 October 3rd
Dracula (1931)
Every time i see this classic Universal monster film something new grabs me which i hadn't noticed previously. Not always good either because this film although rightly a game changer in cinema of the time, it's also a bit clunky as well. Scenes really don't hang well together unlike those in Frankenstein (also 31) or The Old Dark House (1932) coming across more a collection of scenes rather than anything cohesive.
One sequence i did notice which i found fascinatingly eerie was Renfield (Dwight Frye) crawling across a floor when he sees a maid laid out unconscious on the carpet. He has a look in his eye that seemed really seedy. The camera cuts away in the moment he reaches her limp body so it's left to my equally seedy imagination as to what happens next.
I won't finish without mentioning Bela Lugosi. You can tell he really puts his all into his performance and in a way it's sad that this role, this one performance defined the rest of his screen career because as his work in The Black Cat (1934) and also Val Lewton's The Body Snatcher (1945) showed he could do so much more than just look slightly menacing and speak in an East European drawl.
The Universal Blu-ray has a fascinating forty minute documentary about Bela's career with quality contributions from Steve Haberman, Kim Newman, Stephen Jones, Sir Christopher Frayling, Greg Mank, Ramsay Campbell, Joe Dante and others.
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