If you are seeing Dracula for the first time or if you have already seen the movie…
''welcome''
Thomas Edison applied for his last patent in the United States in 1931. The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the National Anthem, and construction of the Empire State Building is completed. America's 'Great Depression' is at least two more years away, and film companies are switching from silent films to 'talkies'. For years I had only seen silent films with organists and orchestras, so it must have been a wonderful experience to go into a movie theater and see the first sound film.
A universal monster was born.
Carl Laemmle Jr., recently appointed head of Universal Pictures, was convinced that the company should invest a lot of money in production, utilize innovative technology, and provide audiences with supernatural horrors they had never seen before. Unsure whether audiences would respond (and whether censors would allow the idea to come to fruition), Carl Laemmle Jr pursued his vision. Turning to Tod Browning, who had made his fortune as a silent film director (now about 50 films), they worked on an adaptation of Dracula, the first 'talkie' horror film. Dracula was a huge critical and financial success and marked the beginning of Universal Horror, the genre that introduced Universal Monsters to the world.
Dracula's Story
For those unfamiliar, Dracula was published by Bram Stoker in 1897. The story of a 500-year-old Carpathian nobleman. An unholy supernatural being, his survival depends on drinking the blood of the living. Living in a crumbling castle in Transylvania, Hungary (now part of Romania), Dracula plans to move to London to feed the local population. Using the services of real estate agent Jonathan Harker, Dracula travels to England by ship. Arriving in Whitby, Dracula begins his search. He receives help from 'Renfield', a human familiar who takes Dracula's orders and carries out his master's orders. Things don't always go as planned. Renfield falls deeper into madness, Dracula chooses the wrong victim, and gains the attention of Vampire Hunter Van Helsing. It is also a class story, with Dracula moving into the upper echelons of society and using his powers to dominate the lower classes, such as women and servants.
unique writing style
The story of Bram Stoker's Dracula is told through accumulated documents. The reader reads the various diaries and newspaper articles that make up the story, rather than the usual narrative.
This unique writing style did not prevent the book's success. Because by the mid-1920s, people all over the world knew this story. There is no doubt that it had some help from the grotesque German gothic horror films. Nosferatu: Symphony of Terror . Nosferatu was an unofficial silent film adaptation of Dracula that was condemned by the Stoker family and all copies ordered to be destroyed. Laemmle Jr. had seen Nosferatu, and as a businessman he probably knew that the Broadway play Dracula grossed a whopping $2 million at the box office.