DVD Pick: 'Dracula' (75th Anniversary Edition)

In the iconic horror classic Dracula (1931), Bela Lugosi's performance in the title role still stands as one of the greatest matchups of actor and character in cinema history. The movie has been out on DVD since 1999, but on the 75th Anniversary Edition, its picture quality has been significantly improved. While the new edition carries over the key bonus materials from earlier DVD editions, it also provides some excellent extras not previously available.

The 1931 Dracula may not be the most artistic movie about vampires ever made, but it successfully maintains a creepy atmosphere throughout as it creates a world of its own that feels strangely organic. For me, Bela Lugosi forever defines the title character. The way he looks, behaves and sounds is truly vampiric. Think of Lugosi saying, "The blood is the life." Or, "I never drink … wine." Or, "To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious." And when he hears wolves howling, "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."

The Dracula 75th Anniversary Edition DVD set carries over the documentary "The Road to Dracula" from previous DVD releases. It's an interesting 35-minute making-of that traces the story's origins from the 1897 Bram Stoker novel to F.W. Murnau's silent film Nosferatu (1922) to the stage versions of Dracula that were performed in Britain and America in the 1920s. Lugosi played the title role on stage hundreds of times, but for the lead in the 1931 film, the studio intended to use the bankable movie star Lon Chaney. But Chaney died, and the role went to Lugosi.

There's also a new 36-minute 2006 documentary titled "Lugosi: The Dark Prince," which sketches the career of the Hungarian-born actor. The movie Dracula catapulted Lugosi to success, but his fortunes went downhill from there. Although he got a few more good roles—for example, in The Black Cat (1934) and as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939)—these soon gave way to B movies like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and finally to ultra-low-budget Ed Wood films like Bride of the Monster (1955). It was a big problem for Lugosi that people couldn't hear him speak without thinking of Dracula.

I was delighted to learn more about the early history of horror movies by watching the entertaining "Universal Horror," a one-hour-56-minute documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh that was made in 1998. This is on the 75th Anniversary Edition DVDs for both Dracula and Frankenstein. However, it was not on previous DVD editions of Dracula.

Early horror films covered in the documentary include The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), both of which were made in Europe. Then Hollywood came out with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), dramas involving deformity and disfigurement, but lacking supernatural elements. Finally, in 1931 Universal Studios released both Dracula and Frankenstein, launching the great classic era of the American horror movie.

One of the experts in the documentary contends that World War I set in motion heightened interest in grotesquery and distortion, bringing about surrealism, dada and expressionism. The reflection of this in the world of cinema was the horror film.

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