Dracula (1931 English-language film) Dracula (1931 English-language film) Dracula is a 1931 American pre-Code vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. Produced by Universal, the screenplay is based on the 1924 stage play "Dracula" by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston, which in turn is loosely based on the novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. Renfield (Dwight Frye) is a solicitor traveling to Count Dracula's (Bela Lugosi) castle in Transylvania on a business matter. The people in the local village fear that vampires inhabit the castle and warn Renfield not to go there. Renfield refuses to stay at the
Dracula in popular culture film would have predated the lost 1921 Hungarian film "Dracula's Death", and is thus claimed to be the first film adaption of "Dracula". Nothing regarding this film is known to survive; there are no known production stills, and there is very little information about this film available. Most sources agree that the existence of this film is questionable because no details appear to have survived, and its existence is not verifiable. One of the first film adaptations of Stoker's story caused Stoker's estate to sue for copyright infringement. In 1922, silent film director F. W. Murnau made a horror film