Review: Dracula (Spanish Version) (1931)

In the silent film era, releasing movies overseas was relatively simple: you just had the title cards translated into the language of the country of choice and inserted them into the existing film. With the advent of sound, however, matters became more complicated. It was difficult enough to try and record the actors' voices in their original language, much less replacing those voices with words in a different language. And because dubbing was still such a primitive, inexact science, many studios preferred to shoot alternate versions of their films for overseas markets, using the same scripts and sets as their English-speaking counterparts, but substituting actors who could play the parts in Spanish or German or whatever.

So Universal used the same sets and script and hired Spanish-speaking actors to recreated Dracula for south-of-the-border distribution, with the Spanish version being shot at night while the English version was created during the day.

The resulting film, though, is in some ways superior to Universal's "official" Dracula. There are bits of music throughout the film, and director George Melford seems more aware of space and how to use it than Browning, moving through the sets to give the audience a sense of their vast expanse. He and his cinematographer, George Robinson (who would later work on many more Universal horror pictures), use low-key lighting effects borrowed from German Expressionist films to show Dracula rising from his coffin, which seems lit from within, and in a brief scene not present in the English version in which shafts of light seem to be emanating from the ground as the coach carrying Renfield speeds toward Castle Dracula (Stoker described a similar scene in the novel).

There's also more sexual frankness present in the Spanish version. Eva (Lupita Tovar), the equivalent of Mina in the English version, wears much more revealing lingerie than Helen Chandler did, and the connection between vampirism and sexual penetration is made quite clear in a bit of dialogue (also absent from the English version) in which Eva describes waking up from a disturbing dream and feeling like she'd lost her virginity (though I notice that this language was altered for the DVD release to read as "I felt like the life had been drained out of me"--ah, censorship, sweet censorship).

Some of the performances are better than in the Browning/Lugosi version, especially Tovar's sexy turn as Eva and Pablo Alvarez Rubio's over-the-top-and-back-again performance as Renfield. While Dwight Frye was disconcerting enough with his wide-eyed giggling, Rubio (who looks a bit like Sid Caesar) makes Frye look positively restrained by comparison, turnong Renfield into a screaming, screeching, writhing lunatic. He holds nothing back and makes Renfield's tortured soul wholly believable.

Where the Spanish version doesn't hold up is Carlos Villarias's performance as Conde Dracula. Though few would credit Bela Lugosi with a reserved acting style, he seems downright subtle compared to Villarias, who tries too damn hard to be scary, bugging out his eyes and leering ravenously. His idea of expressing anger is to clench his fists, grit his teeth and stalk off. His movements are stiff compared to Lugosi's smooth, suave ways, and he just doesn't seem that threatening. He does, however, bear a significant resemblance to Lugosi, and this allowed Universal to recycle some of the footage of Lugosi walking along the street outside Mina's/Eva's window. Even on DVD, it's hard to tell the difference between the two unless you really look frame by frame.

The Spanish version of Dracula is an interesting, good-looking alternative to the English version, and it's fun and even educational to watch the two and compare and contrast the different approaches Melford and Browning have to the same material. You might even find Melford's version to be superior.

(NOTE: This version was long considered a "lost" film because the third reel was missing, while the rest of the film was intact and in great shape; the missing reel was found in Cuba in 1989, and despite its relatively poor quality, it was better than having nothing at all.)