Carlos Villarías and Lupita Tovar starred in the 1931 Spanish version of Dracula.
Mike Gallegos for NPR
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Mike Gallegos for NPR
Carlos Villarías and Lupita Tovar starred in the 1931 Spanish version of Dracula.
Mike Gallegos for NPR
In 1931 Universal Studios shot their classic horror movie Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi as the bloodsucking Count of Transylvania. But after production wrapped for the day, an entirely new cast and crew arrived at night to reshoot all the scenes in Spanish.
This version of Dracula en Español starred Carlos Villarías as the caped vampire looking for blood. He had been a stage actor in Spain and his resemblance to Bela Lugosi was uncanny, said the late actress Lupita Tovar, who played the lovely Eva.
“There were so many things that looked alike, but the main difference was their hands,” she said in a video for the complete Legacy Collection. Dracula. “Lugosi had very long fingers, you know, and Carlos Villarías has shorter fingers.”
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Tovar remembered his teamwork at the cemetery. “We shot all night until the next morning because we used exactly the same sets. In fact, we got the same notes as the English actors, we intervened in the same place.”
She remembered the creepy landscape and its dark shadows, the burning candles and the cobwebs.
“Once you walked into that setting, it was a different world. You fell in love with Dracula,” she said. “You know, if someone wants to touch me, I think I’d scream. I was scared. I was really scared of Dracula, you know?
Carlos Villarías and Lupita Tovar on the set of the 1931 Spanish version of Dracula.
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Carlos Villarías and Lupita Tovar on the set of the 1931 Spanish version of Dracula.
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The actors came from different Spanish-speaking countries, but the director George Melford did not speak the language. His instructions were translated for the cast and crew.
“We wanted our version to be the best,” Tovar said. “And according to the critics, I think so.”
By all accounts, it’s true. This version of Dracula was 29 minutes longer than the English version.
Tovar’s son, Pancho Kohner, said Melford and Villarías would watch scenes shot during the day and make improvements. They were able to setup better camera angles and add more exciting elements.
“They didn’t have to deal with the Hays Office, the censorship,” Kohner said from his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. “My mom wore a low-cut negligee and it was very sexy. My dad, who was in love with my mom, he was on set. He was producing it, making sure it was a better movie.”
Kohner, who became a producer like his father, helped his mother write her memoir before she died in 2016, aged 106. He says she was a high school student in Oaxaca when Robert J. Flaherty, the film’s director Northern Nanook, Discovery. Fox Studios had sent him to find the most beautiful girl in Mexico.
“My mother came to Hollywood with her Irish grandmother as her chaperone,” Kohner said. Tovar spent a year at Fox Studios doing little bits, but she didn’t speak English. “When the talkies came they weren’t going to renew his contract.”
Pancho Kohner, in front of a portrait of his mother, Lupita Tovar, painted by Mexican artist Diego Rivera
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Pancho Kohner, in front of a portrait of his mother, Lupita Tovar, painted by Mexican artist Diego Rivera
Mandalit del Barco/NPR News
Someone at Fox recommended her to Universal Studios, where she met voice-over executive Paul Kohner, “who immediately fell in love with her,” according to their son.
Tovar was reluctantly preparing to return to Mexico, but getting her signed on to do Dracula in Spanish was part of Kohner’s plan, said Chris Weitz, the grandson of Tovar and Kohner, who have been married for more than 50 years.
Weitz is now a well-known director. Just like his brother Paul. Together, the Weitz brothers write a screenplay for a film about the making of Spanish Dracula. Pancho Kohner, their uncle, will produce it.
Directors Chris and Paul Weitz.
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Directors Chris and Paul Weitz.
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“It’s a love story between two immigrants”, explained Paul Kohner. “Our grandfather was from what would now be the Czech Republic. So he was part of the immigrant European Jewish community. And then our grandmother was from a completely different immigrant community.”
Chris Weitz said spanish dracula could also be seen as an immigrant story: “Dracula comes from Transylvania in England and is generally considered bad news. He’s a bloodsucker. It’s a parasite. immigrants in this country, that is to say, they are the cornerstone of the functioning of the country. »
For a time in the 1930s hundreds of films were made not only in Spanish but also in French, German and Italian. It was a mini-boom in Hollywood, before the film industries of other countries got ready, and before dubbing or subtitles became fashionable.
And now, in addition to spanish dracula the film, there will soon be a television series on Vix+, TelevisaUnivision’s new streaming service.
“It’s a single-camera workplace comedy,” producer Ben Odell said. “It starts with bringing the actors together, a bit like a Ocean’s Eleven. Once we set it up, it’s about this kind of cast of quirky characters trying to do this thing, which ends up being awesome.”
Actor Eugenio Derbez at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Actor Eugenio Derbez at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Odell said this production will be shot in Mexico, with actor Eugenio Derbez directing and playing the role of Dracula. Odell said in their version that the actor who plays Dracula is a ham. “He loves the attention, he loves the applause. He’s a stage actor, so he’s disgusted with the movie industry. When he’s offered this movie role, he turns it down at first. He says to himself: “They don’t know who I am.?'”
The character of Lupita Tovar is based on stories from her memoirs. “Lupita was very afraid of her dad, who was an alcoholic and abusive. So that’s the idea that there’s this monster in the house,” Odell said. “She doesn’t want to go back to Mexico. With the end of the era of silence. She thinks she might be forced to go back.”
Odell explained that the cast and crew of the Spanish original Dracula worked under the worst circumstances.
“They had to come in at night and work shitty hours and they had a lower budget, but they ended up making a better movie,” he said. “It’s such a great American immigrant story and such a great Latino story because a lot of times coming to this country you have to work harder, you have less support, less opportunity, and you always have to try to deliver. . And they deliver it too much, as it often does. So it was just a nice story of an oppressed immigrant.”
This story is part of our five-part Latinos in Hollywood series, which pays tribute to some film industry legends and pioneers and examines how some Latinx actors, songwriters and directors get or create more opportunities.
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