At a glance
‘Ia m Dracula.” With those words, Bela Lugosi began to carve his place alongside Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr. on the Mount Rushmore of great monster-movie actors.
The classic 1931 horror movie will be screened (using a 35 mm print) beginning Tuesday at the Gateway Film Center as part of its “Horror 101” series.
In his 1931 review in The New York Times, Mourdaunt Hall noted that the audience got wrapped up in the scary story, because “there was a general outburst of applause when Dr. Van Helsing produced a little cross that caused the dreaded Dracula to fling his cloak over his head and make himself scarce.”
The film apparently has aged well, with a rating of 91 (out of 100) on the moviereview website Rotten Tomatoes.
To celebrate the return of the old blood sucker, here’s a quiz about the movie and its star. And no peeking online! What: “Dracula”
Where: Gateway Film Center, 1550 N. High St.
Contact: 614-247-4433, www. gatewayfilmcenter.org
Showtimes: 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, and 1:30 p.m. March 21
Admission: $12
Q: Who wrote the book “Dracula”?
A: Edgar Allan Poe
B: Bram Stoker
C: Mary Shelley
D: Jody Shelley
Answer: B. Irish author Stoker wrote the book, which was released in 1897.
Q: Who was the first actor known to have portrayed Count Dracula in a movie?
A: Erik Vanko
B: Max Schreck
C: Carlos Villarias
D: Bela Lugosi
Answer: All of the above, depending on whom you ask. Reports exist of several versions of “Dracula” being made in the early 1920s, including the 1921 film “Dracula’s Death,” starring Vanko, a movie that was thought to be lost to history until critic Troy Howarth claimed in his book “Tome of Terror” that a copy exists in a Hungarian archive.
The earliest known surviving film performances as Dracula were by Lugosi and Villarias, who were in English- and Spanishlanguage versions of the same movie shot on the same sets with (language aside) the same script. The movies were released in 1931, although the Spanish-language version was released about 10 weeks after the English-language film.
But there’s a wild card: Schreck portrayed the vampire Count Orlok in the 1922 silent movie “Nosferatu.” The movie was so similar to the book “Dracula” that Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement and won. A court ordered that all copies of the movie be destroyed, but a few survived, which is why the movie can be enjoyed today.
Q: How many times did Lugosi portray Count Dracula? A: 2
B: 4
C: 6
D: 8
Answer: A. Lugosi portrayed a vampire four times but Dracula only twice, in “Dracula” and “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948).
Q: On which holiday did “Dracula” have its national opening?
A: New Year’s Day
B: Valentine’s Day
C: Halloween
D: Christmas
Answer: B, believe it or not. Universal Studios opened “Dracula” on Feb. 12, 1931, in one theater in New York and released it nationwide on Feb. 14.
Q: Who directed “Dracula”? A: James Whale
B: Tod Browning
C: Karl Freund
D: George Waggner
Answer: B. Browning is probably best-known for “Dracula” and “Freaks.” The other three men also directed classic horror movies: Whale directed “Frankenstein,” “Bride of Frankenstein” and “The Invisible Man”; Freund, “The Mummy”; Waggner, “The Wolf Man”