American Cinematographer - May 1988 - 39

The

carriage from

Castle Dracula

Frye at
Borgo Pass.
meets

Netherlands, had
director

come

to Universal with

Broadway

John Murray Anderson for the spectacular

King of Jazz, which
1929-30. It

was

won him an Academy Award for
Rosse who saved a chunk of the set

budget for Dracula by designing the spectacular facade
of Castle Dracula so it could be pieced together with
portions of disassembled Medieval sets from the silent
days. Hoffman was one of those brilliant but little
known artists who worked behind the

scenes

at the

major studios. He designed sets for several early talk¬
ies, but later switched to directing, special effects
photography, and, most notably, to creating montage
sequences.

Budgeted at $355,050 and scheduled for 36
working days, principal photography was begun Sep¬
tember 29 on the backlot country inn set. It was
completed November 15, after 42 working days, at a
negative cost of $341,191.20. Added scenes were shot
on December 13, and retakes were made on
January 2,
1931.
A

Spanish language version, utilizing the
a different cast, producer, director
and crew, was begun on the night of October 23,1930.
The producer was Paul Kohner, who later founded a
leading talent agency but at the time was head of
Universal's foreign department. Czechoslovakian-born
and Vienna-educated, the tall and personable Kohner
had been a production supervisor at Universal for
same

sets but with

years

and

was

the producer of

an

excellent silent

spec¬

tacle, The Mari Who Laughs. It was because he fell in

May 1988

love with

Lupita Tovar, a beautiful actress from Mexico
playing small parts at Universal, that Kohner
talked Carl Laemmle Sr. into letting him make Spanish
language productions.
"Lupita told me she couldn't make enough
money at Universal and she was going back to Mexi¬
co," Kohner said in early 1988. "I lay awake all night
trying to figure a way to change her mind. I went to
Uncle Carl and told him that I could make Spanish
versions of his pictures for about $35,000 each by using
the same sets after the regular company had quit for
the night. He agreed to give it a try with The Cat Creeps.
I put Lupita in Helen Twelvetrees' role, the picture was
a
great success, and she decided to stay in Hollywood."
Following a triumphant tour of Mexico, the petite
actress was assigned the feminine lead in the Spanish
Dracula. She also became Mrs. Kohner. The marriage
was
happy and enduring. (It was learned at press time
that Paul Kohner died March 16 at the age of 85.)
George Melford, a veteran director of the
who

was

hard-boiled school, who

was

best known for the

Rudolph Valentino silent, The Shiek, directed. The cine¬
matographer was George Robinson, ASC, undoubt¬
edly one of the most underrated artists in his field. The
adaptation was the work of the scholarly Baltazar
Fernandez Cue, who did most of the Spanish language
screenplays made in Hollywood. In the cast were
Carlos Villarias as Dracula, Lupita Tovar as Eva (Mina),
Barry Norton as Juan, Eduardo Arozamena as Van
Helsing, Carmen Guerrero as Lucia, and Pablo Alvarez
American

Cinematographer

37
American Cinematographer - May 1988

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