In February of 1931 the American public went to the theaters in droves to see the new monster talkie…Dracula. I ran around in circles trying to figure out the actual release date since some sources say February 12th, others the 14th and some the 13th and here’s what I finally came up with and all three are at least a little right.

So, if you’re planning to set your time machine to catch the premiere of Dracula just be forewarned that you might be early to the party or a day late. It seems the official studio premiere took place at the Roxy Theater on February 13th, which just happened to be a Friday…a fittingly creepy date for the thriller’s release. However, to avoid the possibility of bad luck with a Friday the 13th release, the first showing took place on the 12th, although not touted as the premiere. The nationwide release happened the following day, Valentine’s Day, which worked well with Universal’s marketing campaign that promoted it as both a horror movie and a love story…take that Twilight. Dracula found itself competing with a movie released just a week before, Cimarron. Cimarron, was a big budget epic western from RKO pictures starring Irene Dunn and Richard Dix. The film swept the Academy Awards that year and was the 2nd top grossing film of the year following Universal’s other monster classic, Frankenstein. Cimarron won for Best Picture, Best Writing and Best Art Direction. However, the last maniacal laugh might be had by Dracula as today Cimarron has long since faded from pop culture memory, yet Bela Lugosi and all his incarnations of Dracula are more popular than ever. If you are curious about Cimarron you can find a modern movie review of it here.

Dracula would prove to be a hit at the box office, selling 50,000 tickets in 48 hours at its premiere at the Roxy Theater in New York. Later that year it and many other movies, including the mega-hit Cimarron would pale in comparison to Frankenstein. The Dracula premiere took place at the Roxy Theater in New York City. The theater had opened just a few years earlier in 1927 with the premiere of Gloria Swanson’s The Love of Sunya and was sometimes called “the cathedral of the motion picture”. The innovative theater operator, Samuel Rothafel (“Roxy”) produced lavish entertainment spectacles that included a 110 piece symphony orchestra, a male chorus, ballet company and dancers known as the Roxyettes.

Each week a new live production was created to be shown along with the current movie. By 1932, the quality of films being released to the Roxy did not match the investment in customer service and showmanship that Rothafel promoted. Unhappy with the situation, Rothafel left and created his own theater known as Radio City Music Hall. Much of the talent left with Rothafel, including the Roxyettes who found their real fame at Radio City Music Hall under the new name Rockettes. However, in 1931 the Roxy was still the choice venue for a movie premiere.

Reading the program above, we might imagine a night at the Roxy…perhaps even the premiere of Dracula and the excitement of watching one of the very first horror talkies. As the nation saw unemployment rise to nearly 17%, common folk could escape their troubles and see quality live entertainment and the latest Hollywood blockbuster for about 35 cents (just a bit over $5 in today’s rates). On the program above is listed Bessie Dudley, best known today as a Cotton Club dancer. She was one of the entourage of dancers that went with Duke Ellington in 1933 to tour England and the Continent. Here is a 1933 film showcasing the talents of Bessie (dancer in white), fellow dancer Florence Hill and none other than Duke Ellington. Also listed on the program is the mysterious and exotic sounding “Snakehips”. Most of us today don’t recognize the one-word moniker or even the name that went along with it…Earl “Snakehips” Tucker. In his day, “Snakehips” was often copied, but I’m fairly certain the one listed here is the genuine article since both he and Bessie were Cotton Club dancers and performed many venues together. If you would like to read more about Snakehips Tucker click here for a great description of this enigmatic character and the extraordinary dance he created. Snakehips was often described by his contemporaries as a “mean” sort – quick to anger and even quicker with a razor blade. His intense stare and imposing demeanor meant that audiences more often than not watched his performance with a mixture of fear and amazement…sitting in stunned silence afraid to even bestow applause on the human cobra before them. (Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance) More deadly and mesmerizing than the human cobra with a penchant for switchblades was the handsome Hungarian on the silver screen who swished his cape and bid the audience “velcome”. Bela Lugosi was born Bela Ferenc Deszo Blasko on October 20th, 1882 in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary – known today as Lugoj, Romania. Bet ya’ can guess where his stage name came from…yep, “Lugosi” was an ode to his hometown. Lugosi began acting at a young age in his native land and got some significant practice in small roles on the Hungarian stage before WWI cast a dark shadow over his homeland and his life.

Eventually Lugosi made his way to America, first via New Orleans and then on to the bright lights of New York City. There he became a fixture of a thriving immigrant theater scene and earning his chops in the New World. In 1922 came his first Broadway play, The Red Poppy and shortly after his American screen debut in the 1923 melodrama The Silent Command. His “big break”, which Lugosi sometimes described as also his curse, came in 1927 when he landed the lead role in the Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The actor seemed born for the role…hailing from Transylvania with a heavy foreign accent Lugosi brought a sense of mystery to the role and gave legitimacy to this re-imagined dapper and handsome vampire. Up until the 1927 debut of the stage play in England and America, most exposure to the vampire on screen and stage was of the 1922 Nosferatu – a much scarier, much less sexy and romantic monster. The stage play had been given its drawing room, continental spin by Hamiliton Deane and adapted for American audiences by John Balderston.

The play was a hit with audiences and a farce to critics. Lugosi devoted himself to the role and when Universal decided to adapt the play into their inaugural film of their risky horror series they “settled” on the foreign actor to play the lead role he had crafted on stage for three years. Despite his success in the play studio execs thought that an American audience would shy away from a foreign lead…huh, except they totally loved him in the play…anyways, whoever said that logic is the plaything of Hollywood producers and movie moguls. Carl Laemmle Jr. (remember Carla Laemmle from a previous post, Carl was her cousin – follow her on Facebook here) saw his dream of the Universal “Monster” series come to life with the 1931 release of Dracula. Those same studio execs that doubted Lugosi’s appeal also fretted about how to market the movie. Finally, after much harrumphing and hem hawing they decided to do pretty much exactly what the stage play had done and market it with the triple threat of sex, love and scary stuff. Read more about Dracula film adaptations here in Dracula in the Dark. There’s of course a lot more to tell about the 1931 Dracula…how it would be eclipsed by Frankenstein just a few months later, how three of the stars were alcoholics who met tragic ends, or maybe the sad demise of Dracula himself – ending his career in poverty, pills and the worst movie ever made. Let’s instead leave a bit on the cutting room floor and end right here with a handsome Hungarian, the beginnings of Universal’s monster magic and a vampire who transformed our image of Dracula forever.