Throughout the 1920s, universal pictures were on the up. Founded by Carl Lemley a few

years earlier, universal weren't yet competing with some of the other bigger Hollywood studios,

such as MGM or Paramount, but they had started achieving success with frightening mystery

movies, such as The Phantom of the Opera and The Cat and the Canary. During this time, universal

bought the rights to Dracula, both the novel and the stage plays, for $40,000. At the time,

the stage play was proving to be a huge success in Broadway and Universal's current head of

production, Carl Lemley's son, Carl Lemley Jr. saw the box office potential in the first ever

authorised screen adaptation of Dracula. Rather than remaining faithful to the novel, this new film

adaptation would use the stage play as a blueprint, but would also borrow German expressionist visuals

from the previously unauthorised adaptation Nosferatu. The role of Count Dracula was originally

intended for Lon Cheney, an actor who had terrified audiences throughout the previous decade,

with mesmerising transformative performances in The Phantom of the Opera and the hunchback of

Notre Dame. But after Cheney's unexpected and sudden death in 1930, Universal instead

cast a Hungarian actor called Bella Legosi, who had played Dracula on stage and had lobbied hard

to land the role in the film. And so, by bringing together elements of the stage play,

the original novel, the German expressionist visuals and a striking lead performance by Bella

Legosi, Carl Lemley Jr. Todd Browning and the rest of Universal Pictures would end up

making one of the most important films in cinema history, the film that arguably created the

template for what we now recognise as horror cinema. I am Dracula.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of the vampire and we discuss the original

Universal Monster movie, Dracula.

Welcome to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Muncer and as ever, I am your host.

...