The Story of the Spanish Dracula

Every day in October 1930, when shooting wrapped on Tod Browning’s classic 1931 film “Dracula”, another movie was being filmed during the night, on the same set, based on the same script and funded by the same studio. The film however featured a completely different cast and crew and was performed in another language.

This film was the Spanish language version of the same movie (“Dracula”) and has since garnered a large cult following, after being virtually forgotten for decades.

The production was part of a larger effort by Universal to expand its international reach and was seen as the answer to the perceived difficulty of selling sound films to foreign markets.

Before the advent of sound cinema, it was easy to screen films in foreign languages as the only things that needed to be changed to fit the appropriate language were the title cards or “intertitles” that would appear periodically in silent films to show dialogue or plot information that couldn’t be conveyed by the characters.

But with the introduction of “talkies”, a new challenge was presented to production companies and film distributors like Universal. How would English-language films be presented in other non-English-speaking countries?

The easy modern-day answer to this is twofold: dubbing or subtitles. But in the early 1930s these now novel concepts were simply not considered. Instead, Universal opted for a far more intensive and expensive option.

They would shoot two versions of the same film: one in English and the other in a separate language. In the case of “Dracula”, Spanish.

The film’s script was adapted and translated from the English version but was altered in many significant ways.

These script alterations, along with unique artistic choices by director George Melford, that make the film 29 minutes longer than the English Tod Browning version, have garnered some critics to argue that the Melford version is superior to the more popular Browning version.

Although Lugosi’s performance as the titular character in the English language version is undoubtedly more iconic, other elements of the Spanish version, such as the more ambitious camera movements and the slower pace of the film.

Also notable is the slightly more erotic tone of the Melford version, mostly owing to actress Lupita Tovar’s revealing wardrobe, compared to her English-language counterpart, Helen Chandler.

The film was released on March 11, 1931, in Havana, Cuba and was largely a financial flop.

After existing mostly in obscurity for decades since its release, a reappraisal began in 1978, after a screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New Jersey.