This classic opens the cycle El reflejo del vampiro screened by Filmoteca Canaria. I went to see it yesterday in Teatro Guiniguada without doing any research and expecting an English-language version in VOSE. It turned out to better than that.
The auditorium was lit by blood-red light. A lady wearing mostly black came on stage and gave an introduction to the movie. I wished she talked less, as I started to worry that by the time film finished I’ll have no time (o horror!) for my late-evening shopping in Mercadona. However it was illuminating to discover that we were about to watch an alternative version of the English-language film of the same title. Back in those “pre-dubbing” days, we were told, the Hollywood studios used to produce foreign-language versions of their films using the same sets but different casts. Or at least that was what Universal did, shooting Tod Browning’s Dracula by day and Melford’s Drácula by night, this latter on a significantly smaller budget. This set-up brought some unexpected advantages to the “Spanish” film. The Cordobese actor Carlos Villarías, who played Count Dracula, was the only member of the Spanish-language cast allowed to the set during filming of the English version. However, the “Spanish” crew (keep in mind that George Melford himself spoke no Spanish!) were able to see the “English” dailies and do a better job. The angles and camera movements are said to be more interesting than in English version, the costumes more daring and sexy. Although Villarías was told to copy Bela Lugosi (while Lugosi himself was said to admire work of Villarías), the other actors had no such limitations. The film premiered in mainland Spain in 1931 to great success; ditto in Canary Islands the following year.
Well, the introduction took about 24 minutes, then the movie started. Sure, now, in 2019, I can’t see it as a horror movie at all, more as a comedy. Apart from Villarías and fantastic Lupita Tovar (who passed away in 2016 at the tender young age of 106), I greatly enjoyed the acting of Spaniard Pablo Álvarez Rubio in the role of Renfield.
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