cjh5801 wrote:
As has been discussed elsewhere, in 1931 Universal ordered that Browning's DRACULA be re-edited just prior to release. The re-edit introduced a number of continuity errors and slowed the second and third acts of the film to a glacial pace. In a viewing of George Melford's Spanish Language version of DRACULA, I noticed that the story flowed much better, but that most of the scenes pretty much duplicated those in Browning's film. They were just in a different order. So I re-cut Browning's version following the template of the Melford film. Later, I obtained a copy of Philip Riley's MagicImage shooting script and discovered that the continuity of my re-cut, and the Melford version, follows the continuity of the script (with a few scenes missing, presumably lost in the studio's re-edit). The re-cut version is still a bit slow in spots (it's a product of its times), but I believe anyone seeing it for the first time will be surprised at how much better it plays than the version we're all familiar with.




Hi cjh5801. this is really not a restoration but a re-imagined cut, since we don't know what the original pre-release version was like. To me I see the Lugosi version as a trimmed cut, with all kinds of pieces removed,  including bits of dialog from the middle of scenes, and almost all evidence of the magically opening and closing doors. Are you saying they took the film back to square one and made an esembly cut, and then trimmed that screwing up some continuity and slowing the pace, and they did all that shortly before release. That doesn't make all that much sense to me, anymore than trimming the current print and putting all the scenes back to what they are now, although that doesn't mean that is not exactly what they did, as the movie business is very strange.

Did Universal start the whole editing procedure over, or did they just order the film to be shortened for running time? Is there any proof either way?
If they just ordered it trimmed for time, then I suggest that Dracula basically ran like it does today, except longer due to all the missing pieces. 


Tim