OMG AN UNSOLICITED DRACULA QUESTION!!!!!HoldenIsHere wrote: ↑May 10th, 2024, 10:17 pm LHF, do you (or does anyone for that matter) know why the story was changed in the 1931 movie DRACULA to have Renfield visit Count Dracula's castle at the beginning rather than Jonathan Harker (as happens in Bram Stoker's source novel)?
(I am not exactly an expert, but damned if I'm not pretty well-versed in most things DRACULATED.)
The 1931 FILM(S) [including the SPANISH VERSION] are based on a STAGE PLAY by HAMILTON DEANE, why DEANE decided to make RENFIELD the agent visiting DRACULA and not HARKER, I don't know- BUT it's the only change he made to the story that was a good one- it totally works and it helps to keep HARKER as the "straight" romantic, un-corrupted and conventional 1930's lead. and it gives RENFIELD a more understandable and clear relation to the story and the plot.
i mean, I'm HONESTLY not picking on him, really I'm not, but DAVID MANNERS was gay enough as it was, a scene of BELA going in towards his neck would've blown people's feeble, malnourished minds in the GREAT DEPRESSION. [PERSONALLY, I think they would've made an adorable couple.]
in the novel, RENFIELD is just a random patient of the asylum, as I recall, there is nothing to explain his connection to DRACUlA; however there is a character named MR HAWKINS who is HARKER'S BOSS in ENGLAND and it is left open-ended as to whether he knows what he is sending his young employee in for- this dymanic was explored in the 1922 NOSFERATU and the 1979 version too- which kinda combines the HAWKINS and RENFIELD characters into one.
EDIT: JUST TO TACK ON, in the novel DRACULA there is a rather insensitive, but interesting, point established that DRACULA has a special grasp on THE MENTALLY ILL and can rest in the GRAVE OF A SUICIDE VICTIM as if it were his native soil- this last bit was explored in a GODAWFUL 2006(?) MASTERPIECE THEATER version of DRACULA that has some TERRIBLE ACTING.
