The Many Faces of Dracula: Vampire King of the Silver Screen

Dracula is the king of the vampires. While modern vampire fans may thrill to tales of Edward Cullen and Lestat, no other nosferatu has the kind of name recognition that the Count enjoys. From his first appearance and (spoiler alert!) death at the point of Quincy Morris’ bowie knife, Dracula has shown a talent for returning from the grave over and over again.

Dracula’s first official appearance outside of Stoker’s novel was Dracula, a 1924 play starring Raymond Huntley, but vampire enthusiasts are perhaps more familiar with Nosferatu: a horror masterpiece directed by the great German expressionist F.W. Murnau. This silent film predated the stage adaptation by two years. Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence, ever protective of her husband’s legacy, was furious to learn of the unlicensed adaptation and ordered all the copies of the film destroyed. Fortunately, a few copies escaped her attention and this is the only reason the film survives to this day.

Almost one hundred years have passed since the release of Nosferatu, and Dracula remains a perennial star of the silver screen. Not all of these movies have been fully faithful to the source material, but some have been closer to the mark than others. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best-known movie adaptations and see how they fare.

Dracula (1931)

Universal Studio’s black and white classic set the standard for Dracula in the minds of most people: the halting speech, thick accent, widow’s peak and cape became forever associated with the count, despite being utterly unfaithful to his in Stoker’s novel:

“His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.”

The script was based on the original play, which took a great many liberties with Dracula’s plot and characters. It is Renfield, not Jonathan Harker, who travels to Dracula’s castle in the film. The Texan Quincy Morris is completely absent, despite having landed the killing blow in the novel. Further, Dracula’s death occurs in London rather than in the Transylvanian countryside, and at the hands of Van Helsing’s wooden stake rather than Morris’ bowie knife. Finally, in perhaps a nod to Nosferatu, this Dracula cannot bear sunlight, but the Dracula of Stoker’s novel walks about freely by day.

All of this isn’t to say that Dracula is a bad movie – far from it. It has loads of atmosphere, and Bela Lugosi (who first portrayed the count on stage in a 1927 revival of the play) carries his scenes with a supreme air of menace. Despite being a wonderful, spooky film, 1931’s Dracula bears only a passing resemblance to Stoker’s novel.

Dracula (1958)

British horror film powerhouse Hammer Studios abandoned most of Stoker’s novel in creating this schlocky but fun film. Released as The Horror of Dracula in the states, his fifties-era frightfest is surprisingly lurid, with plenty of blood and sex to go around. Legendary actor Christopher Lee – later a Hammer Horror regular – portrays an altogether more vicious Dracula, far closer to the almost demonic personage depicted in Bram Stoker’s novel. That being said, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster apparently chose to throw Stoker’s novel into the wastebin and start anew. His Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on a mission to slay the count, only to fail and become a vampire himself. Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, another classic actor), tracks his friend to Dracula’s castle and puts him out of his undead misery, and then returns to London to warn Mina Harker and her sister in-law Lucy of Dracula’s imminent arrival.In the film’s climax, Van Helsing holds two candlesticks together in the shape of a cross and pushes Dracula into a beam of sunlight, whereupon he disappears in a puff of smoke.

Dracula (1979)

Frank Langella tries to bring some seventies-era sexy to his portrayal of Dracula. Come for the inexplicable changes to Stoker’s novel (Mina and Lucy change places for some unknown reason, Dracula has no fangs, Renfield is a construction worker, Dr. Seward is Lucy’s dad, Van Helsing is Mina’s) and stay for the lurid laser light love scene and chest hair. Not an altogether awful movie – the scene where Van Helsing and Seward travels beneath the cemetery to stake the vampire Mina is especially chilling – but one you should probably take with a pinch of salt.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation is perhaps my favorite, both for its lush fin de siècle set design and the good faith efforts of screenwriter James V. Hart to maintain some fidelity to the source material. The plot of the book is largely intact, from Harker’s visit to Transylvania to his visit to London and ultimate death in the wilds of Eastern Europe. However, there remain a number of exaggerations in this adaptation: Dracula is depicted as a tragic figure, a romantic soul in search of his lost love, (a marked deviation from the amoral villain of Stoker’s novel) Lucy is scandalously flirtatious with her suitors (not to mention the implication of an intimate involvement with Mina), and Van Helsing is borderline insane. Despite this, Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains the most faithful adaptation of Stoker’s book to date, and certainly one of the most watchable. Incidentally, it’s the only film to overly connect Count Dracula’s legend to that of Vlad Tsepish – something hinted at in the book but never overtly stated.

Ultimately, the only way to really come to know Count Dracula is to read Stoker’s book. Its epistolary format (the novel is written as a collection of diary entries and correspondences) takes a little bit to get used to, but once you do, you’ll find a dashing adventure tale mixing ancient legend and the science of the nineteenth century. With a resurgence of interest in period fiction, urban fantasy and Steampunk, the time is right for a new generation of readers to discover the dark charms of Dracula.