Dracula (1931) - Lugosi commands the screen as few have in chilling classic

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One of the original, striking posters for Tod Browning's Dracula

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Count Dracula prepares his exile from Transylvania in London, where he will face hard opposition.

Dracula is the 2nd adaptation of Bram Stoker's (The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)) classic 1897 novel, following F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), though actually based on the successful 1924 play adaptation of the novel by Hamilton Deane, John L. Balderston (Gaslight (1944)) and Garrett Fort (Before Dawn (1933)). It is handsomely produced, by Carl Laemmle Jr. (Imitation of Life (1934)) and producer-writer-director Tod Browning (Freaks (1932)), and loyal to the novel.
The film is heightened by some great performances: Bela Lugosi (Ninotchka (1939)) in his defining title role, Dwight Frye (Sky Bandits (1940)) as Renfield and Edward Van Sloan (The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)) as Van Helsing are especially outstanding.
Dracula is dated and at times slow, but it is still a good film, even if other of the Universal horrors of the period are greater films, (particularly Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and The Wolf Man (1941)).
Different elements of Dracula were written by Browning, Louis Bromfield (For Whom the Bells Toll (1943)), Max Cohen (King Tut-Ankh-Amen's Eight Wife (1923)), Dudley Murphy (Alma de Bronce (1944)) and Louis Stevens (Border River (1954)). And Browning is said to have left the direction to fine cinematographer Karl Freund (I Love Lucy (1951-56)) for much of the shoot.

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, watch a neat video of scenes from the movie to a piece of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake here

Cost: 0.355 mil. $
Box office: Unknown (likely somewhere around 1.75 mil. $)
= Uncertainty (likely a big hit)
[Dracula premiered in February 12 (New York's Roxy Theater) and runs 85 minutes. Murnau's unauthorized adaptation had resulted in a successful copyright lawsuit, so Laemmle Jr. made sure to buy the rights to adapt the existing play and novel fair and square. Lugosi had played Dracula extensively in the Broadway hit play but was an unpopular pick at Universal, who accepted him on the basis of paying him just 500 $ a week. The shoot lasted 7 weeks. Footage from Universal's The Storm Breaker (1925) are incorporated into Dracula, which accounts for the jumpy change of image quality in the storm scenes. Browning was mostly comfortable with silent film, which is one of the reasons behind Dracula's intertitles and theatrical acting style. A Spanish-language as well as a silent version of the film were created simultaneously for release in Spanish-speaking countries and in theaters that had not yet converted to sound. No score was commissioned for Dracula, because sound and scoring was still in its infancy in film, until Philip Glass was commissioned to compose one in 1998. Audiences are said to have fainted in shock at the premiere of Dracula, which contributed to its attraction, which made it Universal's top-grossing film of the year, resulting in reportedly 0.7 mil. $ profits, which might put the film's box office earnings at around 1.75 mil. $, - which would translate into the Film Excess status of 'big hit.' The film received mixed reviews upon release and would forever mark Lugosi's life, as he was thereafter always identified with count Dracula. The remarkable and rare original posters for Dracula today auction at as much as 0.1 mil. $. Dracula is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.9 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Dracula?
Which is your favorite Dracula movie and why?

The Mummy (1932) - Eerie awakening of the long dead by great talents Karloff, Johann, Freund, Pierce

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Colorful, beautifully painted poster for Karl Freund's The Mummy

The original Mummy movie from Universal Studios and Austrian-Hungarian director Karl Freund (Dracula (1931), cinematographer) is an atmospheric, creepy and a bit mystic movie.
A mummy tomb is opened by busy, British archaeologists, and an ancient mummy priest 'disappears', just as a formidable, Egyptian figure arrives, and a local beauty, Helen Grosvenor, begins to experience passions of an extraordinary kind!
Reincarnation and occult beliefs are a corner stone of Mummy, which originally included scenes of the female lead Grosvenor's incarnations in other ages, in which she gets killed. These scenes are, unfortunately, lost, as they were cut out before the film's release. They would be very interesting to see in The Mummy, which runs a little short as it is (at 73 minutes.) The film's reincarnations plot-line also seems a little confusing as it is now.
Hungarian-born Broadway actress Zita Johann (The Sin of Nora Morann (1933)) is intense as Grosvenor, probably because of her 'spirit of the theater'-approach to acting (a technique where she saw her work as sacred and in which she had to let herself 'die' to leave room for her characters); but also due to her personal, strong beliefs in the occult, and reincarnation in particular. (She has also claimed to have achieved levitation at at least one incident!)
Boris Karloff (Frankenstein (1931)), of course, portrays the mummy, - advertised in posters at the time as merely 'Karloff the Uncanny' (see poster above). His performance is down-played but very eerie, a blend of Karloff's ghoulish qualities as an actor and the great make-up effects by Jack Pierce (The Raven (1935)), which Karloff had an awful time getting on, and especially off, as the process was excruciatingly painful:

Boris Karloff in the first scene as the mummy in his sarcophagus in Karl Freund's The Mummy

In fact, we never see the mummy in this the original film walking around with his arms stretched out and mummy wrappings hanging from him; that only happens in the sequels. In Mummy, the title (romantic) heavy is never shown much, and yet when he is, the effects are impressive and would become iconic:

Iconic Boris Karloff-image from Karl Freund's The Mummy

Also impressive and goosebumps-inducing is the SPOILER stop-motion-death of the mummy in the end, reminiscent of the end of The Wolf Man (1941), which was also achieved by make-up artist Pierce.

The details:

Apart from atmospheric, high quality cinematography, - guaranteed by director Freund, who was mainly a fine cinematographer and was hired just two days before production! - two great performances and iconic, scary effects, Mummy also has a few issues:
The film has no score for long patches that go by in almost complete silence, and they tend to feel slow. The action of the film gets going surprisingly fast, as the mummy is revived within the first about 10 minutes, but then later on, there are slow patches, and some of the scenes do feel dated.
Despite these impediments, The Mummy is still an incredibly handsome, well-made film very worth watching.
After the successful Mummy action-comedy-adventure trilogy by Stephen Sommers, Universal has announced a remake of the original 1932 film, but no particulars are out on that yet.

Another irresistible poster for Karl Freund's The Mummy

Watch the great, re-release trailer here

Budget: 0.196 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty but reportedly a big hit

What do you think of The Mummy and its sequels and spin-offs?
Who should portray the mummy in a new version of the film?