Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
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Count Dracula: For one who has not lived even a single lifetime, you`re a wise man, Van Helsing.
[first lines]
Young Girl Passenger: [reading from a Transylvanian tourist brochure] "Among the rugged peaks that crown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age."
Renfield: No, no, master. I wasn`t going to say anything, I told them nothing. I am loyal to you master.
Count Dracula: I am Dracula.
Renfield: Oh, it`s really good to see you. I don`t know what happened to the driver and my luggage and... Well, and with all this, I thought I was in the wrong place.
Count Dracula: I bid you welcome.
[Dracula goes up the stairs. Renfield starts to follow him. Suddenly, Dracula hears wolves howling]
Count Dracula: Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
[Dracula goes up the steps and waits for Renfield, who, without difficulty, cuts open a hole in a huge spider`s web using his walking stick]
Count Dracula: The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.
Renfield: Why, er... yes.
Renfield: Rats. Rats. Rats! Thousands! Millions of them! All red blood! All these will I give you if you will obey me.
Renfield: I`m loyal to you, Master, I am your slave, I didn`t betray you! Oh, no, don`t! Don`t kill me! Let me live, please! Punish me, torture me, but let me live! I can`t die with all those lives on my conscience! All that blood on my hands!
[Dracula picks up Renfield with his bony hands and in a few seconds, Renfield dies]
Innkeeper: Castle Dracula?
Renfield: Yes. That`s where I`m going.
Innkeeper: To the castle?
Renfield: Yes.
Innkeeper: No. You musn`t go there. We people of the mountains believe in the castle there are vampires. Dracula and his wives - they take the form of wolves and bats. They leave their coffins at night and they feed on the blood of the living.
Count Dracula: Van Helsing.
[Van Helsing turns to face Count Dracula]
Count Dracula: Now that you have learned what you have learned, it would be well for you to return to your own country.
Van Helsing: I prefer to remain and protect those whom you would destroy.
Count Dracula: You are too late. My blood now flows through her veins. She will live through the centuries to come, as I have lived.
Van Helsing: Should you escape us, Dracula. We know how to save Miss Mina`s soul if not her life.
Count Dracula: If she dies by day. But I shall see that she dies by night.
Van Helsing: And I will have Carfax Abbey torn down, stone by stone, excavated a mile around. I will find your earth-box and drive that stake through your heart.
Count Dracula: Come here.
[Dracula raises his hand to hypnotise Van Helsing]
Count Dracula: Come here.
[Van Helsing takes three hypnotised steps towards Dracula but soon steps back, resisting Dracula`s hypnotic power over him]
Count Dracula: Your will is strong, Van Helsing.
[Van Helsing reaches out for his crucifix as Dracula looms toward him]
Count Dracula: More wolfbane?
Van Helsing: More effective than wolfbane, Count.
Count Dracula: Indeed.
[Dracula lunges towards Van Helsing. Van Helsing holds up the crucifix. Dracula snarls and turns away. Van Helsing, in triumph, puts away the crucifix]
Count Dracula: I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.
Count Dracula: Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.
Martin: Aren`t you ashamed now? Aren`t you? Spiders now, is it? Flies ain`t good enough!
Renfield: Flies? Flies? Poor puny things! Who wants to eat flies?
Martin: You do, you loony!
Renfield: Not when I can get nice fat spiders!
Martin: All right, have it your own way.
Van Helsing: Gentlemen, we are dealing with the undead.
Scholar: Nosferatu
Van Helsing: Yes, Nosferatu.
Count Dracula: Listen to them. Children of the night. What music *they* make.
Count Dracula: This is very old wine. I hope you will like it.
Renfield: Aren`t you drinking?
Count Dracula: I never drink wine.
Renfield: I`m loyal to you Master, I `m your slave, I didn`t betray you! Oh no, don`t! Don`t kill me! Let me live, please! Punish me - torture me - but let me live! I can`t die with all those lives on my conscience, all that blood on my hands!
Van Helsing: You`ll die in torment if you die with innocent blood on your soul.
Renfield: God will not damn a poor lunatic`s soul. He knows that the powers of evil are too great for those with weak minds.
Count Dracula: To die, to be *really* dead, that must be glorious!
Mina Seward: Why, Count Dracula!
Count Dracula: There are far worse things awaiting man than death.
Lucy Weston: 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!
Van Helsing: The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.
Maid: He`s crazy!
Martin: They`re all crazy. They`re all crazy except you and me. Sometimes I have my doubts about you.
Maid: Yes.
Count Dracula: The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly... The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.
Mina Seward: ...I heard dogs howling. And when the dream came, it seemed the whole room was filled with mist. It was so thick, I could just see the lamp by the bed, a tiny spark in the fog. And then I saw two red eyes glaring at me. And a white livid face came down out of the mist. It came closer and closer. I felt its breath on my face and then its lips... oh!
Renfield: [overhearing Van Helsing discussing vampires] Isn`t this a strange conversation, for people who aren`t crazy?
Count Dracula: [tries to hypnotize Van Helsing and fails] Your will is strong.
[tries to attack]
Van Helsing: [takes out a crucifix without fear] Indeed.
Mina Seward: [doing an impression of Dracula] It reminds me of the broken battlements of my own castle in Transylvania.
[chuckles]
Mina Seward: Oh, Lucy, you`re so romantic!
Lucy Weston: Laugh all you like. I think he`s fascinating.
Mina Seward: Oh, I suppose he`s all right. But give me someone a little more normal.
Lucy Weston: Like John?
Mina Seward: Yes, dear, like John.
Lucy Weston: [dreamily] Castle... Dracula... Transylvania!
Mina Seward: Well, Countess! I`ll leave you to your count and his ruined abbey!
[both giggle]
Mina Seward: Good night, Lucy.
Lucy Weston: Good night, dear.
Renfield: He came and stood below my window in the moonlight. And he promised me things, not in words, but by doing them.
Van Helsing: Doing them?
Renfield: By making them happen. A red mist spread over the lawn, coming on like a flame of fire! And then he parted it, and I could see that there were thousands of rats, with their eyes blazing red,l ike his, only smaller. Then he held up his hand, and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying: "Rats! Rats! Rats! Thousands! Millions of them! All red-blood! All these will I give you! If you will obey me!"
Van Helsing: What did he want you to do?
Renfield: That which has already been done!
[giggles sinisterly]
Renfield: You know too much to live, Van Helsing!
Trivia
Although he lived for 67 years after the film was released, David Manners (John Harker) never watched it.
Dracula opened at the Fulton Theater on October 5, 1927 for 261 performances with Bela Lugosi.
Apparently morose over the loss of friend and collaborator Lon Chaney and in the midst of severe alcoholism, the normally meticulous Tod Browning was said to have been sullen and unprofessional during the shoot. Among his actions were to leave set, leaving cinematographer Karl Freund to direct scenes. He would also recklessly tear pages out of the script if he felt them to be redundant.
Before he was cast as Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi acted as an unpaid intermediary for Universal Pictures in negotiating with the widow of author Bram Stoker in an attempt to persuade her to lower her asking price for the filming rights to the Dracula property. After two months of negotiations, Mrs. Stoker reportedly lowered her price from $200,000 to $60,000. This, however, further demonstrated to Universal how desperate Lugosi was to repeat his stage success as Count Dracula and secure the film role for himself.
Universal acquired the film rights to "Dracula" from Bram Stoker`s widow and the play`s writer Hamilton Deane for $40,000.
The original plan was to make a big-budget adaptation of "Dracula" that would adhere strictly to Bram Stoker`s novel. However, with the Great Depression, Universal didn`t have the money to make such a sprawling film. Instead, they opted to adapt the much less expensive Hamilton Deane stage play.
When Bela Lugosi died in 1956, he was buried wearing the black silk cape he wore for this film.
The movie`s line "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." was voted as the #83 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
When Carl Laemmle moved Universal to California in 1914, a version of "Dracula" was one of the first projects being considered. It was over fifteen years before this version was produced.
In the first scene, the young woman reading from the tourist book was played by Carla Laemmle. Her uncle was Carl Laemmle, the founder and head of Universal Pictures.
In the scene where Dracula and Renfield are traveling to London by boat, the footage shown is from a Universal silent film called The Storm Breaker (1925). Silent film was projected at a high frames-per-second speed than sound-on-sound film, accounting for the jerky movements and quicker-than-normal action of the `The Storm Breaker` shots.
The opening music to this film is from Act 2 of Swan Lake.
Bette Davis (who had a contract at Universal at the time) was considered to play the part of Mina Harker. However, Universal head Carl Laemmle Jr. didn`t think too highly of her sex appeal.
The peasants inside the inn are praying The Lord`s Prayer in Hungarian.
This Universal production became the most famous and successful film to pair `David Manners` with Helen Chandler. The pair had made two films at Warner Brothers/First National and one at Fox.
Bela Lugosi played Dracula only once more on screen, in the comedy Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Several famous elements often associated with Dracula are not visible in this film. At no point does Dracula display fangs. Also, the famous vampire bite mark on the neck is never shown either (though it is visible in the Spanish version).
There was no real musical soundtrack in the film because it was believed that, with sound being such a recent innovation in films, the audience would not accept hearing music in a scene if there was no explanation for it being there (e.g., the orchestra playing off camera when Dracula meets Mina at the theatre).
The studio did not want the scene where Dracula attacks Renfield to be filmed due to the perceived gay subtext of the situation. A memo was sent to the director stating "Dracula is only to attack women".
While it is rumored that Bela Lugosi, could not speak English very well, and had to learn his lines phonetically, this is not true. Lugosi was speaking English as well as he ever would by the time this was filmed.
After the death of Lon Chaney, one of the first actors considered for the title role was Ian Keith.
As was done for Frankenstein (1931), the original release featured a prologue introduction with Edward Van Sloan. This prologue was removed for the 1936 re-release. This footage is now assumed to be lost.
When this film was re-released after the Production Code, several deletions were ordered made to the soundtrack. The deletions include Renfield`s scream as he is being killed and Dracula`s moan as the stake is driven through his heart. These deletions have been restored.
Due to studio demands to cut costs, the film was shot in sequence.
Bela Lugosi played the role of Dracula on Broadway in 1927 before touring the country with the show. The American performance of the British stage actor Hamilton Deane`s adaptation of the book was a smashing success. Soon after the play began touring Universal started to express interest in the script.
The spider webs in Dracula`s castle were created by shooting rubber cement from a rotary gun.
Bela Lugosi was so desperate to repeat his stage success and play the Count Dracula role for the film version, that he agreed to a contract paying him $500 per week for a seven week shooting schedule, an insultingly small amount even during the days of the Depression.
Among the other actors mentioned as possible candidates for the role of Count Dracula were John Wray, Paul Muni, Conrad Veidt, Chester Morris, and William Courtenay.
The large, expansive sets built for the Transylvania castle and Carfax Abbey sequences remained standing after filming was completed, and were used by Universal Pictures for many other movies for over a decade.
The Royal Albert Hall sequence of the movie was filmed on the same stage where The Phantom of the Opera (1925) had been filmed.
Cinematographer Karl Freund achieved the effect of Dracula`s hypnotic stare by aiming two pencil-spot-lights into actor Bela Lugosi`s eyes.
A Spanish-language version, Drácula (1931/I), was filmed at night on the same set at the same time, with Spanish-speaking actors.
The role of Dracula was originally meant for Lon Chaney.
Universal Studios commissioned a new musical score from composer Philip Glass. It premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music on 26 October 1999.
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Bela Lugosi
(as Count Dracula)
with Helen Chandler
(as Mina Harker)
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