Oh hey, it’s World Dracula Day (celebrating the 26th May 1897 publication of the novel)! So he
Oh hey, it’s World Dracula Day (celebrating the 26th May 1897 publication of the novel)! So here’s some Dracula facts!- Although Bela Lugosi would go on to define Dracula in pop culture after starring in the Universal adaptations of the book, he wasn’t actually the studio’s first choice for the role. with them originally eyeing German actor Conrad Veidt (above), of the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, the Man Who Laughs, and (later) Casablanca fame. However, Veidt turned down the role due to a combination of concerns that accepting the role would lead to typecasting, his brief his heavily accented English would be hard for the audience to understand (he predominantly acted in silent movies), and his dislike of director Todd Browning’s drunken, surly attitude. So, the studio went with Bela instead, who had previously played the role in the stage play version of Dracula that they were adapting into a film.So, amusingly, if Conrad had gotten the part he could have ended up defining both the visual appearance of the Joker (his character from the Man Who Laughs inspired the design of the supervillain several years later) AND that of Dracula too.- There are marked differences between the Icelandic version of Dracula (titled Powers of Darkness) and the English language versions of the novel. While some have attributed the differences to the translator Valdimar Ásmundsson (such as the inclusion of Norse mythology into the story), others have suggested that an older draft of the novel was actually submitted to be translated for the Icelandic market. So a lot of the sex and violence not present in the final English language draft were still present in what became the book Powers of Darkness.- While Dracula has been the subject of some 200 plus films in the times since the novel’s publication, the book wasn’t intiailly a success with readers. Indeed, towards the end of author Bram Stoker’s life he and his wife were having to live on support provided by the Royal Literary Fund, something not helped by Bram’s illness towards the end of his life, which some have guessed may have been syphilis.The bad financial situation of his widow and literary executor, Florence Balcombe, is why she pursued Nosferatu director FW Murnau for copyright infringement (the 1922 movie literally just changed the names of the characters in attempt to avoid paying her any money), to the extent that the court ordered every copy of the film be destroyed. This bad luck continued when she granted some of the American theatrical rights to a Horace Liveright, with the understanding that he pay her some of the money that the production made in the American market. However, he died before he could do so, so when the American play was bought and adapted for film by Universal, she continued to make little to no money from that production either. -- source link
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