45.320
<v Speaker 3>make him overtly sexual and stuff. But it's a strong

0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:50.480
<v Speaker 3>subtext here. And to emphasize again what we said earlier

0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:53.399
<v Speaker 3>that like, whatever sexual themes about Dracula are there in

0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:56.640
<v Speaker 3>the novel or whatever, I do not think there's really

0:25:56.760 --> 0:26:01.080
<v Speaker 3>much about him being potentially like alluring in any way.

0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:04.120
<v Speaker 3>I mean, dude, whatever's there is just purely predatory.

0:26:04.680 --> 0:26:09.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, again nineteen twenty two, nos Faratu not really sexy.

0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:13.200
<v Speaker 2>And as we were discussing off Mike earlier, twenty twenty four,

0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:17.359
<v Speaker 2>nos Faratu maybe perhaps sexy. I haven't seen it yet,

0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:20.880
<v Speaker 2>But if that Nosfaratu is sexy, it's because that Nosfaratu

0:26:21.040 --> 0:26:24.240
<v Speaker 2>stands in the long shadow of Bella Lagosi's.

0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:28.520
<v Speaker 3>Dracula, because that one is remixing different themes that have

0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:31.200
<v Speaker 3>come through in all the different interpretations of Dracula over

0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:34.200
<v Speaker 3>the years. Yes, I would argue that the new Robert

0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:38.080
<v Speaker 3>Eggers knows Feratu, which I have seen and I greatly enjoyed.

0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:40.440
<v Speaker 3>In fact, I was talking about this with Rachel and

0:26:40.440 --> 0:26:42.679
<v Speaker 3>we were trying to say, like, is Dracula sexy in

0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:45.520
<v Speaker 3>that I think the goal, actually, the specific thing they

0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:50.560
<v Speaker 3>were trying to accomplish, was to go for maximally disgusting

0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:54.920
<v Speaker 3>and revolting and sexy at the same time. It is

0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:58.199
<v Speaker 3>kind of an oxymoron. They were trying to accomplish something

0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:02.720
<v Speaker 3>that should be impossible to do. Is like polar opposite

0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:05.600
<v Speaker 3>kind of qualities to the character. But I think they

0:27:05.600 --> 0:27:06.720
<v Speaker 3>did a pretty good job.

0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:09.080
<v Speaker 2>Awesome. Well, I look forward to seeing it at some

0:27:09.080 --> 0:27:09.560
<v Speaker 2>point here.

0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:12.160
<v Speaker 3>And if you look up fan reception on the internet,

0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:15.240
<v Speaker 3>definitely there are a lot of people who find this,

0:27:15.240 --> 0:27:19.879
<v Speaker 3>this rotting, decomposing plague corpse somewhat somewhat exciting for some reason.

0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:22.679
<v Speaker 3>All right, well, I'm not knocking it, you know.

0:27:24.520 --> 0:27:27.920
<v Speaker 2>Well back to Legosi again, an immortal performance, no two

0:27:27.920 --> 0:27:30.160
<v Speaker 2>ways about it. And now we've talked about Lagosi twice

0:27:30.160 --> 0:27:32.480
<v Speaker 2>on the show before, in our episodes on the Devil

0:27:32.480 --> 0:27:36.000
<v Speaker 2>Bat and Son of Frankenstein. He's wonderful and Son of Frankenstein,

0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.280
<v Speaker 2>and even in Devil of bat As with many of

0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:41.280
<v Speaker 2>his other like later lesser roles, he still finds a

0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:43.960
<v Speaker 2>way to shine through it all. But here he is

0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:45.679
<v Speaker 2>at the height of his powers, and it is a

0:27:45.720 --> 0:27:51.200
<v Speaker 2>thing to behold, richly charismatic, frightening, erotic, and above all hypnotic.

0:27:52.280 --> 0:27:54.720
<v Speaker 2>I was asking my kid about how this one stacked

0:27:54.760 --> 0:27:56.720
<v Speaker 2>up to Son of Frankenstein, and they told me that

0:27:56.960 --> 0:27:59.679
<v Speaker 2>Drakiva was definitely the scarier of the two, and the

0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:04.000
<v Speaker 2>scarious moments were Dracula's gaze. Oh, looks right at the camera.

0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:06.719
<v Speaker 3>What they do? Actually, I meant to bring this up

0:28:06.720 --> 0:28:09.800
<v Speaker 3>in the plot section. If you know anything about this

0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:13.800
<v Speaker 3>shot they do. It's a recurring visual theme where we

0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:16.960
<v Speaker 3>come in on Dracula's face. Maybe the camera is moving

0:28:17.040 --> 0:28:19.920
<v Speaker 3>zooming in on him, or it's just still on Dracula's face,

0:28:19.960 --> 0:28:24.040
<v Speaker 3>but most of the shot is dark and there's sort

0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:28.280
<v Speaker 3>of a beam of light falling over his eyes. It's

0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:31.959
<v Speaker 3>just the eyes and it's just there, scowling with the

0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:35.240
<v Speaker 3>eyes wide. I don't know if you knew why they

0:28:35.280 --> 0:28:37.919
<v Speaker 3>selected that, like the beam on the eyes only, but

0:28:38.120 --> 0:28:39.400
<v Speaker 3>I always thought that was interesting.

0:28:40.000 --> 0:28:44.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it really adds to this like otherworldly hypnotizing power

0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:48.520
<v Speaker 2>of the character. And yeah, on top of that, Legosi's

0:28:48.560 --> 0:28:51.680
<v Speaker 2>performance is just one thing that's pointed out by by

0:28:51.720 --> 0:28:54.760
<v Speaker 2>some of the Dracula experts is that there are no

0:28:54.920 --> 0:28:59.400
<v Speaker 2>small moments at all in it. Every annunciation, but every

0:28:59.480 --> 0:29:04.040
<v Speaker 2>even like subtle movement feels very calculated and essential. Some

0:29:04.160 --> 0:29:09.160
<v Speaker 2>have chalked this up to the possibility that Legosi memorized

0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:11.920
<v Speaker 2>his parts phonetically, at least at the stage of his career,

0:29:13.080 --> 0:29:15.840
<v Speaker 2>but I'm not sure where the truth falls and all

0:29:15.920 --> 0:29:19.680
<v Speaker 2>of that at any rate, the finished product, the actual performance,

0:29:19.720 --> 0:29:25.160
<v Speaker 2>like the way that he stresses words in each line,

0:29:25.240 --> 0:29:29.400
<v Speaker 2>like it seems to bring across like cryptic meaning to

0:29:29.520 --> 0:29:31.280
<v Speaker 2>things like even some of the lines you think, you know,

0:29:31.400 --> 0:29:35.120
<v Speaker 2>like like the children of the Night, what music they make?

0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:36.200
<v Speaker 3>You know?

0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:40.120
<v Speaker 2>It's what music they make, you know. Like the choices

0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:45.800
<v Speaker 2>there are so absolutely cryptic, and it feels like perfectly

0:29:46.040 --> 0:29:51.560
<v Speaker 2>the perfectly calculated way that this cold, immortal being would be,

0:29:51.640 --> 0:29:54.520
<v Speaker 2>you know, cutting through to our fear and desire with

0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:56.120
<v Speaker 2>every word and every movement.

0:29:56.640 --> 0:30:00.960
<v Speaker 3>I couldn't agree more. I've really loved that the annunciation

0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:04.480
<v Speaker 3>of the lines does add this mystery to the intended

0:30:04.600 --> 0:30:07.520
<v Speaker 3>meaning of them, which lends itself well to something that

0:30:07.600 --> 0:30:10.200
<v Speaker 3>is here in Legosi's performance. And actually I noticed, in

0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:13.160
<v Speaker 3>all three of the movies we've covered of his, two

0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:15.000
<v Speaker 3>of them much better than the other one. I mean,

0:30:15.040 --> 0:30:17.120
<v Speaker 3>I really enjoyed all three. But Son of frank and

0:30:17.200 --> 0:30:19.480
<v Speaker 3>Dracula are much better movies than Devil Back. But in

0:30:19.560 --> 0:30:23.920
<v Speaker 3>all three, the thing that's common is bell Leegosi has

0:30:23.960 --> 0:30:27.920
<v Speaker 3>this way of delivering lines that he understands in a

0:30:28.000 --> 0:30:31.200
<v Speaker 3>different way than the person he's talking to, you know,

0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:35.280
<v Speaker 3>that like double meaning, kind of sinister irony lines. There's

0:30:35.320 --> 0:30:37.640
<v Speaker 3>a lot of that in Dracula. There's a lot of that.

0:30:37.680 --> 0:30:39.920
<v Speaker 3>There was a lot of that in Son of Frankenstein,

0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:42.880
<v Speaker 3>you know, and they're what's that part where you know

0:30:42.920 --> 0:30:47.160
<v Speaker 3>they're talking about like bringing the creature back, healing him up,

0:30:47.240 --> 0:30:50.320
<v Speaker 3>and the other you know, the Son of frank is like, well,

0:30:50.360 --> 0:30:52.520
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if he's if he's well enough yet,

0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:58.200
<v Speaker 3>and and Igor is like well enough for me, oh,

0:30:58.240 --> 0:31:00.640
<v Speaker 3>And it's just he has a lot of that kind

0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:06.680
<v Speaker 3>of thing, These dry, threatening, humorous little ironies in that

0:31:06.760 --> 0:31:11.080
<v Speaker 3>are often expressed exquisitely in the way he inflects words

0:31:11.120 --> 0:31:12.880
<v Speaker 3>in an unexpected way.

0:31:13.200 --> 0:31:17.200
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely so. As we discussed in the previous Legosi episodes,

0:31:17.240 --> 0:31:20.000
<v Speaker 2>he started at a Hungarian theater in silent films before

0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:22.680
<v Speaker 2>making his way to Germany and finally America via New Orleans.

0:31:23.080 --> 0:31:24.880
<v Speaker 2>He's made his way to New York. He became very

0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:28.320
<v Speaker 2>active in the theater, seen there, did some silent films,

0:31:28.640 --> 0:31:32.160
<v Speaker 2>and eventually lands that lead role in the Broadway. Played

0:31:32.200 --> 0:31:35.480
<v Speaker 2>Dracula in twenty seven, ends up moving to la in

0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:40.280
<v Speaker 2>twenty eight part of the tour, and this kicks off

0:31:40.280 --> 0:31:42.720
<v Speaker 2>his Hollywood career. The next year, he appeared in Todd

0:31:42.720 --> 0:31:46.640
<v Speaker 2>Browning's The Thirteenth Chair. And the interesting thing is Bella

0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:49.320
<v Speaker 2>was clearly the obvious choice for the film adaptation of

0:31:49.320 --> 0:31:52.320
<v Speaker 2>the play. He'd been performing it to rave reviews, and

0:31:52.360 --> 0:31:54.280
<v Speaker 2>yet he was not the first pick for the film.

0:31:54.800 --> 0:31:57.960
<v Speaker 2>The producers considered the likes of Lawn Cheney, who ended

0:31:58.040 --> 0:32:02.360
<v Speaker 2>up dying before the film could be produced. Conrad Vt,

0:32:03.080 --> 0:32:07.000
<v Speaker 2>The Man Who Laughs, was also considered, but he had

0:32:07.040 --> 0:32:10.320
<v Speaker 2>moved back to Europe, and I think the idea is

0:32:10.320 --> 0:32:12.560
<v Speaker 2>like he wasn't He didn't really, it wasn't as comfortable

0:32:12.560 --> 0:32:16.200
<v Speaker 2>with English language, and so eventually they're like, okay, well

0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:19.320
<v Speaker 2>Legosi's there, will hire Legosi. And they got him somewhat

0:32:19.320 --> 0:32:21.800
<v Speaker 2>on the cheap. It's a role that made him an

0:32:21.920 --> 0:32:25.280
<v Speaker 2>undying legend, obviously, but as has been covered in many

0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:28.840
<v Speaker 2>a biography, it also type cast him. It was the

0:32:28.920 --> 0:32:31.520
<v Speaker 2>high point of a life and career that didn't always

0:32:31.600 --> 0:32:33.000
<v Speaker 2>maintain an even trajectory.

0:32:34.920 --> 0:32:37.080
<v Speaker 3>But I want to be clear again, not his only

0:32:37.120 --> 0:32:40.520
<v Speaker 3>great performance. I mean, his turn as Igor and son

0:32:40.520 --> 0:32:44.400
<v Speaker 3>of Frankenstein is fantastic, hilarious, is so good in that.

0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:46.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and there are a number of other ones that

0:32:46.120 --> 0:32:50.000
<v Speaker 2>are often cited. Is like strong Legosi performances. So we

0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:52.440
<v Speaker 2>may have to come back to two more Legosi in

0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:55.160
<v Speaker 2>the future. All right, Getting into the rest of the

0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:59.320
<v Speaker 2>cast here, I'm gonna spend less time with the remainders here.

0:32:59.360 --> 0:33:02.160
<v Speaker 2>But how Allan Chandler plays Mina. She lived nineteen oh

0:33:02.200 --> 0:33:05.000
<v Speaker 2>six through nineteen sixty five, American actress of stage and screen,

0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:09.160
<v Speaker 2>best remembered for Dracula. David Manners plays Jonathan Harker. He

0:33:09.200 --> 0:33:12.280
<v Speaker 2>lived nineteen one hundred through nineteen ninety eight, Canadian born

0:33:12.440 --> 0:33:17.840
<v Speaker 2>leading man. Here completely overshadowed by stronger character performances and also,

0:33:17.880 --> 0:33:20.880
<v Speaker 2>as we'll discuss in a very reduced Jonathan Harker.

0:33:21.160 --> 0:33:22.840
<v Speaker 3>He just as we was shadowed by the script.

0:33:24.720 --> 0:33:27.880
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, he's just he's overshadowed by yeah, other

0:33:27.920 --> 0:33:31.080
<v Speaker 2>performances and also the writings. He's not sent to the

0:33:31.120 --> 0:33:34.760
<v Speaker 2>castle in the opening. He does not have the Keanu

0:33:34.840 --> 0:33:37.560
<v Speaker 2>Reeves version of Jonathan Harker here.

0:33:37.720 --> 0:33:39.760
<v Speaker 3>No, we need to talk about this later in the plot.

0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:42.239
<v Speaker 3>But it's almost like, why is this character even in

0:33:42.320 --> 0:33:43.680
<v Speaker 3>the story exactly.

0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:47.120
<v Speaker 2>He's best remembered for his roles in Dracula nineteen thirty

0:33:47.160 --> 0:33:49.560
<v Speaker 2>two is the Mummy and nineteen thirty four as the Black.

0:33:49.320 --> 0:33:52.680
<v Speaker 3>Cat now Rob Again. I was surprised to find out

0:33:52.720 --> 0:33:55.840
<v Speaker 3>that you'd never seen Dracula in its entirety before, but

0:33:56.040 --> 0:33:59.000
<v Speaker 3>it caused me to remember back back to the first

0:33:59.000 --> 0:34:02.400
<v Speaker 3>time I saw Dracula. Like you, I grew up, you know,

0:34:02.400 --> 0:34:04.640
<v Speaker 3>knowing bits of it, seeing bits of it on TV

0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:07.720
<v Speaker 3>and things like that, especially in clip show type things.

0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:12.520
<v Speaker 3>But when I finally saw it in full honestly, one

0:34:12.560 --> 0:34:14.680
<v Speaker 3>of the things that made the biggest impression on me

0:34:16.080 --> 0:34:19.440
<v Speaker 3>was Dwight Frye as Renfield absolutely.

0:34:20.040 --> 0:34:24.160
<v Speaker 2>This is a just Bonker's performance by the great Dwight

0:34:24.200 --> 0:34:27.680
<v Speaker 2>Frye lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen forty three, American

0:34:28.160 --> 0:34:32.640
<v Speaker 2>character actor of steven screen with broad range, but best

0:34:32.680 --> 0:34:36.759
<v Speaker 2>remembered for his outlandish horror roles and certainly typecast to those.

0:34:36.800 --> 0:34:38.719
<v Speaker 2>After a while, he went on to play Fritz in

0:34:38.800 --> 0:34:42.879
<v Speaker 2>thirty ones Frankenstein, Carl in thirty five's Bride of Frankenstein,

0:34:43.239 --> 0:34:47.000
<v Speaker 2>and smaller, often uncredited roles in subsequent Frankenstein films. He

0:34:47.080 --> 0:34:49.360
<v Speaker 2>was also in nineteen thirty one's The Maltese Falcon.

0:34:50.080 --> 0:34:52.839
<v Speaker 3>Renfield is really a highlight of the movie apart from

0:34:52.920 --> 0:34:56.759
<v Speaker 3>Lagosi here, because in multiple ways, like the way the

0:34:56.840 --> 0:35:02.840
<v Speaker 3>character is written is both intentionally and unintentionally funny, the

0:35:02.920 --> 0:35:06.960
<v Speaker 3>unintentional part being like the fourth time he escapes from

0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:09.880
<v Speaker 3>the sanitarium and just wanders into a scene in the house,

0:35:09.960 --> 0:35:12.320
<v Speaker 3>It's like, what, how how does this guy keep getting

0:35:12.320 --> 0:35:12.959
<v Speaker 3>out of his cell?

0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:15.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's kind of like the Cramer of the picture,

0:35:15.800 --> 0:35:19.000
<v Speaker 2>just gonna randomly busts in whenever they need need a

0:35:19.000 --> 0:35:21.160
<v Speaker 2>little uh need a little Renfield action.

0:35:21.400 --> 0:35:24.520
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Yeah, he slides in and he's got the crazy

0:35:24.560 --> 0:35:26.879
<v Speaker 3>hair and he's like, oh, the Master is gonna give

0:35:26.920 --> 0:35:31.040
<v Speaker 3>me blood this time. Oh, but it's but also just

0:35:32.000 --> 0:35:36.200
<v Speaker 3>he has these deranged monologues about needing lives and blood

0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:39.279
<v Speaker 3>and wanting to eat spiders, and then also has kind

0:35:39.280 --> 0:35:42.399
<v Speaker 3>of a you know, he's mostly a heel after being

0:35:42.400 --> 0:35:44.640
<v Speaker 3>turned by the Count, but he has a face turn

0:35:44.680 --> 0:35:48.200
<v Speaker 3>at one point that doesn't quite stick. It's yeah, it's

0:35:48.239 --> 0:35:51.200
<v Speaker 3>it's just great. I love d white Fry here it

0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:52.440
<v Speaker 3>thumbs up, thumbs up.

0:35:52.480 --> 0:35:55.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if not for Legosi, he would be the most

0:35:55.120 --> 0:35:59.799
<v Speaker 2>memorable performer in the piece. Yeah, totally all right. It's

0:35:59.800 --> 0:36:02.200
<v Speaker 2>a Dracula movies who also have to have a Van Helsing.

0:36:02.360 --> 0:36:04.600
<v Speaker 2>You have to have a Dracula slayer, and that's Edward

0:36:04.680 --> 0:36:07.280
<v Speaker 2>Van Sloan, who lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen sixty

0:36:07.320 --> 0:36:10.600
<v Speaker 2>four American character actor, here reprising the role that he

0:36:10.640 --> 0:36:14.200
<v Speaker 2>played in the stage adaptation. This was only his second film,

0:36:14.480 --> 0:36:18.439
<v Speaker 2>followed by the role of doctor Waldman in nineteen thirty

0:36:18.480 --> 0:36:21.000
<v Speaker 2>one s Frankenstein, doctor Mueller in thirty two's The Mummy,

0:36:21.200 --> 0:36:24.439
<v Speaker 2>and he played Professor Van Helsing in nineteen thirty six

0:36:24.520 --> 0:36:25.560
<v Speaker 2>is Dracula's daughter.

0:36:25.920 --> 0:36:28.480
<v Speaker 3>So he was just always the professor who shows up

0:36:28.520 --> 0:36:30.200
<v Speaker 3>too to know about the monster.

0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:33.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, probably a little bit of typecasting going

0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:36.120
<v Speaker 2>on here as well, but it's another strong performance. I

0:36:36.160 --> 0:36:37.640
<v Speaker 2>really like him in this part of it is the

0:36:37.680 --> 0:36:38.760
<v Speaker 2>haircut in the glasses.

0:36:39.120 --> 0:36:41.200
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I don't know if he's ever made as huge

0:36:41.239 --> 0:36:45.120
<v Speaker 3>an impression on me, but he does certainly drive the

0:36:45.160 --> 0:36:47.040
<v Speaker 3>scenes in the middle of the movie that would, I

0:36:47.040 --> 0:36:50.360
<v Speaker 3>think otherwise be the weakest links in the film, Basically,

0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:53.439
<v Speaker 3>the investigation scenes where the heroes are trying to figure

0:36:53.440 --> 0:36:55.880
<v Speaker 3>out what's going on. They're the scenes that either don't

0:36:55.920 --> 0:36:58.920
<v Speaker 3>have Legosi or don't have a Dwight Fry in them

0:36:59.040 --> 0:37:02.640
<v Speaker 3>yet until he burn later in the scene. Those would

0:37:02.719 --> 0:37:05.560
<v Speaker 3>be the dullest parts. But he does pretty well there.

0:37:06.160 --> 0:37:09.120
<v Speaker 2>He feels a little unhinged in a great way, you know,

0:37:09.280 --> 0:37:11.920
<v Speaker 2>like one of the first people to believe that we're

0:37:11.920 --> 0:37:15.120
<v Speaker 2>actually dealing with vampires. You know, it's probably somebody who

0:37:15.320 --> 0:37:16.560
<v Speaker 2>lives their life a little bit on the.

0:37:16.640 --> 0:37:20.319
<v Speaker 3>Edge, and later adaptations would generally take this principle a

0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:25.520
<v Speaker 3>lot further, I'd say, compared to later Van Helsing portrayals,

0:37:25.880 --> 0:37:28.839
<v Speaker 3>Edward Van Sloan is a pretty straight shooter. I mean,

0:37:29.000 --> 0:37:32.720
<v Speaker 3>thinking about Anthony Hopkins, and Coppola's Dracula, where Van Helsing

0:37:32.800 --> 0:37:37.120
<v Speaker 3>is borderline insane thinking about Willem Dafoe in the New

0:37:37.120 --> 0:37:41.080
<v Speaker 3>nos Ferratu. I mean they later really embraced the idea

0:37:41.160 --> 0:37:43.719
<v Speaker 3>that the professor who knows how to fight evil is

0:37:43.840 --> 0:37:46.320
<v Speaker 3>himself an extremely eccentric figure.

0:37:48.360 --> 0:37:52.080
<v Speaker 2>All right. The other principal investigator here is, of course,

0:37:52.080 --> 0:37:55.960
<v Speaker 2>doctor Seward, played by Herbert Bunston, who had eighteen seventy

0:37:55.960 --> 0:37:58.920
<v Speaker 2>four through nineteen thirty five British actor best remembered for

0:37:59.000 --> 0:38:01.400
<v Speaker 2>this film. He also had a supporting role in nineteen

0:38:01.400 --> 0:38:03.960
<v Speaker 2>thirty Is the Lady of Scandal in nineteen thirty three

0:38:04.040 --> 0:38:08.120
<v Speaker 2>Is the Monkey's Paw, again somewhat reduced here, he's essentially

0:38:08.920 --> 0:38:11.040
<v Speaker 2>in a lot of these older pictures, you really need

0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:14.000
<v Speaker 2>like a supporting cast of two to three old white

0:38:14.040 --> 0:38:17.480
<v Speaker 2>guy experts to help you fight your alien invasion or

0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:19.600
<v Speaker 2>monster attacks. And this is what this guy is.

0:38:19.680 --> 0:38:22.319
<v Speaker 3>His role in this movie is I say, could it

0:38:22.360 --> 0:38:24.799
<v Speaker 3>be true? All right?

0:38:24.800 --> 0:38:26.640
<v Speaker 2>You can't have a Mina unless you have a Lucy.

0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:30.400
<v Speaker 2>And that's where Francis Dad comes in. She lived nineteen

0:38:30.480 --> 0:38:33.239
<v Speaker 2>ten through nineteen sixty eight, American actress, only active in

0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:35.440
<v Speaker 2>the late twenties and early thirties. This was her most

0:38:35.520 --> 0:38:38.080
<v Speaker 2>memorable role, but she has a supporting role in the

0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:41.240
<v Speaker 2>nineteen thirty one Anime Wong film Daughter of the Dragon.

0:38:41.719 --> 0:38:45.240
<v Speaker 3>Like many characters in this version, Lucy's role is greatly

0:38:45.320 --> 0:38:47.480
<v Speaker 3>reduced from what it is in the novel. You know,

0:38:47.719 --> 0:38:49.880
<v Speaker 3>a big part of the investigation in the middle of

0:38:49.920 --> 0:38:52.680
<v Speaker 3>the novel is like the character is trying to figure

0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:56.759
<v Speaker 3>out what the cause of Lucy's wasting disease is. You know,

0:38:56.800 --> 0:39:00.359
<v Speaker 3>why is she losing blood? What's going on? In this movie,

0:39:00.360 --> 0:39:03.400
<v Speaker 3>they just like acts all that. It's done in like

0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:05.080
<v Speaker 3>ninety seconds of screen time.

0:39:06.800 --> 0:39:09.520
<v Speaker 2>We of course have the brides. We'll talk more about

0:39:09.520 --> 0:39:14.080
<v Speaker 2>the brides later. But Geraldine Devoric, Dorothy Tree, and Cornelia

0:39:14.200 --> 0:39:18.759
<v Speaker 2>Thaw those are your brides. Let's see getting behind the

0:39:18.800 --> 0:39:23.320
<v Speaker 2>scenes here a bit. Carl Fround, of course, did the cinematography,

0:39:23.880 --> 0:39:27.840
<v Speaker 2>rather famous for his work on this picture and subsequent films.

0:39:28.080 --> 0:39:32.759
<v Speaker 2>Lived eighteen ninety through nineteen sixty nine. Legendary Austrian Hungarian

0:39:32.800 --> 0:39:37.120
<v Speaker 2>born cinematographer and director, two time Oscar winner, four time nominee.

0:39:37.640 --> 0:39:39.719
<v Speaker 2>Much of the visual splendor of this film is often

0:39:39.760 --> 0:39:46.120
<v Speaker 2>attributed to Friend and many have also said that he

0:39:46.160 --> 0:39:49.239
<v Speaker 2>probably directed parts of it as well. He was reportedly

0:39:49.360 --> 0:39:51.359
<v Speaker 2>like a very strong presence on the set sometimes when

0:39:51.400 --> 0:39:54.600
<v Speaker 2>Browning wasn't. He went on to direct nineteen thirty twos

0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:56.759
<v Speaker 2>The Mommy, as well as nineteen thirty five Is Mad Love,

0:39:57.160 --> 0:39:59.600
<v Speaker 2>which we talked about in one of, if not our

0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:04.239
<v Speaker 2>first episodes, and he did several other pictures as well.

0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:08.920
<v Speaker 3>Freud did the cinematography on most of the movies that

0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:11.840
<v Speaker 3>from the nineteen thirties that I think look the best,

0:40:12.320 --> 0:40:14.719
<v Speaker 3>Like a lot of the thirties movies that I see,

0:40:14.800 --> 0:40:17.120
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, wow, this is gorgeous. It's like, oh, that

0:40:17.200 --> 0:40:21.760
<v Speaker 3>was Carl Freud, so yeah, and the movie does look great.

0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:26.759
<v Speaker 3>There are typically like the scenes in it that look

0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:30.319
<v Speaker 3>the best tend to be the ones that film historians

0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:33.280
<v Speaker 3>say this is like a signature Carl Freun type shot.

0:40:33.960 --> 0:40:37.799
<v Speaker 3>And I think this has led some people to speculate

0:40:37.840 --> 0:40:41.200
<v Speaker 3>that for the less interesting cinematography in the movie that

0:40:41.280 --> 0:40:43.520
<v Speaker 3>he was kind of he was kind of on leash,

0:40:43.560 --> 0:40:48.719
<v Speaker 3>like he was not necessarily being allowed to do all

0:40:48.760 --> 0:40:50.640
<v Speaker 3>he could do. I don't know if that's true or not,

0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:52.200
<v Speaker 3>but that's what some people have said.

0:40:52.760 --> 0:40:56.240
<v Speaker 2>It's often pointed out that the not also nineteen thirty

0:40:56.239 --> 0:40:59.560
<v Speaker 2>one Mexican Dracula film that they shot at night on

0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:05.200
<v Speaker 2>the same sets is more technically proficient and maybe more

0:41:05.280 --> 0:41:08.680
<v Speaker 2>daring and force. Part of that is that apparently they

0:41:08.719 --> 0:41:12.279
<v Speaker 2>could look back at what the day crew was doing

0:41:12.360 --> 0:41:13.799
<v Speaker 2>and figure out how to one up it.

0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.920
<v Speaker 3>Right. Yeah, So the English language production would shoot, and

0:41:16.960 --> 0:41:19.399
<v Speaker 3>then they would shoot afterwards, and so they could look

0:41:19.400 --> 0:41:21.600
<v Speaker 3>at all the mistakes made in the earlier shoots and

0:41:21.640 --> 0:41:23.959
<v Speaker 3>like figure out ways to correct them before they before

0:41:24.000 --> 0:41:24.640
<v Speaker 3>they set up.

0:41:24.920 --> 0:41:27.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, spice things up sometimes and so forth.

0:41:27.880 --> 0:41:28.200
<v Speaker 3>All right.

0:41:28.400 --> 0:41:31.319
<v Speaker 2>Set decoration. Russell A Gossman who lived eighteen ninety two

0:41:31.360 --> 0:41:33.640
<v Speaker 2>through nineteen sixty three, Oscar winner for his work on

0:41:33.800 --> 0:41:36.640
<v Speaker 2>forty fourth Phantom of the Opera and sixty one Spartacus.

0:41:37.000 --> 0:41:40.760
<v Speaker 2>He also worked on other major and minor universal horror films.

0:41:41.440 --> 0:41:41.719
<v Speaker 3>Jack P.

0:41:41.880 --> 0:41:45.200
<v Speaker 2>Pierce did the makeup eighteen eighty nine through nineteen sixty

0:41:45.239 --> 0:41:48.719
<v Speaker 2>eight Monster Makeup Master of the Day, who worked on

0:41:48.840 --> 0:41:53.560
<v Speaker 2>like Frankenstein, The Man Who Laughs, The Invisible Man, The

0:41:53.560 --> 0:41:57.000
<v Speaker 2>wolf Man, and so many others. I guess on the

0:41:57.000 --> 0:41:59.319
<v Speaker 2>surface it might seem like he had less to do here.

0:41:59.520 --> 0:42:03.040
<v Speaker 2>There's not There's there's no monster makeup on the level

0:42:03.080 --> 0:42:07.000
<v Speaker 2>of Frankenstein in this picture, but clearly makeup is a

0:42:07.040 --> 0:42:10.799
<v Speaker 2>part of bringing Count Dracula and the brides to their

0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:15.360
<v Speaker 2>to undead life on the screen. And finally, Heinz Roemheld

0:42:15.800 --> 0:42:19.239
<v Speaker 2>has a conductor musical arrangement credit with nineteen one through

0:42:19.320 --> 0:42:21.840
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty five, but again this is a needle drop score,

0:42:22.840 --> 0:42:25.680
<v Speaker 2>owing in part to budgetary issues. Again, sometimes there's no

0:42:25.800 --> 0:42:29.280
<v Speaker 2>music at all, but music used in the picture includes

0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:35.040
<v Speaker 2>Schaikowski Swan Lake Opus twenty, Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, and

0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:40.400
<v Speaker 2>this selection from Wagner's The Mice to singer von Nunberg.

0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:44.320
<v Speaker 3>I mainly associate Dracula with Swan Lake due to this movie,

0:42:44.360 --> 0:42:48.040
<v Speaker 3>but I have actually seen it with the Philip Glass

0:42:48.239 --> 0:42:50.160
<v Speaker 3>score that was done later. I don't know when, was

0:42:50.160 --> 0:42:51.280
<v Speaker 3>that in the nineteen nineties.

0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:56.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that was ninety eight legendary Philip Glass composed. It

0:42:56.200 --> 0:42:59.840
<v Speaker 2>was performed by the Kronos Quartet. I've never never seen it,

0:42:59.840 --> 0:43:01.759
<v Speaker 2>but I did listen to part of that while I

0:43:01.800 --> 0:43:03.919
<v Speaker 2>was researching and writing up notes here, and it sounds

0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:04.399
<v Speaker 2>quite good.

0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:15.200
<v Speaker 3>Oh hey, mentioning Swan Lake by the way. That is

0:43:15.239 --> 0:43:17.279
<v Speaker 3>what plays over the opening credits, at least in the

0:43:17.320 --> 0:43:21.080
<v Speaker 3>version I watched. And another thing I wanted to call

0:43:21.120 --> 0:43:24.520
<v Speaker 3>attention to in the opening credits I don't recall if

0:43:24.560 --> 0:43:28.560
<v Speaker 3>I've ever really noticed this before, is the stylized bat

0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:31.000
<v Speaker 3>in the background of the title card.

0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:31.319
<v Speaker 5>Here.

0:43:32.840 --> 0:43:35.480
<v Speaker 3>You know, it works fine if you're not paying very

0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:38.359
<v Speaker 3>close attention, but when you really look at it, this

0:43:38.400 --> 0:43:41.200
<v Speaker 3>illustration does seem kind of odd. It looks like something

0:43:41.239 --> 0:43:44.600
<v Speaker 3>that would be on like the Adam West Batman TV show.

0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:47.560
<v Speaker 3>There's a whimsical, comic bookiness to it. It does not

0:43:47.640 --> 0:43:50.279
<v Speaker 3>look super gothic. Yeah, yeah, it.

0:43:50.239 --> 0:43:53.400
<v Speaker 2>Looked a little art deco, I guess. But interesting that

0:43:53.400 --> 0:43:55.480
<v Speaker 2>you would bring up Batman because Batman wouldn't be invented

0:43:55.600 --> 0:43:58.160
<v Speaker 2>till nineteen thirty nine and first committed to the screen

0:43:58.200 --> 0:44:01.480
<v Speaker 2>in forty three, So I don't know. It's not impossible

0:44:01.520 --> 0:44:04.440
<v Speaker 2>that this had an influence on the Cape Crusader.

0:44:04.680 --> 0:44:06.320
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, I can see that, But like, do you

0:44:06.400 --> 0:44:08.920
<v Speaker 3>see that the shape of the ears on the head

0:44:09.080 --> 0:44:11.799
<v Speaker 3>looks exactly like the Batman logo or not the logo,

0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:13.200
<v Speaker 3>like the costume.

0:44:13.760 --> 0:44:15.280
<v Speaker 2>It looks like Batman. Yeah.

0:44:15.400 --> 0:44:17.839
<v Speaker 3>Also, speaking of bats, you know, there are so many

0:44:17.840 --> 0:44:23.040
<v Speaker 3>things that the like in the Dracula movie tradition that

0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:25.640
<v Speaker 3>are different from how they are in the book. When

0:44:25.680 --> 0:44:28.359
<v Speaker 3>I was watching this, I genuinely could not remember if

0:44:28.440 --> 0:44:30.840
<v Speaker 3>Dracula transforms into a bat in the book, and I

0:44:30.880 --> 0:44:33.520
<v Speaker 3>had to look it up and oh, yeah, he definitely does.

0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:35.760
<v Speaker 3>That's there in the novel. The book is in fact

0:44:35.920 --> 0:44:39.120
<v Speaker 3>full of talk about bats. There's this whole section where

0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.320
<v Speaker 3>they're trying to figure out what's happening to Lucy, and

0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:44.080
<v Speaker 3>they talk about these bats in South America that swoop

0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:46.920
<v Speaker 3>down from the trees and drink the blood of sailors

0:44:46.920 --> 0:44:49.240
<v Speaker 3>as they sleep at night, leaving them without a single

0:44:49.360 --> 0:44:55.120
<v Speaker 3>drop left in the morning. That's not true, but anyway, Yeah,

0:44:55.160 --> 0:45:00.200
<v Speaker 3>so the book definitely is all about bats. That's originally there.

0:45:00.600 --> 0:45:03.200
<v Speaker 3>But from here, after the credits, we come on to

0:45:03.280 --> 0:45:07.640
<v Speaker 3>the opening shot, and wow, what a strong opening shot.

0:45:07.680 --> 0:45:12.560
<v Speaker 3>We start on this deep landscape shot with a tremendous

0:45:12.640 --> 0:45:16.200
<v Speaker 3>sense of vertical reach. In the foreground, there is a

0:45:16.239 --> 0:45:19.640
<v Speaker 3>horse drawn carriage. It's clattering over a dirt road toward

0:45:19.719 --> 0:45:22.360
<v Speaker 3>the camera, and in the background we see the road

0:45:22.520 --> 0:45:27.880
<v Speaker 3>is surrounded by gargantuan mountains appearing as these shards of bare,

0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:32.799
<v Speaker 3>unforested rock reaching up toward the clouds. And this made

0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:35.600
<v Speaker 3>me think about how while there are a lot of

0:45:35.960 --> 0:45:39.319
<v Speaker 3>there are lots of reasons for preferring the modern widescreen

0:45:39.360 --> 0:45:44.240
<v Speaker 3>aspect ratio and film. This shot shows one cinematic benefit

0:45:44.600 --> 0:45:47.160
<v Speaker 3>of the roughly one point two or one point three

0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:51.120
<v Speaker 3>by one format, which is the ability to create this

0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:55.279
<v Speaker 3>sense of towering height and depth, like a tiny subject

0:45:55.719 --> 0:45:59.120
<v Speaker 3>in a desolate valley in the middle, encircled by the

0:45:59.280 --> 0:46:00.680
<v Speaker 3>skyscrape of rock.

0:46:01.320 --> 0:46:01.840
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

0:46:01.920 --> 0:46:04.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And we get this feeling a few different points

0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:06.160
<v Speaker 2>at a few different points in the picture, So this

0:46:06.200 --> 0:46:06.799
<v Speaker 2>is a great point.

0:46:06.920 --> 0:46:09.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Apparently this shot was accomplished by a kind of

0:46:09.360 --> 0:46:13.160
<v Speaker 3>composite effect where you can bine a real, live moving

0:46:13.200 --> 0:46:16.040
<v Speaker 3>photography shot of a carriage and road in the foreground

0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:19.120
<v Speaker 3>and then the mountains in the background or a painted backdrop.

0:46:19.160 --> 0:46:21.040
<v Speaker 3>I think I believe it was painted on a piece

0:46:21.080 --> 0:46:24.360
<v Speaker 3>of glass that may actually have been done in the camera,

0:46:24.440 --> 0:46:27.279
<v Speaker 3>with the painted glass positioned over the camera lens. I'm

0:46:27.320 --> 0:46:30.960
<v Speaker 3>not sure about that in this shot, but Skyll talks

0:46:30.960 --> 0:46:33.560
<v Speaker 3>about that for at least some of these exterior shots

0:46:33.560 --> 0:46:36.600
<v Speaker 3>in the commentary track. But I'd also like to point

0:46:36.640 --> 0:46:41.880
<v Speaker 3>out something about the feeling of these painted mountains, a

0:46:42.000 --> 0:46:46.200
<v Speaker 3>kind of art history resonance. Actually, to me, these mountains

0:46:46.239 --> 0:46:51.480
<v Speaker 3>resemble things you see in paintings from the Romantic movement

0:46:51.760 --> 0:46:56.680
<v Speaker 3>of the late eighteenth early nineteenth century. So one very

0:46:56.719 --> 0:46:58.480
<v Speaker 3>well known example, if you want to look it up

0:46:58.480 --> 0:47:01.000
<v Speaker 3>and see this kind of artistic sense ability in painting

0:47:01.600 --> 0:47:04.720
<v Speaker 3>is A Wanderer above Sea and Fog from eighteen eighteen

0:47:04.800 --> 0:47:08.960
<v Speaker 3>by Casper David Friedrich Robert. Have you seen this painting before? Oh?

0:47:09.080 --> 0:47:11.600
<v Speaker 2>Not only have I seen it, I like a lot

0:47:11.640 --> 0:47:15.360
<v Speaker 2>of liberal arts majors had this on my dormitory wall. Okay,

0:47:15.920 --> 0:47:18.879
<v Speaker 2>as a post or form, because I guess a lot

0:47:18.880 --> 0:47:22.240
<v Speaker 2>of liberal arts majors probably see themselves like this. Sure,

0:47:22.280 --> 0:47:26.680
<v Speaker 2>A lone figure standing atop a mysterious, you know, craggy

0:47:26.800 --> 0:47:29.719
<v Speaker 2>environment above the mists, surveying everything. That's kind of like

0:47:29.760 --> 0:47:31.200
<v Speaker 2>a gentleman scholar vibe.

0:47:31.440 --> 0:47:34.520
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, I mean, but so, how would you describe

0:47:34.560 --> 0:47:38.000
<v Speaker 3>the like the landscape here, It's it's like very active

0:47:38.080 --> 0:47:41.239
<v Speaker 3>and emotional and dramatic, right you mentioned the crags.

0:47:41.560 --> 0:47:44.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, definitely, very emotionally charged. There's a sense of

0:47:44.800 --> 0:47:49.840
<v Speaker 2>wonder and possibility here, it's maybe inverted to a certain extent,

0:47:50.040 --> 0:47:52.200
<v Speaker 2>or at least there's a darker sense of wonder and

0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:56.480
<v Speaker 2>possibility in Dracula. But yeah, similar vibes in a way, similar.

0:47:56.239 --> 0:48:01.120
<v Speaker 3>Frequency exactly and realized through these like very jagged edged

0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:06.240
<v Speaker 3>depictions of nature, you know, like just like the rocks

0:48:06.280 --> 0:48:10.400
<v Speaker 3>are infused with drama. A lot of Romantic landscape paintings,

0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:14.680
<v Speaker 3>I think, have this feeling depicting natural objects like mountains

0:48:14.719 --> 0:48:18.319
<v Speaker 3>in particular, mountains are very popular subject of you know,

0:48:19.040 --> 0:48:23.320
<v Speaker 3>painters of this style from this era, but also of rocks,

0:48:23.440 --> 0:48:26.640
<v Speaker 3>bodies of water, trees, et cetera. There was a convention

0:48:26.760 --> 0:48:31.600
<v Speaker 3>at this time of kind of showing these things as overwhelming,

0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:36.920
<v Speaker 3>almost magical in some way, epic, dramatic, bursting with irrepressible emotion.

0:48:37.680 --> 0:48:42.360
<v Speaker 3>And I would say that modern genres of horror, especially

0:48:42.400 --> 0:48:47.120
<v Speaker 3>Gothic horror, have strong roots in the nineteenth century European

0:48:47.239 --> 0:48:52.080
<v Speaker 3>Romantic movements in the arts, in arts and literature. Dracula

0:48:52.160 --> 0:48:55.040
<v Speaker 3>itself as a novel was not born of this period,

0:48:55.040 --> 0:48:56.960
<v Speaker 3>as we've said, it came much later. It was in

0:48:57.000 --> 0:49:01.839
<v Speaker 3>the eighteen nineties, but Frankenstein was from this period. Frankenstein

0:49:01.880 --> 0:49:05.319
<v Speaker 3>is a Romantic novel in many ways, and if you

0:49:05.360 --> 0:49:08.040
<v Speaker 3>go back and read Frankenstein you might be shocked how

0:49:08.120 --> 0:49:12.280
<v Speaker 3>much mountains and epic landscapes play a role in the story.

0:49:12.320 --> 0:49:15.479
<v Speaker 3>For example, when Victor first meets the creature again after

0:49:15.520 --> 0:49:19.080
<v Speaker 3>their initial separation, it's while he is out hiking alone

0:49:19.120 --> 0:49:22.799
<v Speaker 3>in the Alps. And so even though Dracula was not

0:49:22.920 --> 0:49:26.680
<v Speaker 3>a novel from the Romantic period, I think Romantic artistic

0:49:26.719 --> 0:49:30.120
<v Speaker 3>and literary conventions have influenced how it was later brought

0:49:30.120 --> 0:49:33.560
<v Speaker 3>to life on film. And so you see this kind

0:49:33.560 --> 0:49:37.360
<v Speaker 3>of in themes that want to come out in different

0:49:37.440 --> 0:49:39.759
<v Speaker 3>versions of the telling of the vampire story, and in

0:49:39.800 --> 0:49:42.240
<v Speaker 3>this kind of visual imagery of like the great Romantic

0:49:42.280 --> 0:49:46.759
<v Speaker 3>emotional mountains. So these common Romantic literary tropes. Again, this

0:49:46.840 --> 0:49:49.400
<v Speaker 3>is my take, and I'm sure i'm oversimplifying. You know,

0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:51.400
<v Speaker 3>literature scholars might get mad at me, but this is

0:49:51.440 --> 0:49:53.120
<v Speaker 3>what I think. I think you see a lot of

0:49:53.200 --> 0:49:57.400
<v Speaker 3>like themes of the awe inspiring power of nature and instinct,

0:49:58.280 --> 0:50:03.000
<v Speaker 3>a preference for emotion and passion over cold blooded reason,

0:50:04.000 --> 0:50:06.799
<v Speaker 3>a kind of a sensibility of rebellion, a desire to

0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:12.400
<v Speaker 3>rebel against authority, and institutions, and themes of the ways

0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:16.040
<v Speaker 3>in which personal experiences are kind of unique and precious

0:50:16.200 --> 0:50:20.480
<v Speaker 3>and difficult to share or express, and beyond all that,

0:50:20.800 --> 0:50:25.520
<v Speaker 3>just kind of a general attraction to mystery and amazement. Yeah,

0:50:26.080 --> 0:50:29.680
<v Speaker 3>I do not think that these themes are especially present

0:50:29.719 --> 0:50:32.479
<v Speaker 3>in my reading of the novel Dracula, but I do

0:50:32.560 --> 0:50:36.680
<v Speaker 3>think these themes really come out in movie adaptations of Dracula.

0:50:37.200 --> 0:50:39.799
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and really even in the opening here in a

0:50:39.840 --> 0:50:43.600
<v Speaker 2>sense a stranger in a strange land, what's going to happen?

0:50:44.360 --> 0:50:48.040
<v Speaker 3>So anyway, we're down with the people now in the carriage,

0:50:48.800 --> 0:50:50.400
<v Speaker 3>and this is the part what I think this is

0:50:50.480 --> 0:50:53.600
<v Speaker 3>Carla Lemley, isn't it. Who's reading reading from like a

0:50:53.640 --> 0:50:56.040
<v Speaker 3>travel book. Here there are like five or six people,

0:50:56.080 --> 0:50:59.000
<v Speaker 3>one of them is Dwight Fry. They're in this carriage.

0:50:59.080 --> 0:51:01.640
<v Speaker 3>Dwight Fry is in a tidy suit and tie with

0:51:01.680 --> 0:51:04.600
<v Speaker 3>a white fedora, and I was just thinking, dude, you're

0:51:04.640 --> 0:51:06.440
<v Speaker 3>going to go in a full three piece suit to

0:51:06.480 --> 0:51:07.480
<v Speaker 3>the Borgo Pass.

0:51:08.280 --> 0:51:09.680
<v Speaker 2>It's just how you traveled back then.

0:51:10.200 --> 0:51:12.399
<v Speaker 3>So the other woman in the carriage, she's reading from

0:51:12.400 --> 0:51:15.000
<v Speaker 3>the travel book, and she says, among the rugged peaks

0:51:15.000 --> 0:51:18.600
<v Speaker 3>that frowned down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling

0:51:18.719 --> 0:51:23.960
<v Speaker 3>castles of a bygone age and a little real world.

0:51:24.000 --> 0:51:27.320
<v Speaker 3>Note this is a real mountain pass. The Borgo Pass exists.

0:51:27.320 --> 0:51:30.400
<v Speaker 3>It's called some different today, but it is located in

0:51:30.440 --> 0:51:33.560
<v Speaker 3>modern day Romania. At the time the novel was written,

0:51:33.960 --> 0:51:36.880
<v Speaker 3>this was part of the region of Transylvania, which I

0:51:36.880 --> 0:51:40.720
<v Speaker 3>believe at the time was part of Hungary. Bramstoker almost

0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:43.759
<v Speaker 3>certainly never went there. He probably just found the name

0:51:43.800 --> 0:51:48.200
<v Speaker 3>on a map and it sounded cool, and according to experts,

0:51:48.239 --> 0:51:50.600
<v Speaker 3>like the way he describes it is not really how

0:51:50.600 --> 0:51:51.319
<v Speaker 3>this place is.

0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:54.319
<v Speaker 2>Right right. I've often heard it pointed out that there's

0:51:54.360 --> 0:51:57.960
<v Speaker 2>really more Irish mythology than Eastern European mythology. I mean,

0:51:57.960 --> 0:52:01.360
<v Speaker 2>there's a bit of it the vampire of Eastern European origins,

0:52:01.400 --> 0:52:04.040
<v Speaker 2>but there's a lot of Irish mythology bound up in

0:52:04.080 --> 0:52:06.120
<v Speaker 2>what brown Stoker is creating here.

0:52:06.120 --> 0:52:10.640
<v Speaker 3>That's right. So Dwight Fry looks bored and annoyed. Everybody

0:52:10.640 --> 0:52:13.560
<v Speaker 3>in the carriage is getting tossed around by the bumpy road,

0:52:14.000 --> 0:52:16.080
<v Speaker 3>and he calls out to the driver to slow down.

0:52:16.160 --> 0:52:19.239
<v Speaker 3>But another man in the carriage, a local with a mustache,

0:52:19.440 --> 0:52:23.080
<v Speaker 3>leans over to sharply rebuke him, and he says, we

0:52:23.160 --> 0:52:26.360
<v Speaker 3>must reach the inn before sundown. So ain't no slowing

0:52:26.440 --> 0:52:29.000
<v Speaker 3>down this carriage. That is the wrong choice. We've got

0:52:29.040 --> 0:52:32.000
<v Speaker 3>to go as fast as we can to get to shelter. Now,

0:52:32.000 --> 0:52:34.720
<v Speaker 3>why would it be important to get there before sundown? Well,

0:52:34.760 --> 0:52:38.200
<v Speaker 3>he says, it is well, Purgas night, the night of evil.

0:52:38.640 --> 0:52:42.200
<v Speaker 3>That's April thirtieth, by the way, everyone, for those who

0:52:42.239 --> 0:52:45.120
<v Speaker 3>don't celebrate, And then he goes on to shout no

0:52:45.280 --> 0:52:48.200
<v Speaker 3>s ferratu before the woman in the carriage next to him.

0:52:48.200 --> 0:52:50.040
<v Speaker 3>I think this must be his wife. She tries to

0:52:50.040 --> 0:52:52.320
<v Speaker 3>cover up his mouth, but he will not be silent.

0:52:52.440 --> 0:52:55.920
<v Speaker 3>He says, on this night, madame, the doors they are barred,

0:52:56.040 --> 0:52:59.719
<v Speaker 3>and to the Virgin we pray. So the carriage does

0:52:59.760 --> 0:53:03.239
<v Speaker 3>make to the end before sundown, and we see, you know,

0:53:03.520 --> 0:53:07.719
<v Speaker 3>the locals going about their business praying in Hungarian. And

0:53:07.800 --> 0:53:10.160
<v Speaker 3>here we get a scene versions of which are in

0:53:10.200 --> 0:53:13.480
<v Speaker 3>many adaptations of Dracula, where the locals try to warn

0:53:13.560 --> 0:53:16.680
<v Speaker 3>the visiting real estate agent about the evils that lurk

0:53:16.719 --> 0:53:19.320
<v Speaker 3>at Castle Dracula. You know, no, it's a bad place,

0:53:19.360 --> 0:53:22.680
<v Speaker 3>don't go there, And they eventually will usually give him

0:53:22.880 --> 0:53:26.520
<v Speaker 3>some form of talismanic protection, usually a crucifix. Here it

0:53:26.560 --> 0:53:30.440
<v Speaker 3>is a crucifix. Now. One thing that makes this adaptation

0:53:30.800 --> 0:53:35.799
<v Speaker 3>unlike both the novel and most later movie adaptations is

0:53:35.880 --> 0:53:40.279
<v Speaker 3>the identity of the agent making the visit. Usually, the

0:53:40.320 --> 0:53:44.920
<v Speaker 3>agent that comes here to Transylvania is one of our

0:53:44.960 --> 0:53:49.279
<v Speaker 3>main young protagonists. It's Jonathan Harker, or, in the German adaptations,

0:53:49.280 --> 0:53:53.080
<v Speaker 3>like nos Faratu, Thomas Hutter. In this version, the character

0:53:53.320 --> 0:53:58.640
<v Speaker 3>is Wrinfield. Now, for those not familiar with the story,

0:53:59.040 --> 0:54:04.200
<v Speaker 3>Harker is the the young, handsome, ambitious fiancee of Mina,

0:54:04.320 --> 0:54:07.120
<v Speaker 3>who Mina will become, by the end of the story

0:54:07.360 --> 0:54:11.920
<v Speaker 3>the ultimate target of Dracula's predations, whereas Renfield in the

0:54:11.960 --> 0:54:16.160
<v Speaker 3>novel is a former colleague of Harker's who I believe

0:54:16.360 --> 0:54:20.000
<v Speaker 3>had also previously traveled to Transylvania, but that's not part

0:54:20.040 --> 0:54:22.160
<v Speaker 3>of the narrative. It's the background. He had gone there

0:54:22.440 --> 0:54:25.880
<v Speaker 3>to conduct business with Count Dracula. He ends up coming

0:54:25.920 --> 0:54:29.640
<v Speaker 3>back having been driven mad, and he is turned into

0:54:29.800 --> 0:54:33.360
<v Speaker 3>Dracula's loyal servant and familiar. Spends the rest of the

0:54:33.360 --> 0:54:38.040
<v Speaker 3>story housed in doctor Seward's sanitarium near Carfax, eating flies

0:54:38.160 --> 0:54:40.759
<v Speaker 3>and pining to serve his master. I do about right

0:54:40.840 --> 0:54:44.520
<v Speaker 3>with that, Rob, Yes, that's correct. So in the novel, Harker,

0:54:44.680 --> 0:54:47.600
<v Speaker 3>the character who's our real like protagonist, has to pick

0:54:47.680 --> 0:54:51.040
<v Speaker 3>up where Renfield left off. So he goes to Dracula's castle,

0:54:51.320 --> 0:54:53.680
<v Speaker 3>and we go with him because we read his letters.

0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:56.960
<v Speaker 3>He's going there to bring signing papers for the purchase

0:54:57.000 --> 0:55:01.040
<v Speaker 3>of an estate in England, and we learn about Dracula

0:55:01.080 --> 0:55:04.920
<v Speaker 3>first through Harker's letters here. Harker will later escape the

0:55:04.960 --> 0:55:09.200
<v Speaker 3>castle and be reunited with Mina, and he is part

0:55:09.239 --> 0:55:12.160
<v Speaker 3>of the posse of heroes who chase down Dracula at

0:55:12.160 --> 0:55:14.800
<v Speaker 3>the end of the novel to free Mina from his curse.

0:55:15.440 --> 0:55:18.799
<v Speaker 3>But this movie has made some executive editing decisions, and

0:55:19.280 --> 0:55:22.319
<v Speaker 3>they have decided instead to just give all of the

0:55:22.360 --> 0:55:26.640
<v Speaker 3>action in Transylvania to Renfield, which is in a way

0:55:26.760 --> 0:55:30.040
<v Speaker 3>an efficient storytelling choice that I can see ways in

0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:33.360
<v Speaker 3>which that's a good edit. But I would also argue

0:55:33.560 --> 0:55:36.799
<v Speaker 3>that leaves Jonathan Harker without a very good reason to

0:55:36.880 --> 0:55:39.840
<v Speaker 3>be in the story and without much interesting to do.

0:55:40.360 --> 0:55:43.320
<v Speaker 3>It's just kind of like Dracula is preying on Mina.

0:55:43.440 --> 0:55:45.959
<v Speaker 3>Oh and Mina's got a fiance somewhere. What's his deal?

0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:49.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I applaud the adaptation for

0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:53.640
<v Speaker 2>doubling down on weird Renfield, and it makes for the

0:55:53.680 --> 0:55:56.480
<v Speaker 2>intro to be I think, in a way more horrifying

0:55:56.719 --> 0:55:59.239
<v Speaker 2>because it is going to me it will end in

0:55:59.280 --> 0:56:03.160
<v Speaker 2>madness for him. He's not truly going to escape the count.

0:56:04.200 --> 0:56:06.560
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, Harker is reduced to almost nothing in the picture.

0:56:06.800 --> 0:56:09.040
<v Speaker 3>I'm not trying to be mean to the actor or anything,

0:56:09.080 --> 0:56:11.719
<v Speaker 3>but it's just he he has strong like why is

0:56:11.760 --> 0:56:15.120
<v Speaker 3>he here energy? Yeah. One note I wanted to make

0:56:15.160 --> 0:56:19.200
<v Speaker 3>about Renfield and the actor Dwight Frye who plays him here.

0:56:19.280 --> 0:56:22.799
<v Speaker 3>This is from David Skal's commentary Scout talks about how

0:56:23.920 --> 0:56:26.960
<v Speaker 3>you know, really Dwight Frye had the makings of a

0:56:27.440 --> 0:56:30.120
<v Speaker 3>dashing leading man of Hollywood. He had good looks, he had,

0:56:30.600 --> 0:56:32.759
<v Speaker 3>you know, good acting skills, like he could have been

0:56:32.840 --> 0:56:36.799
<v Speaker 3>that type of character, that kind of leading player. But

0:56:37.080 --> 0:56:39.920
<v Speaker 3>his role as Renfield and then his later role as

0:56:39.960 --> 0:56:43.879
<v Speaker 3>the grave robbing assistant Fritz and James Wales Frankenstein, made

0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:47.160
<v Speaker 3>it really hard for fry to get these roles, to

0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:50.120
<v Speaker 3>get the leading roles he was kind of pigeonholed as

0:56:50.200 --> 0:56:53.040
<v Speaker 3>the grinning lunatic who you catch rooting around in the

0:56:53.040 --> 0:56:57.520
<v Speaker 3>hospital morgue and they're just like it in a way.

0:56:57.600 --> 0:57:01.759
<v Speaker 3>It was like a very six full acting turn that

0:57:01.840 --> 0:57:03.480
<v Speaker 3>proved to be a curse for his career.

0:57:03.920 --> 0:57:05.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, I mean you can make some comparisons to

0:57:05.880 --> 0:57:08.839
<v Speaker 2>Lugosi there as well. But yeah, a shame. It's also

0:57:08.880 --> 0:57:11.640
<v Speaker 2>a shame that he died rather young heart attack or

0:57:11.640 --> 0:57:16.000
<v Speaker 2>heart condition, and yeah, it's you know, what could we

0:57:16.040 --> 0:57:18.360
<v Speaker 2>have gotten out of him had we had ten or

0:57:18.360 --> 0:57:20.800
<v Speaker 2>twenty more years of him as an active actor.

0:57:20.960 --> 0:57:31.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah. Anyway, so back to the scene that the

0:57:31.800 --> 0:57:34.640
<v Speaker 3>locals try to warn Renfield away, but he insists that

0:57:34.680 --> 0:57:37.480
<v Speaker 3>he has to meet the count because he's made. He's

0:57:37.480 --> 0:57:39.720
<v Speaker 3>got an appointment with Count Dracula's carriage and they've got

0:57:39.720 --> 0:57:42.160
<v Speaker 3>to meet at the Borgo Pass at midnight. It sounds

0:57:42.160 --> 0:57:44.800
<v Speaker 3>like fun. By the way. One of the people who

0:57:44.800 --> 0:57:47.560
<v Speaker 3>tries to warn him off is this innkeeper here who

0:57:47.760 --> 0:57:50.640
<v Speaker 3>is the actor is great. I love this scene where

0:57:50.680 --> 0:57:53.320
<v Speaker 3>he's he's like telling him all of the vampire lore.

0:57:53.400 --> 0:57:56.320
<v Speaker 3>He's telling him like, listen, no vampires are at the castle.

0:57:56.360 --> 0:57:59.440
<v Speaker 3>You can't go there. Vampires drink blood, they sleep in coffins,

0:57:59.440 --> 0:58:01.720
<v Speaker 3>they change in to bats and wolves. They can be

0:58:01.800 --> 0:58:04.080
<v Speaker 3>repelled by the cross. This is all the stuff you

0:58:04.120 --> 0:58:07.640
<v Speaker 3>need to know, but it doesn't feel like the kind

0:58:07.640 --> 0:58:10.400
<v Speaker 3>of tight, lower dump that it is. Instead, it's like

0:58:10.440 --> 0:58:12.640
<v Speaker 3>this innkeeper is ranting at me and I want him

0:58:12.680 --> 0:58:13.120
<v Speaker 3>to stop.

0:58:13.760 --> 0:58:16.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I had to look this guy at. Michael Visarov,

0:58:16.720 --> 0:58:19.560
<v Speaker 2>Russian born actor most mostly active in did parts in

0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:20.560
<v Speaker 2>the thirties and forties.

0:58:20.800 --> 0:58:23.240
<v Speaker 3>Anyway, after this, Renfield does take off in the carriage

0:58:23.280 --> 0:58:26.320
<v Speaker 3>again to meet Dracula's carriage at the Borgo Pass at midnight,

0:58:26.360 --> 0:58:29.920
<v Speaker 3>and we get another great dramatic landscape shot. This was

0:58:29.960 --> 0:58:33.320
<v Speaker 3>once again by combining real photography and painting. It's the

0:58:33.600 --> 0:58:38.440
<v Speaker 3>perilous rock bridge crossing to the vampire's castle. Now, before

0:58:38.480 --> 0:58:41.280
<v Speaker 3>Renfield arrives, we actually get what I think is one

0:58:41.320 --> 0:58:43.320
<v Speaker 3>of the best shots in the film, which is a

0:58:43.440 --> 0:58:48.560
<v Speaker 3>dolly shot, a moving camera shot through the filthy catacombs

0:58:48.560 --> 0:58:52.520
<v Speaker 3>and the bowels of Dracula's castle, and we're approaching this

0:58:52.680 --> 0:58:56.440
<v Speaker 3>brood of coffins that lie nestled in the dust, and

0:58:56.560 --> 0:59:00.480
<v Speaker 3>there's this great effect where mist is pouring eerily across

0:59:00.480 --> 0:59:02.920
<v Speaker 3>the surface of the earth, and we get closer and

0:59:02.960 --> 0:59:05.840
<v Speaker 3>closer to the coffin, and finally the lid creaks open

0:59:06.080 --> 0:59:08.160
<v Speaker 3>and out comes a pale hand.

0:59:08.800 --> 0:59:11.680
<v Speaker 2>This, I believe is one of a few shots that

0:59:11.920 --> 0:59:15.440
<v Speaker 2>is pointed out as being clearly inspired by twenty two's Nosferatu.

0:59:15.840 --> 0:59:18.040
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, okay, I don't think I would have made

0:59:18.040 --> 0:59:21.960
<v Speaker 3>that connection, but that sounds right to me. Now. Interesting note,

0:59:22.400 --> 0:59:25.280
<v Speaker 3>we don't see Dracula's face in this moment where the

0:59:25.320 --> 0:59:28.120
<v Speaker 3>hand is coming out of the coffin. In fact, before

0:59:28.160 --> 0:59:30.400
<v Speaker 3>we see his face, we see the face of one

0:59:30.400 --> 0:59:34.880
<v Speaker 3>of his wives. So, despite what some movie trivia sources say,

0:59:34.920 --> 0:59:38.240
<v Speaker 3>the first on screen vampire in a talkie was not

0:59:38.440 --> 0:59:41.920
<v Speaker 3>Bela Lagosi, but one of his three demon brides. I'm

0:59:41.960 --> 0:59:44.760
<v Speaker 3>almost certain this is the one played by Geraldine de Vorak.

0:59:44.960 --> 0:59:46.720
<v Speaker 3>She beats him by a few seconds.

0:59:47.120 --> 0:59:49.080
<v Speaker 2>However, she does not talkie herself.

0:59:49.440 --> 0:59:54.280
<v Speaker 3>That's true. Very quiet. Also in the scene possums, you know, yes,

0:59:54.480 --> 0:59:57.720
<v Speaker 3>but Dracula's castles, it's full of possums. They're crawling around

0:59:57.760 --> 1:00:00.720
<v Speaker 3>in the bones, they're getting up all in all the cracks, crevices.

1:00:00.760 --> 1:00:02.960
<v Speaker 3>They've got a real possum issue. Oh, man.

1:00:03.000 --> 1:00:06.120
<v Speaker 2>When I started watching Dracula the other day with my kid,

1:00:06.200 --> 1:00:08.640
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't fully considering it for this week's Weird House

1:00:08.640 --> 1:00:13.120
<v Speaker 2>Cinema until the possums and the armadillos showed up, rooting

1:00:13.160 --> 1:00:18.440
<v Speaker 2>around caskets and generally just infesting Dracula's castle. So the

1:00:18.480 --> 1:00:21.240
<v Speaker 2>possums show up first, and I was like, okay, fair enough,

1:00:21.280 --> 1:00:24.120
<v Speaker 2>possums look like big gross rats. I'll allow it. But

1:00:24.160 --> 1:00:27.240
<v Speaker 2>then there are armadillas as well, armadillos as well. And

1:00:27.360 --> 1:00:30.760
<v Speaker 2>to be clear, possums and armadillos are both endemic to

1:00:30.800 --> 1:00:35.240
<v Speaker 2>the Americas. They absolutely don't live in Transylvania or Eastern Europe.

1:00:35.680 --> 1:00:37.600
<v Speaker 2>And yet at the same time, you know you have

1:00:37.640 --> 1:00:39.800
<v Speaker 2>to acknowledge they do look creepy rooting around in a

1:00:39.840 --> 1:00:43.840
<v Speaker 2>Gothic castle. So what's going on here? Well, the most

1:00:43.880 --> 1:00:47.200
<v Speaker 2>obvious interpretations are, of course, this was shot in California

1:00:47.400 --> 1:00:51.640
<v Speaker 2>and on a depression trunken budget, so you know, you

1:00:51.880 --> 1:00:54.400
<v Speaker 2>use what you can get your hands on, and if

1:00:54.440 --> 1:00:56.880
<v Speaker 2>you didn't know any better, these animals again look creepy

1:00:56.880 --> 1:01:00.840
<v Speaker 2>in a Gothic castle setting. A deeper answer, however, seems

1:01:00.840 --> 1:01:04.120
<v Speaker 2>to exist in attitudes concerning these two species, especially at

1:01:04.120 --> 1:01:07.560
<v Speaker 2>the time I was reading Dale Hudson's Of course there

1:01:07.560 --> 1:01:11.000
<v Speaker 2>are werewolves and vampires from the American Quarterly twenty thirteen,

1:01:11.320 --> 1:01:14.840
<v Speaker 2>and this author argues that the presence of these creatures

1:01:14.840 --> 1:01:20.160
<v Speaker 2>serve to animalize Dracula himself. Additionally, the contagion aspects of

1:01:20.160 --> 1:01:23.320
<v Speaker 2>Stoker's novel are perhaps summoned here in the presence of

1:01:23.360 --> 1:01:26.880
<v Speaker 2>two creatures often associated with diseases possums.

1:01:27.040 --> 1:01:27.760
<v Speaker 3>I look this up.

1:01:27.800 --> 1:01:30.080
<v Speaker 2>They can carry a number of diseases that are transferable

1:01:30.080 --> 1:01:34.680
<v Speaker 2>to humans, and Armadilla's of course, can carry leprosy. Furthermore,

1:01:34.880 --> 1:01:39.560
<v Speaker 2>there are slash were apparently tall tales of Armadilla's digging

1:01:39.600 --> 1:01:41.240
<v Speaker 2>up graves and eating corpses.

1:01:41.480 --> 1:01:42.640
<v Speaker 3>What I've never heard that.

1:01:42.880 --> 1:01:44.560
<v Speaker 2>I mean, they do root around, and I think the

1:01:44.600 --> 1:01:49.800
<v Speaker 2>idea is that this led to tall tales of them

1:01:49.840 --> 1:01:52.000
<v Speaker 2>digging up and eating corpses. And you know, there may

1:01:52.040 --> 1:01:56.080
<v Speaker 2>be some accounts of them, you know, eating non insect meat,

1:01:56.120 --> 1:01:58.640
<v Speaker 2>scavenging it if the availability is there. I mean, we've

1:01:58.640 --> 1:02:01.800
<v Speaker 2>seen that in other animals, but it seems to be

1:02:02.320 --> 1:02:06.800
<v Speaker 2>just a myth and a legend. But yeah, despite all

1:02:06.800 --> 1:02:09.560
<v Speaker 2>the other aspects of this adaptation of Dracula, that becomes

1:02:09.560 --> 1:02:13.480
<v Speaker 2>set in stone. The inclusion of possums and Armadilla's doesn't

1:02:13.520 --> 1:02:16.320
<v Speaker 2>seem to be like something that really stuck. I don't

1:02:16.360 --> 1:02:17.880
<v Speaker 2>think Copley used this at all.

1:02:18.520 --> 1:02:21.800
<v Speaker 3>I do not recall it. But anyway, so after that,

1:02:22.240 --> 1:02:24.840
<v Speaker 3>we finally get to the iconic shot where we first

1:02:24.880 --> 1:02:28.040
<v Speaker 3>see Bella Legosi in full. He's standing tall in a

1:02:28.080 --> 1:02:31.800
<v Speaker 3>black cloak with the tall collar and the dark catacombs

1:02:31.920 --> 1:02:34.959
<v Speaker 3>under the stone arches and the cobwebs, with the light

1:02:35.080 --> 1:02:37.400
<v Speaker 3>curiously falling on his face in a way that makes

1:02:37.480 --> 1:02:40.960
<v Speaker 3>him look unnaturally pale. And the camera closes in and

1:02:41.000 --> 1:02:43.960
<v Speaker 3>it brings us closer and closer to him, and it's

1:02:43.960 --> 1:02:47.160
<v Speaker 3>almost like he's floating through the air toward us as

1:02:47.200 --> 1:02:51.000
<v Speaker 3>the camera zooms in. Just great, great shot. It's one

1:02:51.000 --> 1:02:54.360
<v Speaker 3>of those all time epic movie introductions. It's like, when

1:02:54.360 --> 1:02:55.960
<v Speaker 3>you see a guy for the first time like this,

1:02:56.080 --> 1:02:57.160
<v Speaker 3>you'll never forget him.

1:02:57.480 --> 1:02:59.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's like he is floating towards us. We are

1:02:59.520 --> 1:03:03.600
<v Speaker 2>being drawn towards him. Yeah, we are already captivated.

1:03:04.200 --> 1:03:06.600
<v Speaker 3>We also see Dracula's brides for the first time in

1:03:06.640 --> 1:03:09.240
<v Speaker 3>this scene. They're like creeping along through the catacombs, also

1:03:09.360 --> 1:03:13.760
<v Speaker 3>under these arches and very very unsettling as well. So

1:03:14.000 --> 1:03:16.080
<v Speaker 3>the next scene is the one where Dracula picks up

1:03:16.120 --> 1:03:19.560
<v Speaker 3>Renfield at the Borgo Pass at midnight. Dracula is supposed

1:03:19.600 --> 1:03:23.040
<v Speaker 3>to be in disguise as the coachman here in the novel.

1:03:23.720 --> 1:03:26.280
<v Speaker 3>I think he doesn't want Harker to realize that he's

1:03:26.360 --> 1:03:29.160
<v Speaker 3>doing everything himself and that he doesn't actually have any

1:03:29.200 --> 1:03:32.480
<v Speaker 3>living servants inside his castle, so he you know, he's

1:03:32.520 --> 1:03:34.680
<v Speaker 3>in disguise. But this is not a good disguise. It's

1:03:34.680 --> 1:03:35.400
<v Speaker 3>bela lagosi.

1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:38.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, basically just as a scarf and a hat.

1:03:38.760 --> 1:03:42.200
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, but yeah, maybe if you never seen in

1:03:42.240 --> 1:03:46.680
<v Speaker 3>Belli lagosi before, just like, okay, it's another guy. Renfield

1:03:46.720 --> 1:03:49.960
<v Speaker 3>meets the carriage in a haunted, misty landscape filled with

1:03:50.000 --> 1:03:53.040
<v Speaker 3>crooked trees, and then he gets aboard. The driver does

1:03:53.080 --> 1:03:55.840
<v Speaker 3>not speak. At one point along the way, Renfield looks

1:03:55.840 --> 1:03:58.080
<v Speaker 3>out the window and sees the team of horses being

1:03:58.120 --> 1:04:01.440
<v Speaker 3>led by a bat in flight. Good, good little moment.

1:04:02.000 --> 1:04:02.240
<v Speaker 5>Yeah.

1:04:02.280 --> 1:04:04.640
<v Speaker 2>I want to add a note here about the you know,

1:04:04.680 --> 1:04:07.520
<v Speaker 2>their rubber bats on yea, on the strings. Essentially, we've

1:04:07.560 --> 1:04:11.400
<v Speaker 2>seen so many flapping rubber bats on strings and various films.

1:04:11.400 --> 1:04:14.280
<v Speaker 2>But here they do look really good. I mean there's

1:04:14.320 --> 1:04:18.040
<v Speaker 2>never any doubt that you're watching an effect and not

1:04:18.120 --> 1:04:22.560
<v Speaker 2>a real animal, but it looks really good. I absolute props.

1:04:23.000 --> 1:04:25.720
<v Speaker 3>It's a rubber bat. But I like this rubber bat. Yeah,

1:04:25.760 --> 1:04:28.040
<v Speaker 3>the rubber bat is better than the rubber spider that

1:04:28.080 --> 1:04:30.080
<v Speaker 3>climbs the wall in a few minutes.

1:04:30.160 --> 1:04:32.760
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's true. Yeah, they couldn't keep live spider. They

1:04:32.800 --> 1:04:35.560
<v Speaker 2>tried to use live spiders. There are some. There are

1:04:35.560 --> 1:04:39.840
<v Speaker 2>some live crickets as well, but yeah, live spiders. That's

1:04:39.840 --> 1:04:41.000
<v Speaker 2>got to eaten up pretty quickly.

1:04:41.520 --> 1:04:46.360
<v Speaker 3>Okay, some notes about the scene where where Renfield arrives

1:04:46.400 --> 1:04:48.440
<v Speaker 3>at the castle. It's great. You know, the door creaks

1:04:48.440 --> 1:04:51.320
<v Speaker 3>open by itself. Again, most people have probably seen some

1:04:51.400 --> 1:04:54.000
<v Speaker 3>kind of adaptation of Dracula, so you know this scene.

1:04:54.680 --> 1:04:58.040
<v Speaker 3>Renfield cautiously steps into the main hall, which looks as

1:04:58.040 --> 1:05:01.200
<v Speaker 3>if it had been deserted for century. Everything's covered in

1:05:01.280 --> 1:05:05.120
<v Speaker 3>just ages worth of dust, giant spiderwebs. You got bats

1:05:05.200 --> 1:05:09.080
<v Speaker 3>bobbing and cheapening outside the window. Here's where we meet

1:05:09.080 --> 1:05:11.320
<v Speaker 3>the Armadillo's for the first time. They're just crawling out

1:05:11.360 --> 1:05:16.400
<v Speaker 3>of the furniture. Another beautiful set once again a composite

1:05:16.440 --> 1:05:20.240
<v Speaker 3>shot made by I think it's a real photograph, real

1:05:20.280 --> 1:05:25.160
<v Speaker 3>photography of a stage, a sound stage made up set

1:05:25.240 --> 1:05:27.680
<v Speaker 3>on the bottom, and then I think the painted editions

1:05:27.680 --> 1:05:28.840
<v Speaker 3>are higher up in the frame.

1:05:29.720 --> 1:05:32.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous. The depth is amazing and is

1:05:32.720 --> 1:05:39.200
<v Speaker 2>noted in the Road to Dracula documentary. This look, this set,

1:05:39.360 --> 1:05:42.400
<v Speaker 2>like this really sets the tone for the look of

1:05:42.520 --> 1:05:45.800
<v Speaker 2>horror films, all the horror films that come afterwards, particularly

1:05:45.800 --> 1:05:50.240
<v Speaker 2>gothic horror films to come. This cathedral of the macabre.

1:05:51.200 --> 1:05:54.080
<v Speaker 2>It just, yeah, you know what you're looking at here,

1:05:54.120 --> 1:05:59.240
<v Speaker 2>and it just resonates through horror cinema and things adjacent

1:05:59.240 --> 1:06:01.400
<v Speaker 2>to horror cinema. This is like your basic Scooby Doo

1:06:01.440 --> 1:06:04.120
<v Speaker 2>haunted house as well. So it does get deluded to

1:06:04.160 --> 1:06:06.960
<v Speaker 2>a certain extent, but here in its original form, I

1:06:07.000 --> 1:06:08.200
<v Speaker 2>mean it's still astounding.

1:06:08.640 --> 1:06:10.720
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's right. I mean it is beautiful and it's

1:06:10.760 --> 1:06:15.120
<v Speaker 3>the mother of all movie haunted castles. So we get

1:06:15.160 --> 1:06:18.320
<v Speaker 3>the introductory scene he Dracula comes down the stairs with

1:06:18.400 --> 1:06:22.280
<v Speaker 3>the candelabra. He says, I am Dracula. He says to Renfield,

1:06:22.280 --> 1:06:25.480
<v Speaker 3>I bid you welcome. Renfield says, is just kind of

1:06:25.520 --> 1:06:28.640
<v Speaker 3>nervously stammering and you know, saying a bunch of stuff

1:06:28.680 --> 1:06:32.520
<v Speaker 3>that's not necessary. And as they start to go up

1:06:32.520 --> 1:06:35.640
<v Speaker 3>the stairs, we get the great moment where Count Dracula

1:06:35.720 --> 1:06:39.560
<v Speaker 3>says they hear wolves howling outside, and Dracula says, listen

1:06:39.560 --> 1:06:43.520
<v Speaker 3>to them chilled r and of the night. What music

1:06:43.720 --> 1:06:47.040
<v Speaker 3>they make? I'm sorry if I didn't deliver that right,

1:06:47.120 --> 1:06:51.760
<v Speaker 3>but it's it's I think Skull points out that actually,

1:06:51.840 --> 1:06:54.640
<v Speaker 3>in a lot of later adaptations of the Dracula story,

1:06:54.840 --> 1:06:59.280
<v Speaker 3>this line gets embellished. They start adding other words to it,

1:06:59.360 --> 1:07:02.760
<v Speaker 3>where it's like what beautiful music they make or what

1:07:02.960 --> 1:07:07.520
<v Speaker 3>sweet music they make? And the simplicity of what music

1:07:07.600 --> 1:07:10.360
<v Speaker 3>they make is so much better. I like that this

1:07:10.440 --> 1:07:12.200
<v Speaker 3>Dracula is understated.

1:07:13.000 --> 1:07:15.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, and again yeah, the cryptic nature of it

1:07:15.440 --> 1:07:18.360
<v Speaker 2>and the fact that Lugosi makes every syllable count. And

1:07:18.480 --> 1:07:20.680
<v Speaker 2>I think it was Joe Dante who made the point

1:07:20.680 --> 1:07:23.160
<v Speaker 2>in the Road to Dracula that Legosi also had a

1:07:23.160 --> 1:07:26.040
<v Speaker 2>great ability to find every possible syllable in a word

1:07:26.400 --> 1:07:29.640
<v Speaker 2>yes and bring it to full life.

1:07:29.720 --> 1:07:31.800
<v Speaker 3>The scene also has the moment where Dracula is going

1:07:31.880 --> 1:07:34.520
<v Speaker 3>up the stairs and he passes through the spider web

1:07:34.600 --> 1:07:38.320
<v Speaker 3>without parting it, and then Renfield going through. You know,

1:07:38.360 --> 1:07:40.640
<v Speaker 3>there's a spider web across the Dracula is already gone

1:07:40.680 --> 1:07:42.560
<v Speaker 3>and he has to split the web and go through,

1:07:42.840 --> 1:07:45.760
<v Speaker 3>which is eerie, but there are actually no special effects needed.

1:07:45.760 --> 1:07:47.840
<v Speaker 3>It's just a nominous cut. You see him walking up

1:07:47.840 --> 1:07:50.000
<v Speaker 3>toward it, and it cuts away and suddenly he's on

1:07:50.040 --> 1:07:52.760
<v Speaker 3>the other side of it, but it's still intact. Yeah,

1:07:52.800 --> 1:07:57.760
<v Speaker 3>and then a rubber spider scuttles up the wall. So

1:07:57.880 --> 1:08:00.160
<v Speaker 3>Renfield is brought up to a more hospitable room with

1:08:00.200 --> 1:08:03.320
<v Speaker 3>a roaring fireplace and supper set out for him. This

1:08:03.480 --> 1:08:06.600
<v Speaker 3>drag hospitality scene also appears in some form in most

1:08:06.840 --> 1:08:09.919
<v Speaker 3>versions of the story. As usual, they discuss business here.

1:08:09.960 --> 1:08:12.400
<v Speaker 3>You know, Dracula signs the lease on the property he's

1:08:12.400 --> 1:08:17.840
<v Speaker 3>acquiring in England. He works out shipping arrangements. He explains

1:08:17.880 --> 1:08:22.880
<v Speaker 3>that he's taking three boxes on the ship that he's

1:08:22.960 --> 1:08:26.519
<v Speaker 3>chartered for England, which is leaving tomorrow evening. Wow, that's

1:08:26.520 --> 1:08:30.160
<v Speaker 3>soon three boxes. I think he takes more boxes in

1:08:30.200 --> 1:08:32.559
<v Speaker 3>the book, but three, I guess. Yeah, that's right.

1:08:32.760 --> 1:08:33.960
<v Speaker 2>It seems like he would take four.

1:08:34.040 --> 1:08:34.200
<v Speaker 3>Right.

1:08:34.280 --> 1:08:36.439
<v Speaker 2>I must be missing something here, because he needs one

1:08:36.479 --> 1:08:39.479
<v Speaker 2>for each bride and then himself. But maybe there's I.

1:08:39.400 --> 1:08:41.640
<v Speaker 3>Don't know, that's a good point. Yeah.

1:08:41.840 --> 1:08:45.800
<v Speaker 2>Even then there were carry on lints and so forth.

1:08:45.880 --> 1:08:48.040
<v Speaker 2>So it was like, I have four boxes and they're like, well,

1:08:48.080 --> 1:08:49.640
<v Speaker 2>we have to charge you for the fourth, when he's like,

1:08:49.840 --> 1:08:51.840
<v Speaker 2>I can make do with three.

1:08:53.280 --> 1:08:55.800
<v Speaker 3>So Renfield in this scene, of course, you know, he

1:08:55.840 --> 1:08:58.680
<v Speaker 3>gets a paper cut all those documents. That's a little dangerous.

1:08:59.000 --> 1:09:02.479
<v Speaker 3>You're gonna cut your fingers, and he does, and drac

1:09:02.760 --> 1:09:05.840
<v Speaker 3>can't help himself. He starts creeping up to him, but

1:09:05.880 --> 1:09:08.479
<v Speaker 3>then the sign of the cross, the crucifix given to

1:09:08.560 --> 1:09:10.839
<v Speaker 3>him by the woman at the end, makes Dracula recoil

1:09:12.439 --> 1:09:15.639
<v Speaker 3>and around here's where we start getting these great close

1:09:15.720 --> 1:09:18.840
<v Speaker 3>ups on Dracula's face with the light just falling over

1:09:18.880 --> 1:09:21.599
<v Speaker 3>his eyes where he seems to be hypnotizing the person

1:09:21.680 --> 1:09:24.280
<v Speaker 3>in front of him. The scene also has the great

1:09:24.360 --> 1:09:27.879
<v Speaker 3>wine exchange, you know, where he offers wine to Renfield.

1:09:27.880 --> 1:09:29.760
<v Speaker 3>He says, this is very old wine. I hope you

1:09:29.800 --> 1:09:32.800
<v Speaker 3>will like it, and Renfield's like, oh, thank you. Aren't

1:09:32.800 --> 1:09:36.440
<v Speaker 3>you having any? I never drink why.

1:09:38.439 --> 1:09:39.400
<v Speaker 2>We know what he drinks.

1:09:39.720 --> 1:09:42.680
<v Speaker 3>So after this, Dracula leaves Renfield for the evening, but

1:09:42.760 --> 1:09:46.679
<v Speaker 3>he's not leaving for long. Renfield, when finally alone, looks

1:09:46.720 --> 1:09:52.280
<v Speaker 3>moderately disconcerted. But then immediately some trouble starts creeping in.

1:09:52.320 --> 1:09:55.559
<v Speaker 3>So we see Dracula's three demon brides approaching the door

1:09:55.560 --> 1:09:59.200
<v Speaker 3>through a misty hallway, and then Renfield goes to the

1:09:59.240 --> 1:10:02.519
<v Speaker 3>window of his outside of which there are these crooked

1:10:02.520 --> 1:10:05.080
<v Speaker 3>tree branches and it's a I don't know, just a

1:10:05.160 --> 1:10:08.360
<v Speaker 3>very creepy kind of landscape out there again, like mists

1:10:08.400 --> 1:10:11.599
<v Speaker 3>covering the ground. And then a bat. There's a bat. Oh,

1:10:11.680 --> 1:10:14.200
<v Speaker 3>bat comes to the window and it sort of floats

1:10:14.240 --> 1:10:17.439
<v Speaker 3>in front of him. Renfield collapses on the floor as if,

1:10:17.720 --> 1:10:21.479
<v Speaker 3>you know, hypnotized into unconsciousness somehow by the bat. And

1:10:21.520 --> 1:10:24.200
<v Speaker 3>then the brides creep into the room. They're advancing on

1:10:24.240 --> 1:10:27.920
<v Speaker 3>Renfield's body. They're obviously they're going to drink his blood.

1:10:28.080 --> 1:10:32.040
<v Speaker 3>But no, no, Renfield is not for them. Dracula himself

1:10:32.080 --> 1:10:35.080
<v Speaker 3>comes back in through the window into the room and

1:10:35.120 --> 1:10:37.680
<v Speaker 3>he drives away his wives as if to say he

1:10:37.840 --> 1:10:41.760
<v Speaker 3>is mine. And then the Count descends on Renfield's unconscious

1:10:41.840 --> 1:10:44.679
<v Speaker 3>body and leans over him to take him in his arms.

1:10:45.280 --> 1:10:49.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's great. Steveuince and we never actually see him

1:10:49.240 --> 1:10:51.640
<v Speaker 2>like bite into Renfield. Correct me if I'm wrong, But

1:10:52.439 --> 1:10:55.919
<v Speaker 2>do we ever see fangs in nineteen thirty one Stracula

1:10:56.000 --> 1:10:56.320
<v Speaker 2>at all?

1:10:56.680 --> 1:11:01.599
<v Speaker 3>I that's a very good point. I'm afraid to be wrong,

1:11:01.720 --> 1:11:04.840
<v Speaker 3>But I think you never do. Yeah, I think you

1:11:04.880 --> 1:11:05.960
<v Speaker 3>never see them. Yeah yeah.

1:11:06.040 --> 1:11:08.320
<v Speaker 2>If you do see them there, it's not much as

1:11:08.400 --> 1:11:10.880
<v Speaker 2>made out of it, And it almost seems like they

1:11:10.920 --> 1:11:14.240
<v Speaker 2>couldn't show for things, you know, like that would be

1:11:14.280 --> 1:11:17.880
<v Speaker 2>too much for thirty one, and therefore it's implied rather

1:11:17.920 --> 1:11:20.840
<v Speaker 2>than shown. And I mean you don't miss them because

1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:22.599
<v Speaker 2>your imagination takes you there already.

1:11:22.760 --> 1:11:26.160
<v Speaker 3>That's right. So we get the standard interlude of a

1:11:26.200 --> 1:11:29.880
<v Speaker 3>ship on route to England. A difference from most versions

1:11:29.880 --> 1:11:32.679
<v Speaker 3>here is that because it's w Renfield rather than Harker

1:11:32.680 --> 1:11:35.599
<v Speaker 3>who went to the castle, Renfield is on the ship

1:11:35.720 --> 1:11:38.640
<v Speaker 3>with Dracula. There's like there are two creeps on this

1:11:38.720 --> 1:11:42.880
<v Speaker 3>journey and he's a full on vampire thrawle already. You know,

1:11:42.920 --> 1:11:46.040
<v Speaker 3>he's crouching next to the to the vampire's coffin, saying,

1:11:46.080 --> 1:11:48.280
<v Speaker 3>you will keep your promise when we get to London,

1:11:48.360 --> 1:11:51.240
<v Speaker 3>won't you? Master? You will see that I get lives.

1:11:51.760 --> 1:11:54.160
<v Speaker 2>I think for some reason, it's not the Demeter as well,

1:11:54.200 --> 1:11:56.799
<v Speaker 2>like it has a different vent. Yeah, because they I guess,

1:11:56.840 --> 1:11:59.639
<v Speaker 2>you know, they didn't give themselves enough time to make

1:11:59.680 --> 1:12:01.920
<v Speaker 2>that particular ship, so they had to deal with the

1:12:02.040 --> 1:12:02.840
<v Speaker 2>deal with another one.

1:12:03.080 --> 1:12:08.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah. So so Dracula is like he never answers

1:12:08.960 --> 1:12:10.920
<v Speaker 3>the question about whether he's going to get lives, does

1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:14.280
<v Speaker 3>he. He just gives him this withering look like no promises, kid.

1:12:14.479 --> 1:12:17.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we've already talked about this. We're not going through

1:12:17.200 --> 1:12:19.040
<v Speaker 2>all this again. Yeah, you get what you get. You

1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:19.760
<v Speaker 2>don't pitch a fit.

1:12:19.920 --> 1:12:24.040
<v Speaker 3>We've got lives at home. So of course Dracula, you know,

1:12:24.120 --> 1:12:26.360
<v Speaker 3>he eats the crew along the way when they arrived.

1:12:26.400 --> 1:12:28.439
<v Speaker 3>The only sailors left on the ship are dead. There's

1:12:28.479 --> 1:12:31.600
<v Speaker 3>one tied to the wheel, which we only see in silhouette.

1:12:31.680 --> 1:12:35.360
<v Speaker 3>But here we start to get Dwight Fry's deranged high

1:12:35.439 --> 1:12:38.880
<v Speaker 3>energy performance. Like they throw open the doors down into

1:12:38.920 --> 1:12:41.800
<v Speaker 3>the hold and DWIGHTE. Fry is just standing there at

1:12:41.840 --> 1:12:45.320
<v Speaker 3>the bottom of the of the stairs, laughing maniacally with

1:12:45.439 --> 1:12:50.400
<v Speaker 3>this unbelievably devilish grin. It's so good. Oh yes, we

1:12:50.439 --> 1:12:53.280
<v Speaker 3>also get a newspaper clipping here to sort of fill

1:12:53.360 --> 1:12:56.559
<v Speaker 3>us in on what's going on. It tells us that

1:12:56.680 --> 1:13:00.599
<v Speaker 3>the sole survivor is a raving maniac, says quote. His

1:13:00.760 --> 1:13:04.160
<v Speaker 3>craving to devour ants, flies, and other small living things

1:13:04.200 --> 1:13:08.920
<v Speaker 3>to obtain their blood puzzles scientists. At present, he is

1:13:09.000 --> 1:13:12.800
<v Speaker 3>under observation in doctor Seward's sanitarium near London. Now Here

1:13:12.840 --> 1:13:14.680
<v Speaker 3>we also get a scene that saying a lot of

1:13:14.800 --> 1:13:18.240
<v Speaker 3>versions of the story, the sort of first taste of

1:13:18.320 --> 1:13:21.920
<v Speaker 3>the fish out of water horror scenario, and it's Dracula

1:13:22.040 --> 1:13:25.519
<v Speaker 3>walking the streets of modern London. The old curse has

1:13:25.560 --> 1:13:28.200
<v Speaker 3>been taken out of the old world and inserted into

1:13:28.200 --> 1:13:32.679
<v Speaker 3>the modern world. So he menacingly approaches a girl selling

1:13:32.680 --> 1:13:35.800
<v Speaker 3>flowers on a street corner and then slowly envelops her

1:13:35.880 --> 1:13:39.400
<v Speaker 3>with his arms to drink her blood. And I wanted

1:13:39.439 --> 1:13:41.760
<v Speaker 3>to take a moment to talk here about the staging

1:13:41.840 --> 1:13:45.040
<v Speaker 3>of how Dracula descends upon a victim in this movie.

1:13:45.760 --> 1:13:50.000
<v Speaker 3>It almost looks sort of awkward. Usually, it's clearly a

1:13:50.080 --> 1:13:53.599
<v Speaker 3>deliberate choice to make him move like this. It is

1:13:53.640 --> 1:13:59.160
<v Speaker 3>a stiff, extremely slow movement into the victim's space and

1:13:59.240 --> 1:14:01.839
<v Speaker 3>around them. He did the same thing when he descended

1:14:01.880 --> 1:14:04.439
<v Speaker 3>on Dwight Fry's unconscious body. He'll do the same thing

1:14:04.520 --> 1:14:07.679
<v Speaker 3>later when we see him leaning down toward Mina's bed.

1:14:08.400 --> 1:14:13.280
<v Speaker 3>It's just this slow, stiff, rigid kind of approach. I

1:14:13.320 --> 1:14:16.160
<v Speaker 3>don't know exactly why they made that choice or what

1:14:16.160 --> 1:14:19.840
<v Speaker 3>it means, but it's interesting and different, and I don't know,

1:14:19.880 --> 1:14:20.840
<v Speaker 3>it looks very weird.

1:14:21.200 --> 1:14:22.519
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it makes me think of some of the later

1:14:22.560 --> 1:14:25.960
<v Speaker 2>scenes where we see him using his full power of

1:14:26.080 --> 1:14:29.479
<v Speaker 2>enthrallment over victims. You know, he doesn't have to lunge,

1:14:29.560 --> 1:14:32.160
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't have to move quickly because he has already

1:14:32.200 --> 1:14:34.080
<v Speaker 2>snared you with his eyes. Yeah.

1:14:34.160 --> 1:14:38.640
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good comparison. I

1:14:38.680 --> 1:14:41.519
<v Speaker 3>don't know, I'll have to think more about that anyway.

1:14:41.640 --> 1:14:44.400
<v Speaker 3>Dracula makes his way to an auditorium in the city

1:14:44.439 --> 1:14:47.839
<v Speaker 3>center where a symphony performance is taking place. He eventually

1:14:47.840 --> 1:14:51.320
<v Speaker 3>makes his way to the box bearing our main good characters.

1:14:52.040 --> 1:14:55.599
<v Speaker 3>These are Mina Seward and Lucy Weston, two young women

1:14:55.720 --> 1:14:58.880
<v Speaker 3>close friends since childhood who will become the targets of

1:14:58.920 --> 1:15:02.920
<v Speaker 3>Count Dracula's blood hunt in London. Jonathan Harker again with

1:15:03.040 --> 1:15:07.120
<v Speaker 3>big why is he here now? Energy, Mina's fiance. He's

1:15:07.200 --> 1:15:11.040
<v Speaker 3>just he's Mina's fiance. There he is. There's doctor Seward,

1:15:11.040 --> 1:15:14.599
<v Speaker 3>who runs the sanitarium where Rinfield has been committed, which

1:15:14.720 --> 1:15:17.759
<v Speaker 3>also just happens to be right next door to Carfax Abbey,

1:15:17.960 --> 1:15:21.920
<v Speaker 3>the estate that Dracula has leased. In this version of

1:15:21.960 --> 1:15:26.400
<v Speaker 3>the story, doctor Seward is Mina's father. In the novel,

1:15:26.640 --> 1:15:29.639
<v Speaker 3>that's not the case. I think he is. He's younger,

1:15:29.720 --> 1:15:32.800
<v Speaker 3>and I believe he is one of Lucy's mini suitors.

1:15:32.880 --> 1:15:34.559
<v Speaker 3>That's the whole thing. In the novel, She's got like

1:15:34.640 --> 1:15:36.519
<v Speaker 3>five different guys who are trying to marry her.

1:15:37.040 --> 1:15:40.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, unnecessary love triangle removed.

1:15:41.280 --> 1:15:44.000
<v Speaker 3>I'm in favor love Pentagon.

1:15:44.320 --> 1:15:45.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Pentagon.

1:15:46.520 --> 1:15:50.320
<v Speaker 3>So Dracula uses a ploy to talk himself into the

1:15:50.479 --> 1:15:53.200
<v Speaker 3>sort of opera box here to meet these characters. I

1:15:53.280 --> 1:15:56.000
<v Speaker 3>think one thing I was a little unclear on is

1:15:56.040 --> 1:15:58.599
<v Speaker 3>like why he's trying to meet them, And I think

1:15:58.640 --> 1:16:04.080
<v Speaker 3>the issue is that he knows Renfield, his vampire Thrall,

1:16:04.479 --> 1:16:08.200
<v Speaker 3>has been committed to the sanitarium the doctor Seward runs,

1:16:08.360 --> 1:16:12.280
<v Speaker 3>and so he's trying to to like influence them related

1:16:12.320 --> 1:16:14.800
<v Speaker 3>to that, or maybe because they're neighbors. Now, maybe that's why.

1:16:14.920 --> 1:16:17.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, their neighbors. He's just being neighborly. This is neighborly d.

1:16:17.600 --> 1:16:21.360
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly yes. So he introduces himself to the three

1:16:21.439 --> 1:16:25.760
<v Speaker 3>younger Londoners. Doctor Seward takes a phone call, and you know,

1:16:25.800 --> 1:16:28.000
<v Speaker 3>they bring up that he's moving into Carfax Abbey and

1:16:28.040 --> 1:16:31.080
<v Speaker 3>Harker's like, oh, that's very old. Will it need repairs?

1:16:31.479 --> 1:16:35.040
<v Speaker 3>And Dracula says, I shall do very little repairing.

1:16:35.680 --> 1:16:38.599
<v Speaker 2>This is such a great everyone plays. The next time

1:16:38.640 --> 1:16:41.240
<v Speaker 2>you move to a new new town or new home,

1:16:41.520 --> 1:16:44.000
<v Speaker 2>keep this one with you. When someone, when a neighbor

1:16:44.120 --> 1:16:46.639
<v Speaker 2>like subtly brings up some sort of repair that might

1:16:46.640 --> 1:16:49.719
<v Speaker 2>need to happen, be like, I should do very little repair.

1:16:50.400 --> 1:16:54.160
<v Speaker 3>Very good. Yeah. So, but he explains it's because he

1:16:54.320 --> 1:16:56.200
<v Speaker 3>likes the way that the abbey reminds him of the

1:16:56.240 --> 1:16:59.760
<v Speaker 3>old broken battlements of his castle in Transylvania. And then

1:17:00.040 --> 1:17:01.840
<v Speaker 3>Lucy says, oh, you know, that reminds me of an

1:17:01.880 --> 1:17:04.000
<v Speaker 3>old toast. I don't remember everything she says, but it

1:17:04.080 --> 1:17:07.040
<v Speaker 3>ends with a line about dying, and then Dracula says,

1:17:07.120 --> 1:17:11.080
<v Speaker 3>to die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.

1:17:12.200 --> 1:17:14.800
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's so good. And there's more too. That's great

1:17:14.800 --> 1:17:18.679
<v Speaker 2>because then Mina says, why Count Dracula, and that alone

1:17:18.760 --> 1:17:22.800
<v Speaker 2>is excellent. I love, oh Dracula. But then then the

1:17:22.840 --> 1:17:26.880
<v Speaker 2>Count says, they are far worse things awaiting men, then death,

1:17:27.320 --> 1:17:29.479
<v Speaker 2>and oh my god, this is another moment where I

1:17:29.520 --> 1:17:31.840
<v Speaker 2>just love the ambiguity and the cryptic nature of it.

1:17:31.920 --> 1:17:34.759
<v Speaker 2>Is he talking about hell? Is he talking about undeath?

1:17:35.320 --> 1:17:37.880
<v Speaker 2>Or is it something else, like something so terrible that

1:17:37.920 --> 1:17:40.439
<v Speaker 2>we morals haven't even conceived of it yet it's only

1:17:40.560 --> 1:17:42.200
<v Speaker 2>known to the vampires.

1:17:42.640 --> 1:17:46.959
<v Speaker 3>Yes, that's right. So in this scene, Dracula somewhat charms

1:17:47.040 --> 1:17:51.680
<v Speaker 3>them clearly he becomes fixated on Lucy, and in a

1:17:51.720 --> 1:17:53.960
<v Speaker 3>later scene at home between Mina and Lucy, we see

1:17:53.960 --> 1:17:56.400
<v Speaker 3>that Lucy's kind of fixated on him, like they're making

1:17:56.479 --> 1:17:59.240
<v Speaker 3>jokes about his accent, but Lucy talks about how she's

1:17:59.240 --> 1:18:00.479
<v Speaker 3>fascinated by the Count.

1:18:00.960 --> 1:18:03.679
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're just both kind of hanging out crushing on Dracula.

1:18:03.720 --> 1:18:06.360
<v Speaker 3>I love it. Yeah. But then later that night, in

1:18:06.439 --> 1:18:09.439
<v Speaker 3>Lucy's bedroom while she sleeps, there's a bat floating out

1:18:09.439 --> 1:18:12.959
<v Speaker 3>the window. You don't want that, And then he appears

1:18:13.000 --> 1:18:16.080
<v Speaker 3>in Legosi form in her room, standing over her bed,

1:18:16.360 --> 1:18:20.400
<v Speaker 3>and once again, he slowly descends and we cut away

1:18:20.520 --> 1:18:24.559
<v Speaker 3>right as he's over her. I guess here's a good

1:18:24.680 --> 1:18:26.639
<v Speaker 3>part in the in the plot to kind of take

1:18:26.680 --> 1:18:30.240
<v Speaker 3>a step back and acknowledge the plot falls a follows

1:18:30.280 --> 1:18:34.640
<v Speaker 3>a similar structure to most Dracula adaptations, and we can

1:18:34.720 --> 1:18:37.640
<v Speaker 3>kind of note some interesting things and differences. So at

1:18:37.640 --> 1:18:40.800
<v Speaker 3>this point in the story, usually Lucy takes ill as

1:18:40.840 --> 1:18:43.280
<v Speaker 3>a result of having her blood drained by the vampire

1:18:43.280 --> 1:18:47.360
<v Speaker 3>each night. In the book, this illness and the mystery

1:18:47.360 --> 1:18:50.599
<v Speaker 3>as to its cause are protracted, but in this movie,

1:18:50.680 --> 1:18:52.960
<v Speaker 3>we're just gonna We're gonna cut straight to her death

1:18:53.000 --> 1:18:57.200
<v Speaker 3>and the autopsy and doctor Seward and colleagues note that

1:18:57.240 --> 1:18:59.160
<v Speaker 3>there are two marks on her neck, the same as

1:18:59.200 --> 1:19:01.360
<v Speaker 3>with the other victim in London that have been found

1:19:01.439 --> 1:19:05.600
<v Speaker 3>drained of blood. So from here doctor Seward recruits the

1:19:05.640 --> 1:19:09.680
<v Speaker 3>aid of his mentor, doctor Van Helsing, who deduces that

1:19:09.720 --> 1:19:12.280
<v Speaker 3>they may be dealing not with an ordinary illness, but

1:19:12.760 --> 1:19:17.439
<v Speaker 3>with a vampire no s Ferratu, and then Lucy dies.

1:19:17.760 --> 1:19:20.799
<v Speaker 3>In this version, she dies quite quickly, and the vampire

1:19:20.840 --> 1:19:23.560
<v Speaker 3>turns his attention to Mina, whom he visits in the

1:19:23.640 --> 1:19:27.000
<v Speaker 3>night for blood, eventually starting to turn her into a

1:19:27.080 --> 1:19:29.760
<v Speaker 3>vampire herself, and the heroes in the end have to

1:19:29.760 --> 1:19:32.320
<v Speaker 3>solve the mystery and realize that the only way they

1:19:32.360 --> 1:19:35.439
<v Speaker 3>can save Mina is to destroy the vampire, which they do.

1:19:36.320 --> 1:19:38.720
<v Speaker 3>So things to discuss within the structure. As the movie

1:19:38.800 --> 1:19:41.440
<v Speaker 3>goes on, we got scenes of Renfield at the sanitarium

1:19:41.520 --> 1:19:44.679
<v Speaker 3>raving about how he wants to eat spiders. He's trying

1:19:44.680 --> 1:19:47.280
<v Speaker 3>to upgrade from flies, like he's been eating flies, but

1:19:47.439 --> 1:19:49.960
<v Speaker 3>he decides they're not good enough now he wants spiders.

1:19:51.360 --> 1:19:54.320
<v Speaker 3>Of course, we meet doctor van Helsing when we meet

1:19:54.400 --> 1:19:57.600
<v Speaker 3>him here. I think he's like doing some chemistry experiments

1:19:57.680 --> 1:20:00.599
<v Speaker 3>right after the death of Lucy, and he's like, yep,

1:20:00.680 --> 1:20:03.360
<v Speaker 3>tests came back, knows Faratu, that's what we're dealing with.

1:20:03.439 --> 1:20:06.160
<v Speaker 3>So they, I don't know. They cut over what, from

1:20:06.160 --> 1:20:08.640
<v Speaker 3>my memory is a huge section in the middle of

1:20:08.680 --> 1:20:12.000
<v Speaker 3>the book to get from like Lucy starts falling sick

1:20:12.120 --> 1:20:15.599
<v Speaker 3>to they figure out that a vampire is involved. That's

1:20:16.280 --> 1:20:17.840
<v Speaker 3>a couple minutes in this movie.

1:20:18.160 --> 1:20:21.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a quick test. But yeah,

1:20:21.120 --> 1:20:23.599
<v Speaker 2>the van Helsing here, I guess maybe it's the chemistry

1:20:23.640 --> 1:20:26.000
<v Speaker 2>set in the glasses kind of helps give him a

1:20:26.120 --> 1:20:29.920
<v Speaker 2>slight mad scientist air for me, and I guess, like

1:20:29.960 --> 1:20:33.440
<v Speaker 2>the van Helsing that I'm mostly familiar with is Peter Cushing's,

1:20:33.640 --> 1:20:36.400
<v Speaker 2>and Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, of course, is very prim

1:20:36.439 --> 1:20:37.200
<v Speaker 2>and proper.

1:20:37.439 --> 1:20:41.599
<v Speaker 3>Very yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy's weirder than Peter Cushing definitely.

1:20:49.560 --> 1:20:53.160
<v Speaker 3>So the mystery in this is not whether it's a vampire.

1:20:53.240 --> 1:20:55.080
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I guess some of the other like Seward

1:20:55.120 --> 1:20:58.600
<v Speaker 3>and Harker take some convincing, but Van Helsing gets there immediately.

1:20:59.479 --> 1:21:02.839
<v Speaker 3>So the miss is not like what is hurting Lucy?

1:21:02.960 --> 1:21:06.640
<v Speaker 3>But it is who is the vampire? Renfield is the

1:21:06.680 --> 1:21:10.160
<v Speaker 3>initial subject, and this is plausible because Renfield keeps escaping

1:21:10.200 --> 1:21:13.880
<v Speaker 3>the sanitarium. The scene where Van Helsing first meets Renfield

1:21:13.960 --> 1:21:16.760
<v Speaker 3>is great, like he asks Renfield asked to be sent

1:21:16.800 --> 1:21:20.360
<v Speaker 3>away from the sanitarium? Why? He says, because my cries

1:21:20.400 --> 1:21:23.679
<v Speaker 3>at night might disturb Mina. They might give her bad dreams.

1:21:24.280 --> 1:21:28.400
<v Speaker 3>Which is this great combination of sweet and threatening. You

1:21:28.400 --> 1:21:32.679
<v Speaker 3>can't tell which one it is. But Van Helsing drives

1:21:32.680 --> 1:21:35.240
<v Speaker 3>Renfield mad with the sprig of wolf Spain. He's like,

1:21:35.400 --> 1:21:38.360
<v Speaker 3>you I have some of this, and how about little

1:21:38.400 --> 1:21:41.360
<v Speaker 3>wolf Spain. Renfield and Renfield says, you know too much

1:21:41.400 --> 1:21:44.920
<v Speaker 3>to live Van Helsing, and this, of course confirms Van

1:21:44.960 --> 1:21:49.400
<v Speaker 3>Helsing's suspicions some vamping is going on. So Dracula attacks

1:21:49.479 --> 1:21:52.960
<v Speaker 3>Mina in the night, and after this happens, there's a

1:21:53.000 --> 1:21:56.000
<v Speaker 3>haunting scene where she explains her experience the next morning.

1:21:57.280 --> 1:21:59.559
<v Speaker 3>This is a good monologue. She says, I heard dogs

1:21:59.640 --> 1:22:02.519
<v Speaker 3>how and when the dream came, it seemed the whole

1:22:02.600 --> 1:22:05.519
<v Speaker 3>room was filled with mist. It was so thick. I

1:22:05.520 --> 1:22:08.040
<v Speaker 3>could just see the lamp by the bed, a tiny

1:22:08.080 --> 1:22:10.840
<v Speaker 3>spark in the fog. And then I saw two red

1:22:10.880 --> 1:22:14.280
<v Speaker 3>eyes glaring at me, and a white, livid face came

1:22:14.360 --> 1:22:17.360
<v Speaker 3>down out of the mist. It came closer and closer.

1:22:17.560 --> 1:22:21.640
<v Speaker 3>I felt its breath on my face, and then its lips. Oh.

1:22:21.680 --> 1:22:24.360
<v Speaker 3>And we compare this with what we saw from the

1:22:24.400 --> 1:22:27.360
<v Speaker 3>scene before, where Dracula is descending over her bed, And

1:22:27.960 --> 1:22:32.519
<v Speaker 3>it's funny because Dracula is often very composed and calm

1:22:32.600 --> 1:22:35.880
<v Speaker 3>in this movie, but he as he's leaning right over her,

1:22:35.920 --> 1:22:39.240
<v Speaker 3>he makes this grimace that I don't think we've seen

1:22:39.280 --> 1:22:40.040
<v Speaker 3>anywhere else.

1:22:41.439 --> 1:22:43.479
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, this is like, this is the scene where

1:22:43.520 --> 1:22:45.519
<v Speaker 2>you would see the things. I feel like if we

1:22:45.520 --> 1:22:49.519
<v Speaker 2>were going to see things. But yeah, it's horrifying and

1:22:49.520 --> 1:22:50.559
<v Speaker 2>he's coming right at us.

1:22:50.800 --> 1:22:53.599
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah. And this scene leads to doctor van Helsing

1:22:53.680 --> 1:22:56.519
<v Speaker 3>doing a throat check on me and he takes her

1:22:56.560 --> 1:22:58.720
<v Speaker 3>scarf off, and what do you know, She's got some

1:22:58.760 --> 1:23:01.879
<v Speaker 3>punctures on the neck. She was hiding them behind a scarf.

1:23:02.080 --> 1:23:04.400
<v Speaker 3>Something kind of interesting there. The movie doesn't really draw

1:23:04.439 --> 1:23:06.439
<v Speaker 3>a lot of attention to it, but why was Mina

1:23:06.520 --> 1:23:11.800
<v Speaker 3>hiding the wounds? Anyway, this scene is suddenly interrupted by

1:23:11.840 --> 1:23:15.960
<v Speaker 3>a visit from Count Dracula. Mina kind of perks up

1:23:15.960 --> 1:23:18.479
<v Speaker 3>on Dracula's arrival. I remember she didn't seem to like

1:23:18.560 --> 1:23:20.320
<v Speaker 3>him that much when they first met, but now she's

1:23:20.400 --> 1:23:22.439
<v Speaker 3>kind of eager to talk to him and smiles in

1:23:22.479 --> 1:23:26.240
<v Speaker 3>his presence. Apparently Dracula has been telling Mina grim tales

1:23:26.240 --> 1:23:30.200
<v Speaker 3>about his home country and she likes that. Another interesting

1:23:30.280 --> 1:23:32.200
<v Speaker 3>choice in this scene. I don't recall if this is

1:23:32.240 --> 1:23:34.479
<v Speaker 3>in the novel or not. I don't think so, But

1:23:34.640 --> 1:23:39.000
<v Speaker 3>Dracula knows of Van Helsing. It's like, oh, yes, we're

1:23:39.040 --> 1:23:41.320
<v Speaker 3>familiar with your work, even in Transylvania.

1:23:41.720 --> 1:23:44.639
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, Van Helsing probably publishes in the various

1:23:44.720 --> 1:23:50.160
<v Speaker 2>occult journals and you know, Dracula and his kind read up.

1:23:50.520 --> 1:23:53.959
<v Speaker 2>They want to stay abreast of new findings in vampire sciences.

1:23:54.439 --> 1:23:56.800
<v Speaker 3>Of course, yeah, you got to know your enemy, right,

1:23:56.840 --> 1:24:00.720
<v Speaker 3>So read what van Helsing writes. Another great thing in

1:24:00.760 --> 1:24:03.360
<v Speaker 3>the scene the mirror in the cigarette case. I love

1:24:03.479 --> 1:24:07.599
<v Speaker 3>this part. So Van Helsing first notices that Dracula has

1:24:07.640 --> 1:24:10.439
<v Speaker 3>no reflection in the mirrored lid of a cigarette case,

1:24:10.920 --> 1:24:13.519
<v Speaker 3>and then he sets a trap for Dracula where before

1:24:13.640 --> 1:24:16.639
<v Speaker 3>they're parting ways, he suddenly opens the case in front

1:24:16.640 --> 1:24:19.880
<v Speaker 3>of him, And I love the way Legosi reacts to

1:24:19.960 --> 1:24:23.960
<v Speaker 3>this trick. It's a you know, he reacts with surprise

1:24:24.040 --> 1:24:26.280
<v Speaker 3>and alarm, and he slaps the case out of Van

1:24:26.360 --> 1:24:30.519
<v Speaker 3>Helsing's hand under the floor, steps back and glares at him.

1:24:30.720 --> 1:24:34.240
<v Speaker 3>But then slowly the glare turns into a composed smile.

1:24:35.040 --> 1:24:37.080
<v Speaker 3>Oh and also he turns into a wolf as he's

1:24:37.120 --> 1:24:41.800
<v Speaker 3>running away across the lawn. So you know, as I said,

1:24:41.880 --> 1:24:45.760
<v Speaker 3>Harker and Seward takes some convincing by Van Helsing that

1:24:45.840 --> 1:24:49.439
<v Speaker 3>they're definitely dealing with a vampire, but they're they're slowly

1:24:49.520 --> 1:24:52.960
<v Speaker 3>getting there. This leads to another lore dump. We got

1:24:52.960 --> 1:24:56.080
<v Speaker 3>a lore dump for Renfield earlier, but here's one from

1:24:56.600 --> 1:24:58.840
<v Speaker 3>Van Helsing. It's like, you know, yeah, vampires have to

1:24:58.920 --> 1:25:01.920
<v Speaker 3>drink blood to survive. They sleep in their native soil

1:25:02.000 --> 1:25:04.080
<v Speaker 3>every day, which means he must have brought some soil

1:25:04.160 --> 1:25:07.280
<v Speaker 3>with him from Transylvania. They're talking about this, but they

1:25:07.320 --> 1:25:10.960
<v Speaker 3>get interrupted by maniacal laughter when Dwight Fry comes in again.

1:25:11.680 --> 1:25:14.559
<v Speaker 3>Hilarious keeps escaping. He's here once more.

1:25:15.479 --> 1:25:18.880
<v Speaker 2>They I guess they just have a trust policy, you know, yeah,

1:25:19.040 --> 1:25:23.080
<v Speaker 2>the sanatorium, like stop leaving. You're not gonna leave this time, right, Okay, I.

1:25:23.080 --> 1:25:27.640
<v Speaker 3>Promise they're on the honor system. Yeah. But Renfield in

1:25:27.680 --> 1:25:29.840
<v Speaker 3>this scene, this is the part I was talking about,

1:25:29.840 --> 1:25:32.000
<v Speaker 3>where he does a face turn, like he explains to

1:25:32.040 --> 1:25:35.679
<v Speaker 3>the heroes that Dracula is targeting Mina and he can't

1:25:35.720 --> 1:25:39.120
<v Speaker 3>let Dracula take Mina. I guess maybe Renfield loves her

1:25:39.280 --> 1:25:41.240
<v Speaker 3>or just feels protective of her in some way.

1:25:41.880 --> 1:25:42.439
<v Speaker 2>I guess so.

1:25:43.000 --> 1:25:46.000
<v Speaker 3>But in this scene, Dracula reappears in bat form and

1:25:46.080 --> 1:25:50.040
<v Speaker 3>menaces Renfield, which makes him clam up and declare his

1:25:50.080 --> 1:25:53.839
<v Speaker 3>loyalty wants more to the Master. And then suddenly everybody

1:25:53.880 --> 1:25:56.519
<v Speaker 3>goes running because a maid calls out that Mina has

1:25:56.560 --> 1:26:00.960
<v Speaker 3>been found dead. Oh no, which leads to this horrifying scene,

1:26:01.040 --> 1:26:05.040
<v Speaker 3>another great Dwhite Fry moment, where like the maid is

1:26:05.160 --> 1:26:07.479
<v Speaker 3>left alone in the room with Dwight Fry and he's

1:26:07.880 --> 1:26:11.639
<v Speaker 3>grinning maniacally and doing this horrible laughter, and she faints

1:26:11.760 --> 1:26:15.320
<v Speaker 3>and then he's like crawling on the floor toward her body.

1:26:15.840 --> 1:26:18.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, like he's an anaconda that is going to go

1:26:18.880 --> 1:26:21.519
<v Speaker 2>to swallow her hole. It's super creepy.

1:26:21.640 --> 1:26:24.559
<v Speaker 3>Love it. Yeah, But fortunately we find out that Mina

1:26:24.760 --> 1:26:27.120
<v Speaker 3>is not dead. She was near death, but they got

1:26:27.120 --> 1:26:30.000
<v Speaker 3>there just in time. So some other stuff goes on.

1:26:30.080 --> 1:26:33.760
<v Speaker 3>There's a side plot with Lucy being a vampire who's

1:26:33.840 --> 1:26:37.719
<v Speaker 3>running around, you know, stealing children and stuff. But one

1:26:37.720 --> 1:26:39.800
<v Speaker 3>thing that they do in this movie is there's no

1:26:39.960 --> 1:26:42.519
<v Speaker 3>garlic for Mina. When they set a trap for Dracula

1:26:42.600 --> 1:26:45.519
<v Speaker 3>and Mina's chambers with stuff to repel him. It's wolf Spain.

1:26:45.600 --> 1:26:46.679
<v Speaker 3>It's just all wolf Spain.

1:26:47.320 --> 1:26:50.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I can understand people being a little

1:26:50.200 --> 1:26:53.599
<v Speaker 2>bit too familiar with garlic, and why would this scare

1:26:53.600 --> 1:26:55.720
<v Speaker 2>away of vampires. Maybe we go with wolf Spaine because

1:26:55.720 --> 1:26:56.960
<v Speaker 2>it has a little more mistique to it.

1:26:57.240 --> 1:27:00.160
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that too. Now here's

1:27:00.160 --> 1:27:03.200
<v Speaker 3>where we get to. There's another Renfield escape scene, of course,

1:27:03.240 --> 1:27:07.559
<v Speaker 3>and then he is describing the appeal that Dracula made

1:27:07.560 --> 1:27:09.439
<v Speaker 3>to him. He says, he came and stood below my

1:27:09.520 --> 1:27:12.160
<v Speaker 3>window in the moonlight, and he promised me things, not

1:27:12.280 --> 1:27:15.120
<v Speaker 3>in words, but by doing them. He's talking to Van Helsing.

1:27:15.520 --> 1:27:18.759
<v Speaker 3>He says, by making them happen. A red mist spread

1:27:18.800 --> 1:27:21.200
<v Speaker 3>over the lawn, coming on like a flame of fire.

1:27:21.600 --> 1:27:23.600
<v Speaker 3>And then he parted it and I could see that

1:27:23.640 --> 1:27:26.679
<v Speaker 3>there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red

1:27:27.000 --> 1:27:29.880
<v Speaker 3>like his, only smaller. Then he held up his hand

1:27:30.080 --> 1:27:32.200
<v Speaker 3>and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to

1:27:32.240 --> 1:27:36.559
<v Speaker 3>be saying, rats, rats, rats, thousands millions of them, all

1:27:36.640 --> 1:27:39.840
<v Speaker 3>red blood, All these I will give you if you

1:27:39.920 --> 1:27:44.200
<v Speaker 3>will obey me. Wow. I love that. That's the thing

1:27:44.320 --> 1:27:47.200
<v Speaker 3>that Renfield. You know, some people when they make a

1:27:47.200 --> 1:27:50.759
<v Speaker 3>deal with the devil, they want riches, somewhat, you know, power.

1:27:51.400 --> 1:27:52.280
<v Speaker 3>He wants rats.

1:27:52.760 --> 1:27:55.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, in that line, he promised me things, not in words,

1:27:55.680 --> 1:28:00.160
<v Speaker 2>but by doing them, like oh, this just perfect.

1:28:00.280 --> 1:28:03.000
<v Speaker 3>But promised in return for what I think it's for.

1:28:03.400 --> 1:28:07.960
<v Speaker 3>I believe Renfield sabotaged the protections that against Dracula that

1:28:07.960 --> 1:28:09.600
<v Speaker 3>were in Mina's room, like he got rid of the

1:28:09.600 --> 1:28:12.439
<v Speaker 3>wolf Spain or something. I don't know. Somehow Dracula got

1:28:12.439 --> 1:28:16.120
<v Speaker 3>into Mina's room and I think Renfield was involved, and whoops,

1:28:16.160 --> 1:28:18.920
<v Speaker 3>he has turned to Mina into a vampire now, and

1:28:18.960 --> 1:28:21.400
<v Speaker 3>so this is going to accelerate us toward the conclusion.

1:28:21.439 --> 1:28:23.960
<v Speaker 3>The only way to get Mina back is to destroy

1:28:24.040 --> 1:28:26.719
<v Speaker 3>the vampire. Now, there's a scene where we have were

1:28:26.760 --> 1:28:29.679
<v Speaker 3>like Harker is left alone with Mina here and she's

1:28:29.760 --> 1:28:32.559
<v Speaker 3>creepy now right, Like she doesn't like the smell of

1:28:32.560 --> 1:28:36.519
<v Speaker 3>wolf Spain. She's really interested in Harker's neck. She keeps

1:28:36.520 --> 1:28:39.920
<v Speaker 3>staring at it. And Chandler is good in this, Like

1:28:39.960 --> 1:28:42.759
<v Speaker 3>she puts on the creeps and she keeps him close.

1:28:43.479 --> 1:28:44.120
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely.

1:28:44.400 --> 1:28:46.800
<v Speaker 3>She's talking about like I love the fog. I love

1:28:46.960 --> 1:28:49.720
<v Speaker 3>nights with the fog. And it's like you never you

1:28:49.760 --> 1:28:51.920
<v Speaker 3>said in the past that you hated the night time

1:28:52.000 --> 1:28:53.960
<v Speaker 3>in the fog, and she's like, well, I like it now.

1:28:57.040 --> 1:28:59.559
<v Speaker 3>But anyway, we're going on toward the conclusion. We know

1:28:59.600 --> 1:29:02.000
<v Speaker 3>that we got have a final showdown where the heroes

1:29:02.080 --> 1:29:05.920
<v Speaker 3>find Dracula's coffins in Carfax Abbey, and drive the steak

1:29:05.960 --> 1:29:08.880
<v Speaker 3>into him. Before that, one one great moment is we

1:29:08.920 --> 1:29:11.720
<v Speaker 3>get the sort of the death of Renfield, Like Dracula

1:29:12.040 --> 1:29:16.240
<v Speaker 3>is taking Mina back to his lair and he confronts

1:29:16.240 --> 1:29:21.240
<v Speaker 3>w Renfield on this long, creepy staircase and Renfield says, no, please,

1:29:21.280 --> 1:29:23.559
<v Speaker 3>don't kill me, master, I can't die with all those

1:29:23.600 --> 1:29:27.639
<v Speaker 3>lives on my conscience. And Dracula just I think, breaks

1:29:27.640 --> 1:29:30.000
<v Speaker 3>his neck and throws him down the staircase and Renfield

1:29:30.080 --> 1:29:31.120
<v Speaker 3>tumbles like a doll.

1:29:31.560 --> 1:29:34.000
<v Speaker 2>Great saint, Great Saint again. Like this said, the set

1:29:34.080 --> 1:29:37.320
<v Speaker 2>is amazing that there's real tension in minutes there.

1:29:37.760 --> 1:29:41.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful. And then of course we get

1:29:41.040 --> 1:29:44.559
<v Speaker 3>the final staking, the final staking of Dracula in his coffin,

1:29:45.439 --> 1:29:49.040
<v Speaker 3>and Mina is rescued from her demonic fate and reunited

1:29:49.080 --> 1:29:52.160
<v Speaker 3>with John. So there is a happy ending. But like

1:29:52.439 --> 1:29:56.160
<v Speaker 3>many adaptations of Dracula, I thought we would mention this,

1:29:56.600 --> 1:29:59.719
<v Speaker 3>the final staking of Dracula in his coffin has always

1:29:59.720 --> 1:30:02.320
<v Speaker 3>felt a bit anti climactic. You know, in this case,

1:30:02.360 --> 1:30:05.080
<v Speaker 3>it's not even done by the young hero who's to

1:30:05.080 --> 1:30:07.479
<v Speaker 3>be reunited with his love, is done by Van Helsing.

1:30:08.640 --> 1:30:11.519
<v Speaker 3>And I don't know, it's like it happens off screen.

1:30:11.560 --> 1:30:14.280
<v Speaker 3>You just hear Dracula yell, and then it's kind of

1:30:14.280 --> 1:30:16.040
<v Speaker 3>a hammering and a yelling and that's it.

1:30:16.960 --> 1:30:19.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's kind of like what happens to the villain. Well,

1:30:19.360 --> 1:30:21.240
<v Speaker 2>we hunted him down and killed him in his sleep,

1:30:21.600 --> 1:30:26.559
<v Speaker 2>like it's you know, it's it doesn't feel as heroic.

1:30:27.080 --> 1:30:30.920
<v Speaker 2>I still love it, but but you know, it makes

1:30:30.920 --> 1:30:32.920
<v Speaker 2>you in a way. Maybe it's the thing that makes

1:30:32.920 --> 1:30:36.280
<v Speaker 2>people love Dracula so much though, because like a lot

1:30:36.320 --> 1:30:40.160
<v Speaker 2>of these universal horror films, we identify with the monster

1:30:40.280 --> 1:30:43.360
<v Speaker 2>so much, and subsequent generations identify with the monster, you know,

1:30:43.400 --> 1:30:47.400
<v Speaker 2>the creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein's Monster and Dracula,

1:30:47.479 --> 1:30:49.800
<v Speaker 2>like we feel a certain amount of sympathy for him

1:30:49.840 --> 1:30:53.599
<v Speaker 2>at the end because he is this outsider character who

1:30:54.160 --> 1:30:57.400
<v Speaker 2>cannot quite make a life for himself in this new place,

1:30:57.720 --> 1:31:02.400
<v Speaker 2>and then he's hunted down and killed by the local inhabitants. Like, yes,

1:31:02.479 --> 1:31:05.840
<v Speaker 2>they were eradicating because he's a bloodsucking demon, but still

1:31:06.479 --> 1:31:09.800
<v Speaker 2>feel you feel for him in a way because he

1:31:09.920 --> 1:31:11.559
<v Speaker 2>is killed in his sleep.

1:31:12.000 --> 1:31:14.479
<v Speaker 3>I absolutely see what you're saying. And of course Bella

1:31:14.560 --> 1:31:18.200
<v Speaker 3>Lagosi makes the character more interesting and fun and likable

1:31:18.800 --> 1:31:21.920
<v Speaker 3>than he would be otherwise. I still think the universal

1:31:22.000 --> 1:31:25.680
<v Speaker 3>Dracula in this movie is a less sympathetathetic character than

1:31:25.680 --> 1:31:28.160
<v Speaker 3>the other monster. As you mentioned, he's less sympathetic than

1:31:28.160 --> 1:31:32.160
<v Speaker 3>Frankenstein's creature. Certainly, I would also say less sympathetic than

1:31:32.160 --> 1:31:34.240
<v Speaker 3>the creature from the Black Lagoon who's just hanging out

1:31:34.240 --> 1:31:36.920
<v Speaker 3>at home. People go to where he is and bother him,

1:31:37.880 --> 1:31:42.720
<v Speaker 3>and certainly less sympathetic than some Dracula adaptations that would

1:31:42.720 --> 1:31:45.879
<v Speaker 3>come later. That it make him a more explicitly tragic,

1:31:46.479 --> 1:31:50.280
<v Speaker 3>wronged and romantic figure. I mean, in this movie, there's

1:31:50.320 --> 1:31:53.880
<v Speaker 3>no mistaken he's the bad guy. He's going out of

1:31:53.920 --> 1:31:55.280
<v Speaker 3>his way to hurt other people.

1:31:55.760 --> 1:31:58.040
<v Speaker 2>And I think that's ultimately the way I like my

1:31:58.320 --> 1:32:01.120
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I like some romantic Draculas. Gary Oldman's Dracula

1:32:01.360 --> 1:32:05.040
<v Speaker 2>is terrific, and that in Coppola's version, and you know,

1:32:05.040 --> 1:32:08.600
<v Speaker 2>that plays up the tragic aspects of the character. But

1:32:09.360 --> 1:32:11.400
<v Speaker 2>you know, I love it when when you have like

1:32:11.400 --> 1:32:13.839
<v Speaker 2>a Christopher Lee Dracula or the Bell of GHOSTU Dracula

1:32:13.880 --> 1:32:16.880
<v Speaker 2>that is that is more just absolutely evil, or even

1:32:16.920 --> 1:32:19.479
<v Speaker 2>the Dracula in Blacula that we previously talked about in

1:32:19.520 --> 1:32:22.080
<v Speaker 2>the show where that is a really evil Dracula.

1:32:23.160 --> 1:32:26.080
<v Speaker 3>Oh oh, you're talking about Dracula himself, not not the

1:32:26.240 --> 1:32:27.120
<v Speaker 3>not Mama Waade.

1:32:27.439 --> 1:32:30.360
<v Speaker 2>No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the racist Dracula from the film.

1:32:30.360 --> 1:32:34.040
<v Speaker 3>Evil racist Dracula who's like I love drinking blood and

1:32:34.080 --> 1:32:37.679
<v Speaker 3>I approve of the slave trade. Yes, that Dracula. But anyway,

1:32:37.720 --> 1:32:40.160
<v Speaker 3>coming back to this thing about the anti climactic ending

1:32:40.200 --> 1:32:42.400
<v Speaker 3>of staking the Dracula in his coffin, I feel like

1:32:42.439 --> 1:32:45.840
<v Speaker 3>this is actually a change from the nineteen twenty two

1:32:45.960 --> 1:32:49.040
<v Speaker 3>nos Feratu that was like a good a good change

1:32:49.520 --> 1:32:53.120
<v Speaker 3>to you know, to invert the ending where instead of

1:32:53.680 --> 1:32:56.439
<v Speaker 3>attacking the vampire in his sleep, you force him to

1:32:56.479 --> 1:32:59.479
<v Speaker 3>stay out too late. That is more like the vampire

1:32:59.560 --> 1:33:03.240
<v Speaker 3>is un done or is destroyed by being trapped by

1:33:03.280 --> 1:33:05.120
<v Speaker 3>his own greed and violence.

1:33:05.640 --> 1:33:07.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

1:33:07.439 --> 1:33:09.639
<v Speaker 3>Anyway, that's the universal Dracula.

1:33:10.320 --> 1:33:13.120
<v Speaker 2>Love it absolutely. I mean, it's a classic. It's an

1:33:13.320 --> 1:33:15.680
<v Speaker 2>icon for a reason, and if you haven't seen it,

1:33:15.720 --> 1:33:17.519
<v Speaker 2>if you haven't seen it in a long time, it's

1:33:17.560 --> 1:33:20.679
<v Speaker 2>well worth looking up. I mean, maybe save it for Halloween.

1:33:20.720 --> 1:33:22.920
<v Speaker 2>But you know, why deprive yourself, go ahead and watch

1:33:22.920 --> 1:33:25.679
<v Speaker 2>it now, all right, We're gonna go ahead and close

1:33:25.720 --> 1:33:29.519
<v Speaker 2>the book on nineteen thirty one's Dracula. Just a reminder

1:33:29.560 --> 1:33:31.880
<v Speaker 2>that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science

1:33:31.880 --> 1:33:35.560
<v Speaker 2>and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:38.040
<v Speaker 2>Dracula has come up in a number of them. He

1:33:38.080 --> 1:33:40.760
<v Speaker 2>even came up in our episodes on Dust from last year.

1:33:41.000 --> 1:33:43.679
<v Speaker 2>But for the most part, we don't talk about Dracula

1:33:43.720 --> 1:33:46.000
<v Speaker 2>in every Stuff to Bliw Your Mind episode, but he

1:33:46.040 --> 1:33:49.240
<v Speaker 2>does come up generally, though we set aside most serious

1:33:49.240 --> 1:33:52.639
<v Speaker 2>concerns on Fridays when we have a Weird House Cinema

1:33:52.640 --> 1:33:54.759
<v Speaker 2>episode and we just talk about a nice weird movie.

1:33:54.840 --> 1:33:57.040
<v Speaker 2>If you want to keep up with the various weird movies,

1:33:57.080 --> 1:33:59.400
<v Speaker 2>so we've discussed on Weird House Cinema. We have an

1:33:59.400 --> 1:34:03.120
<v Speaker 2>account on a boxed that's Weird House. You can find

1:34:03.160 --> 1:34:04.320
<v Speaker 2>us there, and we have a list of all the

1:34:04.360 --> 1:34:07.120
<v Speaker 2>films that we've covered so far, and sometimes there's a

1:34:07.120 --> 1:34:08.679
<v Speaker 2>peek ahead at what comes next.

1:34:09.120 --> 1:34:13.000
<v Speaker 3>Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1:34:13.439 --> 1:34:15.000
<v Speaker 3>If you would like to get in touch with us

1:34:15.000 --> 1:34:17.360
<v Speaker 3>with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest

1:34:17.439 --> 1:34:19.720
<v Speaker 3>topic for the future, or just to say hello. You

1:34:19.760 --> 1:34:22.280
<v Speaker 3>can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1:34:22.360 --> 1:34:29.880
<v Speaker 3>Mind dot com.

1:34:30.000 --> 1:34:32.920
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1:34:33.040 --> 1:34:35.800
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