always enjoy the month of October leading up to Halloween. It is not because I particularly enjoy Halloween, dressing up in costume or even Trick or Treating; no I absolutely love the classic horror films from the 1930s and 1940s. As there is not yet a Classic Horror cable channel, the month of October is usually the only month the genre is presented on TMC. So I record and re-watch them with joy all month long. My favorite of such movies are the Universal classics from the 30s and 40s; Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man and the Mummy. So between now and Halloween I will write a series of posts tying these beloved old classics as introductions into some ongoing issues of compliance and ethics.
Today we start with the first of the Universal classic movie monsters, Dracula. I could probably write several posts on the Count and his portrayal by Bela Lugosi in 1931 but I will just mention three things. First, the production values set an atmosphere that was both terrifying and compelling. The second was the performance of the leading man, Bela Lugosi, a Hungarian actor who spoke broken English at best, his delivery was perfect when he first intoned, “I am Dracula.” Finally, and here is the compliance angle, the work of Professor Van Helsig to prevent, detect and finally remedy Count Dracula before he managed to do in England what he had accomplished in Transylvania.
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