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The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
This version of Bram Stoker's novel adapts Hamilton Deane's stage play, which gives Renfield (Dwight Frye) a larger part and Jonathon Harker (David Manners) a smaller one.Here it is Renfield, not Harker as in the novel and most other adaptations, who is the young lawyer delivering legal papers to Count Dracula. Here Dracula imprisons him and drives him mad--just as he did to Harker in the book. The literary Harker escapes and recovers, but the cinematic Renfield does not.Once we meet Harker, the two characters are essentially the same as they are in Stoker's story. Harker is the fiancé of Mina, for whom he fights to save from Dracula's evil influence. Renfield is the mad henchman of Count Dracula.
Most adaptations show Van Helsing and the others putting a stake into Lucy's heart. This one does not. Some people think that, at the end of the movie, Van Helsing stays in the tomb to finish off Lucy as well as Dracula. Others note that earlier on (just after it is discovered that Lucy is the woman in white who has been attacking children after dark) Van Helsing tells Mina, "I promise you that after tonight she will remain at rest, her soul released from this horror." We may reasonably assume that he destroyed Lucy at this point.
Watch Dracula (1931) on:Classic Cinema Online here.
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