The Spanish Dracula - 1931

"Spanish" Dracula - 1931 Dracula - Released April 24, 1931. Directed George Melford and Enrique Tovar Avalos

Shot on the same Universal sets as the Bela Lugosi version from the same year, the "Spanish" Dracula has a varied reputation which has some claiming it is superior to the more famous Todd Browning film.

George Melford's direction shifts the film to feature Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio) more, and Rubio's presentation of the demented fly-eater gives him a showcase to display the raving dynamics of a madman, but interspersed with more subtle acting opportunities than Dwight Frye got in the English version. Rubio brings out Renfield's mental conflict (or more accurately, a spiritual conflict) that from scene to scene (or even the same scene) appears to be tearing him apart. When Melford ends his film and the credits are about to appear, on the screen is the dead Renfield, with the young couple of Eva and Juan Harker walking up the staircase to leave Dracula's castle, and Melford uses that final image to cement his film differently than Browning's as being as much about Renfield's descent to doom as about the lovely young people getting out of the vampire's clutches.

Melford (and the uncredited Enrique Tovar Avalos) also move the camera around more and get the project further away from the theatre origins of the visual tale, and a comparison shows Browning's film to be a stuffier, stage-bound affair. Browning utilizes the set more for mood but Melford lets us see a great deal more of the art direction, though he simply is not a match for Browning's ability to present a spookier world.

Carlos Villarías as Count Dracula doesn't compare to Lugosi's otherworldly portrayal, and this is probably where Melford's direction falls away into artifice the most. Browning's film emphasizes Lugosi's turgid slow motion which flashes to unexpected speed at times (for example when he smashes the mirror in Helsing's hand that reveals he has no reflection). Villarias fills that same amount of space with a lot of grimacing and unintended humour keeps popping into the "Spanish" Dracula because of these overlong scenes of Villarias reacting in an exaggerated way. When Renfield's crucifix slips out from the folds of his jacket and Villarias' Dracula reacts with an expression that seems to indicate more that Renfield smells bad than that Dracula has an aversion to crucifixes, the film briefly skids into classic bad-movie territory.

Lupita Tovar and Barry Norton as the young couple fighting Dracula's control are not that different from the English version, but Tovar seems like a stronger and more robust young woman and this ends up emphasizing the power of Dracula to control her more than the oddly porcelain presentation of Helen Chandler as Mina Harker in Browning's version.

Either way, both Dracula movies provide a basic metaphor of vampirism that can be taken on it's own terms, or viewed as a represenation of any number of other deadly problems (addiction, misogny, damnation, etc) and that is probably a big part of why classic films like these still retain such staying power.

An older description of the "Spanish" Dracula Film 1931

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