A History of Horror 5: Universal's Dracula series (1931-1979)

Dracula. One of the most iconic horror villains of all time. Originally appearing in the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, there have been many movies, television shows, video games, books and even pinball machines and musicals based on the character. Let's take a look at where it all started with the Dracula movies made by Universal Studios. Note, this will only cover those movies where Dracula is the only villain. The monster mash-ups of the 1940s will be covered separately.

First we have Dracula (1931) directed by Tod Browning. This is the first official Dracula film. After the success of Phantom of the Opera (1925), Universal Studios were hoping to capitalise on another successful horror franchise. They chose the best-selling novel Dracula as a source material (although the film is actually closer to the stage production by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston).

Plot: I presume most of you are familiar with the story of Dracula but for those that aren't here is a brief summary. Renfield (Dwight Frye) is a solicitor who has been tasked with visiting Count Dracula (Béla Lugosi) to arrange for the count to buy Carfax Abbey in London. On his way there, Renfield has some strange encounters. The locals seem terrified of the count and urge Renfield to go home. A strange carriage appears to take him to the castle and is later seen being driven by a bat. At the castle, Renfield is attacked by Dracula and becomes a madman, obsessed with eating insects. Upon their return to England, Renfield is committed to Dr. Seward's (Herbert Bunston) sanitorium. Meanwhile, Dracula becomes friends with Dr. Seward's daughter Mina (Helen Chandler), her fiancé John Harker (David Manners) and friend Lucy (Frances Dade). Lucy becomes fascinated by Dracula, but when she turns up dead the following day, with strange bite marks in her neck, the family call in Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) to get to the bottom of the mystery.

My thoughts: It's a good film. Very 1930s feel to it. Lugosi is wonderful as Dracula, helped by his thick Hungarian accent and his prior experience playing the character in the Deane and Balderston play. Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula set the standard and pretty much everyone has copied him to this day. The best performance, however, is that given by Dwight Frye, who was so good at playing a madman you could be fooled into thinking he wasn't acting. The female characters were typical 1930s female characters and Manners does a competent job as Harker. The only thing I don't like about this film is Van Sloan as Van Helsing. He just comes off as smug and he loves it when he knows something the others don't, even going as far as mocking Dracula himself about it as seen in the trailer. Anyway, we now move onto to a movie which is effectively a remake...

Made at the same time as the previous film this time in Spanish. At the time, French, Spanish, Italian and German versions were made of the big films but unfortunately, most of them are lost. In fact, this one was believed lost until a copy was found in the 1970s.

Plot: This film's plot is exactly the same as the previous film's

My thoughts: The crew were able to watch the English-language version being filmed and they spent their time figuring out how to make theirs better and some believe they succeeded. It certainly is more atmospheric but I still prefer the American one. It might be because Carlos Villarias doesn't look like Dracula, especially when he smiles. He looks goofy to me. Anyway, you should check it out as it is available on DVD with English subtitles.

Dracula was followed by a sequel in 1936 Dracula's Daughter directed by Lambert Hillyer. This would be the only Dracula film from Universal not to feature Dracula himself (although his corpse does make a brief appearance).

Plot: Taking place immediately after the events of Dracula, Van Helsing has been arrested and charged with the murder of Count Dracula. Instead of hiring a lawyer, Van Helsing hires a former student of his, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Count Dracula's daughter, the Countess Maria Zeleska (Gloria Holden) and her manservant Sandor (Irving Pichel), have stolen Dracula's body and plans to burn it in an attempt to free Maria from the curse of vampirism. It doesn't work. But when Maria meets Dr. Garth, she is filled with a renewed hope that the doctor's science can help. Unfortunately, Sandor is in no hurry to see Maria cured.

My thoughts: Good movie. More creative and thought-provoking than Dracula. Probably why it didn't perform very well at the box office. I guess people didn't like the idea of a vampire being portrayed in a sympathetic manner. Also, the implied lesbian overtones are very apparent and who doesn't like lesbian suckers? Worth checking out.

Dracula's Daughter was followed by another sequel in 1943, Son of Dracula (not to be confused with a 1974 film with the same title starring Leslie Nielsen). By this point, Universal were struggling to get audiences interested in their horror films, a lot of patrons believed horror was just a passing fad. As a result, Universal churned out many low quality horror flicks and this one is no exception.

Plot: The film is set on a New Orleans plantation when a mysterious stranger, the Hungarian Count Alucard (read it backwards) (Lon Chaney, jr.) turns up, invited by Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton), daughter of a wealthy plantation owner Colonel Caldwell (George Irving). Shortly after this, the colonel dies of heart failure and leaves his possessions to his two daughters: Claire (Evelyn Ankers) receives his money and Katherine receives the estate. Katherine marries Alucard, something that her boyfriend Frank Stanley (Robert Paige) is none too pleased about. He shoots Alucard in anger, but the bullets (somehow) go through his body and hit Katherine who is standing behind him. Frank is understandably distraught and seeks his friends Dr. Brewster (Frank Craven) and Professor Laszlo (J. Edward Bromberg) for advice. Together they realise that Alucard and Katherine are not what they seem and what follows is a very confusing tale of immortality.

My thoughts: This movie is confusing. Mainly because it can't make up it's mind if Alucard is Dracula or not. Hell, just look at the title. No explanation is given as to how Dracula survived having his corpse burned in Daughter of Dracula, nor why a seemingly Hungarian count has an American accent. Not much to say about this although it is the first movie to feature an on-screen vampire-to-bat transformation scene (previous movies had the transformation occur off-screen) and it is the only movie where Chaney played Dracula (he has also played the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster and the Mummy in various other Universal movies). Check it out if you're curious otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

After the 1940s, Universal branched away from horror and never really went back to it. However, after The Exorcist (1973), Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Jaws (1975), revived interest in the American horror film, they decided to bring back one their most successful characters with a modern remake in 1979 directed by John Badham.

Plot: The film is set in 1913 Whitby when Count Dracula (Frank Langella) is washed ashore after his ship runs aground. Mina (Jan Francis) is on her way to visit her friend Lucy (Kate Nelligan) when she stumbles across a bedraggled Dracula. Dracula later visits Mina and Lucy at Lucy's house, where he meets her father Dr. Jack Seward (Donald Pleasence) and her fiancé Jonathan Harker (Trevor Eve). The following morning, Mina is found dead with throat wounds. This causes the Sewards to contact Mina's father, Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Laurence Olivier) who is convinced his daughter has become the victim of a vampire. Meanwhile, Lucy finds herself falling in love with the mysterious Count Dracula, much to the chagrin of Harker. The rest of the movie is the typical Dracula story.

My thoughts: In my opinion this is the best version of Dracula. A lot people say Bram Stoker's Dracula is the best, but I think this one's better. All the actors play their parts well (Olivier does sometimes go over the top however) and the film overall is very atmospheric. Even the romance element is done well. The big changes made to story were the Lucy and Mina characters being swapped over, Mina being Van Helsing's daughter and the character of Renfield being largely removed. Definitely check it out.

So far, those have been the only Dracula movies Universal have made. Many other Dracula films have been made, most notably the ones made by British studio Hammer Films. We'll look at those later. Next, the other big hit for Universal: "It's alive! It's alive!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!".

See also:
More horror
Nosferatu

Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897)

During the late 19th century, the race was on to see who could discover the most dinosaurs. The two combatants of these 'Bone Wars' were Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh.

Edward was born on 28th July 1840 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Alfred and Hanna Cope. His mother died when he was three years old and his father re-married to Rebecca Biddle. His father wanted Edward to receive a Quaker education like he had and so he sent him to the Friends' Boarding School. It was here that he developed his interest in natural history. However, his father did not want his son to pursue an academic career but instead to become a gentleman farmer like himself. Edward hated farming, finding it boring and continued to educate himself in his spare time. Eventually, his father relented and agreed to finance his studies at the University of Pennsylvania under the tutelage of Joseph Leidy. It was here that he published his first papers.

In 1863, with the American Civil War raging on, Cope took a tour of Europe, visiting many reputable museums and societies. Some of his biographers believe he took this tour to avoid being drafted into the war. During this tour, Cope had a love affair with a unnamed woman. His father strongly disapproved of this relationship and forced Edward to end it. Also during this European foray, Cope met another fellow American, Othniel Marsh, who was studying at the University of Berlin. The two men became friends and after Cope went back home, they stayed in touch with each other, exchanging papers, specimens and letters.

After returning to the States, Cope got a teaching job as the Professor of Zoology at Haverford College, Pennsylvania. In 1864 he married Annie Pim, a fellow Quaker and, two years later, had a daughter Julia. It was at this time that Cope described the first of many prehistoric animals, the prehistoric amphibian Amphibamus grandiceps (Cope, 1865).

Between 1866 and 1867, Cope travelled across America, exploring caves and pits. He resigned from his post as professor and sold the family farm in order to finance his research. From the caves and pits, he described new prehistoric animals such as the plesiosaur Elasmosaurus platyurus (Cope, 1868) and the dinosaur Laelaps (Cope, 1866) (subsequently renamed Dryptosaurus (Marsh, 1877) because Laelaps had already been used by a mite (Koch, 1836) but Cope refused to acknowledge the new name and continued using Laelaps, even naming new species).

The 1870s were a high point in Cope's academic career. Amongst his best known discoveries of this time are the mammal-like reptile Lystrosaurus (Cope, 1870), the crocodile-like reptile Champsosaurus (Cope, 1876) and potentially the largest dinosaur that ever lived Amphicoelias (Cope, 1878). Cope published between 25 and 76 papers each year. Unfortunately, this high volume of publications meant that Cope made many errors and had to print multiple corrections and redactions. This did not do his reputation any favours. It also didn't help that he mostly published his works in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society journal, a journal that was not widely read. Meanwhile, Marsh published very high-quality papers in the much more well-read American Journal of Science and his reputation skyrocketed.

Unfortunately, the 1870s also marked a low for Cope as his father, Alfred, died in 1875. This hit Cope hard as he was always close to his father, despite his father's reservations about his scientific career. He spent the rest of the decade writing up the findings of his earlier expeditions. He made another trip to Europe in 1878 and met with some of the greatest palaeontologists of the time including Richard Owen, Thomas Huxley, Ferdinand Hayden, Albert Guenther and Harry Seeley.

Cope is best known for his fierce rivalry with Othniel Marsh. This all started when Cope asked Marsh to examine his fossil of Elasmosaurus that he had discovered and reconstructed. Marsh informed Cope that he had, in fact, stuck the head on the end of the tail! The two argued back and forth for weeks about it until Cope asked his former mentor Joseph Leidy to have a look. Leidy took one glance at the skeleton, picked up the head and placed it at the other end. Cope was devastated because he had just published a paper describing Elasmosaurus with the incorrect drawing. It got worse when Leidy brought the issue to public knowledge during a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. Marsh just sat there looking smug. Cope was furious.

In 1877, American schoolteacher Arthur Lakes found a stash of fossil bones in Morrison, Colorado. He sent these bones to both Cope and Marsh. However, when Marsh agreed to pay Lakes $100 for his finds, Lakes asked Cope to forward the bones to Marsh. Cope was highly offended. Instead, Cope received bones from another schoolteacher Oramel Lucas from nearby Canyon City.

Shortly after this, both Cope and Marsh heard about a large boneyard at Como Bluff in Wyoming and sent collectors to the site. Both groups attempted to sabotage the others' progress with Cope offering to pay Marsh's men large sums of money if they defected and Marsh attempted to persuade Ferdinand Hayden, Cope's chief publisher, to reduce the number of papers of Cope's he approved. Marsh even had his dig sites dynamited so Cope couldn't dig there after they left!

In 1877, Cope returned from a trip to Europe to be greeted by two years' worth of bones found by Lucas. Amongst them were the remains of the dinosaur Camarasaurus (Cope, 1877). In 1879, the United States Congress assembled all the geological survey teams into one and appointed Clarence King as the leader. Cope was hopeful that he would be named chief palaeontologist so you can imagine his disappointment when King named Marsh to that position instead.

Then things got much worse in the 1880s. Marsh's role in the Survey gave him access to essentially unlimited resources. Cope, on the other hand, was running out of money. Fast. His good friend Ferdinand Hayden, who worked for the Survey, lost his position, and was unable to fund Cope's work. Instead Cope turned to mines, investing in a number of silver mines in New Mexico. For a while, this tied him over, but by 1886, he was forced to sell his stock as the mines closed down. In the same year, he took a teaching job at the University of Pennsylvania but it wasn't enough to satisfy him, so he looked for work elsewhere. Both the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History, both prestigious institutions, turned him down. Although offered to join the Survey, Cope refused because it meant working with Marsh and Marsh's buddy Colin Powell.

Marsh convinced Powell to force Cope to return all the specimens he had gathered as part of previous government surveys. Cope was outraged and refused on the grounds that he had been a volunteer on those surveys and not been an official employee and therefore the specimens he had found were his and not the government's. However, Cope decided it was time to fight back and he went to the editor of the New York Herald with a notepad in which he had recorded every mistake and accusation made against Marsh and Powell. This he had gathered from previous employees and consisted of claims of errors, employees being denied credit and being underpaid, to misappropriated government funds. Marsh and Powell both published rebuttals but it was in vain. Although no criminal proceedings were made against Marsh and Powell, their reputations suffered and as a result, Marsh was removed as chief palaeontologist and Powell had his funding cut significantly.

However, Cope's own reputation and friendships became strained as well. But he didn't particularly care. In fact, he even named a species of prehistoric mammal after his haters Conacodon cophater (Cope, 1884). He then went on to name two of the most important fossils of his career, the mammal-like reptile Edaphosaurus (Cope, 1882) and the dinosaur Coelophysis (Cope, 1889). In 1889, his good friend Joseph Leidy passed away and Cope succeeded him as Professor of Zoology at the University of Pennsylvania. This increase in pay allowed Cope to buy back the family farm that he previously had to sell.

Then, in 1892, fortune struck Cope. He was offered a position with the Texas Geological Survey to conduct field work. With the extra money generated from this he was able to publish two huge books that had he had been working on for years: Batrachians of North America, about North American amphibians and The Crocodilians Lizards and Snakes of North America, about...well, the title is pretty self-explanatory really. In 1894, his daughter, Julia married an astronomy professor, William Collins. Together they moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania, and afterwards so did Cope's wife, Annie. Cope stayed in Philadelphia, his reasoning being that he did not wish to commute, although his pupil, Henry Osborn (the guy who described Tyrannosaurus) later reported that the two had separated by this point, although they remained amicable towards each other.

Cope's final act before his death was to sell his collections in 1895. His fossil mammal collection, with 10,000 specimens, sold for $32,000, whilst the rest of his 13,000 specimens sold for $29,000. With this extra money, he was able to rehire fossil collectors, including the great Charles Sternberg, with the aim of starting a fresh, new career in palaeontology.

By 1896, Cope was ill. Very ill. He was bedridden with a severe gastrointestinal illness which he said was cystitis. He was looked after by his wife, who came up from Haverford, and his secretary Anna Brown, when his wife was unable to. He prescribed himself medicines composed of morphine, belladonna (a poison derived from the Deadly Nightshade) and formalin (a chemical similar to formaldehyde). When Osborn visited him and discovered what Cope was doing, Osborn convinced him to stop and undergo surgery instead. Arrangements were subsequently made but were then cancelled after Cope showed improvement. Cope, feeling better, travelled to Virginia to look for more fossils but fell ill again and returned home. On 5 April 1897, Osborn visited again but Cope didn't want to talk about his health and instead wanted to have a discussion on the origins of mammals. Over the next few days, other friends visited but again, Cope wanted to have academic debates and not talk about his condition, despite developing a severe fever. Then, on 12 April 1897, Cope passed away at the age of 56. His funeral was a small affair, with a Quaker ceremony and 6 people in attendance. However, he wasn't buried as he had his body donated to science and it still resides at the University of Pennsylvania. His cause of death is still unknown.

See also:
More dinosaurs
More on Amphicoelias fragillimus and other large dinosaurs
Richard Owen

References
Cope, E. (1865) 'On Amphibamus grandiceps, a new Batrachian from the Coal Measures: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1865, pp. 134-137

Cope, E. (1866) 'On the remains of a gigantic extinct dinosaur, from the Cretaceous Green Sand of New Jersey', Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 18, pp. 275-279

Cope, E. (1868) 'Remarks on a new enaliosaurian, Elasmosaurus platyurus', Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 20, pp. 92-93

Cope, E. (1870) 'On the skull of dicynodont Reptilia. Lystrosaurus frontosus from Cape Colony', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 11, p. 419

Cope, E. (1876) 'On some extinct reptiles and Batrachia from the Judith River and Fox Hills Beds of Montana', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 28, pp. 340-359

Cope, E. (1877) 'On a gigantic saurian from the Dakota epoch of Colorado', Palaeontological Bulletin, 25, pp. 5-10

Cope, E. (1878) 'On the Vertebrata of the Dakota Epoch of Colorado', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 17 (100), pp. 233-247

Cope, E. (1882) 'Third contribution to the History of the Vertebrata of the Permian Formation of Texas', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 20, pp. 447-474

Cope, E. (1884) 'Second addition to the the knowledge of the Puerco Eocene epoch', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21, pp. 309-324

Cope, E. (1889) 'On a new genus of Triassic Dinosauria', The American Naturalist, 23, p. 626

Koch, C. (1836) Deutschlands Crustaceen, Myriapoden und Arachniden, Regensberg: F. Pustet

Marsh, O. (1877) 'Notice of a new and gigantic dinosaur', American Journal of Science and Arts, 14, pp. 87-88