# Dracula (1931) versus Frankenstein (1931)



## The Holy Drunk (Oct 24, 2012)

What are people's views on the two? I'm posting this because I recently got into a debate about Universal's Dracula, namely my combatant thought it was one of the greatest horror films ever made. Ignoring things dating in general IMO it wasn't even the greatest horror film of 1931. That was Frankenstein, followed by the oddly forgotten Paramount adaptation of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde which ended up winning a fistful of Oscars.

Beyond that I will admit I find Dracula tedious and flat. Sure Lugosi is all suave and Hungarian but he mostly wanders around in a dinner jacket doing very little surrounded by a dinner theatre level cast. It feels like a silent movie, both in huge gaps without sound and in the worst traditions of early cinema is shot like a play. A very slow play. Now you might say it was the early days of sound, the film was based on a theatre production starring Lugosi etc. but comparing it with a film made by the same company at the same time as Frankenstein seems to show it was simply a bad production. I personally feel had Frankenstein turned up first at the cinema, Dracula would have been quickly forgotten as an also-ran. 

However people like my combatant insist at its genius and I struggle to see anything. Opinions are opinions but I've never been given any good reasons in Dracula's defence. Anyone care to throw their hat in the ring?


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## J-Sun (Oct 24, 2012)

I think you're too harsh on _Dracula_ but, yeah, it's no contest. I have to pretend it's 1931 and I've never seen anything like it (though I could easily have seen _Nosferatu_ and others) and pretend to be spooked by the bouncy rubber bat rather than amused and so on. And so I can see it as a neat film. Whereas _Frankenstein_ is dramatic, filled with pathos, and doesn't really need any particular historical consciousness. I mean, no it's not in color and, no, it doesn't have multi-million dollar sets but so what? The film still works.


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## j d worthington (Oct 25, 2012)

My vote goes for *Frankenstein*... though for me it is a narrow margin. I have seen each film numerous times over the years, though there was about a 15 year period where I didn't see either. The last few years, I have seen each of them within a few days to a week of each other, fairly regularly... and I will say my opinion on Browning's *Dracula* has improved considerably. When I saw it when I was very young, I simply loved both. Later on I, too, began to feel *Dracula* was rather overly slow and a bit tedious (though I still loved Bela, I must admit). But in those last few years I mentioned, I have begun to feel that there are a lot of very fine, understated atmospheric moments throughout the film, and times when it reaches admirable heights of eeriness and menace. I think particularly of the confrontations of Van Helsing and the count, and the way they are played, from Edward Van Sloan's really quite complex reactions when he first recognizes Dracula as the vampire he is seeking, to the way the "suave" count turns frankly amimalistic and vicious with the mirror, then recovering in a particularly saturnine manner, as he were the devil playing chess and nodding an acknowledgment of a particularly good move by his opponent... but knowing he still has the odds overwhelmingly in his favor.

To me, much of this film is on the same level as the first appearance of the live monster in *Frankenstein*... where we first simply hear his approach, then he _backs_ through the door, before turning and presenting that corpse-like countenance. That is a truly frightening moment in cinema, and surely one of the most iconic. *Dracula* is, really, full of such understated moments (much like *The Mummy*), and so for me it deserves the high regard in which it has been held for more than eighty years. I still am a bit partial to *Frankenstein*, in part because of my personal affection for Karloff, which dates back to my earliest memories; but Bela's turn as the undead nobleman, despite its flaws (such as that bat, which is really rather neat when seen close-up, as I have seen it during a documentary recently) is one of the magic moments in screen history.


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## Foxbat (Oct 25, 2012)

I love both movies but Frankenstein wins it for me.


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## The Holy Drunk (Oct 26, 2012)

That's a good defence J.D. but even as you mention I think Bela is almost the whole film and that makes it lop-sided in my opinion.

I have to admit my OP was fuelled by annoyance. I've met one too many people who seem to like Bela and hence Dracula on the basis he is iconic over any joy the films can give. I'm very much in the Karloff camp (though I loved Bela as Igor in Son of Frankenstein) primarily because I came to his films in at the turn of this century, young, without any preconditions and was enthralled, there was no need for historical leniency.


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## Foxbat (Oct 26, 2012)

I think Dwight Frye's performance as Renfield is often overlooked in Dracula. For me, he provides a wonderful madman and proves that it's not all down to Bela (at least as far as I'm concerned).


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## j d worthington (Oct 26, 2012)

Foxbat said:


> I think Dwight Frye's performance as Renfield is often overlooked in Dracula. For me, he provides a wonderful madman and proves that it's not all down to Bela (at least as far as I'm concerned).


 
I agree. His performance as Renfield is both chilling and sympathetic. Frye is often overlooked, period, and I don't think this is deserved. He never became a major actor, but he was a very good character actor, and certainly one of the best when it came to "business" in his realizations of a role... I think one of my favorite examples with him is when, as Fritz in *Frankenstein*, he is returning up the stairs muttering to himself and, without breaking stride, bends down and yanks up his stockings... which promptly fall right down again. It an excellent touch, and says volumes about the character....


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## steve12553 (Nov 3, 2012)

Just watched Dracula for the first time in a number of years. One of the things I remembered from the book was the comment that the Count's accent was odd because he had learned English from books without having heard it spoken. In the Coppolla version Gary Oldman had a bizzarre accent in the castle that gradually got more comfortable during the film. I had not remembered Lugosi's accent being that way but on seeing it again this week his pronunciations also had the strange cadence that I had not remembered. I seemed to notice a few more subtleties in the performance that I hadn't noticed before. Well worth watching eighty some odd years down the road.


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## Don R (Oct 9, 2020)

I saw both movies as a kid, and now again 50-years later as a reasonably serious amateur student of film. There isn't a single post here I disagree with - "Frankenstein" is the better film by a significant margin; "Dracula" was first-to-market, so picked up some popularity from that. (Note: I watched the silent German "Nosferatu" about five-years ago, and *that* is a fine film.) There is just so much complex pathos in Frankenstein that's lacking in Dracula, and (unlike "Bride of Frankenstein," which I also recently saw), the monster is a much better character for not talking - his pathetic grunts are heart-wrenching, and the scene with the blind man is just legendary. I could go on-and-on - the scene throwing the girl in the lake, meaning well but ultimately sowing his own destruction. I don't think I ever want to see any more "official" sequels to these ('Frankenstein meets Aquaman,' etc.) although I have to put in plugs for "Young Frankenstein" (terrific) and a guilty pleasure of mine, "Fright Night."

Anyway, I appreciate aspects of Dracula, but Frankenstein wins this little race in a runaway.


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## Foxbat (Oct 9, 2020)

I’d advise anybody watching Todd Browning’s Dracula to watch it with Philip Glass’s score rather than the original. It’s not only incredibly atmospheric but a perfect example of how sound can really affect the way we see things.


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## Jeffbert (Oct 21, 2020)

Don R said:


> I saw both movies as a kid, and now again 50-years later as a reasonably serious amateur student of film. There isn't a single post here I disagree with - "Frankenstein" is the better film by a significant margin; "Dracula" was first-to-market, so picked up some popularity from that. (Note: I watched the silent German "Nosferatu" about five-years ago, and *that* is a fine film.) There is just so much complex pathos in Frankenstein that's lacking in Dracula, and (unlike "Bride of Frankenstein," which I also recently saw), the monster is a much better character for not talking - his pathetic grunts are heart-wrenching, and the scene with the blind man is just legendary. I could go on-and-on - the scene throwing the girl in the lake, meaning well but ultimately sowing his own destruction. I don't think I ever want to see any more "official" sequels to these ('Frankenstein meets Aquaman,' etc.) although I have to put in plugs for "Young Frankenstein" (terrific) and a guilty pleasure of mine, "Fright Night."
> 
> Anyway, I appreciate aspects of Dracula, but Frankenstein wins this little race in a runaway.


Poor Aquaman! He gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield!

The horror of Frankenstein, as I recall, is that the poor wretch is cast out of his creator's sight, into a world in which people are afraid of him and disgusted by his appearance. He wants nothing more than acceptance. The film shows the horror from the perspective of both the wretch and those who fear him. Dracula, on the other hand, is not depicted as a victim / or from a sympathetic view until Blacula. 

Anyway, without dialog, there is a great limitation on expressing the character's emotion. I recall a Gojira film that had dialog balloons for Gojira and one other creature! Lacking speech, he cannot express his intentions, which the villagers assume is evil. 

Recalling the novel Frankenstein, I 1st read on a CD full of public domain works. But, in university, in a course on critical approaches to literature. half the thickness of the book was a section on various interpretations. Interesting stuff! Anyway, one such interpretation was a critique of Calvinism. This held that there are those who are predestined to be saved, while others are to be damned. Nothing you could do about it, etc. Such is the wretch's fate. 

I guess I really never thought about Dracula being better than Frankenstein, or vice-versa.  I think that fitting the stories into about 90 minutes seemed to work better for Frankenstein, which was a shorter story.


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