The Road to Dracula

Carla Laemmle, niece of director Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal pictures, introduces and narrates this documentary produced by film historian David Skal. Filmmakers, writers, and film historians discuss the timelessness of the Bram Stoker character and Universal's three adaptations, among others. Included on Universal's excellent Dracula (1931) DVD.

This short documentary was produced by Universal Studios in order to celebrate the edition of their classic horror film, "Dracula", in DVD 68 years after its initial theatrical release. Hosted by Carla Laemmle, niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, the film gives the story behind the myth of Dracula and how it went from being a popular horror novel to be one of the most important cultural icons in humanity thanks to the many films he has appeared.

I feel like more needed to be here. This is on the Legacy Collection DVD, and while it has some great interviews -- sons of those from the film, Rick Baker, Clive Barker -- it could have been so much more. At a mere 35 minutes, it never really gets into the meat and potatoes. We hear the same stuff any Dracula fan might already know, but hardly touch on the bigger stories.

Wonderful Dracula retrospective that was a featurette on the initial Dracula DVD release and has been included on subsequent releases. It's hosted by the delightfully charming Carla Laemmle, niece of the founder of Universal and an actress in her own right. She appears in the opening scene of Dracula as one of the coach passengers and actually says the first lines of the film. This featurette covers the history of Dracula from Bram Stoker to the stage play on to the classic 1931 film. It also oddly covers the Frank Langella '70s version of the film. While the inclusion of this seems strange, it does lead to one of the more amusing moments in the short where the elderly Laemmle swoons over Langella's "sexy" Dracula.

There's lots of interviews with the likes of Rick Baker, Clive Barker, Lupita Tovar, and the sons of Bela Lugosi, Dwight Frye, and John Balderston. It also features film historian and author David J. Skal, who wrote and directed this short. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn't cover the sequels to Dracula or any of the other versions, like Hammer's enjoyable series of Dracula films. But the focus is on Universal's Dracula film and the history of the character leading up to that, which is fine. It's a fun featurette with lots of information and history, especially for those new to Dracula or the Universal horror films.

This video documentary presented in home-video collections of "Dracula" (1931) is a decent and brief overview of the "Dracula" story from Bram Stoker's novel to stage and screen adaptations. Besides the 1931 classic, a lost 1921 Hungarian film, "Dracula's Death" (Drakula halála) (1921), "Nosferatu" (1922), the 1979 "Dracula" and the Spanish- language "Dracula" (1931), which was produced at nights while the more-famous English-language version was made during the days, are mentioned. There's also a brief re-creation of a scene for the lost 1931 silent version of the same script. The doc ends with lots of praise for Bela Lugosi, and there's a recitation of the lost fourth-wall- breaking epilogue to the film. There are the usual talking heads and lots of moving stills to present "The Road to Dracula." The movie's maker, David J. Skal, author of "Hollywood Gothic" and related books, also does a good share of the talking here.

Interestingly, another of those talking heads, Gary Don Rhodes agrees with Skal here on the supposedly superior and more artistic camera- work in the Spanish "Dracula" as opposed to the English one, and he says there are far more camera movements in the Spanish version. In his later book, "Tod Browning's Dracula," however, Rhodes claims, "the many critics who have claimed that the Melford version (my edit: i.e. the Spanish one) of 'Dracula' employs more moving camera are wrong. They are, without doubt, mathematically incorrect." Seems he changed his mind. Indeed, Rhodes is right in his book, and it's more interesting and informative than a short documentary of nodding heads could ever be to read Skal's "Hollywood Gothic" and the counterarguments to it in Rhodes's book.

This small documentary was produced by Universal Studios in order to celebrate the edition of their classic horror film, "Dracula", in DVD 68 years after its initial theatrical release. Hosted by Carla Laemmle, niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, the film gives the story behind the myth of Dracula and how it went from being a popular horror novel to be one of the most important cultural icons in humanity thanks to the many films he has appeared.

The documentary is also a celebration to the members of the cast that made the 1931 version, as they have become the prototype of those characters for many generations, specially Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor who played Dracula. Along Laemmle, film historians and relatives of the cast members are interviewed in an interesting way that gives a lot of insight on how the movie came to be. Bela Lugosi Jr and Dwight David Frye (son of Dwight Frye) talk extensively about their respective fathers, and Lupita Tovar gives some light about her participation in the Spanish version of "Dracula".

Besides the historic figures and historians, people in the modern film industry talk about how "Dracula"'s influence is still recognizable in the current horror genre. Horror writer and film director Clive Barker as well as make-up artist Rick Baker speak about the impact "Dracula" had in their respective areas. Among the many interviews, probably the one that is the most important is the one with Ivan Butler, who in his youth was a member of the theatrical company that made "Dracula" for the first time.

Along with the interviews many clips of the many incarnations of "Dracula" made by Universal appear. It's a shame (although it's understandable)that the documentary only focused on Universal's versions, because the character of Dracula has been portrayed in so many ways that it would be interesting a more complete history about the character. In fact, that would be my only criticism, that it focuses in the events before the 1931 version and lacks information about what happened next and its impact in other media.

Still, despite being short, it's quite informative, specially for enthusiasts of horror and the history of Universal Studios in general. It may not be the best documentary about Dracula the character, but it's a very good one about "Dracula", the film. Very recommended is also "Monster by Moonlight! The Immortal Saga of 'The Wolf Man'", a similar documentary but about "The Wolf Man" (1941). 7/10