Senor Dracula

DRACULA-(Spanish Language Version)-1931-So much has been made of this once lost film and how “superior” it is to Tod Browning's classic English language version but let's face it. It's all bullshit. It's almost a scene for scene copy except the actors are speaking Spanish. The direction isn't any worse or better than Browning’s. The Spanish film crew which shot their scenes at night had access to Browning's dallies and took it from there. The acting of Carlos Villarias as Dracula and Pablo Alvarez Rubio as Renfield are so over the top and comical that they render the whole movie as one big laugh riot. I know in his own way Villarias was trying to imitate Lugosi but he fails miserably. Critics are quick to criticize the Lugosi version for it's flaws but this thing has gotten too much praise for too long!

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Lost Film Found (well half anyway...)

THE WHITE SHADOW-1924-Although Graham Cutts is the credited director, the assistant director, editor, set designer and scenarist are all credited to one man: Alfred Hitchcock, a year before he directed his first film.

This film was long thought to be lost but an incomplete print (only 3 of it's 6 reels were located) was found in New Zealand. A lot happens and this new version uses title cards to explain what's missing (most importantly the ending!). It's a tale of two sisters, one bad and one good both played by American actress Betty Compson. Murder, a case of mistaken identity (deliberately caused by the twins) and a gambling hall called "The Cat That Laughs" figure in the plot. Clive Brook (who played Sherlock Holmes in 3 early sound films) and Henry Victor (WHITE ZOMBIE) are also in it.

I found it ironic that I watched this after posting ESCORT GIRL which Compson (at the time of SHADOW a box office star) starred in many years later!

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A Russian In Mexico

On Halloween night I figured a non-horror film was in order!



Sergei Eisenstein - Mexican Fantasy (1930-1984)

In 1930 the great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein arrived in the US. He gave several college lectures and then headed to Hollywood hoping to make a film for Paramount Studios. After a film adaptation of Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” was scraped and several original films rejected the director probably realized this was not the place for him.

However at the urging of his friend, artist Diego Rivera and fellow filmmaker Robert Flaherty he went to Mexico to begin work on QUE VIVA MEXICO which would encompass not only the modern country and it’s people but it’s entire history. Author Upton Sinclair put up the financing. Eisenstein shot around 100,000 feet of film and had nearly completed the project when Sinclair pulled out. To top it off Stalin called him back to Russia (the dictator was afraid the director might defect). Although the film was suppose to go back with him to Moscow somehow it didn’t and Eisenstein never saw the footage again.

Fortunately the footage survived and was edited together by director Oleg Kovalov into SERGEI EISENSTEIN MEKSILKANSKAYA FANTASIYA (Mexican Fantasy). Kovalova worked from written directions left behind by Eisenstein. He might not have gotten the entire original intent of story correct but it doesn’t really matter too much given the brilliance of what was shot! The footage is beautiful and amazingly photographed. It might remind you a little of Orson Welles’ IT’S ALL TRUE (which like this film was thought lost and then assembled years after Welles’ death). It uses a new soundtrack and sound effects (I think). 

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