Dracula (1920) [Existence Unconfirmed]
Jun 28, 2020 22:26:26 GMT
theCarbonFreeze, dogpolygonrt66, and 1 more like this
Post by forlornjackalope on Jun 28, 2020 22:26:26 GMT
When it comes to Dracula and vampires in film, there has been a lot of speculation as to what is the true definitive "first" for the immortalized creature of the night. For a long time it was thought to be Nosferatu (1922), which was believed to have been lost for some time due to a copyright lawsuit on behalf of Bram Stoker's estate shortly after it was released. Eventually, we found evidence of Drakula's Death (1921) that was made about 16 months prior - which is also lost apart from two or three grainy stills we have to support it's existence. However, the same can't be said for an alleged Russian version that came out in 1920 and there's no known copies, stills, or promotional content to verify it's existence.
So, why am I bringing this up since we already have an article about it?
I looked into things again and I found that the 3rd edition of The Vampire Book that was released in 2010 is up on Archive for anyone who wants to read it. While the article includes a screen grab of the reference, it didn't include more details about the resources in question. While a few other websites have vaguely mentioned the possibly existence of the film, it's mostly a rehash of what Melton said. With a list of possible resource out there, we can potentially get to work with seeing what comes up since some of them seem to be a compilation dating back to the 1890s with information. One of them is "The Dracula Book" (1975) by Donald F Glut, which has a chapter regarding Dracula and silent cinema. However, the website in question doesn't include page information on the chapters, so there's no way of really telling how short they are. It's also unclear if there's PDF copies of them up online for viewing without having to track them down at various public libraries.
Resources by J Gordon Melton:
- "American Vampires: Fans, Victims, and Practitioners" by Norine Dresser (1989)
- "Bram Stoker's Dracula: Sucking Through the Century, 1897-1997" by Carol Margaret Davidson, Paul Simpson-Housley (1997)
- "Dracula: Between Tradition and Modernism" by Carol Senf (1998)
- "Dracula Book, The" by Donald F Glut (1975)
- "Dracula Centenary Book, The" [London Souvenir]" by Peter Haining (1987)
- "Dracula Scrapbook, The" by Peter Haining (1987/1992)*
- "Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen" by David J Skal (2004)
- "Reflections on Dracula: Ten Essays" by Elizabeth Miller (1997)
*Refer to the screen grab of the resources for more information, as there's another publication made years later as a revision.
Here's a list of other media that could potentially help us out, though I'm not too hopeful:
- "100 Years of Horror: The Complete Collection" (1996)
- "Celluloid Vampire: Life After Death in the Modern World" by Stacey Abbott (2007)
- "Dracula: The Vampire Legend on Film" by Robert Marrero (1992)
- "Essential Dracula, The" by Clare Haworth-Maden (1992)
- "From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth" by Matthew Beresford (2008)
- "Vampire Cinema, The" by David Pirie (1984)
- "Vampires in Folklore, History, Literature, Film and Television: A Comprehensive Bibliography" by J. Gordon Melton, Alysa Hornick (2015)*
* His most recent publication on the subject as far as I'm aware. You can read portions of it online, but the free snippets cut off at the silent cinema portion.
Attachments:
