The Romance of Dracula; a personal Journey of the Count on celluloid

by Butler, Charles E.

  I'm convinced after reading that paragraph that Mrs Harker would have a good case for bringing suit for a Victorian date rape. But it does prove that there are no romantic ways to describe Dracula's treatment of his women.

  The three brides in his castle are generally half-starved ingénues held at bay with promises of half-forgotten travellers, having to survive on rations of two-month-old babies for their diet. When they steal from his plate, the Count simply hurls them to the floor like a depraved stepfather. They tell him that he never loved and reveal an impotency to his nature that is shocking in its revelation while accounting for and attesting to his many and constant bad mood swings.

  His bloodletting leaves Lucy Westenra feeling bitter and having strange nightmares. The only things that she really remembers are the bats flapping at the window and the blazing red eyes staring at her through an eerie, swirling mist.

  She is eventually turned into a supernatural wraith, shorn of conscience, tempting small children with uninterrupted play while she takes nibbles on the side. As Lucy is staked with a monstrous piece of wood, unlike in some of the movies, there isn't the planted notion that the Count has the slightest interest in his loss.

  With Mina, he becomes even more savage as he forces her head to the wound in his chest like a man forcing a kitten to drink milk. Suffocating from the blood that pumps forth, she has no choice but to start gulping it down to the Count's chilling words:

  "My bountiful wine press for a little while!"

  When finished, he casually flings her onto the bed while he turns his attentions to her would-be protectors.

  "When my brain says 'Come!' to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding,"

  He informs her as she vomits out his blood.

  So that is why the vampire makes his victims drink his own blood! Lucy is never given this treatment I must point out, but turns into a vampire all the same. Later writers have worked this blood communion act into the vampire initiation process as standard procedure. Dracula uses it as a way of taking full control of his charges, the side effect being that half-turned vamps hold a telepathic link to their master, which, as in the case of Dracula, can prove to be their undoing.

  His transformations into bats, wolves and eerie mists are strictly down to Stoker's imaginative prowess. Providing the high points in the second half of the novel, they have become de rigueur for moviemakers across the world. For myself, I tend to wonder why he needs all those powers when any one on its own would be of the greatest benefit.

  Also, if he had the power to transform into a wolf, why does he use the poor mutt, Bersicker, to break into the Westenra boudoir in the novel?

  (iv) The changing face of Dracula

  An idea from the original manuscript reveals that Dracula's likeness cannot be captured by a painter's brush and, no matter how hard the painter tries, the portrait always finishes looking like somebody else. This was an obvious nod to Stoker's friend and love rival, Oscar Wilde, and his short novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). But, after deleting the vampire’s shadow and his reflection, he probably realized that his reading public may find the misguided brush strokes to be little more than anti-climactic.

  In the cinema, the Count has changed faces many times, like his enduring literary cousins, Tarzan, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. All these characters have been portrayed by many fine actors and moviegoers are always at odds as to which actor has given the definitive performance. In the case of Count Dracula, I would have no hesitation in quoting Christopher Lee as the definitive Count. His was the version that I grew up with while watching numerous re-runs of the Hammer series of films on television in the 1970s and still admit that he ticks most of the available boxes.

  When I began researching this book, I discovered that Mr Lee and three other actors actually portray and show the Count for the frightening and selfish character that he actually is. Twelve of the films in this book try to give some implausible motive for his actions, the makers not realizing that the vampire's ambiguity is one of the greatest strengths of the novel.

  But, along with the other characters on the above list, Dracula will never be as one remembers from his literary beginnings or what the reader can recall whilst growing up. Film and book are two very different mediums, but Dracula is one of the few characters on the screen to always be matched to the name of his creator Bram Stoker. We have been constantly lured into the theatre with the promise that:

  "This is it. This is the most faithful version of Bram Stoker’s novel."

  And it always seems to work if one takes notes of the clicks of the cash registers. We know that Stoker will be missing from the final reel, but the draw of the name - Dracula - is so strong that we venture out into the night, witnessing the good, the bad, and the interminable, before eventually finding our own ideas of the definitive Count. It becomes just as Van Helsing explains to his comrades at arms:

  "We must go through bitter waters before we reach the sweet."

  I've never heard it summed up better than that.

  (v) The Dracula play

  Irish-born actor-manager Hamilton Deane had secured the jealously guarded dramatic rights to the novel in 1924. Deane had transformed Stoker's monster into the smarmy, immaculately dressed foreigner more akin to John Polidori's Lord Ruthven so that he was able to stay in the confines of the British melodramas that were prevalent of the day.

  It was Deane who invented the use of the opera cape to facilitate amazing feats of magic on the stage such as the Count disappearing in front of an awestruck audience. Many who saw the play were dumbfounded at the amazing effects that they witnessed such as fog, exploding flashes of light, trapdoor entrances and exits and a dissolution that turned the Count to ash in his death sequence, as Van Helsing pinned him to his coffin with a wooden stake.

  Originally planning to take the role of Dracula, Deane took on the mantle of the much larger characterization of Van Helsing. After a successful run in Britain, with Raymond Huntley as Dracula, the American rights were snapped up by Horace Liveright and the play was rewritten by John L Balderston opening on Broadway in 1927.

  Huntley declined to travel to America after playing the role more times than any other actor - his performances numbered in the thousands - and gave an opening to the Hungarian ex-pat stage star, Bela Ferenc Detzo Blasko, who would become famous worldwide under the name Bela Lugosi.

  Lugosi, with his tools of a weird green face paint and a knack of totally destroying the English language, made the play enough of a success - earning $2 million - that Liveright launched two national tours. Huntley was lured across the pond to repeat his British success in theatres that had posters advertising Lugosi adorning their walls. Lugosi was limited to touring the East coast. Critically unfavourable, the play did very well commercially on both sides of the Atlantic.

  In 1977, it was revived with more humour as Frank Langella took the lead. Another point of interest is that Martin Landau also played Dracula on stage in 1984 and he would go on to take the Best Supporting Actor statuette for his impersonation of Bela Lugosi in the Tim Burton biopic, Ed Wood (1994).

  Although many plays have been adapted from the novel, this is the only one that has any bearing in this particular book as it has formed the basic plot for four of the many film treatments; the very first being taken from the comfortably fashioned screenplay by Garrett Fort and Dudley Murphy. But before we recount that story there is the small matter of plagiarism to be discussed as Dracula rises on film for the very first time... in Germany!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Max Schreck

  NOSFERATU (1922: Prana Films, Germany) aka: Nosferatu, eine symphonie des grauens; Die Zwolfte Stunde

  Director: Fredrich Wilhelm Murnau

  Synopsis

  This version begins with a musical score composed by James Bernard and played by the City of Prague philharmonic. Green titles introduce:

  Nosferatu, A symphonie of horrors. A yellow book announces:

 
; The Chronicle of the Great plague of Wisborg.

  Turning a page, it speaks of the coming of the bird of Death, and we are introduced to the town of Wisborg where a man called Hutter is dressing and packing a holdall.

  After bidding goodbye to his wife Ellen, we see him striding happily down the street without a care in the world. He stops and shakes hands with Bulwer, who tells him not to hurry as no man can escape his destiny.

  The next scene introduces Knock, the estate agent who is scrutinising a letter. He calls in Hutter, informing him that. Count Orlock wishes to purchase a house. He suggests the house opposite Hutter. Hutter is told to depart for the land of ghosts and not to worry if he may lose sweat or perhaps a little blood! Both men are subdued by laughter - . Knock, maniacally so. Hutter wastes no time in telling Ellen that he is leaving and although she helps him pack, her face is filled with dread and her thoughts are distant.

  Hutter calls on the shipping master, Harding, who assures him Ellen will be in good hands with himself and his two sisters. Purchasing a horse and, after much bonhomie, Hutter sets off on his travels. A blue screen announces that night time has descended on the Carpathians. Hutter arrives at an inn and is welcomed by the innkeeper and the local peasantry. Ordering food, Hutter explains it better be quick because he has to go on to Count Orlock's Castle. The inn’s folk turn and look at him, some with bewilderment, others with fright. The innkeeper explains to him that werewolves haunt the woods. To illustrate the point we see a scavenging hyena and horses that seem more than a little nervous.

  Hutter is led to his room and, watching the hyena from his window, he comes across a book titled:

  Of vampires, monstrous ghosts, sorcery and the seven deadly sins.

  Amongst its writing it speaks of the:

  Seed of Belial. Nosferatu, from the fields of the black death.

  Hutter discards the book and sleeps. On waking the next morning he ignores the book and, seeing the horses in a happier frame of mind, washes and boards the coach. We see shots of the looming forests. Hutter looks out of the coach with the words,

  "Hurry, the sun is going down!"

  At the Borgo Pass, the coach driver refuses to go any further and leaves Hutter carrying his luggage on foot. As he walks, we also see glimpses of another coach, completely covered, moving swiftly. It stops and Hutter boards with creeping trepidation as the driver gestures him on. The Coach takes off again at speed.

  An eeriness has crept into the proceedings.

  The coach stops and we see a shot of the castle’s large doors as they open unaided.

  We get our first glimpse of Count Orlock, walking to greet his guest.

  Orlock complains that Hutter has kept him waiting and the servants are all asleep. Inside at the dining table, Orlock reads the lease for his new home. Hutter, watching the Count with concern, picks up a loaf of bread and begins to slice. The knife goes into Hutter's thumb drawing blood. The Count stands quickly, eyeing the cut. He draws nearer, grabbing Hutter's hand and begins to suck on the blood. Hutter breaks free and backs away. Orlock follows.

  Suddenly, he bows, motioning Hutter to a chair and explains that Hutter may talk all night, because he, himself, sleeps by day. The deepest sleep. Hutter catches on a chair and sits.

  The scene closes and opens again on Hutter laid across the chair. He wakes, disorientated at first until realisation dawns and he checks his thumb. Feels at his throat. With a compact mirror, he notices two small puncture wounds on his throat. There is no sign of Orlock. Hutter sits down to a prepared breakfast and then goes outside onto the terraces to compose a letter to Ellen. Waving away mosquitoes, he writes that he has actually been bitten by the pests while he slept. He also states his sleep consisted of heavy dreams.

  He hails a passing rider to post his letter. The sun sets and we find Hutter again seated with The Count. Orlock notices a picture of Ellen and complements her on her beautiful throat. Orlock, to Hutter's horror, agrees to buy the neighbouring house opposite Hutter's own. The skeletal clock strikes midnight. The pages of the book appear on screen telling of:

  The dread of Nosferatu.

  A door opens and Hutter sees Orlock dressed in full vampire regalia, complete with fangs and claws. He staggers from the vision back to his room and closes the door. Huddled on his bed he sees his door opening of its own accord and outside the vampire slowly moving in for the kill. At the same hour, we see Ellen sleepwalking on her own terrace. She is rescued by Harding and carried back to bed in a dead faint.

  Orlock's shadow covers the petrified Hutter and slowly sinks down onto the body. Ellen wakes suddenly and begins to panic. We see the Count rise after a few seconds, replete with fresh blood. Orlock leaves as the door closes behind him.

  Another intercut scene shows Ellen, exhausted from her exertions fall into a fitful sleep. Doctor Sievers diagnoses,

  "..a harmless congestion of the blood.."

  We are then informed that Nosferatu had spread his wings.

  Hutter wakes the next morning, at first tired and then he searches the empty castle. In a cellar, he finds a large coffin. Peering through a break in the lid, he sees the face of the Count. Throwing back the lid, he uncovers the nightmarish form of the vampire. Overcome with fear, he leaves the cellar. Looking down into the courtyard, Hutter sees the vampire loading coffins onto a horse and cart. He lies in the top coffin as the lid closes onto it of its own accord. The horses drag the gruesome cargo from the castle.

  Hutter screams his wife's name. Tearing bed sheets, he hastily ties them together and climbs out of the window. Hitting the ground, he collapses in a dead faint.

  We see a raft heading downstream with the coffins. the sailors having no knowledge of the terrifying cargo they carry. In a convent hospital, we see Hutter cared for by nuns, having been found by peasants. He is ranting about coffins. The danger of Wisborg is illustrated when we are told that a consignment of coffins is to be loaded onto the Schooner, Empuza. Set to sail, one of the coffins is tipped over revealing earth and rats. The rats scuttle everywhere.

  An interlude with Professor Bulwer shows him giving a lecture on the dangers of carnivorous plants. A fly is seen being trapped. Knock begins to have a moment of madness, catching and eating flies, proclaiming that blood is life! He attacks Doctor Sievers, but is subdued by the orderly. Bulwer shows a polyp with tentacles trap an amoeba. Knock is tied up gazing at spiders in a web. On a bench, gazing out to sea, Ellen receives Hutter's letter concerning the mosquito bite. Hutter is then seen dressed and stressing he must return home. Determined, he sets off on his journey.

  The next few scenes are intercut as Hutter seemingly races on land against the passage of the Empuza and its terrible cargo. Aboard the ship, we see the first mate inform the captain that they have a delirious sailor on board. The sailor dies and is cast overboard. In the hold, we see Orlock's coffin being protected by the ghost of the vampire. The first mate takes an axe and ventures below decks. Striking one of the coffins, rats spill out. Orlock rises from his own resting place. He raises a bony hand toward the frightened seaman. The sailor backs out onto the deck petrified and throws himself over the side.

  The captain lashes himself to the wheel as the vampire strides onto the decks triumphantly:

  The ship of Death had a new Captain,

  We are informed.

  At the Harding house, Ellen reaches out to the blackness of the night with a tortured longing. The ship’s bow is seen battling against violent waves. Ellen informs that she must go to him. He is coming. As the death ship brings the plague, Knock announces from his cell that the Master is near. On the ship, we see the hatchway to the hold being freed of its covering. The hatch opens. Orlock emerges onto the decks. At the asylum, Knock overpowers a guard and escapes.

  Orlock, now on land, carries his coffin under his arm, striding purposefully. We see rats clambering out of the hold in his wake.

  The race continues at a lightning speed, Orlock with coffin, Hutter at the Harding household; Orlock;
Hutter and Ellen;. Orlock passing the Harding home and sensing his prey inside. Grinning he makes his way to his new home, disappearing, literally, behind its great wooden doors. Concentration is placed on the abandoned death ship. Not a soul is found on board, as the dead sea captain is untied from the wheel and carried off the ship. The log of the ship is discovered which boasts the manpower of: