That's a big gap, I think, to expect viewers to -- without an establishing shot -- connect where Harker and Van Helsing are just before they enter the abbey with the cemetery entrance (seen only briefly before), and then to expect them/us to make the connection that H&V have gone there to destroy Lucy and have, in fact, already done so.  Really, the Lugosi cut of the movie really falls down on continuity there, and it would have been interesting to see how the original cut worked.  (And whether your re-cut using the Spanish version as a guide helped at all.)

A more generous interpretation would be that was the unfinished business Van Helsing refers to tat the end -- but even that is a stretch, IMHO.  (Though a simple overdub of Van saying, "It's Lucy in this box (next to Dracula), not Mina," would have solved the whole problem.)

Too bad Universal took so much footage out at the last minute.  I love Dracula, and it has some great performances in it, but the choppy continuity means it will always be a flawed masterpiece, at best.

(And even if Lucy is dead, those brides are still lurking around in Transylvania. ;-))

Do you know if the shooting script has more creepy stuff with Dracula on the boat -- as the Spanish version does?  I really like that shot of him lurking in the hatchway, and the shot of Renfield screaming madly out the porthole.  Really helped integrate the stock footage of the ship into the film.

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