What do you think of this fact?
You probably know the classic black-and-white Dracula from Universal. What most people don’t know: the castle had a night shift. Once the English crew went home, a second Dracula moved in.
Same castle, different vampire
In 1931, Universal shot a second version for Spanish-speaking audiences. According to the Library of Congress, Tod Browning filmed the English Dracula during the day, and George Melford’s crew used the same sets at night.
NPR describes how a new cast and crew arrived after dark to redo every scene in Spanish. Actress Lupita Tovar, who played the heroine Eva, remembered that they used exactly the same sets and even hit the same marks as the English actors. The caped count was played by Carlos Villarías.
The director had one small problem: Melford didn’t speak Spanish. His directions had to be translated, and co-director Enrique Tovar Ávalos helped him communicate with the cast.
The night shift had ambitions
The Spanish crew wasn’t content to be a cheap copy. Tovar told NPR: “We wanted our version to be the best.” The Library of Congress essay credits Melford with more sophisticated camera movements and a stronger eye for the look of each scene. The Spanish version is also bolder, with more eroticism and close-ups of the vampire’s bites, and it runs almost 30 minutes longer than Browning’s film.
Some critics consider the night-shift Drácula the better of the two. In 2015, it was added to the National Film Registry, run by the Library of Congress.
Bonus fact: According to the Library of Congress, the Spanish version was finished a few days before the English original was ready, even though it only got a small part of the budget.
So Castle Dracula really did come alive after sunset. Just not quite the way the novel imagined.