Thread: Dracula (1931)
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Old 04-05-2006, 01:29 PM
hollywoodgothiq's Avatar
hollywoodgothiq hollywoodgothiq is offline
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No, it would not.

It would be fair to say that neither one makes use of the relatively small plot point of having Harker recognize the Count back in London.

But the 1931 DRACULA is a cliff notes version of the book, with elements of the play thrown in. The essential differnce between the film and the book is that Dracula does not lurk in the shadows; he is openly invited into the polite society that he is preying on.

This is a pretty major divergence, to be sure. But the important plot points remain in common: an Englishman goes to Transylvania to seel some property to the Count; the Count travels to England by boat, killing everyone on board; in England he preys upon a girl named Lucy, who dies and becomes a vampire; Dracula sets his sights upon Mina, Jonathan Harker's fiancee, as his next victim, but Harker and Dr. Seward receive help from Professor Van Helsing, who identifies Dracula as the culprit; Dracula kills his fly-eating assistant Renfield; and then...the comparison ends because Universal ran out of money and couldn't afford to film the chase back to Transylvania.

Admittedly, my plot summary is filled with broad generalizations so that the words will suit the book and the film equally. If you look at specific details, they are quite different. But then you get into the philosophical question of how exact the details have to be, in order to qualify as "being faithful." Neither NOSFERATU nor DRACULA features the ending from the book, but NOSFERATU's ending is a completely original invention not derived from the text in anyway. The ending in DRACULA is at least a dim echo of the book.
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