American Cinematographer - May 1988 - 41

Part of the country
on the backlot.

large, with

a fireplace of heroic proportions, windows
that extend above the frame, ornate pillars and massive

inn

Michael Visaroff

furnishings. This room is exploited to better effect in
the Spanish film, in which the camera and players
move more
freely and the flaming fireplace becomes
more than a
backdrop.
In the hold of the sailing bark Vesta, bound
for England through a terrible storm, an obviously
insane Renfield crouches beside one of three large
boxes and hisses, "Master, the sun is gone." He cowers
and pleads as Dracula stands over him: "You will keep
your promise, master? When we get to England I'll
have lives

not human

blood in them." One
officials

come

lives, but small

ones,

with

morning, at the dock at Whitby,

aboard the derelict vessel which has

mysteriously arrived during the night. All the crew¬
men are dead or
missing and the dead captain is lashed
to the wheel. Hearing crazed laughter from the hold,
they open the hatch and see Renfield staring up at
them. A newspaper item tells that the only survivor of
the ship, a madman with an insatiable desire to eat flies
and insects, has been placed in Dr. Seward's sanitarium
at Whitby
The Vesta is depicted first as a miniature. Full
scale shots of the seamen fighting to keep the ship
afloat are undercranked, suggesting that they are foot¬
age from a silent film. The investigation of the derelict
is imaginatively executed, the camera roving over the
deck, taking in the details as the voices of the unseen
men come over. In
Browning's version, the director
himself bends into the scene to open the hatch. The
scene
gunning down at Renfield is quite subtle: the
madman's shadow produces an illusion that he has
additional arms jutting from his lower body, lending
him an appropriate insect-like appearance.
Dracula next is seen in opera cape and top
hat, striding by night through a foggy London street.
His eyes fix hypnotically upon a girl selling flowers,
then he draws her into
concert hall where

dark

corner.

Later, he enters

performance of the London Sym¬
phony is in progress. Placing a hostess under hypnosis,
he sends her to Dr. Seward's box with a message that he
is wanted on the telephone. With Seward are his
daughter, Mina (Eva), her fiance, John (Juan) and their
friend, Lucy (Lucia) Weston. Pretending to have over¬
heard the

name

of Seward, he introduces himself and

explains that he has leased Carfax Abbey, which lies
adjacent to the sanitarium. Although it is virtually in
ruins, he says he will make few repairs because, "It
reminds me of the broken battlements of my own castle
in Transylvania." Lucy, who is attracted to him imme¬
diately, is reminded of an old toast, "Lofty timbers, the
walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter as
though the dead were there. Quaff a cup to the dead
already, hooray for the next to die!" Dracula, betraying
a
rapturous longing, cries, "To die - to be really dead!
That must be

awaiting

glorious! There

are

man than death."
The interior of Albert Hall,

famed "Phantom"
years

far

worse

things

incidentally, is the

Stage 28, which was built
earlier for The Phantom of the Opera.

May 1988

Iright) is the
innkeeper.

some

Lucy stays the night with the Sewards. Drac¬
upstairs window as she prepares for
bed. Soon a bat appears at the window; a moment later,
Dracula approaches her bed. Fade in on an operating
room, where Seward and his colleagues are unable to
save
Lucy from dying of "an unnatural loss of blood
which we have been powerless to check. And on the
ula watches her

throat of each victim the

same

two marks."

Crane shots of the sanitarium

grounds follow.
upstairs room and the
camera moves
up to peer in as Martin, an orderly,
confiscates a spider from Renfield and upbraids him
for eating flies. "Who wants to eat flies... when I can
get nice, fat spiders?" Renfield snarls.
Professor Van Helsing, a wise but unor¬
thodox physician, has been brought from the Nether¬
lands by Seward to investigate the strange deaths.
Analyzing blood samples, he announces that "we are
dealing with the undead. Yes, nosferatu, the undead vampires." He suspects that Renfield is the mortal
slave of a vampire. To Seward's objections he replies
that "the superstition of yesterday can become the
scientific reality of today"
In his moments of sanity, Renfield begs to be
sent away because his outbursts might give Mina "bad
dreams." A wolfish howling is heard by night; Van
Helsing believes it is the vampire communicating with
Renfield. Dracula preys upon Mina that night. The
next day, Mina tells of her "nightmare." "The room
seemed to fill with fog... Then two red eyes... a
white, livid face... It came closer, closer; then the lips
touched me." Van Helsing discovers the mark of the
vampire on Mina's throat. After dinner Dracula comes
calling, recognizing Van Helsing as "A most distin¬
guished scientist, whose name we know even in the
wilds of Transylvania." Suspicious, Van Helsing tricks
Dracula into looking into a concealed mirror. Dracula,
livid with rage, makes a hasty apology and leaves
through the French windows. A wolf is seen running
across the lawn
Dracula, Van Helsing explains. Mina
Screams

are

heard from

steals outside and is

again victimized by Dracula.

policeman, patrolling near a cemetery,
hears a crying child and sees the white-shrouded
figure of a woman disappearing into the darkness.
Newspapers tell of a mysterious woman in white who
attacks children, wounding them in the neck. Mina
American

Cinematographer

American Cinematographer - May 1988

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