This is the first "official" Dracula movie. The first was Nosferatu in 1922. It was unauthorized though, and Stroker's widow brought it to court due to copyright infringement (Scally, irishtimes.comLinks to an external site.). Directed by Tod Browning, the movie features Bela Lugosi as the titular character, Dracula, and the Universal monster movie was born. The vampire has finished their transformation from a ghoulish creature that you can barely recognize as human, to a sexy, aristocrat from a "faraway land" that has come to seduce you. Dracula is now a cultural icon and Bela Lugosi's Dracula is who many picture when they think about vampires, and he has influenced many versions of the count in future interpretations of the character. 

Bela Lugosi was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1921 (ValentineLinks to an external site.). He was first hired to play the part of Dracula in the Broadway production of the novel before playing him in the movie. Unlike most of the early Victorian vampires, the other Universal monsters, and the predecessor Dracula, Nosferatu, this monster is a handsome gentleman. one who would somewhat fit into Victorian society. Bela Lugosi could be seen as the start of the sexy vampire, a dark, brooding, romantic hero of recent years, even though he is the villain.  

The book version of Dracula is described as old looking in the beginning and he starts to look younger farther into the book. This also happens in Varney the vampire, who looks more like a ghoul at the start of the serial, but later on looks more human. But Dracula is deceitfully human looking the whole time. This does not mean that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula fits into this society, though. Due to Lugosi’s language difficulties and heavy accent, he made the perfect Dracula, an outsider going against the Western European and American protagonists. He is exotic and different; he is a threat to the Western ladies that need protection from the men in their life.  

There are some differences between the book and the movie. For starters, it is based more on the 1927 play by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston, than on the novel by Bram Stoker (BakerLinks to an external site.). Add to that, it was one of the first sound films that Universal had ever made. Due to these factors, the film is very dialogue heavy with little to no music in the silent scenes. This does lend to the gothic atmosphere in some scenes though, as the architecture of Dracula’s castle casts a more otherworldly vibe when everything is silent with only the faraway sounds of wolves in the distance. Other changes include Renfield being the one who meets Dracula at his castle in the beginning of the movie. Renfield also accompanies Dracula on the ship back as he is now under his control. Harker, Mina, and Lucy also meet Dracula much earlier in the story, in which Lucy finds Dracula fascinating and is drawn to him while Mina is wearier. It is interesting to note that after Lucy is turned into a vampire, we never see her killed. Her fate is left up to the imagination. 

Works Cited

Baker, David. “Browning’s Dracula and the Development of the Classical Screen Vampire: Genre, Form, and Figure.” Continuum (Mount Lawley, W.A.), vol. 35, no. 2, 2021, pp. 205–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2021.1936826Links to an external site..

Scally, Derek. “Nosferatu and the Fangs of Copyright Infringement.” The Irish Times, The Irish Times, 5 Mar. 2022, www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/nosferatu-and-the-fangs-of-copyright-inf....

Valentine, Rebecca. “Lugosi, Bela.” U.S. Immigration and Migration Reference Library, vol. 4, 2004, pp. 251–58.