American Cinematographer - May 1988 - 38

Frames from Drac-

Veidt, who performed superbly in several Universal

ula.

Top: Through
clever lighting
Dwight Frye is giv¬
en the multi-legged
appearance of an

silents between 1927 and 1929

including the mar¬
Laughs and the part-talking The
Last Warning. Veidt returned to Germany, however,
when faced with the prospect of making talkies in
English. Laemmle Jr. considered bringing Veidt back
for Dracula. There is no question but that Veidt would
have been ideal for the role, but he was not disposed to
leave Europe at the time.
Passing over Lugosi as not being sufficiently
-

velous The Man Who

insect. Center:
Glass shot combin¬

ing coach at Vasquez Rocks with
painting of moun¬
tains. Below: The

dead

well known, the studio considered Fox Film's character
star from the stage, Paul Muni; the darkly handsome

the

Ian Keith, a brilliant actor then in disfavor because of

shadow of the

captain on
ghost ship

Vesta.

a

drinking problem; and the distinguished stage actor,
William Courtenay. Eventually, Lugosi was brought in
for tests. In mid-September he signed a two-picture
contract for

$500

a

week.

Karl Freund, ASC, the most celebrated cine¬

matographer of Germany's "Golden Age" of expressio¬
nism, was assigned to Dracula, his first American film.
Elis German credits included Variety, Metropolis, The
Last Laugh, The Golem, Symphony of a City, and other
revered classics of imaginative cinema. Born in Bo¬
hemia in 1890, he had been a movie technician and
cameraman since 1906. He was also an inventor, owned
film lab in Berlin, and was a director and

producer for
Germany. When he came to America in
1930 to tout a color process in which he had a propri¬
etary interest, William Stull, ASC secretary, informed
him that "... at the last meeting of the Board of Gover¬
nors of the American
Society of Cinematographers,
you, as Europe's foremost cinematographer, were
unanimously elected to Active Membership in that
society."
Freund gravitated to Universal, which he had
visited in 1924 while Phantom of the Opera was being
a

Fox Film in

made there. Arthur Edeson, ASC, then Universal's

top-ranking cinematographer, championed him

as

"a

great photographer" and "Uncle Carl" Laemmle, who
was
extremely loyal to his native Germany, welcomed
him with open arms.

Freund ingratiated himself
quickly by suggesting the perfect ending for All Quiet
on

the Western Front that had eluded the writers.
To call the short, rotund Freund "colorful"
case. He could be gracious

would be to understate the
and

photography to the first 25 minutes of the picture, then
keeps the action indoors except for a few short scenes.
Tod Browning, a veteran director who spe¬
cialized in the making of weird and unusual pictures,
including some of Lon Chaney's successes at Universal
and MGM, was signed for Drnculn. Browning said that
he and Chaney had discussed making the story as a
silent film years before, but concluded that it couldn't
be done successfully without dialogue. Now the era of
talking pictures had arrived, but it was too late to
consider Chaney, who was dying of cancer after having
completed his first and only talking picture, The Un¬
holy Three.
Universal's replacement for Chaney when he
moved to MGM had been the German actor, Conrad

36

American

Cinematographer

charming at one moment, cool and distant in the
directing, he proved to be a hard-boiled,
Prussian-styled taskmaster in the tradition of his men¬
tor, Fritz Lang. A handful of directorial assignments
from 1933 to 1935 (The Mummy, Moonlight and Pretzels,
Uncertain Lady, The Countess of Monte Cristo and Mad
Love), all of which were realized with speed and re¬
sourcefulness, prove him to have been a brilliant and
next. When

imaginative director.
Universal's

supervising art director, the very

British Charles D. Hall, made a number of idea draw¬

ings for key sets, including the much imitated cellars
of Dracula's London home, with its massed groined
arches and monumental
two remarkable
man.

Rosse,

May 1988

a

stairway. He

was

assisted by

artists, Herman Rosse and John Hoff¬
noted stage set designer from The
American Cinematographer - May 1988

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