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Tarfumes.com - Dracula
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $0.61
Your Save: $ 14.37 ( 96% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Anna Bakacs, Daisy Belmore, Herbert Bunston, Moon Carroll, Helen Chandler
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300181274
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6300181278
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: 1992-03-01
Running Time: 75
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1931-02-14
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Editorial Reviews:
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When Universal Pictures picked up the movie rights to a Broadway adaptation of Dracula, they felt secure in handing the property over to the sinister team of actor Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning. But Chaney died of cancer, and Universal hired the Hungarian who had scored a success in the stage play: Béla Lugosi. The resulting film launched both Lugosi's baroque career and the horror-movie cycle of the 1930s. It gets off to an atmospheric start, as we meet Count Dracula in his shadowy castle in Transylvania, superbly captured by the great cinematographer Karl Freund. Eventually Dracula and his blood-sucking devotee (Dwight Frye, in one of the cinema's truly mad performances) meet their match in a vampire-hunter called Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). If the later sections of the film are undeniably stage bound and a tad creaky, Dracula nevertheless casts a spell, thanks to Lugosi's creepily lugubrious manner and the eerie silences of Browning's directing style. (After a mood-enhancing snippet of Swan Lake under the opening titles, there is no music in the film.) Frankenstein, which was released a few months later, confirmed the horror craze, and Universal has been making money (and countless spin-off projects) from its twin titans of terror ever since. Certainly the role left a lasting impression on the increasingly addled and drug-addicted Lugosi, who was never quite able to distance himself from the part that made him a star. He was buried, at his request, in his black vampire cape. --Robert Horton
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Renfield
Comment: Guess who's a scarier actor than Bela Lugosi? Dwight Frye. I saw this when I was a little kid and I didn't even notice Mr. Lugosi. For all I cared, they could have cast Chico Marx or Lou Costello in the title role. I'm still having nightmares about the entymophage, his eyes protruding like Peter Lorre's, pleading for mercy in his husky falsetto.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "There are far worse things awaiting man that death"--Dracula
Comment: I bought this 2-DVD set for a friend and ended up liking it so much I got one for myself. It is an excellent tribute to the Bela Lugosi classic. You can watch this film many different ways on this collection. The classic version, one with a different musical score (by Philip Glass performed by the Kronos Quartet), with two different commentaries, and with "monster tracks" which are pop-up text of informational tid-bits on the different players and scenes. Not only that but this collection also includes the Spanish version which was filmed at the same time as the Tod Browning classic (Browning's crew filmed in the daytime, the Spanish was filmed at night using the same set). The quality of this set is superb down to every detail--including the appropriate music accompanying the selection screen and the case that looks like a handsome, hardcover book on the shelf. It offers additional documentary extras as well which I will describe in the review as most have seen the film and are probably wondering if this version is worth owning (IT IS!).
The commentaries were conducted by film historian David J. Skal and author & screenwriter for "Dracula: Dead and Loving It," Steve Haberman. Both commentaries are very well-done and obviously were planned out, written ahead of time and rehearsed. I enjoyed the Skal commentary the most. He gives background information (sometimes gossipy) on many of the actors, production crew, and film techniques. He includes symbolism and cultural references used in the film and also reveals scenes that were cut from the original script. Haberman focuses more on motion picture politics which I did not find as interesting. He also does not follow the scenes like Skal does, except to point out the ways in which the Spanish version is inferior to the English version. The Spanish version here includes an introduction by Lupita Tovar Kohner, who played the female lead.
In two main areas, Skal and Haberman disagree. Skal prefers the Spanish version for its innovative filming techniques while Haberman believes Browning's version is more effective on all levels. They also have completely different takes on a piece of cardboard attached to a lamp in Mina's bedroom. Skal believes it was an oversight while Haberman defends it as "set dressing." I tend to side with Skal as, if the item was used to show the character was shielding the light of the lamp as she slept, it probably wouldn't look so shoddy. This was a mansion with wealthy people. Why would this rich socialite use a ripped piece of cardboard to create a night light?
Several documentaries are included in this set. The tribute to Bela Lugosi "Lugosi: The Dark Prince," covers his film career. It would have been better if it also presented some info on what he was like as a person and not just his characters, especially since his son is included in another documentary on this set and could have shed some light on his father's personality. "The Road to Dracula" was hosted by Carla Laemmle, the niece of Universal owner Carl Laemmle who spoke the first words in the film in the stage coach scene. It goes into the history of the novel by Bram Stoker and its adaptation to stage and screen. This documentary includes a recreation of sorts of Prof Van Helsing's final curtain speech that was later removed from the film.
"Universal Horror" is a very interesting and rather lengthy documentary that covers many of the scary films put out by Universal in the 1920s and 1930s and includes freaky scenes from such films as "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Man Who Laughs," "The Black Cat," etc. I liked the inclusion of scenes from early silents. It also reveals secrets to special effects found in "King Kong" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and "The Invisible Man." Film historians who were kids back in the day talk about what these films meant to them and the reactions of audiences at the time. Bela Lugosi Jr. talks about his famous father in several clips in this documentary. And if all that were not enough, you also get to see a collection of posters and stills. This 75th Anniversary set has so much to offer and is so well-done that I recommend it to any Dracula/horror film fan even if they already have a copy of Dracula.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Piano Music on the Main Menu
Comment: I think the other reviewers have said it all about this edition. It's a solid version of a great film.
Does anyone know what the piano music accompanying the DVD's main menu is (and where I can find it)?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lugosi is inspired, but DRACULA S##KS
Comment: If Frankenstein gives you the underground creeps, and The Mummy keeps your nerves all wrapped up, while Creature From The Black Lagoon makes you search for dry land, this ancient version of Dracula has lost it's bite. Bela Lugosi literally sustains the sense of creepiness all by himself in one of the most unlikable casts ever assembled for a Universal horror picture classic. Nothing is deadlier for a horror tale where the so called good guys are achingly so intolerable in character and demeanor, it would be a virtual pity if Dracula didn't have his way with most of them indeed. Nina is a sniveling grown up woman with a childish wimpering voice that needs to be silenced by someone. Please help us here, Bela. The manly hero is a push over rich boy sweating beads for his dear Nina, while running amuk in the final scene calling her name in no uncertain terms. Van Helsing is why I stay at home in the states, I do not require an irritating foreign tongue which makes me long for home. His demise would be if Bela told him a hefty joke to crack that cemented mug of his. To top everything off, this tale is based and formed from a stage version, not utilizing the great cinema features of sight and sound. Walt Disney would have had a straight jacket fit! Some of the lighter sets appeared the future home of I LOVE LUCY. No doubt, Bela is unsurpassed in his Dracula facade, which made his presence and attitude legendary to everyone on planet earth, but the movie itself is grinding, even compared to much better hits of the day.
A few key moments do not a movie make.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Gothic horror at its finest
Comment: Tod Browning did more than perhaps any other filmmaker to develop the "horror" genre, and this Gothic horror masterpiece is one of the crown jewels in his filmography.
Perhaps the first genuinely "supernatural" American horror films (previous American horror films always explained away the existence of spirits or demons by attributing the scary goings-on to escaped mental patients or psychotics). Universal was perhaps the perfect studio to produce this film, as the large influx of German talent in the late 20s had created a house style at the studio perfectly suited to such a film. The atmospheric, Expressionist cinematography by Karl Freund is one of the most memorable aspects of the film. Browning's direction is solid, although he is still clearly uncomfortable with the requirements of making a sound film (his best work had been in silents, and his most memorable sound films were those in which he was able to direct non-talking sequences). Still, Browning's distinct touch is evident throughout the film, creating a much more genuinely terrifying, menacing sense of horror than the slightly more sympathetic and even at times campy horror found in the work of James Whale.
As with many talkies made between 1930 and 1932, there is very little underscoring throughout the film ("Swan Lake" is used memorably under the opening titles). While some consider this a deficiency of the film, it's important to remember that Browning dictated the lack of music to heighten the atmospheric sound. There is a version with a score composed by Philip Glass, running under most of the non-talking scenes, which lacks the taste that one usually associates with that composer.
"Dracula" stands as a seminal film in the development of the horror genre, of great interests to genre fans and film historians alike.
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