Dracula (31)

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 4:37 pm

According to David Skal, as well as the sound version and the Spanish version, a third, intertitled, silent version was also filmed.
What became of it? Was it publicly shown in houses which had not yet converted?

Lokke Heiss · Post by **Lokke Heiss** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:10 pm

I pursued that question about 10 years ago and gave up. Those who are closer to the Hollywood scene might be able to help you, especially since more things are on-line now.

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:28 am

Thank you.

Those who are closer to the Hollywood scene ...

Such as...?

Bob Birchard · Post by **Bob Birchard** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 9:40 am

Michael O'Regan wrote:According to David Skal, as well as the sound version and the Spanish version, a third, intertitled, silent version was also filmed.
What became of it? Was it publicly shown in houses which had not yet converted?

The silent version of Dracula is not known to exist. It is unlikely that the silent version was actually "shot' but more likely it was compiled from alternate takes, outs, and perhaps some dupe footage. I do not know whether it was an actual mute version, or an "international" version with music and sound effects.

The script and title lists for the silent version do exist, and several years ago Rick Schmidlim expressed some interest in reconstructing a silent version based on those materials, and he even contacted me and asked If I would be interested in editing it for him. Rick's thought was that a ressurrected silent version would have value as a "live cinema" presentation.

Although I have not seen the script material, I am told that it is essentailly the same continuity as the sound version, but that the order of some sequences was altered.

Ultimately, as I recall, the main stumbling block (aside from money) was that Universal did not want to put out an inauthentic version of "Dracula" that merely inserted titles into the sound version with the noted scene rearrangements when the actual silent version did not exist.

Post by **Mike Gebert** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:27 pm

Plus, given that Philip Glass was able to do that version where his music goes with the sound version (which is all wrong, to me, but does work in a technical sense), that probably didn't encourage anyone to pursue another version to the same end.

Jim Roots · Post by **Jim Roots** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:55 pm

No need to compete with Nosferatu, anyway.

Jim

Jay Salsberg · Post by **Jay Salsberg** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 1:37 pm

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the silent version had music and sound effects. But that would require the film to have a soundtrack. And if it had a soundtrack, then why wouldn't it have a dialogue track, too?

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:28 pm

Jay Salsberg wrote:A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the silent version had music and sound effects. But that would require the film to have a soundtrack. And if it had a soundtrack, then why wouldn't it have a dialogue track, too?

Nope. Skal specifically mentioned the version was aimed at those houses which had not yet converted.

Scoundrel · Post by **Scoundrel** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:31 pm

" A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the silent version had music and sound effects. But that would require the film to have a soundtrack. And if it had a soundtrack, then why wouldn't it have a dialogue track, too? "

Barrymore's DON JUAN was the first silent I am aware of to have a synchronized music and effects track.

There is no dialog track.

Quite a few silents survive with music and effects tracks intact. Lon Chaney's WEST OF ZANZIBAR , OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS with Joan Crawford as well as Paul Leni's THE MAN WHO LAUGHS comes to mind.

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:42 pm

But Jay's point is that if you had the capability of playing a soundtrack with music and effects, why wouldn't you run the dialog version, since that's how it was shot?

I wonder if there was a cue sheet available for the film.

Jim Reid · Post by **Jim Reid** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:49 pm

Was it released with a disc track? If so was the print silent aperture or did they just send a print that also had an optical track along with the disc?

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 2:49 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:But Jay's point is that if you had the capability of playing a soundtrack with music and effects, why wouldn't you run the dialog version, since that's how it was shot?

I wonder if there was a cue sheet available for the film.

I see what Jay is getting at but, from what Skal said, there wasn't a track. It was an intertitled silent version.

If it was aimed at unconverted theatres, it wouldn't have had a disc track either, no?

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:35 pm

Exactly. No track whatsover. No sound. Silent.

If so was the print silent aperture or did they just send a print that also had an optical track along with the disc?

I'm sure that the silent prints were silent aperture, since the film was shot that way, although intended to be blocked with a soundtrack, so all of the action is offset to the right.

Richard Finegan · Post by **Richard Finegan** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:14 pm

Michael O'Regan wrote:
I wonder if there was a cue sheet available for the film.
I see what Jay is getting at but, from what Skal said, there wasn't a track. It was an intertitled silent version.

If it was aimed at unconverted theatres, it wouldn't have had a disc track either, no?

I have the music cue sheets for hundreds of the "international versions" of movies like this, including several Universals, but have never seen one for DRACULA. Not that that confirms anything, but just for the record...

Brooksie · Post by **Brooksie** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 9:24 pm

There is evidence that it exists, but is there any evidence that it was released? I'm interested in the fate of these 'reverse goat glands', if you could call them that. My research in Australia suggests very few were actually released in what was presumably their target market, small rural theatres that hadn't yet converted to sound.

Bob Birchard · Post by **Bob Birchard** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:24 pm

Jay Salsberg wrote:A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the silent version had music and sound effects. But that would require the film to have a soundtrack. And if it had a soundtrack, then why wouldn't it have a dialogue track, too?

As I said, with regard to Dracula, I don't know if the "silent" version had a track or not, but many so-called "silent" versions with music and effects (check out the "silent" version of "All Quiet on the Western Front" on the Universal 100th anniversary Blue-Ray/DVD) were actually "international" versions--meant to be distributed overseas. A Composite lavender would be sent to a country where they would make separate dupe sound track and dupe picture negs. They'd translate the English titlees, shoot new titles in the local language and splice them into the dupe neg to match the length of the English titles to keep the picture in sync with the M&E track, then make composite release prints. The M&E tracks made these sound pictures--even if there was no dialogue--and facilitated the release of American pictures in foreign countries in the days before looping (or dubbing to laymen) became practical.

There are a number of these international versions that still survive--Sony has somthing in the neighborhood of thirty Columbia intrnationals. We ran the international on "Rain or Shine" (1930) at Cinecon a couple of years ago and there are several intersting variations from the talkie version. Only the internatioanl version survives on The Lone Star Ranger (Fox, 1929). In addition to All Quiet, one of the more common ones is the international for Mr. Robinson Crusoe (Fairbanks/UA, 1932). Universal has the international on Tod Browings 1930 version of Outside the Law as well.

Bob Birchard · Post by **Bob Birchard** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:34 pm

Brooksie wrote:There is evidence that it exists, but is there any evidence that it was released? I'm interested in the fate of these 'reverse goat glands', if you could call them that. My research in Australia suggests very few were actually released in what was presumably their target market, small rural theatres that hadn't yet converted to sound.

More often than not theaters that were not yet wired for sound would get reissues or just older silent product that was still in service at the exchanges. Fox reissued a half dozen Tom Mix pictures and another six Buck Jones silents in the 1928-1929 season to accomodate unwired theaters, for example.

The Hollywood studios would make true silent versions, usually made up from alternate takes with maybe a small bit of additional shooting--in 1929 and into 1930. But i suspect after 1929 most silent theaters got international versions and just played them mute.

Brooksie · Post by **Brooksie** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:23 pm

Bob Birchard wrote:More often than not theaters that were not yet wired for sound would get reissues or just older silent product that was still in service at the exchanges. Fox reissued a half dozen Tom Mix pictures and another six Buck Jones silents in the 1928-1929 season to accomodate unwired theaters, for example.

The Hollywood studios would make true silent versions, usually made up from alternate takes with maybe a small bit of additional shooting--in 1929 and into 1930. But i suspect after 1929 most silent theaters got international versions and just played them mute.

Yes, that's what I've observed happening in Australia, except that I don't believe they even had to rely on reissues. It would take around two years for a print to go from the large first-run city theatres to the small rural theatres in Central Australia, so it's only in 1932-33, two years after most city theatres had converted and there was no longer a backlog of silents to pass down the line, that you start seeing a few sound pictures (including musicals!) being played mute, and even those date from 1929-30.

I suspect the size and distribution patterns in Australia makes that situation unique, but I still wonder whether the time and expense that went into making different silent and sound versions (e.g. MGM's Marianne) or adding subtitles to a sound film, as with Dracula, ever really became worthwhile, at least outside America.

coolcatdaddy · Post by **coolcatdaddy** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:14 pm

I have a friend who is a composer and accompanist. His aunt was still accompanying silents in a small theater in Graham, NC into the mid-thirties and at least part of her work was funded by the WPA. She didn't mention playing any silent versions of sound films specifically, but did remember films from the 20s, particularly westerns and comedies, playing in the theater at that late date. The closest theater wired for sound for a few years would have probably been in Greensboro, the Carolina, wired with Vitaphone (and air conditioned!) in 1928 and about a half-hour drive away today.

Lokke Heiss · Post by **Lokke Heiss** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:28 pm

Bob's right about all of this--by the way Bob, where is the script and title lists for the silent film version being kept now?

There are two ways to pursue this, one is the path mentioned, to assemble the script and title lists and try to reconstruct an 'accurate' silent version from this, essentially what Rick Schmidlim had asked about, the second is to start with this continuity, in particular the intertitles, but then to just edit together a 'new' version of the film, merely using the information as a starting point or inspiration, but not being a slave to a continuity that was already trying to shoehorn a talkie picture into a silent format. It gets into thorny issues of restoration vs. re-imagining a project. As an academic project using your own Mac at home, editing a silent version of Dracula would be pretty simple to do. Not for distribution, of course.

Also, couldn't someone interested look up the towns where silent films were still being played and see if Dracula was being shown in these venues? My guess is that while the Dracula film was prepped as silent, the rapid conversion of theaters from silent to sound kept the studio from going through the effort of actually sending a silent prints out into the world. That is, a silent version was prepared but never compiled, or if compiled and a prints made, never shipped. This is something that detective work looking at ads from these 'lagging' theaters should tell us one way or the other.

The idea behind this is that a silent version of Lugosi's Dracula may be a better film than the talking version. Maybe it might be. I can see a fifty minute or so film done that uses intertitiles and cuts to help the pacing. Ultimately this becomes an issue of rights. Can anyone persuade Universal to make a sound film into a silent, and harder still, convince them why should they care, that is, explain why this change would make any money!

entredeuxguerres · Post by **entredeuxguerres** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:46 pm

Lokke Heiss wrote: The idea behind this is that a silent version of Lugosi's Dracula may be a better film than the talking version.

Dracula without Lugosi's "Transylvanian" accent...are you kidding? (Though I don't suppose that would be quite as dreadful as Marianne robbed of the singing of Davies & Gray.)

cjh5801 · Post by **cjh5801** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:42 am

Bob Birchard wrote: Although I have not seen the script material, I am told that it is essentailly the same continuity as the sound version, but that the order of some sequences was altered.

Ultimately, as I recall, the main stumbling block (aside from money) was that Universal did not want to put out an inauthentic version of "Dracula" that merely inserted titles into the sound version with the noted scene rearrangements when the actual silent version did not exist.

This is fascinating. The sound version was re-edited just prior to release. I've done a fan edit of DRACULA to follow the scene order of the shooting script (which matches the continuity of Melford's Spanish-language version), and find the resulting film to be much more satisfying. My re-cut shortens the second act a bit and makes a marked improvement in the pacing of the third act.

It sounds like the silent version may have been taken from a version of the film from before Universal's eleventh-hour re-edit. It would be interesting to see if the intertitle countinuity matches my reconstruction based on the shooting script continuity.

Michael O'Regan · Post by **Michael O'Regan** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:15 am

cjh5801 wrote:
Bob Birchard wrote: Although I have not seen the script material, I am told that it is essentailly the same continuity as the sound version, but that the order of some sequences was altered.

Ultimately, as I recall, the main stumbling block (aside from money) was that Universal did not want to put out an inauthentic version of "Dracula" that merely inserted titles into the sound version with the noted scene rearrangements when the actual silent version did not exist.
This is fascinating. The sound version was re-edited just prior to release. I've done a fan edit of DRACULA to follow the scene order of the shooting script (which matches the continuity of Melford's Spanish-language version), and find the resulting film to be much more satisfying. My re-cut shortens the second act a bit and makes a marked improvement in the pacing of the third act.

It sounds like the silent version may have been taken from a version of the film from before Universal's eleventh-hour re-edit. It would be interesting to see if the intertitle countinuity matches my reconstruction based on the shooting script continuity.

Is your re-edit available to see anywhere?

Richard M Roberts · Post by **Richard M Roberts** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:04 pm

Just actually looked at this thread. You know, there is indeed a good chance that a print of the Silent Version of DRACULA may exist in a private collectors hands, because there were indeed 16mm Show-at-Home prints struck of it for rental distribution. I have several rental catalogs from the early 1930's, including one from the Mogull Film Library in New York, that advertise the silent version of DRACULA as being available for rental. I have never come across one in my film collecting experience, but that doesn't mean they are not out there. As I recall, it did only run about six reels.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Post by **Christopher Jacobs** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:16 pm

Richard M Roberts wrote:Just actually looked at this thread. You know, there is indeed a good chance that a print of the Silent Version of DRACULA may exist in a private collectors hands, because there were indeed 16mm Show-at-Home prints struck of it for rental distribution. I have several rental catalogs from the early 1930's, including one from the Mogull Film Library in New York, that advertise the silent version of DRACULA as being available for rental. I have never come across one in my film collecting experience, but that doesn't mean they are not out there. As I recall, it did only run about six reels.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

While it's probably a long shot and like looking for a needle in a haystack, I would imagine that there could well be people with silent Show-at-Home prints of DRACULA sitting unwatched on the shelf because the film is so easy to see in other formats, they've seen the film before, and do not realize that their version is the silent cut. The long-lost original cut of METROPOLIS sat unrecognized for decades in that South American archive because EVERYBODY had prints of METROPOLIS and had no idea that this 35mm dupe was made from the first theatrical cut until someone finally sat down and looked at it. Even then, nobody believed them until they saw it for themselves.

So anybody with an old 16mm print of DRACULA in your collection you've never gotten around to watching... take it off the shelf and at least unroll the first few feet to see whether it's a silent or sound print! Do it now! (NOTE: the old Castle films silent version doesn't count!! -- or does it?)

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:17 pm

Audio Brandon reportedly had a 16mm of the silent version (now long gone), so they were indeed "out there."

The silent continuity has a couple of different shots near the end, I assume are from alternate takes.

cjh5801 · Post by **cjh5801** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:10 pm

Michael O'Regan wrote: Is your re-edit available to see anywhere?

Well, not since Universal filed a complaint with YouTube and they removed it. I discuss the various edits I've made in a thread on the Classic Horror Film Board. The discussions starts at: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuk ... ply-776907" target="_blank

If you'd like a "demo" DVDr of my re-cut, please send me a PM.

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