Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen [Reprint ed.] 0393308057, 9780393308051

Citation preview

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2010

http://www.archive.org/details/hollywoodgothiOOskal

LL! 1991

HUGO AWARD NOMINATION-YEAR'S

DRACULA life

C

of a

LIVES! And

in

this

we follow

icon,

cultural

cnttcally

cobwebby,

archetypal

the

BEST NONFICTION

acclaimed excursion through the

vampire's

from

trajectory

relentless

Victorian literary oddity to master media myth of the twentieth century.

"Ever since my heady discovery

at the

age of twelve of a dog-eared pocket-book

Bram Stoker's classic, I've considered myself something of a Dracula expert. But now I'm humbled— David J. Skal's fascinating chronicle of the great vampire's ascent into pop-cultural legend is crammed fiill of enough revelations, insights and surprises to warm the blood of any chiller fanatic." edition of

JOE DANTE, DIRECTOR OF GREMLINS "Fascinating

.

into

.

AND THE HOWLING

steps beyond the bounds of normal research something approaching archeology." .

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ".

.

.

handsomely designed

.

.

.

diligently researched

.

.

.

neatly illuminates Dracula's evolution."

KIRKUS REVIEWS terrific trivia "Absolutely gorgeous ... a brilliant feat of scholarship one of the finest modern examinations of the Dracula phenomenon." .

.

.

.

.

.

LOCUS "Witty, comprehensive ... for those who take Halloween seriously, trick-or-treaters are gone." is something to gnaw on long after those

this

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW "One of

the finest efforts in the the realm of film history

and popular culture

to

come along

in recent years."

THE BERGEN RECORD "Awesomely

entertaining."

THE FLINT JOURNAL SKAL

author of three acclaimed novels of horror and science connoisseur When We Were Good and Antibodies.

DAVID

J.

fiction,

including Scavengers,

is

the

A

of popular obsessions, he is currently completing The Monster Show, a cultural Norton & Company history of horror in America, to be published by

WW.

m

1992.

y

>-;w

BOOKS BY DAVID

J.

SKAL

Novels

SCAVENGERS

WHEN WE WERE GOOD ANTIBODIES Non-Fiction

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

Frontispiece: the three weird listen stand

guard

at the castle in

film version

Unnersal's 19)1

o/Dracula.

(Photofest)

nij.monuopf] NEW YORK LONDON •

Y

Copyright ^

1990 by Visual Cortex Ltd.

All rights reserved.

Printed

in the

United States ot America.

Excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Copyright Reprinted by permission of Harper

A

complete search has been conducted

at the

pre- 1977 registration and renewal records of

The

text ot this

book

is

author and publisher regret will

include an appropriate

documentation of copyright

composed

display set in

Composition by the Sarabande Press,

Inc.

previously published visual

any inadvertent omission of acknowledgement and if

I960 by Harper Lee.

U.S. Copyright Office for

all

The

materials used as text illustrations in this book.

credit in future editions

^

Row, Publishers,

8C

in Cloister

Roman

is

provided.

with the

Huxley Vertical Bold.

New

York, and Solotype, Oakland. California.

Manufactured by Courier Companies.

Inc.,

Westford. Massachusetts.

Designed bv the author. First published as a

Norton paperback

1991.

Library of Congress cataloging-in-Publication Data

Skal, David

Hollywood

web

gothic: the tangled

stage to screen

J.

ot

Dracula from novel

by David

/

J.

to

Skal

cm.

p.

Includes bibliographical references and index. I.

Stoker, Bram. 1847-1912. Dracula.

4.

2.

Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912-Adaptations.

Stoker, Bram,

1847-1912— Film and video adaptations. Horror tales, English— History and criticism. 5. Vampire films— history and criticism. 8. Dracula, Count (Fictitious character) 7. Vampires in literature. I. Title. PR6057.T6170787 1990 3.

823'.8-dc20

ISBN 0-393-5080^-7 W.W. Norton &: Company, Inc., ^00 W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd., 10

Fifth

Avenue.

New

York, N.\'. 10110

Coptic Street, London

234567890

WCIA IPU

for

Raymond Huntley

Originals,

who

fid

told

Lupita Tovar

me

the tale.

[E Introduction

CASTLES, COBWEBS,

AND CANDELABRA

3

Chapter One

MR. stoker's

book OF BLOOD

Chapter Two

THE ENGLISH WIDOW AND THE GERMAN COUNT 43

Chapter Three 'a

NURSE WILL BE IN ATTENDANCE AT ALL PERFORMANCES. 65

Chapter Four

A DEAL FOR THE DEVIL, OR, HOLLYWOOD BITES 93

Chapter Five

THE GHOST GOES WEST

HI

Chapter Six

THE SPANISH DRACULA 153

Chapter Seven

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC 179

DRACULA AT A GLANCE 201

Notes

223

Acknowledgements

233

Index

237

"Don't have any picture shows here, except Jesus ones

in the

courthouse sometimes," said Jem. "Ever seen anything good?" Dill

had seen Dracula, a revelation that moved Jem with the beginning of respect. "Tell

Harper Lee, To

Kill a

y

it

to eye

to us," he said.

Mockingbird

him

W

'

•^.M

Introduction

CflSlLtLCOG

S

In which the reader draws nearer to a

shuddering the

Count

modem

and

in delicious anticipation,

he a closer relation than previously

to

imagined, not reflected in mirrors, but lurking all the

THE IMAGE, OF COURSE, woman — blonde,

A

pillowcase

upon

myth,

discovers

them

AND WHITE.

IN BLACK

IS

in

same.

platinum-bobbed,

her

framed

face

by

a

satin

— succumbs to sleep, and more. As her eyes close, looking inward

a dream, a mist swirls outside her

open window, and within

its

gray

depths, like an obscene, winged metronome, a huge bat hovers, eyes blazing.

The cameras

gaze

— our gaze — returns to the dreaming

girl,

then slowly pulls

back to reveal the black-cloaked hgure that has replaced the flapping bat the window. It ...

moves forward

we have been here

before,

silently,

we know what

throws the features into sharp

on the

pillow.

The dark

sleeper's

neck

is

The

scene

is

lips

The

relief.

white as radium

.

.

this

is

.

lamp

the

.

.

talonlike fingers

at the bedside

make

indentations

revealing a deeper darkness

part,

at

with the cold deliberation of a panther

still.

The

.

everyone

in the late twentieth

may not be

able to identify the

instantly recognizable to almost

century as a pivotal scene from Dracula.

We

exact version of the film, or even the performers involved, but the primal

image of the black-caped vampire has become an

modern

imagination. Its recognition factor probably

indelible fixture

rivals, in its

own

of the

perverse

"Children of the ntght

—

vhat

music they make!" Beta Lugosi

way, the familiarity of Santa Claus.

performs a disappearing act

Without knowing anything of without prompting the salient

the myth's origins,

most of us can

characteristics of the vampire — how

it

recite

sleeps by

trick publicity shot

in this

from the 1931

Dracula. (Pholofest)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC day, rising

from

coffin-bed at dusk to feed on the blood of

its

form of a

ability to take the

stake driven through crucifix, or the

its

how

bat, a wolf, or mist;

heart,

and

by

effectively repelled

power of the Eucharist.

We have

it

must

garlic,

wolfbane, the

received this information by a

curious cultural transfusion, not by direct experience psychological level

living; its

tlie

can be destroyed by a

it

.

.

and yet on some

.

some kind of universal knowledge, however

reflect

veiled or obscure.

Ever adaptable, Dracula has been a

literary Victorian sex nightmare, a

stock figure of theatrical melodrama, a movie icon, a trademark, cuddle swizzle stick,

Dracula

and breakfast

tantalizingly

begs the question put to the ghost

in

Hamlet: "Be thou a

of health or goblin damned."'

spirit

The

appeal of Dracula

and black cape, so

Most monsters kills.

toy,

Complex, contradictory, and confounding,

cereal.

is

hair,

white

tie

take and trample. Dracula alone seduces, courting before he

Unlike other monsters, he

looks too

The emphatic

decidedly ambiguous.

striking at first glance, rapidly yield endless shades of gray.

much

like

one of

us.

not always recognizable as such. Dracula

is

With

he mocks our concepts of

patent-leather shoes and patent-leather

civility

and

society, uses

them

as brazen

camouflage, the better to stalk us, his readers, his film audiences, his prey. Dracula didn't begin in Hollywood, but

momentum. The

film

The magic

occult.

medium

had

itself

I-angella in the

traveled there with an inexorable origins in the trappings of the

lantern salons of Paris in the late 1700s projected bat-

winged demons on clouds of smoke to Frank

Broadway

it

its

terrify

and entertain the ancestors of

1977

rcuval. with sets

and

costumes by Edward Corey. (Photo courtesy of the estate of

Kenn

the

modern motion

of the movies, as dismiss what

we

picture audience.

if

Even today we

still

speak of the "magic"

despite our sophistication about special effects

see

on the screen

as just a set

we cannot

Maxim Gorky, writing Moscow in 1896, the year

of tricks.

Duncan, ©1977)

on the introduction of Lumieres Cinematographe

in

before Draculas publication, was deeply disturbed by what he beheld.

Gorky, cinema

itself

death. "\bur nerves are strained, imagination carries you to

monotonous the

life

people

life,

a

life

without color and without sound, but

who have been

deprived of

unnati:rally

of

movement,

all

silence,

the colors of life."'

himself seems to have had certain ambitions for Dracula as a

theatrical entertainment,

though a successful stage adaptation would not be

realized until after his death.

found

some fiill

of ghosts, or of people, damned to the damnation of eternal

Bram Stoker

To

was a technological vampire that promised a kind of living

But Dractda and vampire

their greatest expression in the

stories in general have

popular media, be they penny-dreadfiil

novels, stage melodramas, or movies. Dractda has been a hallmark of the

motion picture from the early days of German expressionism. The character has been depicted

in film

single possible exception

more times than almost any

fictional being, with the

of Sherlock Holmes, and has now so pervaded the

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

Bat-uinged demons were earliest projected

public, forging

film

and

images

the

a prototypical link between

the fantastic. Abote. the

Fantasmagorie as circa

among

to entertain the

it

was seen

m

Paris

1797. (Collection of the

Cinematheque Fran^aise)

The vampire

as movie usher: a

contemporary metaphor poster.

Cuba)

in

a

Cuban

filn

(Courtesy of the Cinemateca de

Introduction

world of communications and advertising that the novel or see one of the

Count and This

be the

is

last.

history,

it is

no longer necessary to read

film adaptations to be thoroughly acquainted with

his exploits.

not the

book written on

first

the subject of Draada. and

it

will

not

But most treatments to date have largely ignored the fascinating

now

men and women whose

nearly a cenniry old, of the

become entangled irresistible,

its

and

the

in

lives

have

myth's peculiar power. DracuLt has exerted an

at times, Faustian attraction

upon numerous

individuals

who

used the ever-expanding dream-machinery of publishing, theatre, and film to

power and expand

exploit the story's

This book the

historical

psychology.

A

is

also,

its

influence.

without apology, eclectic and interdisciplinary, mixing

own

record with the author's

observations on culture and

completely straightforward academic history would simply not

do the subject matter

justice; the Dracula legend rudely refuses to observe

conventional parameters of discussion, and touches upon areas as disparate as

Romantic and the

literature

politics

Whatever texts

of

all

and modern marketing research, Victorian sexual mores

of the Hollywood studio system.

else

it

might be, Dracula

is

certainly

younger with age, drawing

vitality

from

to attract the serious notice text.

As

the

1

critics, the

of academics as a

story seems to get

and attracting an ever-

a hundred years, and in the

in print for nearly

Victorian

The

longevity,

its

widening public. Originally scorned by the

remained

one of the most obsessional

time, a black hole of the imagination.

book has nonetheless last

decade has begun

significant, if problematic,

997 Dracula centenary approaches, there

will

no doubt

be even more books, revivals, and reappraisals.

The Hollywood of Hollywood the psychic shadow-land theatre to which

we

we

all

Gothic

is

inhabit to

less the

geographical location than

one extent or another, the private

return again and again to watch the midnight movies of

our minds. For quite some time now, Dracula has been the perennial blockbuster attraction.

7^

01^

hud

^

a.

•(«

.

^.:6_-f^

'^'^

I

ctiia to

-

of

Trw advf

to

'Mih

ny

^9a-» cr'/wdm': uion n«.

id

imDngst what kind of pei>;l«^

ami

ture was it on which

and

)>*ny kina and which thraw long quiw»irin«

Chapter

One

OKOfflLOII In which a theatre reviving

manager pens a

a Gothic

tradition,

tale

unspoken tensions between the sexes. portrait, in the actor,

who

terror,

An

ambiguous

manner of Mr. Wilde, of a celebrated knight and is

The unexpected appearance of

not amused.

Mr. Wilde himself old

an

of surpassing

while indirectly addressing

inattentive wife,

rivalries

and a

and new

revelations,

lingering malady.

In the rare books

room of a small

on a

tree-lined

street in Philadelphia

a leather slipcase containing a sheaf of

mounted note

is

cards, almost a century old but not yellowing

library'

— they are an exceptionally high

grade of linen stock, the property of Henry Irving's prestigious Royal Lyceum

Theatre theatre,

in

London. The notes contained on them do not pertain

and are addressed

to

no one other than the writer

to the

himself.

The

culmination of years of obsessional research and rumination, the working notes of an author of fiction, they are written in a able pencil scrawl, as

if

tiny,

often nearly indecipher-

the writer had miniattirized his

the dimensions of his paper.

A psychiatrist, the visitor

is

hand to complement told,

has spent nearly

ten years transcribing, annotating, and interpreting their contents.

The

fre-

quent cross-outs and marginal additions, trailing-off sentences and one-word reminders vividly depict the

fictional

process

— the

writer intuitively steering MamiiCTipt page from

his

unconscious through the refinement of language, discovering the incanta-

tory words and patterns of words that can best describe the troubling image

and give

it

a

form

Dead,

later titled

introducing

The Un-

Dracula,

The Count and

demonstrating Stoker's technique of

in the world.

composition. (Courtesy of John

The

first

page, headed Historiae Personae,

tional characters. Several

names are

lists

seventeen embryonic

unfamiliar: Kate Reed, a

fic-

young English-

McLaughlin. The Book Orange, California)

Sail,

HOI.I.YWOOn GOTHIC

10

woman; Cotford,

mute woman and "a

favor

in

man," servants

silent

names and characters

And

European

to a mysterious Eastern

ring

more

Dr. Seward. Lucy

familiar.

A

Westenra. Wilhelmina Murray. Jonathan Marker. getting life," one entry says).

as Alfred

Max Windshoefifel; an "American inventor of "A Texan — Brutus M. Marix"); a deaf-

professor,

from Texas" (discarded

count. Other

known

a detective; a "psychical research agent"

German

Singleton; a

mad

patient ("theory of

very nearly at the center of the page, the

author has scrawled the name of his pivotal character: Count Wampyr.

Somehow,

stand for an indeterminate period of time.

was too the

.

.

obvious?

.

Rumanian words

and

for Satan

notes

in his

He

let it

didn't work. Perhaps

consulted his typewritten notes.

He

there had to be better. Yes,

— something. He struck out the old name and inked

Wallachian diminutive for "devil,"

till

it

had recorded

and perhaps considered the pos-

hell,

Count Ordog? Count Pokol? No,

sibilities there.

elsewhere

He

it

in

a

then unheard in England:

Draada.

Did

it

He

sound right?

wrote the name again

at the top

of the page, twice, flanking the

original heading. Draada. Draada.

Yes.

One

final time, then, in the

top

left

corner, boldly underscored:

COUNT DRACULA. Bram

Stoker's 1897 novel

puzzles in literary history, a

on the basis of

more than on or a

Bram

Stoker.

(Billy

Roic Theatre

Colleetion, ,\V»' York Public Library at

Lincoln Center. Aitor, Lenox and Tildcn

Foundations)

stylist

the

influential

surveys (although

Cabin and Abie's in

and that only

nineteenth century.

It

has never

of the twentieth cenniry, and the Draada legacy

will

no

is

no mean

feat for

an icon of popular culture,

one consistendy ignored or denigrated by the "respectable"

authorities.

Nosferatu has

late

cannot avoid the

yet DraaiLt remains

and him adaptations are among the most

Stoker's

name does not appear

Victorian literature, the stage version

sidestepped

classic

into the twenty-first.

span of centuries

especially for critical

critics

print. Its theatrical

doubt continue

A

— even his most partisan — and

connection with his minor works

in

most widely read novels of the

and

intriguing

of a minor

technical or narrative achievement. Stoker was not an innovator

been out of indelible

that has attained the status

stubborn longevity and disturbing psychological resonance

of any distinction

word "hack"

among

its

Draada presents one of the most

book

it

in the

Draada achieved

most textbooks of

Only through

in

theatre

1920s rivaling Lhiclc Tom's

and the landmark 1931

film histories.

in

almost never mentioned

enjoyed a popularity

Irish Rose),

most

is

film version

the pirated

a quasi-respectable niche in

is

usually

German

modern

silent

art circles,

in retrospect.

Yet Draada persists. In the words of Dr.

Abraham Van Helsing

in

the

Mr. Stokers Book of Blood

~^

X \jf^^^

Q^,ieJM Thea.. W. 49 St. rULlUlN H.I.. wed 4S.t KXTRA MATS. XMA8

Wells, the

maid, supplied comic

president of the Actors'

Fund

relief.

until

She would

her death in

1

later

In addition to the rewritten script, the play had a

tt

much more

Hamilton Deane's need

to

keep down properties costs resulted

in

Liveright's

presence

vampire almost smashing a mirror, then thinking better of

able to spring for a

new

it;

Liveright was

piece of glass for every performance (with the press

agent quick to point out Lugosi's great good luck with the part, despite

breaking mirrors night after night).

The London Dracula was

and malignant; Lugosi presented quite a different picture:

Latin lover

from beyond the grave, Valentino gone

combination that worked, and audiences

makeup

slightly rancid. It

— especially

his

middle-aged

sexy, continental,

with slicked-back patent-leather hair and a weird green cast to his

YKAR-S D.AVS

Dracula was a constant

in the theatre

1927 and 1928. his

NEW

substantial

physical production, with sets by veteran designer Joseph Physioc, and elaborate effects.

II

989.

—a

was a

female audiences

—

pages

in

HOI.I/iWOOD GOTHIC

86

even wallowed

relished,

With

on

a hit

his

the romantic paradoxes.

in,

hands, Liveright set his general manager

high gear, plastering the city with heralds and ciation guide to the

demon

painted a

Broadway show

("DRAK-u-la"

title

rhyme

that the public might

the

name

the

advised, apparently for fear

fliers

became one of

face with bat-wing ears that logos;

appeared on posters,

it

Cline into

Lxjiiis

complete with a pronun-

with "hula"). Artist Vernon Short

and was even manufactured

letterhead,

fliers,

the earliest

the show's business

fliers,

The

mask.

as a souvenir

prowling

English nurse had been replaced with an American counterpart, and while the

New York

production never matched Hamilton Deane's record oi thirty-nine

"faints" at a single performance, eight patrons

As The New

nervous shock.

overcome spectators were

in

traffic tickets,

be not a

commercial collusion with the management were

more

received in quiet dignity, or

had to be treated for purported

York Times reported, "Cynical hints that the

likely

by some further enterprise: a series of

perhaps, which, having been tied to an automobile, turned out to

summons

to court but

an order to appear

and limerick contests.

perhaps reacting to the profit

volatile fortunes

margin for Dracula began

Broadway show of the

Freedman making

stickers

and hats

.

of a touring production.

viability

And

."'" .

Despite the good press and good box

of the

A

at the Fulton at once.

baseball schedule, properly decorated with advertising.

time.

at

"The

office, Liveright

He of

on

it

his

other business interests. His

^7,000 a week, a decidedly low "nut" for a play

is

doing extremely well," noted Harold

to his partner Carl Brandt, "over

a very large profit

was not convinced

was being overly cautious, or

^13,000

last

week, and Horace

is

because of the cheapness of the company."^'

Nonetheless, Liveright hesitated on taking a chance with a tour.

Hamilton Deane, who had touring little

Rorace LiveriphL pretenis

Sensational Vampue Mystery Flay '

j/ie

in his

from the American production owing

with Florence Stoker, was frustrated by the road.

He

let

know

Balderston

blood, and

who was

earning very

to the harsh terms of his contract

Horaces reluctance

that his patience

to take Dracula

was nearing

its

on

end, and he

was prepared to take the same steps Mrs. Stoker had taken with the Morrell adaptation.

He

announced

that he

was preparing

new vampire

a

play,

Adrcrtiiiiig art for the touring production.

had nothing to do with Dracula and which he would own outright.

(Free Library of Philadelphia Theatre

would tour

in

it

America

to capitalize

one that

And

he

on the publicity of the Liveright

Collection)

production

if

Liveright continued to

sit

on Dracula.

Balderston wrote Freedman that Deane's unfinished vampire play "will

probably be snapped up and put on the road by somebody as

I

in

wrote Horace, you can't copyright the vampire idea,

effective

one

in

backwoods who about

in

it,

New it

is

York,

a

for,

new and

the theatre, and there are probably a million people in the will

whether

go it

is

to a theatre if they hear there's a

Dracula or some other

.

.

." It

vampire walking

would be

in

Deane's

.

"A Nurse Will Be

in

Attaidanee at All Performances

87

The Count

is

effectively repelled

by

Van Helping and the power of the Host. Bela Lugosi and Edward

Van Sloan both would repeat

their

stage roles on film. (Courtesy of

Ronald Posters)

Balderston concluded, to "skim off the vampire cream ahead of

interest,

Horace

if

he can, because he has been badly done by the Stoker executor and

gets only

As

10%

of their royalties from the American production."'^

the box office receipts began to

wane

in the

spring of 1928, Liveright

decided to gamble on the money-making potential of a tour, and subcontracted the west coast rights to producer O. D.

Woodward. The

play

closed at the Fulton after thirty-three weeks and 241 performances, earning a total

of ^350,857.50," including

its

New Haven

tryout. Lugosi

and Jukes

joined the west coast company, which played ten weeks in Los Angeles and

San Francisco and grossed ^108,080.''' Dracula no one wanted to "awesome,

resist.

fever was a national epidemic

A Santa Barbara critic summed

exciting, revolting

it

up, calling the play

and quite unhealthy, but so are many of the

things that give us a kick these days."'^

V.

BoTstlHollywood Movie

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC It

was

Encouraged by the California success, Liveright

just the beginning.

and Cline mounted

their

own

tour of the eastern seaboard and the midwest.

This time, Liveright was able to obtain Raymond Huntley,

New

York, "very

Huntley

recalled.

He

his first

because Bela Lugosi wanted too

likely

accepted ^250 a week for the tour

choice for

much money,"

— twice

Liveright s

original offer.

Huntley remembered Liveright

him because he wanted me at all; I

put

thought

my

usual

it

to

green, and a week or two

wear green makeup and

later,

on the 'subway

I

was

in

in

call

didn't take

I

We opened

a reminder that

got an extremely abrasive telephone

was asked to do,

had a great disagreement with

clash. "I

was just bloody nonsense.

makeup on and got

I

in

circuit,' in the

I

Bronx,

that either

me

to incur that kind of trouble so

him

seriously

Atlantic City and

I

was supposed to wear

from Liveright

green makeup, or he would report

no position

and austere," but had a

as "slightly distant

one major

vivid recollection of their

to Equity.

I I

think,

I

did as

I

Of

course

went out and bought

"

some green

greasepaint.

Huntley would also be surprised by the lengths

would go

in fabricating press releases.

to

which Louis Cline

For the Philadelphia engagement, the

papers reported that Huntley was a master of theatrical makeup, inspired by

Lon Chaney, who was even consulted by

the police in their investigations. "I

once converted the head of a famous detective into a

was quoted as having

said.

"He

was then seated

with a murder was brought into the room.

The

fleshless skull,

in a chair

and a

"

Huntley

man charged

criminal was so frightened that

he made a complete confession." So advanced was Huntley's cosmetological magic, the story held, that he could "make a negro out of a white man, or vice versa, so convincingly that not even his best friend could

tell

Perhaps best of all was the claim that Huntley could "make a or a

Bfld iMgoii makes a hypnotic pas at

a pliable maid (Nedda

Harrigan)

in the

New

York

production. (Free Library of

Philadelphia Theatre Collection)

woman

out of any

man

in

one hour," as

if

the

first

the difference." devil, a skeleton,

two forms led somehow

"A Nurse Will Be

in

Attendance at All Performances

was

It

Compared

American hoopla machine doing

just the great

to his experiences in

89

.

Huntley knew nothing of his uncanny

naturally to the third.''' Needless to say,

powers.

." .

its

work.

London, Huntley recalled the American

production was "a complete change, a physically more expensive and

suppose you could say managed production."

performance onstage, only on the top, but

I

think

Horace

His reaction?

film.

He "I

I

never saw the Lugosi

thought

it

on

Liveright would have insisted

was way over that."

Did he

have any regrets over turning down the Broadway role that had made Lugosi a star?

"No,

many

years after rather a sore spot with

here,

you know, and worked with well-known directors and made authentic

to tell

progress in

my

you the

truth, I

was young and naive and Dracula was for

me

because

I really

should have stayed

profession." (Huntley, of course, went on to a far happier

career in the theatre than Lugosi would ever know, his hundreds of memorable characterizations including

work

in

such films as

Retrtbrandt,

Room

at the Top,

and Young Winston, and innumerable West End appearances. The theatre world was saddened to learn of

his

death

in

June, 1990.)

Touring, Horace Liveright knew, was expensive. Draculas profit margin

was

ofifset

attraction.

to

some extent by

the outlay of an extra

^300

to

the increased advertising required by a "novelty"

But the investment

^500

a

week

^50

at the

in

box

paid:

manager Cline found

ofifice.

And

the

number of publicity

could be conjured up for Dracula appeared to be endless. in

that, consistently,

promotion would translate into an additional

At

the

stunts that

Ohio Theatre

Cleveland, the uniformed nurse routine was augmented with "faint checks"

refunding admission prices pro rata for performance time missed by patrons indisposed by shock for any portion of the evening.^''

By May 1929,

Liveright s total earnings

dollars. Less than a year later, the figure

on Dracula exceeded a

million

was reported to be approaching two

million.

Raymond

Huntley, meannhile,

interpreted the

audiences the

in

same moment for

London. (Courtesy of

Dracula Society)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

90

In spite of the income, Liverights cash flow problems persisted. Both Stoker

and Balderston were not receiving

As

mercurial showman. realize, too, that

he

the Stoker group

contract to

renew

in

dealing with

is

.

.

.

their royalties in a timely fashion

Balderston complained to his agent,

there

is

for he

is

should

some very temperamental people over

here,

nothing to stop them from denouncing their

the middle of the run and compelling

it,

from the

"He

him

violating that contract right

to put

and

up

a big

premium

left."***

Florence Stoker, of course, would have to be extremely hard-pressed to cancel the agreement Left to right: Bernard Jukes,

Edward Van

Sloan. Herbert Bunston, Terrence Neill

and Dorothy

Peterson.

The American

production dispensed with the trick

dummy.

renew.

He

— there

was as strapped

would be no guarantee that Liveright would

financially in his

way

as

Stoker was

in hers.

As

it

stood, however, there was income, however unpredictable.

Whatever

fragile sense

of control or predictability the widow possessed

Dracula instead providing a bloodcurdling offstage groan.

(Free Library of

Philadelphia Theatre Collection)

over Dracula

December

16,

in

the

autumn

of

1928 was to be abruptly shattered.

On

without prior announcement, the Film Society entertained

its

"A Nurse Will Be

members wich

Attendance at All Performances ..."

in

91

accompanied by an astounding

a private showing of Nosferatu,

statement: that they had obtained permission for the showing, not from Stoker, but from an

own

American motion

picture company,

who now claimed

to

the rights to Dracula.

What was

happening?

nightmare, the whole

She made angry

No

German

inquiries.

one owned the rights but her!

nightmare,

She wrote

it

to Thring.

to her cataract-clouded eyes a press cutting that

crazy dream. months,

make

The

it

And

was

finally

like

was the

—

she held close

something out of a

had been published two months before

article'''

and no one had told her! She read

sense of the words

It

was happening again

contained.

it

Was

— two

over again and again, trying to she going

mad? Was any of

it

possible?

"DRAGULrTO Universal A

BE FILMED.

Buy Screen Rights. FOR VEIDT?

PICTURE

" Dracula," the Bram Stoker,

late

famous which

traordinary success on the

by the had such ex-

thriller

London stage

and in the provinces recently, has been bought by Universal for the screen, and, be made into a full it is understood, to Unilone talking and sound picture. The purchase of " Dracula" is in accordance with Carl Laemmle's policy of obtaining for the screen those famous have proved themselves novels which amazing magnets as stage productions Prominent among the Universal as well. plums for the coming year are " .Show Boat," and " Broadway," the latter of which cost Laenunle j/!"45,ooo. No cast has been suggested yet, but the part of Count Dracula, the vampire, stated to be admirable for Conrad is Veidt.

Lies. All

but

of

it lies!

Germans

all

But above

the same.

all it

And

was Germans again

this

— new Germans, yes,

time they were in Hollywood.

y

«;..

^

Chapter Four

DHL

fl

IDtV

foil

Hollywood

or,

Bites

In which the picture people smell the blood, but hesitate

still,

and say

yes

and

German Count appears

the

must be stopped,

"l

NO TIME MUST

CONSIDER

no, in

lest

and

New

and

yes again,

York,

and

which

in

and

Detroit,

he spoil the occasion.

BE LOST OVER ENCLOSED,"

WROTE

FLO-

rence Stoker to G. Herbert Thring. She scribbled with feverish speed,

dropping prepositions and handwriting was huge,

articles in her haste to

fitting

reach the matter's meat.

someone

eyesight was failing badly. "I have only just this minute learned that

has

sold

company

pirated

the

Her

only a few sentences on each page; the widow's

of the

film

German

Dracula

to

an

American

."' .

.

This time, Thring was instantly supportive of the widow. "Whether the

performance was private or public does not matter. retain a film

which

is

examined the acknowledgment had sent him. "Can you

America purchased ica,

and who

is

No

person has a right to

an infringement of copyright," he assured

tell

in the

me from whom

the film rights?

her.

He

Film Society's program which Stoker the Universal Film

Whether Dracula

is

Company of

copyrighted

in

Amer-

Mr. J.V Bryson who has so courteously given consent

to an

infringing performance?"'

James Bryson, head of the European Film Company, was

in fact

UniverActor Conrad

sal's

point

man

in

England, a flamboyant promoter and showman

who had

already been embroiled in a bizarre scheme to smuggle into England a print of Universal's Phantom of the Opera as a publicity stunt.

He

had misrepresented

groomed by

Veidt.

Universal as the new Lon Chaney,

was the studio

's

first

choice for

Dracula. His appearance

in

The

Last Performance (1929) was

the film as sensitive military material in order to obtain a British military

escort

—a

photo opportunity,

in

short.

The scheme

backfired, a scandal

virtually

a screen

(Photofest)

test

for the role.

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

94

ensued, and the Lon Chaney classic was actually banned from the British

Empire

for five years as a consequence.

After receiving an interrogating

letter

from the Society

of Authors'

Messrs. Field Roscoe and Company, the Film Society retained

solicitors,

lawyers of

The Film

its

own, Gilbert Samuel and Company, who made a formal

Society had seen the front-page announcement

(the lawyers explained) indicating that

They

Universal.

Mrs. Stoker had sold her

then approached Bryson,

referred to a cable he had received

reply.

To-Day's Cinema

in

who confirmed

rights to

the story and

from Carl Laemmle, head of Universal

in

America, stating that the rights had indeed been purchased, and that he, as Universal's British distributor, had no objections to Nosferahts being

members of

shown

to

the Film Society.

Florence Stoker was adamant. She had never heard of these people. She

had never sold the rights to anyone. C. D. Medley, of Field Roscoe and Company, told Thring he was skeptical

of Bryson's

story,

"particularly as

find

I

it

was

he, or his

company, who

forwarded the announcement to the cinema weekly."' Bryson now disclaimed that he

had

explicitly given

permission for the performance.

Stoker did not have a face-to-face showdown with Nosfcratits aiders and

when

abettors until February 7, 1929,

the Bride of Dracula

herbivorous henchman, their solicitors

in tow.

which Montagu restated the history of the

affair,

A

met Nosferatus

tense meeting ensued, in

and denied that he had been

harboring the film since the previous controversy. (The program notes for the hor Montagu, pioneer

film presenationut

and Florence Stoker's nemesis.

performance stated that the print of the

(The Library of Congress)

as stock footage being readied for export to Australia in a safe located in the

same room the

Society's technical staff

original statement

from Bryson's

purchase, which only

film

happened

office

compounded

had been discovered, by chance,

to use.)

He

produced the

concerning the alleged Universal

the insult to Stoker:

the draft notice

contained a paragraph, struck before publication, to the effect that Stoker had

been asking £50,000, but Universal had been able to have

its

way with her

for

a considerably lesser sum. Fifiy thouicmd poimds!

the

lies

much? The

that sale.

Stoker could not believe what she was hearing

were bad enough, but

But

.

.

.

.

.

.

was

it

.

.

.

possible that she might be able to ask

draft did not, however, reveal the final terms of the fictitious

£50,000!

Montagu, round-faced, round-spectacled, an enfant

terrible with artistic

pretensions and communist leanings, must have been an almost incomprehensible figure to Stoker,

*According had

flirted

and she

to him.

Stoker was born poor and had spent her

to film historian Richard Koszarski, a noted expert

with the idea of filming Draaila as early as 1915.

on Universal, the snidio

A life

Deal for

the

95

Devil

maintaining a precarious foothold on the middle class;

born rich and now dabbled fashionably

in socialist circles!

He

He

He

didn't

seem

to

insisted that

what he

had probably been plotting

this for

understand the diiference between art and thievery.

had done was completely innocent.

Montagu had been

years!

Stoker demanded that the film be turned over. Montagu replied that

would be for

it

distinctly

— the Film Society had, after Was

this creature!

sidizing thieves

she

it

now

paid £40 for the print.

to pay for the privilege

was socialism

at

its

The

films

these criteria.

of

artistic

He would,

n

of being robbed? (Sub-

essence!) Stoker's lawyer pointed out it

fit

however, be prepared to give them a warrant that no

made of the

film during the period

Tuesday, December

again, but

or scientific interest. Nosferatu in his opinion

use of the film would be

^^ 'roDA.'Y's

insolence of

explained that one of the objects of the Film Society was to collect

and preserve

fijture

all,

was quite useless to him since he couldn't exhibit

that the film

Montagu

—

it

hard for him to give up the film without being compensated

1928.

18,

"DR AGUL

A."

Six-Year-Old Revival Fails

o{ Draculas

to

Make

Flesh Creep.

copyright without Stoker's express permission.

FILM SOCIETI'S SHOW PIRATED VERSION.

Stoker was outraged. She told Montagu precisely her opinion of the character of his infringement. to bargain.

The

film

The

was not something

Medley pressed Montagu might

film that

exist.

rights in the matter

Montagu

were hers, and not

his

to be preserved, but to be destroyed.

for information about additional prints of the

alluded to one copy in use in

France

— he had

Our flesh might havu crept six ago when Murnau put " .Xnstri.dii lore

when it

no

direct

knowledge of

but had seen the advertisements in the Parisian

it,

As

for America, yes, he believed

way of an organization

it

had traveled there as

called the International Film Arts Guild.

At

well,

by

So

it

least

one

had already happened, exactly as she feared: Nosferahi had reached its

was revived by

proved

relentless, infringing pestilence.

to ignore

Montagu's suggestion that they be

permitted to hold the film "as a sort of curiosity upon an understanding not to

profit

He

fi.irther

advised her that, while the Film Society had

worth mentioning

in the affair,

made no

formal legal action might well be taken

against Bryson and Universal, as a warning to the cinema trade that Stoker

alone held the film rights and that "any person

who

yt-ais "'

in

MMi

and

brilliant

photograpny

in the picture. yut ihev are nearer ic a photo album than a filni. It will be doubly interesting in this respect to see Ihat up-to-the minute version of " l)racula " which is scheduled for production by Universal. The sanguine exploits .of the blood-sucking Count should make an eerie but an entertaining feature. Of the stiorls shown the most fascinating ,.

was " A

wrote Medley, concerned that the Film Society might not be financially strong

fllass of Water " one of Hritisb Instructionars best efforts, in which the horrors that lie in our drinking water before it is filtered by the M.W.H. proved both -dreadful and decorative. Other items included a bright little

sides in the event of their losing an action

silhouette film of a Crinim fairly tale, an excellent subject for Vuletide amuse-

her

will

be dealt with.""*

The widow, enough

however, backed off "I

to pay the costs

on both

am

not anxious to go to law," she

brought against them.'' If they would pay the costs already incurred, the matter might be dropped. Bryson and Universal were unresponsive to requests for an explanation of their behavior. Stoker

them

fiarther.

She couldn't

afiford to alienate

them.

made no move

to challenge

However outrageous

their

ment, and a " nearly abstract" in which bowler hats defied gravity and men walked into lamp-posts and disappeared.

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

96

behavior, they were interested in f^aada. and they had

than she had ever seen at one time

By

March,

late

of Nosferatu

in

her

more money

to

spend

life.

the Film Society had agreed to turn over the positive print

in its possession.

Stoker expressed some ambivalence or confusion film. The matter was handed Company were similarly unversed in the myself know how these films are destroyed or

over the means by which she might destroy the over to the lawyers. Field Roscoe and requisite rituals. "I

whether

I

do not

have any means of doing

consider the matter

when

I

get

it."''

it,"

The

Medley wrote Thring, "but

record

is

silent

on the exact

will

fate

of

the film, but presumably the English print of Nosferatu was consigned to the

flames around the

first

of April, 1929.

Did Florence Stoker ever doing

battle,

and

finally

actually see Nosferatu? After seven long years of

capturing the enemy,

it

would seem strange indeed

if

she didn't insist on looking the thing in the face. But her letters leave the distinct impression that she considered the film it

might dignify

it.

Silent

better not seen. If she had once been

now

his

Lady Bracknell, on

Nosferatu, of course,

first

time

in

is

destroyed by sunlight for the

look at

indeed on

all

points, firm.

would go on to be recognized as a landmark of world

adaptation ever would, or ever could. vampire

To

Oscar Wildes Cecily Cardew, she was

this point, as

cinema, elevating the estimation of Dracula

A

beneath contempt.

movie vampires could not be heard, and they were

adaptation, the piece had

begun

its

in

a

way no other dramatic

With Hamilton Deane's

constricted

descent into kitsch; Nosferatu, however,

Nosferatu. Unfortunately for

Florence Stoker, the film easily dealt with.

itself

(Photofest)

was not so

had mined Draadas metaphors and focused

its

meanings

into visual poetry. It

had achieved for the material what Florence Stoker herself would never

A

Deal for

achieve: artistic legitimacy. For

all

the Devil

97

popular fascination, Dracula would

its

forever be an object of critical condescension. Nosferatu was not Stoker's only contretemps over the film rights.

turned against C. A. Bang, matters,

when

it

who had been

was brought

Dorothea

commission of 25

to her attention that his

A

percent of her earnings might be vampirically high. ensued.'' Stoker

lawsuit

and countersuit

engaged the representation of the well-known play broker

Fassett, a principal

of the London Play Company. "The Stokers

were suspicious of all agents after the Bang business," she

acknowledged that she had been instrumental had employed her own

solicitors,

lawyers and vouch for her

The

She had

advising her on motion picture

good

cynical, chain-smoking,

at

in their

later wrote. Fassett

getting rid of Bang, and

some expense,

to lobby the Stokers'

intentions.**

business-sawy Fassett was

in

many ways

a

caricature of the hard-nosed theatrical agent, and a sharp contrast to the

Victorian Knightsbridge widow. But they had something

women

"Dorothea wasn't

liked a fight.

middle of a row, and she always seemed to have

remembered Laurence

remembered

the regal

"sweeping

and out" of

in

F.

The

or

common: both

A. L. Bram Stoker

in the

of them going,"

six

who worked

of the Hollywood interest

for Fassett

He

in Dracula.

(as she often signed papers)

"To

Fassett's Picadilly office.

boy, one old lady tends to look like any other.

had presence," Fitch

five

Fitch, a veteran British agent

as an office assistant at the time

in

happy unless she was

truly

a seventeen-year-old

But Florence Stoker certainly

recalled.''

alignment with Fassett was fortuitous for Stoker, and

that a film sale for Dracula could have been

made without

it

unlikely

is

Fassett as a

Harold Freedman,

the literary agent

stage-managed Draculaj

Hollywood. (Courtesy of Robert A.

mediating presence. But more important the Brandt and Brandt Dramatic

came

into the Dracula film deal as

was Harold Freedman, head of

still

Department

stated,

Freedman was famous

almost conspiratorial whisper

style that

marked

in

Discretion, tact, and quiet persistence were the

many

the wheeler-

in literary circles for the

which he held

in

who

York. Freedman,

John Balderston's agent, displayed

ways the antithesis of the aggressive, abrasive dealers of the period.

New

in

under-

client discussions.

Freedman hallmarks, and

would eventually earn him a legendary status among agents. (Among biggest coups would be the film sale of

My

Fair

his

Lady for ^3.5 million plus a

percentage, a staggering figure for the time.) Fassett in uals

London and Freedman

most responsible for Draculas

in

New

counts credit the interest of Carl Laemmle,

supposed dedication to the project,

it

was

and Freedman's quiet behind-the-scenes that

would

actually close the deal.

York would be

film sale to Universal. Jr.,

or the director

Fassett's

efforts in

The

the two individ-

While most

hand-holding

New

story, told

ac-

Tod Browning's in

London

York and Hollywood

here for the

first

time,

Freedman)

who

difficult sale to

'

HOI.I^WOOO GOTHIC

98

provides a fascinating look at the reality oi Hollywood deal-making

of the early

Even before her about

tion

days

New

of the novel.

Bang, Stoker had received some inquiries

falling-out with

film rights to Dracula.

Lxjndon and

in the

talkies.

The

vexing thing was, the success of the play

York was spurring the

The

in

not a renewed apprecia-

real interest,

play was the thing, and the play and the

book were very

different animals indeed.

John Balderston was among the

first

to realize that

to sell the film rights to the novel alone,

and

Stoker was going to try

of any claims by

rid herself

himself and Hamilton Deane. Ironically, he had been aware of the Universal

[r^j WESTERN UNION

'^^

story for over a

[H^ _CABLEG|IAM_

^^

Freedman contact Universal

I

month before Stoker

— and had

in fact

had

directly to confirm that they

his

agent Harold

had not purchased

the rights. Balderston was nonetheless sure that Stoker had been negotiating,

with the desire to cut him out.

He feared that "these

and so stupid that they might

let

the film

people are so pig-headed

go smash rather than give us a

percentage," he wrote Freedman. "There remains the point, whether the film people wouldn't pay us something on the side when they understood the position?"

He

suggested that there was a

chiavellian diplomacy." It

Examples of the many

transatlantic

cables that fueled the film deal.

fine

chance for Freedmans "Ma-

'*'

was the beginning of a long string of mutual misunderstandings and

mistrusts between Stoker,

Deane, Balderston, and Liveright

that

would haunt

the negotiations for a screen version oi Dracula. Balderston was particularly

stimg by the seeming discounting of peculiarities

of the people concerned,

York

if I

at all

had not exercised

own

his

contributions.

my

Balderston wrote to Louis Cline. "Horace would be the

lady then, and

I

think

else can."

I

can do

it

to the

in

again, but

I

I

first

to admit that he

did get around the old

doubt very much whether

'

Deane and Balderston had had equally any proceeds

from a

her son had proposed to

film sale.

Deane

a previous, informal agreement to split

But now, Balderston learned. Stoker and

that they sell the

not the Balderston. Balderston tried to disabuse

Deane

Deane

version of the play,

of this notion, pointing

out that the Dramatists' Guild would undoubtedly back Balderston's claim.

Hollywood would buy one thing and one thing only

success.

"The Deane

— equity

version not only would not have been a success [in

York] but was actually turned down by Liveright and everybody

came

New

well-known powers of diplomacy,"

was several times on the verge of chucking the thing.

anybody

"Owing

would not have got on

this play

own in

a

New

else before I

along."'-'

Liveright had by this point realized his terrible oversight in not negotiating

any film rights

in his theatrical contract.

version would go back to the book.

Now

He,

too,

had presumed that a

film

he was faced with the necessity of

A having to purchase the

them

at

fihri

Deal for

from Stoker

rights

Balderston wrote Freedman:

robbing her for years

hand, and

.

.

.

am

I

and she

have become very

I

I

have not been trying to rob

realizes that I

Her son

was, over the film.

having lunch with him on Friday.

dealing with

is

"Mrs. Stoker and

Horace

.

.

He

seems a

also

has the film thing

.

"Mrs. Stoker, after some hesitation and consultation with her son, told

on Sunday

that she has decided to sell

believe,

£4200

seemed

friendly,

.

.

.

the rights to

all

this includes all the rights, talkies

Horace. The price

be turned into a

talkie.

away from

a distinct interest in the matter,

This seemed a new idea to

previously led to believe that

we were

her. I think I

Stoker asked Balderston

if

me is, I

and everything. As she

although entirely ignorant on the whole subject,

Deane and myself have

her that

rights

in

of Bang, her confidential agent who has been

of course Bang told her

decent chap and in

order to have any interest

in

all.

friendly over the inequities

her, as

99

the Devil

I

if

explained to the play

is

to

She had been

her.

a pair of robbers trying to get the film

made her

see that

she should

sell

it is

a matter of joint equity."

Horace

the rights. "I didn't give

her he undoubtably wanted to

a definite answer, but

I told

a novel idea to her.

She thought he wanted

to

resell,

which seemed

produce the film himself"

Balderston pointed out the need to delay the release of any film for a few years, "as otherwise

Horace might

sacrifice

film

people."" Liveright had,

one

studio.

all

in fact,

our royalties for a large price for the

begun

quietly negotiating with at least

Stoker and her son took the matter under advisement, and delayed

signing.

They decided

instead to increase their asking price of Liveright to £6,000.

Liveright didn't have the money, and the bluster.

His

finances, as usual,

were

lower offer was probably

first,

in chaos. Instead,

he appealed to Harold Lugoii with actrea Hazel Whitnwre

Freedman

to offer Stoker

an advance of ^ 1 ,000

continue his studio negotiations.

He

if

she would permit him to

proposed a three-way

Stoker, a third to the playwrights, and a third to himself.

It

split,

a third to

was a ludicrous,

desperate offer and went nowhere. In addition, Liveright's second road com-

pany of Dracula had gone bust due in

royalties

owed.

He

Dracula's stage success largely his doing. rights in ties

to

bad planning and he was badly

simply had no credibility.

No

and subsequent attractiveness

But there was no denying

that he

doubt, he to

low ebb, and

his

advertising illustrations that was traveling

that

had simply waived the film literary

in publishing

proper-

were also

days with Boni and Liveright were numbered.

vampire attacking a

felt

Hollywood were

what would become one of the great money-spinning

of the twentieth century. Liveright's fortunes

in arrears

One

at a

of the

on the road with Dracula showed the

girl in flapper-style attire.

Now, on

the brink of the stock

market crash, the picture had another, more resonant portent for Liveright,

during the west coast

tour.

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

100

himself one of the leading symbols of the jazz age and

Meanwhile, Dorothea Fassett had received agent

named Wilkes. The Stokers

from, after

They bided

all.

its

a firm offer

excesses.

of £6,000 from an

hesitated. Universal hadn't

been heard

through the spring of 1929, convinced

their time

that the value o( Dracula could only increase. Their agents thought otherwise,

and urged them

The

to take the tide at the flood.

Banquo-

negotiations, however, were about to be interrupted by the

appearance of an unwelcome shadow.

like

Nosferatu had surfaced in America. First in

the in

Playinf

/Void

New York with

German Count was

teeming

its

millions, then,

emboldened,

in Detroit,

seeking audiences with impunity. During the

June an advertisement ran

The

in

New

York Times: the "First

week

first

Showing

America," the ad proclaimed. "Inspired by Dracula," the film was said

"A

thrilling

mystery masterpiece

— a chilling psychodrama of bloodlust." Max

Schreck's face adorned the ad like the image on a postal stamp from

Horace

Liveright was

to see the film. It

among

was showing

Greenwich Village (decades

little-cinema

A

Ihrilling

of

lilretlc^l

F.

klnad-Uiit

hell.

and sent Louis Cline

Film Guild Cinema, on Eighth Street

later, as the

in

Eighth Street Playhouse, the same Picture Show).

movement had been gaining American momentum

The

as reaction

52W.8ihSt. [--V'JSpringJJ-

M

New

Guild was one of

(1890-

York's jewels. Architect Frederick Kiesler

of

"The Lul Liujh"

Film Guild Cinema lonllfiuoui Daily. ; P. in MIdnlte. HiMrtInc Ha(.. Junti H-^Tho (:in»m« Kvrnt of erty to

make anything out of the

that an offer

Bureau

right

sterling

mond

in

most advantageous moment.

his film cannisters until the

"I

am

strongly of the opinion

going down every minute ...

is

film rights,

we ought

do

to

it

if

any of us are

now." She reported

was being tendered to Stoker through the International Copy-

— but only

if

they would bring the price below £9,000 (a

pound

was worth about ^4.75

at the time).

The

name appeared

in cables as a

suspected party to negotiations

Huntley's

with Columbia Pictures.-**

The

remembers nothing of the

affair.)

offer

was

refused.-''

Ray-

offering price quoted was ^25,000. (Huntley

Stoker insisted on ^35,000, with three-fifths

guaranteed to her, and two-fifths to Balderston and Deane.-'^

The

deal

through. In the matter of actors. Universal had lost Conrad Veidt,

fell

who

returned to Europe rather than risk the talkies with his heavy accent, and their next choice,

Lon Chaney, was

luider contract to Metro.

And

above

all,

Freedman's direct contacts with various picture executives produced a consensus: the price of Dracula was simply too high.

Stoker, however, trusted her Bracknellian instincts on Draatla: the floor for the property

In January, rights, tion.

them

he wrote,

was now 035,000. Stock market crash or no.

Freedman apprised Balderston of "still

The Laemmles then.

Lx)n

seems

are

to

narrow

itself

down

coming here next week and

Chaney has

finally

the situation.

The

film

to the Universal proposiI

am

going into

it

with

decided to do a talkie with Metro.

A

Deal for

the Devtl

105

Universal were unable to wean him away at the time ... If he doesn't get along with will

Metro on

this thing

his first picture, then I

was hot here suppose there

be some chance of Universal's getting him."^*^

By mid-February interested in

it,"

the situation hadn't changed. "Universal are

Freedman wrote, "but won't do anything

still

very

unless they can get

Chaney."'*^

In March, Dorothea Fassett wrote

Freedman

that Stoker's sleep

more being disturbed by thoughts of Nosferatu. "She would wrote Fassett

as to the film's career,"

dryly,

whether some arrangement was made to

"and know whether

it

was once

have details just died or

kill it."^*^'

And Gould was nowhere

Neither had occurred.

like to

closer to revealing the

film cannisters' whereabouts.

By

early spring, possibly because

of the growing awareness of the enor-

Chaney's Dracuia would likely have been a very different creature than the one with which

we are now

familiar. Here, for example,

is

Chaney's pop-eyed conception of a

vampire

in

Midnight.

ton Chaney,

the

Man

of a

Thousand

Chaney was

Faces, seen here with his own.

Universal's second choice for

following Conrad Unfortunately, to

Dracuia

Veidt's departure.

Chaney was under

Metro. (Courtesy of Scott

contract

MacQueen)

London After

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

106

Actor Bernard Jukes campaigned unsuccessfiilly for

a studio

sale.

This maniacal publicity portrait

was

his calling card.

mous the

potential in talking pictures, and despite the international financial mess,

nibbling started again.

On March

13,

Freedman cabled Balderston:

INFORMED HORACE DRACULA CAN BE BOUGHT REASONABLY MATTER UP WITH METRO UNIVERSAL PATHE COLUMBIA. On both Bela Lugosi

I

HAVE

April 8,

— who had earlier been denied an option — and his manager

Harry Weber wired Freedman

that they

had lined up a deal for ^40,000,

cryptically promising the biggest studio, an excellent, reputable director,

and

most importantly, a willingness to buy and produce Dracula with Lugosi as the star.

The name of

play broker

the studio

was revealed two days

named William

BELA LUGOSI SPOKE

TO ME

Dollofif wired

later

when

Freedman with

a west coast

a counteroffer:

IN REFERENCE PIcnURE RIGHTS

DRACULA

A

Deal for

107

the Devil

STOP CAN OBTAIN HIGHER FIGURE FOR RIGHTS THAN METROS OFFER STOP PLEASE HOLD OFF NEGOTIATIONS. DoUofFs deal — allegedly for ^50,000

—

fell

through when

right's lingering

involvement

purchaser grew skittish over Horace Live-

his

in the project

and confusion over who indeed was

representing the rights. Liveright had sold his publishing interests and was

now on

the west coast working for

a "production associate," and Dracula.

version

still

Paramount Publix Corporation on

Although Paramount boss Ben Schulberg had some

— possibly as a result of Liveright

Schulberg

his

s

prodding

Paramount

the lot was enthusiastic. In April

salary as

vainly trying to raise the purchase price for interest in a film

— almost no one

story editor E.

J.

else

on

Montague gave

opinion that the theme was "strictly morbid" and might run into

problems with the recently inaugurated Production Code. Montagne "the very things which

made people gasp and

about

talk

it

felt that

[on stage], such as

the blood-sucking scenes, would be prohibited by the code and also by censors

because of the effect of these scenes on children."^'

The

whom

fact that

Metro considered Dracula with Lugosi and not Lon Chaney,

they had under contract,

Tod Browning, was cancer

— so

much

fully

is

interesting

aware of his

and suggests that

star's failing

health

his director.

— Chaney had throat

j"^

so that he, and the studio, were willing to do Draada

without their most bankable asset, the

Man

of a Thousand Faces.

Bernard Jukes, the actor who was making a career out of playing Renfield

on the

stage, also

apparently

came

became party

to the negotiations in the spring

The

close to securing a studio offer.

promoted the property, and

himself, fairly aggressively; a series

publicity portraits of Jukes as the fly-eating studios, but finally

of 1930, and

were of no

/^/

actor seems to have

of

startling

maniac made the rounds of the

avail.

Discouraged with the sluggish, approach-avoidance stance of the studios,

Harold Freedman decided

to visit the coast in

person to bring the matter to a

head. Arriving in May, he found the Universal situation "fairly cold" with

Metro and Paramount-Famous-Lasky

as the

he "had to get several directors interested

more

likely candidates.

in the proposition

However,

and one or two

individual producers" before LJniversal agreed, in late June, to take Dracula

for ^40,000 rather than see

As Freedman Laemmle,

much

for

German

it

go

to a rival

later explained, "I finally

Sr.'s definite

Laemmle,

company.'-

It

was not an easy

put through the sale

in face

expressionism.

As

oft-cited fondness for the

the elder

Laemmle

shadowy

later told

of Mr.

tradition

an interviewer

So of

in a

discussion of Frankenstein, which LJniversal produced the following year, "I

don't believe in horror pictures.

It's

morbid.

People don't want that sort of thing," he

None

said.

of our officers are for

"Only Junior wanted

rarely posed for

May

this likeness

tiations for

sale.

written objection to the purchase of the picture."^ ^

Sr.'s

A^ent Harold Freedman photographs, hut his wife

it.

it."^"*

Junior hadn't always been a junior. Born Julius Laemmle, the son of the

sketched

around the time of the nego-

Dracula. (Courtesy of Robert

A. Freedman)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

108

former Oshkosh, Wisconsin, haberdasher and self-made movie mogul had inherited the control of the studio

on

reciprocal gesture that suggests a plot film, the

diminutive young

man

his twenty-first birthday. In a bizarre

from

died and was resurrected as Carl Laemmle, are

a matter

still

American

culture:

revolving

around

morbid German doppelganger

a

relinquished his

own name and His

Jr.

identity: Julius

and achievements

abilities

of debate,'^ but he made one indelible contribution to

Hollywood horror movie, an obsessive new genre

the

threatening,

controlling,

male

powerful

supernaturally

monstrosities.

would be fascinating to icnow Freedman's precise

It

tactic for

mediating

between father and son over Draaila, but even with Balderston he

is

talizingly reticient, stating only with implied exasperation that "there

no use

is

going through the various things that had to be done to get the thing

tan-

over."'*'

And

Universal had agreed to agree, but the contracts had yet to be signed. it

was

at this

juncture that two unwelcome guests decided to

presences known, and perhaps to spoil the occasion. vampire.

The

York

their

was Nosferatu, the

other was Horace Liveright, the producer.

Symon Gould had

New

One

make

decided to bypass Freedman and approach Universals

office directly, asking a fiat

payment of ^1,000

to relinquish his

M. Asher was

print of Nosferatii. Universal balked. Associate producer E.

under some pressure to obtain the for assistance in obtaining

on July

film;

Symon Goulds

he wired Freedman asking

19,

print of the

Murnau

film

on

a rush

reasonable fee. Asher seems to have been more interested

basis at a

studying the film rather than destroying

was already encountering major

it;

difficulties

in

the Universal scenario department

over

its

screenplay treatment.

Why

not see what had already been produced?

Gould wouldn't budge. Asher asked Freedman

to

employ some personal

diplomacy. Universal was willing to pay ^200 for a ninety-day "rental." Freed-

man warned Gould that the film had no fiiture commercial use, and that he be enjoined against exhibiting direcdy:

Gould ^400

it.

could

Gould responded by wiring Carl Laemmle, Jr.,

PLKASE WIRE DECISION REGARDING DRACULA PRINT. Laemmle

told

terms were unreasonable. Asher authorized Freedman to pay up to

his

— and to rush the print by airmail to Universal City.

Simultaneously,

Horace

Liveright, stung over being closed out of the

Draaila negotiations, told Freedman that unless he received a financial consideration, he

would

file

a lawsuit against Universal

on the

basis that

adaptation constituted unfair competition to the stage version, held

rights.'''

He knew

slightest

possibility

released.

He

of

that Universal litigation

that

would never sign

if

in

its

which he

film still

there was even the

might prevent the

film

from being

also insisted that his share be paid not by Universal but bv the

A

Deal

for the Devil

109

— Stoker, Balderston, and Deane, with whom he clearly

owners

felt

the need

to settle a score.

To Freedman's money

relief,

he did not hold out for an exorbitant amount of

— Liveright wanted cash, needed

a protracted

The producer

fight.

claim waiving

all

finally

it

badly,

and was not

accepted ^4,500

future film rights in Dracula.

in

Freedman was

able to persuade Stoker and the playwrights to pay any

Universal quietly

made up

really

if

not, however,

more than ^1,000.

the rest. Liveright was never told

partners had actually paid him. "It will be fatal

looking for

exchange for a quit

how

Liveright should

little

know

his

before

the execution of this deal that the owners are only paying ^1000," wrote

Freedman

on August

to Fassett

minus agent commissions, went

13. Fifty

percent of the ^39,000 balance,

and 25 percent to each of the

to Stoker,

playwrights.

That

left

only the matter of

Symon Gould and

his

vampire shadow

in

nitrate. his dickering with the exhibitor. He wired E. M. CAN GET PRINT FOR FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS DOUBT WHETHER ANOTHER IN EXISTENCE \XTRE ME IF WILLING PAY THIS.^^

Freedman continued

Asher: BELIEVE

LJniversal was willing. to

On

August

13, LJniversal

Brandt and Brandt, and, two days

Harold Freedman's covering presume,

is

letter

the print you intended

print of Draada.

We

later,

forwarded a check for ^400

they took possession of the film.

took no chances,

"This,

I

when you wrote me about sending you

a

legalistically:

a cinematic "death warrant" for

have no print of Dracula, as you know, as we have made a

deal with you for the motion picture rights of this play. "Nosferatu, the Vampire has been adjudged by the courts to be a violation

Mrs. Stokers turning

it

rights,

and the courts have ordered the prints destroyed.

over to you for the purposes of destruction and

in

I

of

am

view of our

contract with you for the delivering over to you of the rights to Dracula for

motion picture purposes."'''

No was

doubt, Harold Freedman didn't believe for a second that LJniversal

actually going to

Nosferatu was a far

perform a

more

be infringed upon

sacrifical rite

over the film

practical one. Nosferatu

itself,

— their interest

in

had infringed, and now might

cannibalized and reborn. In

its

marriage with the

cinema, Dracula would become an unstoppable, unquenchable fixture of the public imagination.

The

Florence Stoker, John L. Balderston,

Hamilton Deane and Symon Gould signed

nuptials, however,

would prove a bumpy nightmare indeed.

Nosferatu

m

the

summer of 1930.

and end

stands on

their hair

in delightful

anticipa-

mystery and thrills to come. Say "DRACULA" and you re talking tion of the

of a stage play that broke >r

attendance in every road -

New York and

show city on the map.

Louis

Bromfield author of

'

The

Green Bay Tree" and other adopting it The director is T od Browning who gave you THE UNHOLY best sellers

is

for the screen

.

.

.

THREE and OUTSIDE THE

LAW ords

(now breaking recfirst run houses

in

everywhere).

DRflCUU r\.

r^'

ry

'

Chapter Five

MGiSUIBItSI In which the

and

in

Laemmles

but the director

and

IN

studio

rites

are finally administered,

and

reqidres armadillos,

much, but needs

be finished.

to

INTENTIONS THAT DRACULA BE A "PRES-

ITS

announced the signing of

as they

put

nearly half a year, he paid

Laemmle claimed

New

earlier,

to have hired

to be released

Broadway

It

difficult to

his Pulitzer

his established reputa-

imagine a writer farther removed from the world of

Hollywood, for that matter

— than

Louis Bromfield, and

it

is

wanted to exploit the publicity value of Bromfield's name

his serendipitous leave-taking of a rival studio.

largely forgotten today, Bromfield versatile

his contract.

dramatist.

likely that LJniversal

and

from

England family saga called Early Autumn (which Laemmles

purported the mogul had actually read), and

— or

Brom-

Hollywood by

him on the strength of

tion as a is

in the trades), the

but after being given nothing to do for

Goldwyn $ 1 0,000

publicists

Dracula

it

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis

the screenplay. Bromfield had been lured to

Samuel Goldwyn some months

novel, a

odd,

("A Universal Super Production,"

field to write

Junior

is

the thing costs too

ACCORDANCE WITH

tige" effort

build a castle, but have no tenant,

which the cinematic

temperament, though

his

was a

prolific

Although

his novels are

and popular writer of a

tendencies toward political reaction and the

championing of the "natural aristocracy" would begin to put him out of public

New

favor during the years of the

Deal.- Genuinely curious and enthusiastic

about the creative potential of talking pictures, Bromfield recorded sions of the film colony in a

New

The

Hollywood

The that

York as

it

Times.

"There

is

new

style,

in the

March

his

impres-

30, 1930, issue of

an intelligence and talent gathering

never gathered before.

talkies offer a

some day

Sunday feature

in

The preproduction It

much more

is

most hopeful, most promising.

interesting to

work

in ... I believe

they will assume proportions as an art form as great as Anglo-

trade

ddrertiiement for Dracula

promised a film both erotic.

Little

of

literary

and

either quality

survived the filming. (Courtesy of

Saxon

literature. I really

Bromfield,

who had

do."

never been west of the Mississippi, was entranced by

Ronald Posters)

V.

Borst/ Hollywood

Movie

)

HOI I.YWOOD GOTHIC

112

the benevolent climate, the clean air and sunlight, the endless groves and

flowering plants. Later in

life

he would devote

to farming, agrarian reform,

much of his energy and

and conservation;

it

writing

easy to understand the

is

seductive spell California cast over him. Friends, he said, had tried to warn

him. "I was told that

I

was about to

lose myself in a

world that consisted

physically of a valley between

some mountains owned

actors, directors, oil speculators

and realtors and

built

entirely

by picture

over with dwellings that

vaguely resembled yurts, pagodas, tepees, pueblos, igloos and medieval castles. Spiritually, the place

was simply desert. All

art, all spirituality

withered

when

brought within ten miles of Hollywood." Like Harker on his way to Transylvania, Bromfield jotted impressions of the local landowners and peasants. milieu as stratified into three separate castes

He

saw

his

down

his

newly adopted

— the native Californians, whom

he idealized; the glamorous picture people; and desolate emigres from the

American elsewhere. The

castes never mixed.

Nathanael West, over them

And,

as

if in

anticipation of

hovered "a swarm of locusts composed of

all

prophets and radio announcers,

realtors, cult-leaders, religious

who

talk far

too much."

Elsewhere

in

the article

— which vacillates weirdly between wide-eyed — Bromfield notes with evident distaste the

optimism and revealing cynicism "religious cranks, the

dog poisoners, and

who have descended on Southern

in

general the collection of freaks

California ...

It is

cheap and easy to accuse

the picture industry of fantastic houses and fantastic decoration, but its a false

accusation

.

.

.

The

responsibility lies with fat, middle-aged

from the Middle West, who sublimated libidos

in

Uniyersal to produce a "prestige"

Grand Rapids Louis

Anna Held

to

shame."

Bromfield, at this point, had no conception of the degree to which

— and

— would eclipse Grand Rapids Louis Horror movies — of the genuinely

Dracula

ambitious for the studio's budget. (Billy

Seize as an outlet for sublimated libidos.

New

women

a perfect orgy of overstuffed sofas,

treatment of Dracula, had a vision too

Rose Theatre Collection.

and elderly

have released their

Seize and boudoirs that would have put NorelisI Louis Bromfield, engaged by

of prairie

life

after years

horror movies

in

York

fantastic, supernatural variety

general

— had

not been invented yet, at least not

in

Public Library at Lincoln Center, Astor, lu'nox

and Tilden Loundations

America, where conventions dictated that supernatural occurrences always be "explained away," usually as the disguise or machinations of a criminal. In a sense, Bromfield efifort

was being asked

to create a genre,

and

his first, intuitive

has a certain significance.

In late July, before the rights to the novel and the play had been formally

acquired, Bromfield was set to

work under Erwin Gelsey, head

of Universale

scenario department. Glowing press releases were submitted to the trades

heralding the arrival of Junior

Laemmles

literary pet,

and the formidable

battle

he faced. According to the July 26 Hollywood Filmograph, "Dracula, one of the

most unique

stories

brought to the stage

in

years, requires not only the

— The Ghost Goes West

sympathetic understanding of

113

screen adaptor but the technical

skill

of a

writer experienced in the development of extraordinary dramatic plots."

The

its

assignment was regarded, ominously, as "particularly Bromfleld soon found out why. Universal was rights to

very

both the novel and the stage play

much

to

do with the

most of the novel

dialogue was almost

other.

The Deane

order to make

in

it

.

.

dramatization had dispensed with

The

Broadway had

resulted

was even further removed from the book.

would have been much better to throw out the play and

It

its

Balderston adaptation was a

vast improvement, but the play doctoring required for in a piece that

process of buying the

problem was, neither had

the

producible on a shoestring, and

unspeakable.

literally

.

difficult."

in the

start with the

— no,

book. But Universal was spending ^40,000 on three separate properties not just three, there were four!

A

novel and three different stage adaptations,

including that ghastly vanity production of Mrs. Stokers, the Morrell thing

and the studio wanted

its

money's worth out of

all

of them.

In addition, two treatments had been already prepared, one by Frederick "Fritz" Stephani and another by Louis Stevens. Stephani had grappled

what

surreal touches of his

own

Transylvania to England

— Dracula, for instance, was to make the in

trip

from

an airplane outfitted with enormous bat-wings.

Stephani's aerodynamic imagination would find

Universal,

some-

with both the novel and the Broadway play, and added a few

listlessly

when he worked on

the

first

its

niche a few years later at

Flash Gordon serial.

Bromfield followed his instincts as a novelist, and turned directly to

Stokers book for inspiration. epistolary style fields

The

material was certainly rich, though the

was a problem. Paying

lip

service to Stokers conceit,

Brom-

treatment opens with an over-the-shoulder shot of Jonathan Harker

writing a letter

from

his

room

Transylvanian inn at the height of a raging

in a

blizzard. Thereafter, the technique

is

dropped, and Bromfield continues with

an enormously visual and evocative recreation of Harkers journey to Castle

Carl Lacmmlc.

Jr..

the "baby

mogul" wbo

c'itablished Universal'; horror tradition

over bis father's strenuous objections.

Dracula, with detailed descriptions of fantastic settings and winding, torch-lit staircases, all

Some

perched on a rwo-thousand-foot precipice.

John Ivan Hoffman — quite — have survived, showing a caped

early concept sketches by the artist

possibly inspired by the Bromfield treatment

superman dashing down a gargoyle-decorated

staircase.

Bromfields visions

would prove ultimately too ambitious for the studios budget, but they are certainly in keeping with the spirit of Stokers original.

The

screenwriter

obviously had in mind the kind of meticulous adaptation of an English novel in

which

MGM would

later specialize.

Unfortunately, Universal's financial health

was becoming increasingly precarious. the studio had sharply curtailed

its

A

year after the stock market crash,

activities,

producing fewer features on

smaller budgets. Dracula would be a "Super Production" in relative terms

(Courtesy of Scott

MacQueen)

^

HOI

14

only;

lYWOOD GOTHIC

5?355,000 budget was above average for the

its

new streamlined opera-

but only a fraction of the ^lA") million Universal had spent on

tion,

its

last

"prestige" film, All Quiet on the Western Front.

Bromfield began with Stoker's Dracula

— a towering, cadaverous old man

with white hair and drooping mustache, a completely different figure from the

suave Mephisto

How,

then,

in

evening clothes that had been popularized on the stage.

was Bromfield

book and

to reconcile the

of inspiration, Bromfield found the means Traveling to Lxjndon and drinking into

"Count de

Ville," the

new

the play? In a clever bit

— Dracula

would be two people.

blood, he would simply be rejuvenated

drawing-room Dracula of the

moments of blood-lust would he

Only

theatre.

revert to his former, novelistic aspect.

in

Thus,

the studio could have things both ways, and get a free dollop of Dr. Jckyll and

Mr. Hyde to boot. It

was an uneasy dramatic device, but probably a good

Bromfield's part, since

Bromfield choices are in the

seemed

it

less

The

He

than inspired.

new character

guise of a

"Mrs. Triplett."

reconcile

to

in

London,

a

political

move on Other

unreconcilable.

the

introduced dubious comic relief

neighbor of the Sewards known as

part was specifically intended

—

at least

by Bromfield

comedienne Alison Skipworth, a performer who could

for the hefty

—

easily

have been cast as one of Bromfield's overstuffed prairie emigres. Mrs. Triplett

was to be the owner of Carfax Abbey, landlord and bridge partner to Bromfield's supernatural aristocrat.

puts Charles

Goren

game, when Dracula uses to

A

fails to reflect in

a

is

is

unmasked during

compact mirror which Mrs.

not

known whether Bromfield added

this

Comedienne Alison Skipvorth would han provided comic relief

in

Louis Bromfield'i

conception o/Dracula. (Photofest)

demand

Dracula

to his extrasensory powers,

a card Triplett

powder her nose.

bridge partner for the Count? It

Due

to shame. Yet the vampire

or as his

own

cynical sop to the

material due to studio

compromising

realities

of the project.

For Samuel Goldwyn, he had been given nothing to do; for Universal, he was being asked to do the impossible.

And

merit, his contributions, if filmed,

would enhance the

expense of

its

budget

— the

London and Transylvanian

his

arrival

in

as envisioned by Bromfield,

honeymoon

at

would render the

with the studio was short. Within a

who accompanied

M. Asher

a stock production of

and cinematic

Universal City, he was being shadowed by

screenwriter Dudley Murphy, associate producer E.

literary

studio's prestige at the

construction of the oversized sets for Dracula's

lairs,

film unproducible. Bromfield's

few weeks of

whatever their

Draada

to

Bromfield and Universal

Oakland, where Bela Lugosi was appearing

at the

Fulton Theatre. Lugosi was no longer

associated with the national road company, then playing the east, having held

out for more

money than

Liveright was willing to pay.

Raymond

despite his misgivings about the production, had accepted the role.

Huntley,

The

venue was probably not the best showcase tor Lugosi to be seen

Fulton in

by

The Ghost Goes West

115

Universal; aside from the second-string cast, there were half-empty houses

during the Oakland engagement

— weak evidence indeed of Lugosi's box office some

appeal to an increasingly cost-conscious studio. Despite

won

bling in the press that Lugosi had

Bromfield/Asher/Murphy sibilities

trip

unofficial

mum-

the film role, the real point of the

was most

likely to

study the cost-saving pos-

of the stage version over the book.

Bromfield was not the

author to be pulled into the crushing

first literary

machinery of the Hollywood studio system, and he would not be the

"Work

Several months later he told a fan magazine,

in

last.

Hollywood from the

writers point of view can be colossally unsatisfactory and there are plenty of

moments when

discouraging into

bit

by

something that seems new and

you see your idea being transformed

bit

unfamiliar."''

With

passing years, his view

of Hollywood would become even more negative. Shortly before Bromfield began work on Dracula, Universal formally

announced Tod Browning director at Metro, and

it

as director.

Browning had been Lon Chaney's

picture deal in anticipation of also obtaining picture

— any

Chaney

him

possible that Universal signed

is

picture

— spelled

collaboration would be considered

the

all

fascination with twisted, deformed,

box

Chaney office,

for a three-

for Dracula.

A

Chaney

and a Browning/Chaney

more bankable. Chaney's

endless

and grotesque characterizations was

ri-

valed only by the publics bottomless appetite for more. Chaney's rise to fame in the

star

20s was the result of one of the oddest psychological bonds between a

and

his public that

Hollywood has ever seen (and

a

phenomenon of

popular culture that has not yet been examined at sufficient depth). Chaney, of course, had turned

down

and instead remained

at

Universal's offer to buy

Metro

to

make

him Dracula

the carnival crime

as his first talkie,

drama The Unholy

Louis Bromfield's enthusiasm for Dracula

soured as his screenplay was revised beyond

Three,

To

On

which Browning had already directed once as a this day,

one hand,

film history;

Browning remains a maddeningly

his films possess a

silent.

recognition.

difficult director to assess.

thematic consistency almost unparalleled

in

an obsession with the bizarre and grotesque, with the plight and

vengeance of the social outsider, and a fascination with the tawdrier aspects of

show business all

— carnivals, sideshows, fake mediums, and confidence games —

of which become skewed metaphors for unhealthy

These obsessions reached

human

relationships.

a climax in 1932 with Freaks, one of the

most

notorious films ever made, featuring real circus freaks cast as the sideshow denizens

who gruesomely avenge themselves on a beautiful,

To many

cineastes.

Browning

is

treacherous

woman.

a major auteur in a minor key; others, however,

point out that his technical execution rarely does justice to the brilliance of his concepts. His films should be good. But

product

is

an unholy mess. There

fascination of his work, even

if

is

more often than not

the

Browning end

no denying, however, the enduring

the fascination

is

akin to watching an auto wreck.

(Free Library of Philadelphia

Theatre Collection)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

116

The

reclusive,

director

alcohol-tormented

Tod Bronming produced

one of the most ohsessirc bodies of

work

in film history.

would be

his

Dracula

most famous film, but

hardly his best. (The British Film Institute)

Browning had a reputarion slipshod

manner

in

as an alcoholic,

which many of

his films

caused him to be blacklisted for two years believed that Irving Thalberg had fired

reason. his

His drunken escapades

drinking pals,

who

told

his inebriated exploits. In

stuffy assistant

New

manager

also

which may account for the

were executed;

in the early 20s,

him from Metro

engendered a

in

his drinking

and

it

1929 for the same

kmd of perverse awe among

and retold (and undoubtedly embellished) one of the most

at the St. Francis

had

was widely

colorful,

Hotel

in

tales

of

Browning confronted a

San Francisco during a

Years Eve party, who was evidently displeased with the directors

obstreperous demeanor. "As the evening waned, the animosity waxed.

Tod

The Ghost Goes West

yanked out

his false teeth

117

— uppers and lowers — and hurled them at the A.M.

with the suggestion: 'Go bite yourself!'"^

Browning

cultivated a flamboyant persona, favoring loud socks, louder

shirts,

and the loudest

1935's

Mark

ties.

to the racetrack."

He

was evidently

self-sabotaging behavior

sawdust and

of

"When

Actress Carroll Borland,

on the

tinsel

— he

There

is

it

Mountain" was

the

Over

his

behavior and kept him

his

his specialty),

some-

in

assignments.

Metro

at

in

1927, or a project so similar

who was aware of

film historian

and

archivist Philip

J.

Riley,

"Browning's story called for the

vampire to attack by drifting into the room as a mist as female characters were

named Lucy and

from the ruins of an old

who

the

Florence Stoker had waged over Nosfcratn. According to

bitter legal battle

Dracula.

in

Both lead

they had the vampire calling on them

estate next door. In both stories they brought in an

tried to save the heroine

by placing garlic around the room

groom stood watch over

while the maid and the leads,

from

own impromptu

the years he had developed a network

created serious concern for Irving Thalberg,

older expert

in

evidence to suggest that Browning and Chaney had begun work

on an unauthorized version oiDraada that

his

him

for

he was going

often breaking into song (an a capella rendition

set,

times a card trick or carny routine.

of cronies who indulged

like

skilled at deflecting attention

was known to provide

Moon Comes Over

the

who worked

he usually "dressed

of the Vampire, recalled that

young male

her. Also, the

Jonathan Harker and Arthur Hibbs, were very similar." Thalberg's

reaction was quick and to the point:

The

"Change

it."^

production that emerged was filmed as The Hypnotist, and

released as London After Midnight. pire," the character

detective intent

was

really a

While

it

featured

still

Chaney

as a

finally

"vam-

double role for Chaney; he also played the

on solving the mystery. Chaney s makeup was one of the most

startling creations of his career, rivaling even his

figure in a beaver hat

and bat-winged

coat, a

Opera phantom:

shock of white

a scuttling

hair,

pointed

dentures, and eyes kept bulging by painful wire-and-plastic appliances.

What, we must wonder, would have been Chaney's concept of Dracula? Undoubtedly, the requiring nothing

Man

of a Thousand Faces would have balked

more than evening

Chaney Dracula would almost star,

making

makeup

full

menacing

clothes and a

certainly have

been

significantly

at a role

stare,

and

reshaped for

a its

use of man-into-bat transformations and other spectacular

effects. Bromfield's treatment, with

the sort of approach that

its

double-faced vampire, hints at

would have maintained the Chaney mystique.

Perhaps Chaney would have insisted on playing both Dracula and Van Helsing, aided

Chaney

in

by two voices, doubles, and

split

screens

— the

London After Midnight certainly suggests the

Chaney might have been

double-casting of

possibility. Alternately,

quite effectively cast against another

Metro contract

London Atcer Midnight; Metro

wtis

worried about another mjr'm^ement debacle, a la Nosferatu. (Courtesy of

Philip]. Riley)

The Ghost Goes West

Barrymore immediately comes

star (Lionel

fact play a

memorable

variation

to

119

mind

on Van Helsing

in

— and Barrymore would

in

Browning's 1935 remake of

London After Midnight, called Mark, of the Vampire). Unfortunately, any possibility of Chaney's ever assuming the role for

Universal or anyone else evaporated when his chronic throat ailment was

A few days later,

diagnosed as terminal cancer.

contained the following

Variety

announcement:

Wray, the Neck-Biter Hollywood, June

John Wray monster

bltlner

21.

play the neck"Dracula" for Uni-

will In

versal.

Tod Browning

will direct.

Wray, who had played the vicious Laemmle's triumph All Quiet on

drill

sergeant Himmelstosse in Junior

the Western Front,

was an extremely unlikely

choice for Dracula, and he was not mentioned again. It

was only the beginning, however, of silly season

in the

matter of Dracula

casting.

Conrad

Veidt, the performer originally mentioned by Universal in connec-

tion with Dracula,

had decided to return to Europe rather than brave

talkies in

English, in which he was not completely fluent and which he regarded as a professional risk. slightest,

accent would not have hampered Dracula in the

his

coming of soimd.

limited by the

would return that a

Although

he was probably correct to believe his career would be distinctly

to

Hollywood

Later, of course, his English perfected, he

as a specialist in wartime villains.

judging from his

many

somnambulist

The Cabinet of Dr.

Man Who pantheon

in

fine silent

it

is

clear

performances, ranging from the murderous Caligari to the tragic

Gwyneplaine

in

The

Laughs, Veidt might well have elevated the role of Dracula to status.

While Bela Lugosi should have seemed the obvious choice was as true

in

1930 as

it is

actor a chance to play the

same

role

on

film.

among them

trained actor with a troubled personal

would be the alcoholic carny the performer's

for the part,

it

today that a stage success did not guarantee an

actors for the part, foremost

in

life,

Nightmare

own circumstances

that

Universal considered a number of Ian Keith, a magnetic, classically

whose best-remembered

just enjoyed a successfial

New

film role

Alley, a part that so eerily reflected

it is

uncomfortable to watch. Another

front-runner was William Courtenay, a distinguished

had

But

opportunity was lost when Universal lost Conrad Veidt;

brilliant

New

York actor who

York run and national tour

as a cloaked

The

devil in black pajamas.

campaigned for

magician

in

The

Spider.

Perhaps the most unusual Dracula of

been Paul Muni, mentioned

in several

all

would have

accounts as one of Universal's serious

A

publicity shot used by iMgosi as he the film role. (Free

Library of Philadelphia Theatre Collection)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

120

contenders. Muni,

who was

widely touted as

"The

New Lon Chaney"

multifaceted appearance in Seven Faces for William Fox in

after his

1929, insisted

repeatedly in print that he had no interest in enacting grotesques, and difficult to

casting.

imagine him actually accepting such a

Muni was appearing on

Broadway run

HOLLYfruOD FILMOOLIPH

role.

At

stage at the Pasadena Playhouse in the pre-

ot a split-personality drama. This

One Man, and was

Harold Freedman attempted another performer early

in

Dracula" he wired the studio.

more

part might be infinitely

Young

as Marker).

some leverage on

to e.xercise

behalf of yet

negotiations with Universal: "It appears to

Joseph Schildkraut might be a

(Coincidentally, Schildkraut

"Dracula"

certainly

followed at the Pasadena Playhouse by Dracula with saturnine

Victor Jory as the Count and the then-juvenile Robert

To Play

is

within the range of Universal's viewfinder (in a related bit of inspired casting,

Muni was

Ian Keith

it

the time of the film's

brilliant piece ".

.

.

of casting

in the

name

me

that

part of

man in this man into it."''

Casting an attractive leading

effective than putting a character

and Horace Liveright would be

at different times

married to the same woman. Elise Bartlett.) Bela Lugosi continued to lobby energetically for the role, despite Univer-

expressed lack of enthusiasm; Junior

sal's

Bela Lugosi and Will-

iam Courtney Are Being Considered bu

There done for

much

been so

who

about

Universal,

will

said

pla^-

in the actor.

Laemmle had

The Last Performance into Hungarian, and and

has

of watched wnth interest who powers that be will select. Daire Rumor has it th.it Universal

sort

flatly told

the agents

Lugosi went so far as to donate

services to Universal's foreign-language unit,

Dracula

everybody

that

he just wasn't interested

at

negotiations with Florence Stoker was asked

intercede with Stoker on Universal's behalf.

dubbing Conrad

some

— or

At

his

Veidt's role in

point during Universal's

took

it

upon himself

— to

the time the sale was closed,

Lugosi wired Harold Freedman that he had spent months promoting Univer-

the

has selected Ian Keith,

who

ished a picture on their

lot.

appeared

this

he

for

Fox

working

Filmi at

Ctotliing."

in

KXO by

sal to

Florence Stoker via cables to London, trying to bring

price.

Would Freedman

down

her asking

please express an opinion to Universal tor his being

the logical choice for the part?

Trail"

right

is

fin

Prior to

"The Big

and

the directed

ju~t

now

"Shceps Louis Wolin

Lugosi apparently did not understand that donating services and acting as an unpaid intermediary

He

didn't

in

negotiations was putting him

comprehend

in

a terrible bargaining

that expressing enthusiasm tor the film in

bcim.

position.

For some time >l has been rumored that Bela Lugosi was to have the leading role, since he played it so well on the sta^e. both here and

press interviews, and even offering script suggestions (as he did to the Oakland Tribune,

giving his

own

enthusiastic mini-treatment of

how

Dracula's sea

abroad Then William Courtney was mentioned is the man who was liable to gam the part on demand from the

voyage to England might be translated to the screen** might also be inter-

New York

assumed, with a certain touching naivete, that magnanimous gestures would be

offices

Maybe we

of

the

firm.

preted as a particularly nervy kind of butting-in. Lugosi seems to have

ire a bit premature with

our announcement, but we reason to believe that Ian been selected and onless foreseen thing happens Dracula

have every Keith has

some will

unplay

repaid

in

kind, but the

message Universal was receiving was not one he

intended. Lugosi was simply proving that he was desperate for the part and

might be had

very, very cheaply.

Several years to a

New

later,

he related a somewhat distorted account of the

York. Post reporter,

who

printed the entire interview

phonetic interpretation of a "Hungarian

"

accent:

affair

in a bizarre

"De Bram Stoker

heirs

The Ghost Goes West

121

V *^

f

m Chester

Thirsty frontrunner: Ian Keith. (Photofest)

Moms

:

the studio was willing.

(Courtesy of Scott

UCLA

Agents

John Wray:

choice: Joseph Schildkraut.

MacQueen and

the initial

announcement.

(Photofest)

(Photofest)

The

distinguished stage actor William

Courtenay was another leading contender for

Dracula. (Free Library of

Philadelphia Theatre Collection)

Paul

Mum:

not very

likely.

(Photofest)

the

Film Archives)

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

122

asked 0200,000 tor dc film

Zo

me would

dey asked

maybe

a liddle cheaper.

reidts,

but Universal didn't

like to

pay dat much.

correspond wid Mrs. Stoker, de widow, and get

I

wreidt and wreidt until

I

aboudt two months, Mrs. Stoker says O.K., we can

hafit

for 060,000.

it

what does Uniwersal do from graddidude? From graddidude dey

two dozens fellows for DraguL

— but

cousins and brodder-in-laws of de

DEIR

And who

not me!

Laemmles

—

it

get cramps, and after

I

Zo

start to test

was tested?

De

deir pets and the pets of

all

pets!"

Actually,

leading E.

M.

search

the

indecision over

Draada

extended considerably beyond Laemmle pets

—

weeks before shooting began,

persisted until just

now

("Efe") Asher, Universal's associate producer

Dracula, to send the following letter to director Roland West,

in

charge of

who had

just

directed The But Whispers (a creepy mystery released by United Artists, with a

masked, cloaked

character

title

who would

be a direct inspiration for Batman):

"Dear Roland,

"We

will start

Dracula

in

about three weeks.

Is there

any possibility of

getting Chester Morris to play Dracula?"

The tough-guy The

specialists role in

And

villain, after all.

a bat

was a

The Bat Whispers had been

a

caped

bat, wasn't it?

director responded:

"Dear

Efe,

"Don't think

I'd care for that part for

Chester as we are looking for

romance.'"'

Meanwhile, although Louis Bromheld remained the several

"of+lcial" scenarist tor

more weeks, screenwriter Garrett Fort (who had

just

completed work

with Browning on Outside the Law, another remake of a silent

gangster

film, this

Lon Chaney

time starring Edward G. Robinson) took out a prominent

trade advertisement announcing his assignment to

Draada

for "Adaptation

and Dialogue." Bromtields enforced collaboration with Dudley Murphy Garrett Fort.

(Hilly

Rose Theatre

Collection. ,\'e» York Public Library at

yielded a script that bore almost

Lincoln Center, Astor. Ijcnox and Tilden

means

Foundations)

Renfield as the real estate agent left

the novel's leading

Browning took save as

no connection

tor melding the novel and stage play

a

hand

much money

who

to Bromfield's treatment.

travels to Transylvania. (This,

man, Jonathan Harker, with precious

in the script as well,

as possible, cut

became even more

fragile,

some of

and

of course,

little

to do.)

and, under an apparent mandate to the

most cinematic sequences,

including the climactic chase back to Castle Dracula. situation

The

was now the substitution of

initial

As

Universal's financial

enthusiasm for the project

waned, the de facto goal was apparently to find a way to

film I}raetda without

having to spend money. Bromfield, disillusioned and drained by his encounter with Dracula, soon left

Hollywood, never

to return.

Though one of

his

books. The Rains Came,

123

The Ghost Goes West

would enjoy a cinematic success as The Rains of Ranchipur,

Hollywood remained up

sour.

"Out of nothing

He

community,

of people, often

the greed of the place cause

want to

their integrity. I

Dudley did

pull out,

Hollywood

to return to

how he summed

brilliant,

them

making compromises. Money and and gradually

to lose their perspective

and

set himself

up

as an independent producer, never

Murphy's most memorable

again.

(Murphy would

1933.

in

he spent the rest of

The Former

effort

would be

first

think

Mexico, where

later relocate his operations to

his life.)

probably the

last

the actor at the time Dracula was being filmed.

She

and Lugosi protegee Carroll Borland,

who knew

seen Lugosi

all

is

touring production at the age of fifteen. "I

in the original

adolescent girls go through a period where they

fall

in love

horses or monsters or whatever," she recalled in a 1989 interview.

thought that Bela Lugosi was the most exciting person certainly the

most magnetic man

room and

the

stage."

his

New

in

casting process for Dracida had reached a state of total paralysis. actress

person living

had

lose

pull out before its too late.""

landmark production of Eugene O'Neills The Emperor Jones, filmed

York

it

similarly jaun-

energy" of the Hollywood creative

criticized the "misdirected

"full

toward

his attitude

is

Dudley Murphy developed a

for Life magazine in 1948."^'

diced view.

into nothing"

all

The

have ever known.

I

women would go

.

.

.

had ever seen.

I

We

whoom! And he

would

did the

with

"And

I

He was

just

sit in

a

same thing on

precocious Borland was inspired to compose a fiiU-length novel,

an unauthorized sequel to Stoker entitled Countess Dracula, which she sent to Lugosi

at his

Oakland

when he made

hotel

a return stage engagement the

following year. "I

wrote

all

wrote him a

know what education

the characters fifty years later,

letter

and asked

his education

was

—

—

I

made

it

modern

he would be interested

I

think

— but he never read English

very well, but he understood. university

if

He

it

in

well,

and

at that time

was very impressed that

'university'

I

it.

don't

was the equivalent of a high school

I

he didn't speak

was going

went to Berkeley on a Shakespeare scholarship

European concept of the

in the 1930s. I

seeing

it

to the

at sixteen

— the

was a much more exclusive one than

ours."

Borland was

thrilled

Leamington Hotel,

when she

his residence

received an invitation to lunch at the

during the stock production of Dracula that

Murphy had seen. "He man was always the European

me — and my

mother.

Asher, Bromfield, and

invited

Remember,

gentleman, observing

this

forms and manners and codes and requirements. hear the novel, thinking to follow this

it

might have some

up Dracula. So he came

He

possibilities as a

to the house in a taxi

very sofa and snapped his fingers for coffee.

It

all

the

decided he wanted to

new

stage vehicle

and stretched out on

took about three days to

HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC

124

read

Borland

to him."

it

strictly professional

day that Lugosis interest

insists to this

Hungarian gentleman stretched out on

Gary Cooper, and

with such other notables as

Bow

University of Southern California.

onstage

later told

Bow — in company

himself, however.

His

high.

fallen for

team of the

Bela after seeing him

anxieties about

"He was

Draada were

no answer!

still,

superstitious and didn't

He

peak

at their

—

kept his tensions to

want to

about

talk

it."

she

Giving up on any possibility of the film role coming to fruition (Hollyeditorialized repeatedly in support of

wood Filmograph, which had casting,

won

the entire football

Borland that he had contacted the Stoker estate and that

demands were too

the film was about to be made, and

said.

that the

in Dracula.

Lugosi their

had

her was

had been linked romantically

their sofa

scandal as a lover of the "Brooklyn Bonfire" Clara

in a

in

and "avuncular." She and her mother had no idea

had gone so

far as to print the

news that Ian Keith had

Lugosis

in all likelihood

the part) he told Borland he was preparing a stock tour of Dracula.

Would

she like to try out for the part of Lucy?

The Carroll Borland. Bela Liigoiii arid protegee, seen here in a test

MGM's Mark

makeup

of the Vampire.

star-smitten Borland was thrilled, but the touring production was

called off* for

when Lugosi suddenly

received

word from Universal.

He

was to be

offered the part.

Borlatid'i

Lugosis elation was brief

appearance would later inspire many

media imitations, including the cartoons of Charles Addams. (Courtesy of Carroll

Universal was offering a ^3,500, for the

title

flat

The terms of

^500

a

week

major studio

role in a

the contract were grotesque.

for a seven-week shooting schedule. film that

had been the focus of

Borland.)

nearly three years of cross-continental and transatlantic negotiations. studio

power play

at

its

baldest and nastiest: in

more than tipped

supplicating the actor had

game: Universal knew

it

ail

his

his scraping

It

was a

and bowing and

hand, and blown the poker

could dictate terms; the Dracula they desired was far

too hungry to put up a fuss.

And

here, Bela Lugosi reached a Faustian crossroads. In accepting the

contract he would almost certainly achieve worldwide fame for a role with

which he had spent years

\

in obsessive identification, the role itself a variation

on Mephistopheles. But here the in

a crazy,

cobwebby

represented on both sides.

'4.

holding out for too

m

from England

— had

roles

were reversed, and reversed again, as

of mirrors

hail

He

—a

had already been stung, by Liveright, for

much money. That been

all

actor

— almost a

too eager to take his place.

always been problematic, even

if

Faustian bargain with the devil

in

good

boy, that

An

times, but this year

actors

Huntley life

had

was one of the

worst, economically, that anyone could remember.

And

Universal wouldn't budge.

*Lugosi did, however, offer Borland the chance to play Lucy Dracula he prepared for the vaudeville circuit

in

1932.

in a

condensed version of

The Ghost Goes West

125

ALL THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS — EVERY PAGE A FRONT PAGE

ni

HOLLYWOOD

-^^

1

—-t^mne^^Bntm

3«iE*35MP«a+