Dracula Starring Lon Chaney: An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters
Author: Philip J. Riley
Date: 2010-03-25 07:00:00+00:00
Description: Late 1929. The Stock market crash. At MGM Studios Irving Thalberg was involved in a power struggle. Lon Chaney's contract was coming up for renewal. Tod Browning, MGM's famed director of the macbre genre for the studio, had left and signed a contract back at his home studio, Universal. Carl Laemmle Jr was made production head of Universal for his father and he wanted to do a film version of Dracula. Carl Sr. agreed, as long as they had Lon Chaney as the star. Early in August of 1930, Carl Junior, still attempting to sign Chaney for the role, ordered a treatment to be authored by Louis Bromfiel
Publisher: BearManor Media

Lon Chaney's Dracula - 1930

Books by Philip J Riley

CLASSIC HORROR FILMS

Frankenstein, the original 1931 shooting script Bride of Frankenstein, the original 1935 shooting
script Son of Frankenstein, the original 1939 shooting script Ghost of Frankenstein, the original 1942
shooting script Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, the original 1943 shooting script House of

Frankenstein, the original 1944 shooting script The Mummy, the original 1932 shooting script The

Mummy’s Curse the original 1944 shooting script (as Editor in Chief) The Wolfman, the original 1941
shooting script Dracula, the original 1931 shooting script

House of Dracula, the original 1945 shooting script

CLASSIC COMEDY FILMS

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the original 1948 shooting script

CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION

This Island Earth, the original 1955 shooting script

The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the original 1953 shooting script (editor-in-chief)

THE ACKERMAN ARCHIVES SERIES - LOST FILMS The Reconstruction of London After

Midnight, the original 1927 shooting script The Reconstruction of A Blind Bargain, the original 1922
shooting script The Reconstruction of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the original 1923 shooting
script

CLASSIC SILENT FILMS

The Reconstruction of The Phantom of the Opera, the original 1925 shooting script

FILMONSTER SERIES - LOST SCRIPTS James Whale’s Dracula’s Daughter, 1934 Cagliostro,

The King of the Dead, 1932

Wolfman vs Dracula 1944 Lon Chaney's Dracula - 1930

AS EDITOR

Countess Dracula by Carroll Borland

My Hollywood, when both of us were young by Patsy Ruth Miller Mr. Technicolor - Herbert Kalmus

Famous Monster of Filmland #2 by Forrest J Ackerman

FILM DOCUMENTARIES

A Thousand Faces - as contributor (Photoplay Productions) Universal Horrors - as contributor

(Photoplay Productions)

Mr. Riley has also contributed to 12 film related books by various authors as well as numerous
magazine articles and received the Count Dracula Society Award and was inducted into Universal’s

Horror Hall of Fame

DRACULA

Starring Lon Chaney

An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters
by Philip J. Riley

Hollywood Publishing Archives

Published by:

BearManor Media

P O Box 71426

Albany, GA 31708

Phone: 760-709-9696 Fax: 814-690-1559
books@benohmart.com

©2010 Philip J Riley

For Copyright purposes

Philip J Riley is the author in the form of this book

Lon Chaney name and likeness are trademarks of Chaney Enterprises Treatment of Dracula by

Louis Bromfield July 1930

Incomplete script by Louis Bromfield and Dudley Murphy August 1930 Script for Nosferatu by

Henrik Galeen (annotation by F. W. Murnau in bold print). First published in "Murnau" by Lotte

Eisner

Cover Art - ©2010 By Philip J Riley - Since none of the scripts in this series were thought to exist
and were never produced, we have created mock-up posters in the vintage style of the period.

All photographs are from the Author’s collection unless noted

The Author would like to thank the following individuals who contributed and helped make this
series possible. Carl Laemmle Jr., R.C.Sherriff, Stanley Bergerman, Gloria Holden, Jane Wyatt, Otto

Kruger, Marcel Delgado, Robert Florey, Paul Ivano (Cinematographer), Paul Malvern (producer), Elsa

Lanchester, Merion C Cooper, Patric Leroux, Bette Davis, Bela G.. Lugosi, Sara Karloff, Technicolor

Corporation, John Balderston II, Douglas Norwine, Loeb and Loeb Attorneys, David Stanley Horsley,

Bernard Schubert, John Teehan

Author’s Note: I interviewed the producers, directors, stars, cast and crew in the early to late

1970s. They were recalling events that happened 35-45 years previous and sometimes memory fades
or events are recalled from their perspective point of view.

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The purpose of this series is the preservation of the art of writing for the screen. Rare books have
long been a source of enjoyment and an investment for the serious collector, and even in limited
editions there are thousands printed. Scripts, however, numbered only 50 at the most. In the history of

American Literature, the screenwriter was being lost in time. It is my hope that my efforts bring about
a renewed history and preservation of a great American Literary form, The Screenplay, by preserving
them for study by future generations.

Recommended reading -For more information on Lon Chaney or Dracula

"Hollywood Gothic" and "The Monster Show" by David J Skal

" The Lon Chaney trilogy" by Michael F. Blake

This volume is Dedicated to:

Carl Laemmle Jr.

Carl Laemmle Sr. and Carl Laemmle Jr. circa 1936

A composite shot of Chaney as "The man in the Beaver Hat"

from London After Midnight, MGM 1927 and a publicity shot of

Bela Lugosi from the opening scene

One of two frames of the Newcombe shots which are all that remains today of MGM's 1927 London

After Midnight a thinly veiled
version of Dracula starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning

1929, The Stock Market Crash, at MGM Studios, Lon Chaney's champion Irving Thalberg was in
the middle of a power struggle. Tod Browning had moved to Universal Studios and Carl Laemmle Jr.

wanted to make a film version of the book "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, an Englishman who has died in

1912 leaving the rights to his works to his wife Florence.

As noted by film historian David J. Skal Chaney and Browning had talked about making the same
film as early as 1922.

The Browning-Chaney team together produce the most macabre motion pictures of the 1920s. But

none of their collective productions were ever considered a monster film like Dracula or Frankenstein.

When Carl Laemmle Jr. was given control of Universal Pictures he was given permission to do a
film version of Dracula and he wanted Lon Chaney to star. And he was told by his father that the only
way he could make the picture is by securing Chaney as the lead or possible in a duel role of Count

Dracula and Professor Van Helsing.

" I saw the play version of "Dracula" when I went on a trip to New York City and knew that it
would make a great film. I had stayed in touch, casually, with Lon Chaney after he left Universal

Pictures for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But I had no real power at the studio and when I approached my
father he was in the middle of trying to get him to do a sound remake of The Phantom of the Opera

(1925). He told me the only way he would allow a production of Dracula was if I could get Chaney to
star in the picture. He [Laemmle Sr.] knew of the legal entanglements Murnau's company had with

Bram Stoker's widow, (eventually we bought a print and script of Dracula which Prana had called

Nosferatu) and I knew there was some reluctance by MGM to film Chaney's London After Midnight in

1927. (The same year as John Balderston's play opened in New York City. I don't remember if I saw

Bela Lugosi in the lead role, but I knew I had to produce a film version, despite what Prana and

Thalberg had to go through."

[Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow had sued the German production company for not securing
the rights to film Dracula and won. The court ordered all prints destroyed, but fortunately this was not
completely successful.]

Despite all the inner-office opposition, Laemmle Jr. tried to get a three picture deal out of Lon

Chaney.

Eleanor Holm, Howard Hughes, now a studio owner himself at a banquet with Sandra Shaw and Carl

Laemmle Jr

Chaney had already said no to a sound remake of The Phantom and had yet to make his talking
debut at this time. But it still didn't stop Laemmle Jr. and a contract was drawn up with this letter,
provided to me by the Earnest Goodman, head of copyrights for Universal's Legal Department in 1989
which he called ancient documents from the law firm of Lobe and Lobe:

[attachment- single page]

It is unknown if Mr. Chaney will play a duel role: Count Dracula and Van Helsing.

The letter:

"June 23, 1929

We are enclosing herewith three copies of the proposed agreement with Lon Chaney. Will you be
good enough to give special attention to the examination of this contract in order to ascertain whether
or not it fully complies with the understanding between yourselves and Mr Chaney.

You will, of course, notice that the within contract is somewhat larger than the contract which

Chaney had for The Phantom of the Opera, but in view of the fact that some difficulties were
encountered in the production of that picture, we have deemed it advisable to include in the within
contract all possible precautions.

While we do not know whether or not you desire to carry insurance on Chaney during this period
of production we have included a clause allowing you to do so, and requiring Chaney to submit to the
usual examination for that purpose. Mr. Stern did not specfy if Chaney has, in fact, agreed to a dual
role."

The letter contains an annotation:

"Jr. Emphatic - - keep Stern away from Chaney" {Walter Stern was Universal's business manager at
the time]

In July of 1929 Universal's lawyer Sigfreid Hartman sent a telegram to Edwin Loeb:

An additional attachment to the Loeb and Loeb proposed Dracula Contract for Lon Chaney

Above are pages from Chaney's contract with Universal for the 1929 sound reissue of The

Phantom of the Opera. So as far as thePhantom was concerned Chaney would allow Universal to use
his likeness only, and permission to use a voice double for $25,000 provided that they made no claims
to it actually being his voice.

For more on Lon Chaney see appendix B- A reconstruction of "My Own Story" by Lon Chaney,
as close as possible to the original format. It was the only time he ever talked about his formulative
years in barnstorming, vaudeville and his earlier years at Universal Pictures. It appeared orginally
in a short lived magazine called "Movie Magazine from September to November in 1925

Even with the problems with Phantom, Chaney's first talking picture would be released only a few
months before his death.

All this upheaval didn't stop Junior. And by June of 1930 Universal finally bought the rights to
film Dracula. Around the same time that Chaney's first and only talking film The Unholy Three was
released by MGM with tremendous success. Two months later Universal bought the screen rights to

Dracula which included a complete print and script of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu

Famed author Louis Bromfield was given the project of the first treatment with a July deadline.

Everything began to look like it would fall in place again so the project was rushed by adding
screenwriter Dudley Murphy to complete the screenplay. Universal was going to make in the Super

Jewel quality of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923 and The Phantom of the Opera and they based
their script on the book. They knew that Chaney was always more involved when the screenplay was
close to the original novels, as was the first version of his Phantom that premiered in Los Angeles, in
being very close to the Gaston Leroux novel of 1911.

Carl Laemmle Sr.

Dudley Murphy

Dudley Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester Massachusetts. The son of a Harvard
professor, after graduating from M.I.T. he was a journalist and assistant drama editor before turning to
films in the early 20s. beginning with a string of one-reelers. In his first short film Soul of the Cypress

(1921), a variation on the Orpheus myth, the film's lead falls in love with a dryad (a wood nymph
whose soul dwells in an ancient tree) and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend
eternity with her. Murphy's then

-wife Chase Harringdine play the dryad. Murphy followed this with Danse Macabre(1922) featuring

Adolph Bolm, Olin Howland and Ruth Page. A very eerie film where the lead's girlfriend is being
stalked by death in the form of a skeleton.

In 1924 he went to France, where he produced and helped direct Fernand Léger experimental
classic Ballet mécanique. On returning to the US he wrote a number a screenplays and directed feature
films. His work on Dracula is uncredited in the final release.

He moved his production crew to Mexico in the 40s while he and his fourth wife, Virginia still
operated an exclusive Malibu hotel which was a favorite of the Hollywood crowd.

He died in Mexico City on February 22, 1968. Filmography: The Soul of the Cypress (1921); High

Speed Lee (1923); Ballet mécanique (1924); Skyscraper, Alex the Great, Stocks and Blonds (1928); St.

Louis Blues, Jazz Heaven, Black and Tan , The Burglar(1929); Dracula, (English and Spanish versions)

additional dialogue; He was Her Man, Confessions of a Co-Ed, (1931); A Lesson in Golf, The Sport

Parade (1932); The Emperor Jones (1933); The Night is Young , (1935); Don't Gamble with Love,

(1936); One third of a Nation, Main Street Lawyer , (1939); Yes Indeed , Merry-Go-Roundup, Lazy

Bones, I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire , Easy Street, Alabamy Bound, Abercrombie Had a Zombie ,

(1941); Yolanda(1943); Alma de bronce (1944).

Louis Bromfield

Louis Bromfield, (born Louis Brumfield), a Pulitzer Prize winning author, was born December 27,

1896 on a farm in Mansfield, Ohio. He was a direct descendant of American frontiersman Daniel

Boone. In addition to his writing career he specialized in the field of scientific farming, writing a
number of books on the subject. His own farm Malabar, in Lucas Ohio still exist today as a state park.

[The following is from his obituary from the New York Times]

At 18, after a stint on a local newspaper, he enrolled in Cornell School if Agriculture and returned
to his family farm after only one semester. After a few months of farming he enrolled in Columbia

University's School of Journalism.

With the start of World War I, he left college and joined the French Army as an ambulance driver.

He came out of the war with the star of the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre

Mr. Bromfield entered the metropolitan newspaper scene as rewrite man for the old New York

City News Association after which he went to The Associated Press. He held several magazine and
advertising jobs, and then went to France. There he settled down to a writing career.

His first four novels consisted of panels in the American scene. "The Green Bay Tree" published in

(1923) won instant acclaim. There followed "Possession" (1925), "Early Autumn" [Pulitzer Prize
winner] (1926) and "A Good Woman" (1927). Thereafter there was a book almost every year.

Mr. Bromfield's novels evolved eventually into sleek Hollywood-slanted stories. The motion
picture rights for Mrs. Parkington (1943) were sold for $60,000 on the basis of a one-paragraph
synopsis before he began writing the book.

After travels and a residence in India, which furnished backgrounds for several more books

(Including "The Rains Came" and A Night in Bombay), he returned to Ohio In 1939 and bought his
farm where he lived his death on March 18, 1956. His contribution to Dracula are uncredited.

Filmography: One Heavenly Night, 24 Hours, (1931); Night After Night, (1932); The Life of Vergie

Winters, A Modern Hero, (1934); The Rains Came, (1939); Brigham Young , It All Came True, (1940);

Johnny Come Lately, (1943); Mrs. Parkington, (1944), The Rains of Ranchipur, (1955)

FIRST TREATMENT
of

"DRACULA"

By

Louis Bromfield

July 18, 1930 JOHN HARKER

Young, attractive, romantic barrister, just beginning to practice. He is blonde, blueeyed, physically
strong and perhaps bumptious. He is romantically devoted to his fiancee, Mina Seward.

COUNT DRACULA

Handsome, dark, tall and slender, almost to the point of thinness, but of superhuman muscular
strength. He is physically potent and attractive, at times seeming to be perfectly normal. It is only
when the lust of blood, or terror of his own destruction seizes him, that he turns sinister. His canine
teeth appear visibly to grow longer, and his eyes to dilate. His eyes are all important. They are dark
and lustrous with a kind of evil power of hypnotism.

1 EXTERIOR OF AN INN

In the wildest part of the Transylvanian mountains. A low, squalid building, is the last stages of
decay. It has queer sinister angles and long narrow windows. It is a winter night in the middle of a
wild blizzard. The pine trees are bowing before the blast. The
wind howls and once or twice is
heard the howl of a wolf. Two
or three of the animals slink across the courtyard, circling the inn and leaping up to peer in a half-
human way in at the cracks of the
shuttered windows. Once or twice are heard snatches of savage music played by gypsies inside.

2.THE INTERIOR OF BEDROOM IN THE LOFT OF THE INN

It is a long room, barely
furnished with a bed, a chair, a table, and on the floor a
wolf skin. The room is lighted only by the candle on the table.

Seated there is John Harker. He is packed ready for a journey his bag beside him. He is warmly
dressed against the cold, with a fur coat and gloves on the table beside him. He is writing a letter with
a fountain pen.

From belowstairs comes the faint sound of a weird, savage, wailing music played by the native
band.

The camera looking over his shoulder reads:

"If anything happens to me you will know that I came as far as Biztritz, safely. I must say
that as I penetrate further into these wild mountains, I begin to feel vaguely uneasy, It is like going
back into the middle ages. The country is full of superstition, ghosts and tales of men and even women
who rise from the grave at A-2 CONTINUED
night to take on the forms of
wolves and bats. From here on, I
must journey by an means possible.

Motors cannot traverse the wild
roads. For some reason the natives
regard me as a man already doomed.

Thank Heaven I am a solid, sensible Britisher not to be frightened by
wild tales of horror. Say nothing
to Mina of what I have written you.

I would not have her frightened
for the world." He signs the letter, folds it, places it in an envelope and
addresses it to

"Penthurst, Williams & Harker, Barristers, Fleet Street, London"

As he folds the letter, the
shutter rattles. Pausing, he sits transfixed, staring at it. Then he turns again to write and again the
shutter rattles, half rattle, half knock. Stealthily he rises and moving toward it, suddenly opens the
window and flings the shutters open. There is nothing there. Below him in the courtyard he sees a wolf
sling off into the shadows.

Closing the shutter, re returns to the desk and starts another letter.

"Darling Mina:

Just a line before leaving for Castle Dracula. I
shall not be able to write you
every day from there. I am well and in fine spirits, though I miss you horribly. The country is
interesting and beautiful, though very savage and the trip is fine experiences, although nothing can
take the place of you. It won't be long now until we shall never again be separated. My love to your
father and to Lucy. If you had not been yourself, I should have fallen in love with her. I am wearing
the little crucifix which you gave me. Nothing will ever separate it and me. I hope to finish this
mission in short order and then, when I return, you will be my wife.

Jonathan Harker. He takes out the crucifix from be
neath his shirt and kisses it romantically.

Again the rattling of the shutters. Again, somewhat terrified, he stares at it. The rattling continues,
as if there was an attempt to force an entrance. Slowly he raises the tiny crucifix toward the window,
calling out in a loud voice, "Back to the Devil from where you came".

At once, the rattling ceases and with it the howl of the wind and the wolves.

Harker smiles a half-credulous smile, seals the envelope, addresses it, picks up his coat and bag
and carrying the candle, starts toward the door. The wind begins to howl once more and with the
distant howl of the wolves.

A-3 THE DRINKING ROOM OF THE INN

'It is like the exterior of the house, ancient, crumbling and worn. There is a gigantic fireplace in
one corner and in the opposite corner a crazy stairway landing to the rooms above. The whole room is
distorted like something seen in a dream.

In the room are seated, drinking and carousing, a villainous
assortment of Transylvanian peasants. In one corner are two or three
savage peasants playing the music that has been heard up to now. The proprietor, a lean, sallow
fellow of great height and fierce black moustaches, is seated behind a sort of till.

At the top of the stairs Harker appears. One of the peasants
sees him, then another and another. They all stop drinking. The music stops. They all stare at him in
pity and terror, as he slowly descends the stairs. One or two cross themselves.

Harker advances slowly across the room until he reaches the till where he addresses the proprietor.

A-3 (CONTINUED)

HARKER

Has the sleigh come you?

PROPRIETOR (he speaks English with a broad accent)

No. . . .I think you'll hear it when it comes.

HARKER(handing him the two letters)

When will these go?

PROPRIETOR

Day after tomorrow. The mail coach only comes into the mountains once a week.

HARKER

They're important. I trust you to see that they get off.

PROPRIETOR

You can trust me.

HARKER(looking about at the
peasants who continue to stare at him)

What's the matter with me?

PROPRIETOR

Its because you're a
stranger, Sir. They have never been out of the mountains.

HARKER

They must be used to me by now.

PROPRIETOR

They're very ignorant, Sir. An old moustached hag suddenly comes forward and throws herself at

Harker's feet. She holds out a charm toward him and mumbles excitedly in Czechoslovak.

(CONTINUED) HARKER(drawing back,

Alarmed)

What's the matter? What's she saying?

PROPRIETOR

Take it.

(indicating the object she is holding out)

It's a charm against the evil forces

Harker takes it. The
old woman, crossing
herself, seizes his
knees. He frees himself. HARKER

What's she saying?

PROPRIETOR

Perhaps I ought not to tell you.

HARKER(angrily)

Tell me. I'm not a fool or a coward.

PROPRIETOR

I didn't mean that, you Excellency.

(hesitating)

She is saying that tonight is the Eve of St. George's Day.

HARKER

Yes!

PROPRIETOR (hesitating)

At midnight all the evil things in the world will be loosed.

HARKER(laughing)

Yes! And what are they?

Proprietor doesn't answer.

HARKER(again)

What are they?

PROPRIETOR (evasively)

Demons - werewolves vampires. It is evil to even speak of them. HARKER (laughing)

Well, if it's not any more than that, I shan't worry. I fancy I'll be safe in the castle of my friend,

Count Dracula. It's walls are thick enough.

The proprietor crosses himself.

HARKER(looking at him seriously)

What? You believe too? The clock begins striking midnight slowly.

The sound of horses' hoofs are heard. They both listen. In the background the peasants grow
terrified. A wolf howls. The clock finishes striking. There is a knock, made by the butt of a whip, on
the door. PROPRIETOR

You can never tell - I've seen things -

HARKER

What things?

PROPRIETOR (after a pause)

You had better keep the charm the old woman gave you.

HARKER(laughing)

Our friend, the coachman is late.

PROPRIETOR

The Proprietor makes no effort to unbolt the door. He has placed himself with his back against the
wall, motionless. All the peasants are struck dumb and appear terrified. Harker looks at him and then
unbolts the door himself. I think he never meant to come before midnight. HARKER

Goodnight. I'll return here when my visit is finished.

PROPRIETOR (in a low voice)

May God bring you safely back.

Harker opens the door. The wind blows in. A wolf howls. He closes it and the Proprietor flings
himself on it bolting it and making the mark of the cross in chalk.

A-4 THE COURTYARD AND ROAD OUTSIDE THE INN

It is roughly paved an lighted only by the lantern above the Inn door.

As Harker steps to the door under the light it is banged behind him. In front of him stands a sleigh
drawn by four coal-black horses prancing nervously. For a moment he stands taking in the sight and
then notices the extraordinary figure of the coachman.

He is a big man, wrapped in furs with a scarf hiding the lower part of his face like a mask, beneath
the wolf-skin cap. The only visible part of his face are his eyes, which are large, black and brilliant. As
they regard Harker they seem to
dilate and take on an expression of gloating. For a moment Harker stands staring at him with an
expression of amazement and then alarm. The wolves howl louder and nearer. Without speaking a
word Harker climbs into the sleigh and is whirled off. At the same time the wolves appear from the
bushes close in pursuit. Harker, alarmed, half rises from beneath furs which he has thrown over
himself and drawing his pistol turns to face the wolves. He fires once or twice as they draw near, but
the mysterious coachman rising in his seat, turns and cracks his long driving whip in the direction of
the wolves, who instantly vanish. Again Harker is both astonished and frightened. The coachman
appears to take no notice of the extraordinary happening and Harker settles back as the sleigh dashes
on.

A-5 A LONG SHOT OF CASTLE DRACULA

It is an immense and crumbling ruin of the ages, silhouetted
against waning moon, which appears now and then thru the storm
tormented clouds. The sleigh
drawn back by the black horses sweeps into the courtyard, before an
immense doorway, which is also a kind of porch where Harker
is sheltered from the storm.

He gets down from the sleigh
again, bearing his luggage and dispatch case. Again no word
is spoken between him and the
mysterious coachman. Suddenly the sleigh dashes off. Apparently whisked to invisibility by a wild
gust of wind and snow. Harker is left alone, standing in the
fitful moonlight before the
great door.

On the door is an immense iron knocker with which he hammers again and again, against the
moldering iron-studded oak.

For a long time there is no
answer. The wolves begin to
howl again, the howling coming nearer and nearer, until, as they rush into the vast courtyard. There is
a metallic sound of chains and bolts, the great door opens, apparently of its own accord, and he steps
inside and the door closes again. He finds himself confronted by an immensely tall man in old
fashioned, very worn, footman's livery. He silently takes up the baggage of Harker and without a
words leads the way. Harker follows.

The hallway is an immensely high, narrow, vaulted passageway and is lighted only by the candlestick,
very rich and very
beautiful, bearing six candles which the man-servant has given to Harker to carry while he
himself brings the baggage. The candle-light throws fantastic shadows against the walls.

The long hall terminates in an immense stone stairway, which appears to lead up and up
indefinitely. It is likewise completely bare and as the two figures climb up and up they grow smaller
and smaller, until in a turning of the staircase, they are lost to sight.

A-6 AGAIN AN IMMENSE HIGH VAULTED ROOM WITH SMALL WINDOW ALONG ONE SIDE

It is dark, except for the moonlight which comes in by a small window. . . A great door opens and a
man-servant comes in followed by Harker carrying the candle-stick, which illuminates the room for
the first time. This room, too, is virtually bare, save for a group of furniture, crude and massive,
gathered about an immense fireplace filled with burning logs.

The man-servant leads the way to the fireplace, where he puts down the luggage, bows and goes
out without a word. Harker, left alone, takes off his fur coat and looks about him. He notices suddenly
that the chairs and table are covered thickly with dust and traces, with his finger a faint design on the
surface of the table. On the table lie bread, cheese fruit and a bottle of wine. A place is set for one
person. While
waiting, he wanders about the room gong presently to one of the
windows which he unfastens with difficulty. Opening it he looks out. A-7 SCENE BENEATH THE

WINDOW

SEEN FROM AN ENORMOUS HEIGHT

Half blotted out by the snow lies a mountainous landscape threaded by a river. Beneath the
window there is a sheer drop of castle-wall and
precipice of a thousand feet. The wall of the castle is broken only by another window a hundred feet
lower down.

A-8 INSIDE THE ROOM

Harker draws back from the window, dizzy by the great height. Behind him the howl of wolves is
heard. He bangs the window shut and a moment later a voice is heard coming out of the shadows.

VOICE It is a long drop
nearly two thousand feet.

Harker, turning toward
the voice, sees the figure
of a tall man, dressed in a
musty and unpressed, trousers and morning coat. He has a
very pale face with drooping
white mustache and long, unkept white hair. Yet he has a
distinction of bearing. He wears, also, a long black cape, which floats about him as he moves forward
to greet Harker.

As he comes into the firelight it is the eyes which Harker sees first - large, black and
burning. Suddenly Harker sees, in his mind at the same time, the eyes of the wild coachman and the
sinister footman. The eyes of all
three are the eyes of the
same man.

HARKER

Count Dracula? DRACULA (he speaks with a foreign accent)

I am Dracula. I bid you welcome. My servants have gone to bed. Let me see to your comfort
myself. I pray you, be seated
and sup when you please. Excuse me if I do not join you, I never sup.

They seat themselves and Harker brings out
papers and lays them on the table.

Dracula sits with his hands on the edge of the table, and all the time he is talking, Harker with an
evil fascination, regards them and various features of his face.

HARKER

I will present my
credentials

(taking up dispatch
case)

And I have the leases already to sign.

(He brings out the
papers)

DRACULA

I make my apologies for having brought you all the way from London into this wild country -

Please eat, while I talk - -

HARKER

I have not much appetite, but I will have a little wine, it will warm me after my journey.

DRACULA

Your nerves are shaken by
the wild ride. I
apologize, it is a wild
country.

(wolves howling)

(Dracula grins showing
suddenly two very
prominent teeth, very long and pointed.)

Listen to them - - the
children of the night.

What music they make.

(CONTINUED) (All this may be shown in close-ups in and out of the speech) One by one Harker
examines them. (1) the hands, coarse and covered with hair almost like the bristles of an animal. The
mails are long and pointed in needle-like fashion. As one hand turns over you see hairs growing out of
the palm. (2) the
eyebrows, very dark and bushy. (3) The ears, very pointed at the tips with a suspicion of hair on them.

DRACULA

I was forced to make you take this long trip because it was impossible for me to leave my castle.

Now it seems, owing to sudden developments, I shall be able to leave shortly to occupy the house you
have bought for me in England.

(he leans toward Harker laying a hand on his shoulder)

Ah! You are a stout
young fellow - young and full of life. There is
nothing like youth - youth and young blood.

(he looks at Harker, who, a little
frightened, draws away)

You are young and full of young blood. Yes. . . .yes full.

(for a moment he seems in a trance. Then he draws away and recovers himself.

Yes - if you will give me the papers, I can sign them, now at once. I shall be busy during the day
tomorrow and not able to see you. I have the
necessary checks which I can pay you at once.

Harker produces the papers. Dracula draws over to him an inkwell with a quill pen and proceeds to
sign. He holds out the checks.

Throughout the scene Count Dracula alternately wavers between behaviour, which is all that is
polished and
polite, and a sudden sinister, gloating over Harker, which he seems unable to control.

It will be a change, I have lived so long in this wild, lonely country -

(slowly, as if to himself)

So long, so many, many,
years, and now I'm going to a new, fresh world. (slowly)

A world full of opportunity.

(coming to himself
again)

You will, I am afraid, be forced to stay here for several days, as there is no coach coming from the
village before Friday. I trust you will be able to amuse yourself during the day. I am occupied during
the daylight, but I shall be able to see you in the evening.

(rising)

An now, let me conduct you to your room.

He rises and takes up Harker's baggage.

Harker protests, but he insists. Leading the way, Dracula conducts Harker to a door on the opposite
side of the room.

HARKER(with an air of trying to make conversation)

I trust, Sir, that you will find your stay in England agreeable.

DRACULA A-9 A SMALL ROOM WITH A SINGLE WINDOW

The window looks out over the valley. The room is simply furnished.

The two enter and Dracula, with an air of a servant opens Harker's bag on the bed and begins to
unpack for him.

DRACULA You will allow me, I trust, inasuch as all the servants are in bed.

Harker protests and begins to unpack himself. Among other things, he takes out a large, round
shaving
mirror. He turns to hang it on the wall. Dracula
quietly slips the revolver he finds in the bag into his own pocket. Meanwhile Harker, engaged in
hanging up the mirror, notices
that in it there is no
reflection of Dracula.

Puzzled, he deliberately holds the mirror so that he can have in it a full view of Dracula. To his
astonishment no reflection of Dracula appears. Dracula, discovering what he is up to, leaps toward
him, seizes the mirror and dashes it to bits.

Then, recovering himself sharply, he becomes suave and polished once more.

DRACULA

I beg you pardon. I have an incontrollable hatred for all mirrors. They are symbols of the vanity of
mankind.

(he bows)

And now, Sir, I will leave you. I have only one request to make. The post in these wild mountains is
very irregular and uncertain. I would like to have you write three letters - one dated the third, written
from here, saying that you have arrived, DRACULA (continued)

are comfortable and well - - one written on the sixth saying that you are leaving and one dated the
ninth from Bucharest saying that you are on you way to

London.

HARKER

Well, I need not trouble you with that. I can send them myself.

DRACULA (looking at him with sinister meaning)

You under stand it would be much safer if you left
them to me.

(bowing his way out the door)

I will expect to find the
letters tomorrow. Goodnight, and may you have
pleasant dreams.

He closes the door behind him. The clinking of
chains and bolts is heard. Harker rushes instinctively to try the massive door and finds it securely
bolted. He is a prisoner. He goes to one window and looks out.

A-10 VIEW OF SHEER WALL AND PRECIPICE

It is the same view of the sheer wall and precipice you have seen before.

A-11 VIEW OF OTHER WINDOW

He rushes across the room to the other window. Here too, the walls fall
abruptly to the great courtyard by which Harker has entered a little while ago. In the courtyard there
appears to be a great activity.

The storm is still raging.

But, in the courtyard are
two great carts and horses
and a number of wild looking gypsies. Some are carrying lighted torches, others are carrying from the
depths of the castle, great coffin-shaped boxes, of immense weight, loading them upon the carts.

Harker watches for a moment and then closes the window. He tries the door again. Searches for his
revolver and finds it missing.

A-12 AN IMMENSE FLIGHT OF STAIRS

An immense flight of stairs
leading down, down, down into
the depths of the castle.

Dracula, his cloak wrapped
about him, bolts the door to
the large room where Harker
has recently had supper and
descends the stairs. The
camera follows him on the
end of descent until he comes
out into an immense vaulted, chapellike room filled with coffins and tombs. Here, a half dozen wild-
looking
gypsies are at work shovelling the earth into a coffin-like box. Dracula stands watching them until it is
filled and placed on the shoulders of six men who bear it out.

A-13 AGAIN IN HARKER'S ROOM

He has taken off his collar
and put on a dressing gown to
make himself comfortable, but
has not undressed. Again he
goes to the window overlooking
the valley and looks out. This
time the storm has ceased and
in the moonlight appears a cloud
of mist, which moves toward him
assuming fantastic shapes. He
closes the window quickly and
turns to his bed and lies down.

The mist begins seeping in the cracks of the window and fills the room until nothing in it is
visible

Then quite slowly it dissolves and in the room are three women, wild and beautiful, in the
costumes of three different
periods of history. Hypnotized, Harker on the bed, is unable to move. The three women move
toward his bending over laughing in an evil way. One of them
attempts to bare his throat, but at that moment, Dracula himself appears suddenly and orders them to
go, bidding them not to touch Harker. He drives them through the door which is already bolted and
disappears. Harker rises , not sure whether or not he has been asleep and again tries the door, which he
finds closed. Again he goes to the window overlooking the valley and opening it looks out.

A-14 ------------------------------------------------

This time, far below Harker, is an extraordinary sight. Dracula, in his black cape, comes out of the
window, headfirst and proceeds to climb down the wall head-first, edging a little side-wise at times.

His great black cloak spread out about him and clinging to the wall like the wings of a bat.

Harker watches, the calculates for a moment the distance from his window to the window from
which Dracula has just disappeared. The he sets to work making a rope with the bedclothes and this he
climbs out of the
window and makes his way down to the lower window, slipping into another empty room. Then he
goes through endless rooms finding his way back, at last, to the corridor thru which he entered the
house. He opens the door but as he steps onto the porch a score of wolves, all howling, rush across the
courtyard towards him and he slips the bolt into place as they leap against the door.

Wandering back, he comes again to the great staircase which leads down, down, down into the
bowels of the castle. On his way down he peers out of one of the narrow barred windows and sees the
sun rising over the mountains. Continuing downward he comes at last to chapel-like crypt. There
with a candle, he feels his way about. Coming at last to three small tombs in a row. The lids of these
have all be tumbled
off. As he holds the candle
higher he sees in them the three women who have entered his room in the mist. They are lying dead in
their coffins. The three tombs each bear birth and death dates that are generations apart, all more than

300 years ago. Beyond them is a more pretentious tomb from which the lid is likewise be lifted. It
bears the name "Dracula". and the date 1204 to 1298.

On the ground all about the tomb are scattered picks and shovels and freshly dug earth.

In the big tomb lies Dracula himself, wrapped in his black cloak. Harker stares at him for a
moment and the seizing one of the shovels, swings it with all his force at the head of the monster. But
as he does so the head of the corpse turns over so slightly, the eyes open and fix him with a horrible
stare. His arm falters. He drops the spade and turning, runs up the long stairs and down the corridor to
the door which unbolts.

It is daylight now. He runs out into the storm. There are no wolves. He, too, disappears in a great
whisp of flying snow. S E Q U E N C E "B"

DR. SEWARD A distinguished man of 50.

Proprietor of Carfax Sanitarium for persons with nervous diseases.

MINA SEWARD His daughter, and the fiancee of John Harker. She is young, plump, voluptuous and
appetizing.

LUCY SEWARD Also Dr. Seward's daughter.

She has once been like Mina, but is now wasted and pale from some mysterious disease which
none can diagnose. She is the fiancee of Lord Godalming.

MRS. TRIPLETT A rich neighbor of the Sewards.

She is a fat, sill, couquettish woman of about fifty who behaves as if she were still attractive to
men. She is a good deal of a fool.

COUNT de VILLE A handsome, youthful foreigner

Hungarian in origin - physically attractive to both girls and to Mrs. Triplett. He has beautiful
hypnotic eyes which are like the eyes of Dracula.

RENFIELD A patient in Doctor Seward's sanitarium. Thin, gaunt, morbid, about thirty years old.

VAN HELSING A celebrated Dutch Scientist. plump, solid and bearded with an academic manner

B-1 THE EXTERIOR OF DR. SEWARD'S RESIDENCE AND SANITARIUM AT CARFAX NEAR LONDON

It is a big, quiet, ivy-grown house, set in a walled garden, It is night. By the light above the gate one can read the dignified brass plate sign.

CARFAX NURSING HOME AND SANITARIUM FOR THE CARE OF NERVE DISEASES.

EDWARD SEWARD, ESQ. M.D.

On the wall a sign -

"LONDON 30 MILES"

OXFORD 20 MILES, ETC.

A tall man wearing a black cape approaches, opens the gate and enters. The Camera follows him and he approaches the door, rings and is admitted. The prolonged howl of the wolf heard in the last scene continues until the door is opened. A servant admits him. The camera follows him into the drawing room.

The drawing room is a large
comfortable room with tall
curtained windows. In the
center of the room some
people are playing bridge

Dr. Seward, a thin nervous
man of about 50 with grey
ing hair. His daughter Mina, a pretty, voluptuous young
woman who is John Harker's
fiancee, Lord Godalming,
fiancee of Mina's sister,

Lucy and Mrs. Triplett

(Alison Skipworth) a woman
of fifty, but coquettish
and rather silly. She is a
neighbor who can play bridge and has forced them into a
game. As the servant announces the Count de Ville, they all
turn toward the door where
the man in the cape still
stands with his back to the camera.

The four faces at the bridge table register various expressions - Mr. Triplett, coquettish and beaming with delight, Dr. Seward polite interest, Ford Godalming the same. Only Mina betrays herself for a moment by a look of horror. Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming rise from their chairs.

B-2

DR. SEWARD GREETING COUNT de VILLE

As Doctor Seward rises to greet the Count de Ville you see the Count for the first time. He is Dracula, but miraculously altered. His hair and moustache instead of being grey, are black. He appears
young, very good looking vigorous and attractive. There is only a shade of the sinister in him, which appears to expand wherever his gaze is turned toward the pretty voluptuous Mina.

After the greetings are ex
changed, he says he has
dropped in for a moment
to inquire about Lucy. Dr.

Seward says she is about
the same, very pale and very weak, and in a sort of coma.

Dr. Seward tells him that
both he, and Lord Godalming have submitted to trans
fusions in order to help
her condition. The Count
gallantly offers himself
in case of another trans
fusion. He asks if she is
well enough to receive
visitors and is told that
she is too weak, although

Dr. Seward says that she
always seems brighter and
more cheerful after seeing
the Count. The Count says
that he will go now and not
interrupt their bridge, but

Mina, politely says it does
not matter, because she can't possibly go on playing. they
had been playing simply to
pass the time, and because

Mrs. Triplett dropped in
and wanted a game. She says she is too sad and depressed to go on pretending she is
enjoying it. Mrs. Triplett
asks the Count if he will
drop her at home. She has
walked over from her house.

He gallantly agrees, and
as they go out, the Count
manages to take Dr. Seward
aside and ask if there is
any news of Miss Mina's
fiance, John Harker. He
confides in the Count that
he is afraid some fatal
accident has happened to
him. It is three months
since they have heard from
him. The Count expresses
sympathy, and conducts the
twittering Mrs. Triplett
out of the house. On the (CONTINUED)

way out he turns and
asks "When is your friend Van Helsing, arriving?"

Dr. Seward says "we expect him tonight." An then
looking sharply at the Count asks, "how did you know that he was coming?" The Count replies. I heard you speaking of it the other day".

Back in the drawing room Mina is very nearly hysterical.

She declares she cannot bear the Count, and that his presence near her, fills her with dread. Dr. Seward admits there is
something strange about him. How does he know that Van Helsing is on his way from Amsterdam. He is certain that the subject was never discussed in front of him. At that moment a maniacal laugh is heard. Mina very nearly faints. Lord Godalming snatches away the curtain and standing there , jeering at them is discovered Renfield, a patient in the sanitarium.

Dr. Seward, alarmed, asks him what he is doing there and bids Godalming to ring the bell for the keeper at once. From Renfield comes only insane chatter. He is at the moment, completely mad. The keeper appears to drag Renfield away and Renfield makes a speech begging to be allowed a single night of freedom. He is hysterical and pitiful. Dr. Seward, to humor him, tells him "yes, but later on". Renfield, jibbering to himself is dragged away by the keeper. As he leaves the room he emits a long wolf-like howl. The howl is
answered distantly from the
outside. Godalming observes that Renfield has started all the dogs in the neighborhood to howling.

Godalming urges Dr. Seward to send Renfield away because he is growing violent and his screams and yells must be disturbing to the sick Lucy. Mina leaves them, saying that she is going up to see her sister, Lucy, and as she leaves a servant enters bringing the mail. There is a letter bearing the stamp of John Harker's law firm. Seward opens it hastily hoping that
perhaps it may contain news of John Harker. Godalming watches while he reads.

B-3 LUCY'S BEDROOM

It is an old-fashioned room with a low dormer window looking out on the park.

It is moonlight and the
room is lighted only by
the window and a night light. The door opens and Mina
comes in. She moves softly to the foot of the bed and stands for a moment looking down at her sister.

Lucy, lying on the bed, looks pale and shaken. She is
wearing a bed-jacket and a scarf wrapped around her throat. The is moaning in her sleep and talking to herself. Presently she opens her eyes and recognizes
her sister, who falls on her knees beside the bed and
takes Lucy in her arms, asking her how she feels. Lucy in a daze, answers her brokenly. Suddenly, with an odd look of unearthly joy, she points to the window and says, "look, there he is, come back. Let him in." Turning, Mina sees against the window pane the outline of a huge bat.

Mina regards the sight with horror and taking up a
candlestick as a weapon
advances toward the window. Courageously she opens the window. As she does the bat flies off into the moonlight. Closing the window Mina bolts it firmly.

Returning to the bed she finds that Lucy has slipped into unconsciousness again. She does not rouse her. There is a knock and Lord Godalming advances and says softly, "John has been found." She asks fearfully if he is alive and he says: "Yes". He draws
her outside the door where he tells her the truth and hands her the letter. "John", he says, "is on his way home. He will arrive in two weeks." While she reads the letter he goes inside and bending over, kisses Lucy's hand gently. Lucy stirs, wakens and looking at Lord Godalming cries out, "No - don't touch me! I'm
unclean! Go! - - Leave me in peace!" She sinks back again on the bed, unconscious.

(CONTINUED) While they are bending
over her the long howl
of dogs is heard again.

They turn fearfully to
wards the window. The
outline of a bat is seen
there again. Again Godalming goes to the window and frightens away the bat, which flies out into the moonlight. Again they bolt the window and this time draw the curtains across it shutting out the moonlight.

Godalming beckons silently for Mina to leave the room. They go out quietly, closing the door after them.

B-4 THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE LUCY'S BEDROOM

Godalming says that he is going with his rifle to shoot the cursed bat. He is one of the best shots in England and cannot miss it. Mina says she will remain outside the door. She takes Harker's letter from her pocket and begins to read it all over again.

B-5 THE DRAWING ROOM AGAIN

A servant enters and
announces Dr. Van Helsing. The Doctor comes in and between him and Seward there is a warm greeting.

DR. SEWARD

Thank God, you've come. I'm at my wits end. We cannot discover what is wrong with Lucy. She grows weaker every day, and has all the symptoms of anemia. But when her blood is analyzed it is normal. We have given her three infusions - gallons of blood, but it has simply vanished.

Van Helsing says that all the details of the case fascinate him. He has many theories, none of which he will discuss now.

He is very grave and

(CONTINUED) mysterious about the disease.

A howl is heard. Van

Helsing listens for a moment with an expression of deep interest, and then says in a low voice,

"the howl of a wolf. Have you a caged wolf in the park?"

SEWARD

No - that is one of the patients. A man called Renfield. Lately he has taken to howling like that.

VAN HELSING

No living man ever made that sound.

SEWARD

You shall see for yourself. I will take you to see him. He is a most interesting case. What is described as zoo
aphagous. He tries to eat life by eating spiders and flies and even
sparrows which he lures to his room.

VAN HELSING (gravely)

I should, indeed, like to see him. Indeed I think it will be necessary.

B-6 UPSTAIRS IN THE HALLWAY

Mina, lying on the sofa reading. Presently, she hears low moans from Lucy's room and rising, she goes slowly to open the door. Softly so as not to disturb Lucy. As she opens the door a look of frightful terror crosses her face. She screams and falls in a faint.

As she faints in the doorway, Dracula, emerging from the room seizes her, carries her
inside and locks the door (CONTINUED)

Then with a look of obscene and loathsome gloating he seizes
her unconscious body, presses back her head, kisses her passionately, and baring her throat presses his mouth to it with an unholy passion.

The howl of Renfield is heard again, and then cries of "Lucy" and "Mina" are heard and a pounding on the door.

---------------------------------------(N.B In his unnatural ) (unearthly manifestations) (the Count de Ville as- ) (sumes the insane wolfish) (appearance of Dracula. ) (His eyes grow dilated ) (and his canine teeth ) (appear to grow much ) (longer. )

-----------------------------------------

B-7 OUTSIDE THE DOOR AGAIN

Van Helsing and Seward trying desperately to
enter. They smash open the door with a chair and as they enter a pistol shot is heard outside.

B-8 INSIDE THE ROOM

Lucy lies on the bed,
unconscious, the scarf torn from her throat,

On the floor, partly
lying on the sofa, lies Mina in the same condition. A wisp of mist seems to hang about the locked and curtained window. Van Helsing and Seward bend over Mina, trying desperately to rouse her. Slowly she comes
to, saying: "Where am

I? What has happened?" Then hysterically, "go to Lucy - save Lucy."

Dr. Seward goes to Lucy and Van Helsing bends over Mina, lifting her up and speaking to her.

VAN HELSING

Save her from what? Speak to me! From What? From what? What have you seen? What was it?

Mina only moans and murmurs "I don't know - I don't know."

B-9 A CORNER OF THE PARK

SURROUNDING THE SANITARIUM

Again the figure of
the Count di Ville, in a long cape, is seen
advancing in the moonlight under the trees. On
the door stop he en
counters Lard Godalming carrying a rifle. The Count bows gravely.

COUNT (with a sinister smile)

Shooting at night, Lord Godalming

GODALMING

I was trying to get a bat which has been annoying Miss Seward, by trying to enter her room. I shot
at it and I'm sure I hit it, but it did not fall. I searched everywhere.

COUNT (awed)

A bat at this time of the year! Possibly it came from Carfax Abbey. The old ruin is filled with bats.

GODALMING

Will you come in and have a drink before going to bed?

COUNT

I meant to drop in. As I was passing I heard a scream. I thought it might have something to do with

Miss Lucy.

GODALMING (in wild alarm)

A scream! Miss Lucy! I heard nothing. Oh, my God!

He turns and runs toward the house. The Count follows him slowly.

B-10 AGAIN THE DRAWING ROOM

As Godalming rushes into the room still
carrying the rifle, a servant, in agitation rushes to him and tells him that something has happened in Miss Lucy's room. Godalming rushes up the stairs and as he exits the Count, still in the cape, crosses the room slowly.

B-11 LUCY'S BEDROOM

Mina lies on the sofa with her head in the pillow, sobbing hysterically. Seward and Van Helsing bend over Lucy.

VAN HELSING (rising slowly)

I have come too late, and only a moment too late. She is dead.

Van Helsing bends down and peers, with a
magnifying glass, at Lucy's throat. There are two small marks
like the teeth-marks of a bat. He draws back
slowly and says:

"I was afraid I might find those marks".

Godalming enters. Dr.

Seward rises and breaks the news to him. He becomes almost hysterical and kneels by the bed, kissing Lucy's hand and begging her to speak to him.

The Count appears in the doorway, bows, expresses his sympathy and begs pardon for the intrusion. Van Helsing turns and sees him. For a second in
close-ups he and the Count regard each other with a long, fixed and hostile look.

The Count begs them to call upon him if there is anything he can do to help. As he bows his way out, the howl of Renfield is heard again

VAN HELSING (gravely

That is the howl of no living man.

B-12 AGAIN THE FIGURE OF THE COUNT IN THE CAPE

Moving under the tree. This time toward the

Carfax Abbey, the ruin where he lives. It is
dawn. The sun is
rising. He approaches
a great studded iron
door, and as he advances toward it the door swings back of its own accord. He enters a vaulted stone
hallway. The door closes behind him and he bolts and chains it and picking up a candle, advances
along the corridor to a stair-way which, like the great stairway in Castle Dracula, appears to descend
down and down into the bowels of the earth. He disappears from sight
around a turn in the
stairway.

S E Q U E N C E "C"

C-1 AGAIN THE DRAWING ROOM OF DR. SEWARD'S NURSING HOME.

In the room are Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward and Van Helsing. Dr. Seward is dressed in
black clothes. Godalming in a grey suit with a black
mourning band on his arm. Van Helsing is in an old
rumpled tweed suit. All
three look worn, distracted and weary.

In a three-cornered con
versation Van Helsing slowly explains to them the real
cause of Lucy's illness and death. They are in
credulous and he at last convinces them that the menace with which they are dealing is no earthly one.

In the middle of the con
versation Mina enters. She
looks pale and worn and sinks into a chair with weariness. She also is in mourning,
dressed to go out and wears
about her throat a scarf.

She is going to meet Harker, her fiance, at the railway
station. He is returning,
having lost his memory, to try to take up again the threads of a life which is already dead.

Dr. Seward protests also, but
points out that the greatest danger
lies in her going out
of doors after nightfall.

Mina, however, insists.

She points out that the
meeting will also be pain
ful for Harker and that she
loves him so deeply that she
wants their first meeting
to be alone. Perhaps, she
says, the sight of her will
bring back his memory. Van Hel
sing says that perhaps she is
right, but he insisted upon
her wearing about her throat,
underneath the scarf, a
wreath of wolfsbane, which
he says, half in jest, is a
partial cure for her illness. (CONTINUED)

She must, he says,
never go anywhere without it until she has recovered. He suddenly grows very serious about it.

She sets off alone in the motor for the station.

When she has gone the
conference continues.

Van Helsing explains that
he has sent to Russia
by telegram, for the wolfs
bane, which has just arrived. The smell of it is reputed
to be abhorred by the evil
forces with which they are
beginning to battle. Van

Helsing says that the battle will be a terrific one and they will need all the help
possible against the terrific forces arrayed against them.

Godalming suggest that they
enlist the advice and aid of Count de Ville, the friend
and neighbor, inasmuch as the Count comes from Hungary where the legends and traditions of the forces they are fighting is
centered. Dr. Seward supports him, but Van Helsing is doubtful. He has, he says, suspicions of the Count and does not wish to call in his aid until he has tried him by a proof which he has planned. Van Helsing says that their first stop must be to question the maniac, Renfield, and try to get at the root of the strange
transforation which has taken place in his character. He points out that it began at the
same time as Miss Lucy's illness, and that both things may be due to the presence in the neighborhood of the same evil spirit.

Dr. Seward rings for the keeper and bids him send for Renfield.

C-2 A CORNER OF THE RAILWAY STATION AT CARFAX VILLAGE

The train arrives and John

Harker descends from it.

He is shockingly altered
in appearance, looking older
nervous, and with streaks of white
in his dark hair. He gets down
from the train and looks about
him. Mina comes toward him full
of delight and joy, but he only stares
blankly at her until she says she is

Mina Seward. Then he knows that
this is the girl to whom he was
engaged before his mind went blank. (CONTINUED

C-2 (CONTINUED

She conducts him to the
automobile and they get in and drive away. There is a touching love scene
between them in which Mina tries desperately to make
him remember all that has
passed between them and in which he desperately and shyly, tries to behave as he should toward her. And although he is attracted to her, and in a way in love with her at first sight, he cannot quite feel at ease with a woman who is almost a stranger to him.

They begin slowly to come together into an understanding.

C-3 THE DRAWING ROOM AGAIN

Renfield is brought in by
his keeper and questioned by Van Helsing. At first he answers sensibly and then slowly he begins to talk jibberish about the presence of "the master". He again begs Dr. Seward to let him free for a single night. He will, he says, return again. . on his word of honor. Dr. Seward says he will allow him freedom if he will speak openly of what he knows. He begins to speak
revealing more than he should in hope of saving his soul.

While he is speaking a bat
flies in at the window, circles the room and goes out. At once Renfield falls hysterically upon his knees, addressing the air as "Master", begging for mercy and declaring that he has betrayed nothing. He becomes completely mad and is lead away by the keeper.

No sooner has he gone than Van Helsing says he is convinced that there is some close relationship between Renfield and the force they are battling.

The same moment Mina and John

Harker come in from the station. She seems happy and slushed, but John is still puzzled, as he
recognizes neither Dr. Seward
nor Godalming, and has, of course never seen Van Helsing. Mina says that now John has returned everything will be alright and that she will recover, but Van Helsing only shakes his head and says that it will not be as easy as that and that she must still obey his smallest instructions.

(CONTINUED

She must wear the herbs about her throat and must never leave the house alone after nightfall,
nor be alone for an instant. He summons her maid and tells her that she must never, under any circumstances leave Miss Mina alone. The maid promises.

The Count de Ville is announced suddenly and Van Helsing says to have him come in. He enters as usual, suave and charming and inquires after Mina's health. He is of course, introduced to John Harker. Harker, of course, does not fathom. There is an awkward
moment while they stare at each other and the Count clearly attempts some hypnotic power.

Then he recovers himself and says that he must be off, as he is leaving for London by the ten O'clock train. Van

Helsing suddenly asks him if he will not dine and play bridge on the following evening. The Count hesitates and then replies that he will be delighted. All the while Harker regards him like a bird fascinated with a snake. The Count leaves and when he has gone Harker putting his hands over his eyes groans and says that he know the face and the eyes from somewhere, but can remember nothing.

Mina tries to comfort him tenderly and says that he ought to retire and lie down for a time before dinner.

Mina, accompanied by the maid, goes out with John to show him his room. Again, for an instant there is a love scene between John and Mina in the corridor in which John kisses her. John tires desperately to find his way back to the memory of what happened before he wakened in the Transylvania Hospital.

C-4 THE GUEST ROOM it is nothing, and says
that she will go now and lie down for a while. While they are talking a lone howl is heard Harker, alarmed, asks what it is. Mina, affected, is forced to sit in a chair.

Mina shows John the room, arranges the flowers, does everything to make him comfortable. She says, she too, is exhausted, and when John questions her about her illness and how pale she looks, she replies evasively and says that A strange look comes over her face and she replies, with some effort, that it si only the howling of the maniac, Renfield. She rises slowly and tells John that she will see him at dinner and leaves the room. On the way out she pauses for a moment as if overcome by dizziness. When she recovers herself she bids the maid go downstairs and fetch her a book from the library, which she describes.

The maid protests that she has been ordered not to leave her. Mina, outside Harker's door, becomes like a person possessed with a strange
craftiness, says that she will wait here until the maid returns. The maid goes. There is again a lone howl, and Mina, as if hypnotized, moves down the corridor out of sight.

C-5 AGAIN THE DRAWING ROOM

Downstairs, the fat, silly, Mrs. Triplett arrives. Van Helsing explains to her that they asked her to come in on her way home from London because there were questions they desired to ask her about the Count de Ville, who occupies the semi-ruin on the edge of her estate, known as Carfax Abbey.

She is very coy about the Count, and hints that
there is a romantic attachment between herself and him. Van Helsing, however, keeps her to the point and questioning her finds out a great many interesting facts about the mysterious de Ville.

She has leased the place
to him for 99 years in order to raise money for the
income tax. It was all arranged by lawyers. She did not see him until he called on her the day of his arrival. The house, she explains, had not been occupied for nearly 80 years; ever since her grandfather's time. Most of it was a ruin. In the part that was livable there was a little furniture. The Count did not object to this. There was, however, a stipulation in the lease that so long as he lived the place was not to be visited by the proprietor or any other person without his express permission.

C-6 THE BLOOMY PARK BETWEEN DR. SEWARD'S SANITARIUM AND CARFAX ABBEY

The Count, wrapped in his cloak, stands in the shadow of a tree. Thru the trees
approaches the figure of
a woman. As she comes nearer she turns out to be Mina
wrapped in a coat. She is
walking in a perfectly
straight line with the same queer hypnotic look in her eyes. The Count de Ville in his long black cape, follows her at a little distance.

He comes nearer and nearer to her.

C-7 THE DRAWING ROOM AGAIN At the mention of the
boxes, Van Helsing be
comes greatly excited, and
presses Mrs. Triplett
further. She says they
appeared to be very heavy
and it required several men to lift them. Her gardener, who talked to the carters who brought the boxes, aid the boxes were
labelled "earth for experimental purposes>"

Mrs.; Triplett still being
questioned by Van Helsing.

He asks her if she has ever
noticed anything unusual
about Carfax Abbey. She
answers that the only unusual thing seems to be that there are no servants and
that no furniture has ever
been moved in, unless it came
in the coffin-shaped boxes which
she saw arrive one afternoon
while she was riding thru
her own park. (CONTINUED

C-8 THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE HARKER'S DOOR.

The maid approaches
without the book. She listens for a moment at Harker's door, then knocks. Harker, himself, opens the door and when she asks if he knows where Miss Mina is, he says he does not. Alarmed, they both start to search the house. The maid will go to Mina's room and Harker is to search elsewhere.

C-9 A CORNER OF THE BLOOMY PARK

Mina, still in a hypnotic
trance, moves forward as the Count comes out of the shadow. In a strange voice she addresses him as "Master". In a dreadful love scene he reproaches her for yielding to the advice of his enemies and begs her to remove from about her throat the circlet of wolfsbane. She obeys him and he kisses her passionately. The scene culminates and he bares her
throat and presses his mouth against it.

C-10 DRAWING ROOM AGAIN

The maid, hysterical, rushes in and explains that Mina is missing. There is great confusion and they all rush out to search the park, with Mrs. Triplett left astonished and alone.

C-11 THE PARK OUTSIDE

They are all searching
frantically thru the shrubbery under the gloomy trees, calling out Mina's name.

It is John Harker who comes upon Mina lying across a bench, unconscious, in the moonlight. As he discovers her, a bat flies up, circles about and vanishes in the moonlight. Again there are three long wolf-howls. John Harker, picking up Mina is joined by the others and they bear her back into the house.

C-12 THE OPERATING ROOM OF THE SANITARIUM

Godalming, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward and Harker all enter. Mina is placed on the operating table and examined by the two doctors, who say "thank God, it is not too late. "But she must have a transfusion at once." John Harker at once offers himself.

Van Helsing says he must see Renfield at once, and bids Seward to take charge of the transfusion while he interviews the maniac.

C-13 A LONG CORRIDOR WITH PRIVATE ROOMS FOR PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM NERVE DISEASE, OPENING ON EITHER SIDE
pool of blood, lies the mangled body of Renfield. Van Helsing cries out, "help me drag the poor devil into the light".

At one end the keeper sits at a desk asleep. His head on his arm. Van Helsing, in great excitement, rouses him and asks him to open the door of Renfield's padded room. The keeper says that Renfield has been very quiet all evening, not a sound from him. They peer in the small
grating of the door and call out his name, but there is no answer. They open the door
quickly. Inside it is dark.

The keeper, using an electric torch, searches the room. It is in dreadful disorder with the furniture smashed and
splintered.

A dreadful sight meets their eyes. Partly on the cot, and in a

They drag him into the
corridor where Van Helsing makes a hasty examination. He exclaims "his back and neck are broken". "This
is the work of a fiend".

Renfield, still conscious opens his eyes and murmurs, "Master, I have not betrayed you," and dies. Van Helsing goes at once to the tele
phone at the end of the
corridor and asks for the railway station. There he questions the station-master. "Has the Count de Ville, who lives at Carfax Abbey, taken the train for London?' The station master replies that he left on the train at 9:30, he himself saw him get aboard. Van Helsing hangs up the telephone receiver baffled.

C-14 THE OPERATING ROOM AGAIN

Godalming, Dr. Seward and

John Harker are gathered
about Mina. She is slowly
regaining consciousness.

Van Helsing enters and
observes that she is all
right and has regained
consciousness. He again says
that she must not be left
alone for an instant and that
they each must take turns to
keep watch over her, day and
night. He proceeds to make
a wreath of wolfsbane which
he fastens about her throat
and then takes from his
pocket a small black velvet
bag from which he extracts
a wafer. Breaking off a
piece of it he fastens it
with surgical gauze about her throat. Godalming ask him what it si and he re
plies that "it is the Host".

I have a dispensation. Against
it all the forces of evil
have no power, but we must
watch her lest he induces
her to remove it.

He replaces the remains of the waifer in the black sack and puts it in the pocket over his heart.

John Harker, in excitement, begs him to tell him the truth and says what is it that is destroying Mina. Van Helsing replies that he must have faith and that tomorrow they will perhaps know the truth. The thing they are fighting is more powerful than all of them together. They must not let it gain an advantage by acting before they are sure of themselves. John Harker, despite his weakened condition, insists upon sitting up all night to guard Mina.

C- 15 AGAIN DR. SEWARD'S DRAWING ROOM

A bridge game is in progress. At the table are seated the Count, Dr. Seward, Mrs.

Triplett and Lord Godalming. The Count and Mrs. Triplett are partners. Beside them is a chaise lounge. On it reclines Mina dressed in a negligee with a scarf wrapped about her throat. She looks feeble and ill. Beside her on the chaise lounge sits John Harker. On the other side of the table sits Van Helsing. They all are watching the game.

As the dialogue develops, it proves that the Count is an uncanny player, that he not only plays expertly, but reads the minds of the other players and has a hypnotic influence on the silly Mrs. Triplett, his partner. Presently John Harker gives a word of advice regarding a play to Mrs. Triplett, at which the Count looks at him with sudden alarm and says: "I thought you didn't play bridge. How do you know about that play?

and suspicion. The Count is now playing a hand and in close-ups, Harker becomes fascinated by the Count's peculiar hands. The are, as in the first sequence, claw-like with fearful cruel nails and covered with wolfish black hair. Something begins to dawn slowly in Harker's mind. Presently one hand of the Count rests on the table, palm up, and Harker see the black hairs growing on the palm. He presses his hands to his head trying vaguely to recall where he had seen this before.

Harker replies : I used to know how to play before I was ill, and forgot everything. It is slowly coming back to me. I am beginning to remember fragments of all sorts of things." The game proceeds but the Count still watches Harker with fear The rubber is finished and Mrs. Triplett takes out her vanity case to powder her nose. The holds in her hand a small square mirror. Suddenly, with a stealthy movement Van Helsing takes the mirror from her and holds it up opposite the Count. In the mirror there is no reflection. The Count turns very slowly, catches Van Helsing making the test, and seizes the hand holding the mirror in his own claw-like paw. In his grasp the mirror is shattered and cuts Van Helsing's hand. At sight of the blood the Count becomes transformed suddenly into Dracula, with fangs and wolflike ears. At sight of him Mina screams and faints recognizing in him the creature who visits her in the night. He leaps to attack Van Helsing, as John Harker, with a look of revelation on his face cries, "Dracula". Everything has come back to him.

Van Helsing snatches from his pocket the black velvet bag containing the "Host" and hold> ing it before him, forces Dracula, still snarling, step by step backward toward the window, crying out "begone Monster!" Dracula passes thru the closed and curtained window and vanishes.

Mrs. Triplett screams and covers her face with her hands.

John Harker, his memory re
stored in a flash, now recog
nizes Mina as his fiancee and
remembers all his love for her. (CONTINUED)

He attempts to raise her from the sofa in his arms and is about to kiss her
when she opens her eyes, and cries "No! No! You must not kiss me! I am unclean!" Van Helsing seizing Harker, exclaims - - "She is right,
you must not!"

They bring Mina to her senses and as they do so she sees John and recognizes him and says: "Poor John" and strokes his head with her hand. Then she takes from her bosom a newspaper clipping which she silently hands to Van Helsing, who reads it.

It is the strange account of
a happening in Bloomsbury,
where, on several occasions,
small children have been lured, by what they describe " a beautiful lady". After being missing
for some hours they have re
turned, bearing on their throats two small marks, apparently like the marks on the throat of Lucy and Mina.

Van Helsing finishes reading the article and murmurs, "So soon". Mina covers her face with her hands. As Dr. Seward reads the clipping Godalming exclaims with horror, "it is not true - - such things cannot be." Van Helsing replies: "I fear it is Lucy, but there is a way to discover. We will go to the graveyard at dawn. If it is Lucy we shall see her return to her tomb".

Mina, half hysterical, exacts from them the promise that
they will tell her nothing
of their plans. She and Van Helsing explain that already she is
partially in the power of

Dracula, and that thru her he can learn of their attempts to destroy him.

Dr. Seward takes Mina away leaving Mrs. Triplett and the three men alone. Mrs. Triplett, hysterical, says she will now return to her own house and Van Helsing bids her stay and guard Mina, while they carry out the work which must be done. She goes to join Dr. Seward and Mina.

John Harker takes a drink to give him strength to go on with the story of what happened to him in Transylvania, which he now remembers. He begins to recount it to Van Helsing and Godalming.

C-16 THE HALLWAY

Mrs. Triplett making her way upstairs towards Mina's room. She hears steps coming along the corridor and hides herself, in terror, in an alcove. At the same moment the howl of a wolf is heard. The steps come nearer and it turns out to be only the keeper. She calls out to him and begs him to accompany her to Mina's room. She is too terrified to go alone. As they enter the room Dr. Seward orders the keeper, a burly fellow, to sit up with Mina and Mrs. Triplett. Mina is on the bed but not sleeping. She can no longer sleep at nights, but only sleeps in the daytime. At that moment a sound is heard at the window and looking toward it they see the outline of a great bat against the moonlight. They fling open the window and the keeper fires at it with his pistol and as he hits it, it turns into a cloud of mist.

C-17 THE DRAWING ROOM AGAIN

John Harker is finishing his story. He says :I raised the spade to crush his head and the corpse turned in the
coffin and stared at me. After that I can remember nothing." Van Helsing says: "The boxes are the same as those described by Mrs. Triplett. They are the earth to which the vampire must return at sunrise. We must find them and in one of them, after sunrise, Dracula is certain to be
found. If they find him thus he will be helpless. They can then drive a stake thru his heart and destroy him forever." if this is done the vampire cannot return to them.

Van Helsing has obtained Holy Water to sprinkle upon the earth in each of the boxes.

Dr. Seward comes in and Van Helsing bids them prepare for the expedition to search for the boxes in haunted Carfax Abbey. Godalming suggests a pistol, but Van Helsing points out that these would be of no use. Instead he gives them each a fragment of the "Host" to wear in a pocket against their hearts. It is no use trying to capture Dracula until sunrise, as he will not return to his box of earth until then.

He says that before then they must go to the graveyard and wait to see whether Lucy returns to her tomb. If they discover that she is still "Undead" they must, likewise put her at peace by driving a stake thru her heart.

C-18 THE ANCIENT CHURCHYARD WHERE LUCY IS BURIED

The four men enter thru the gateway among the tomb
stones. Again there is a howl of a wolf, and in the darkness are seen the burning eyes of scores of animals which appear to have no bodies. The four men
plan their action in entering Carfax Abbey and searching it, and as they are talking Van Helsing cries out suddenly -"Look - - it is
true". Thru the trees, among the tombs, appears the figure of Lucy. She is dressed all in white, but is transparent and is carrying something in her arms. They watch her with a horrible fascination. Van Helsing restrains Godalming, who starts to cry out and to go forward. Lucy puts down what she is carrying beside a grave-stone and moves on, vanishing suddenly thru the closed door of the tomb.

The four men advance toward the tomb in which the ghostly figure of Lucy has just entered. Van Helsing takes a key and unlocks the door, saying, "Come, now we shall have the final proof."

Godalming is overcome and John Harker says, "do not ask this dreadful thing of him". Van Helsing answers that he may wait outside with Dr. Seward. If John Harker will accompany him and do what they must do. John replies that he will do anything that will save Mina, or anything which will save the soul of poor Lucy. They go inside.

C-19 INSIDE THE TOMB

The only illumination comes from the electric torches
which they carry, and from the blow-torch which Van

Helsing has with him and
which he lights. Then he unscrews the top of the coffin and rips open the lead covering. By the light of the
electric torch they discover Lucy lying unchanged, looking perfectly alive. John Harker exclaims "she is not dead, she is living." To which Van Helsing replies, "Nothing can restore her to life. She is one of the undead. There is only one way to save her soul and give her peace. Are you strong enough to help me?"

Harker, after a moment of hesitation and horror, replies that he is. Van Helsing, taking up the sharpened stake they have brought with them, begins charring the end of it.

C-20 OUTSIDE THE TOMB There is no especial
dramatic value in using the child. On the
contrary, it rather
clutters up the action and may annoy the censors.

Seward and Godalming wait for the dreadful sound which will mean the end of the
gruesome task performed by Van Helsing and Harker. The red eyes of phantom wolves still glimmer in the graveyard and now and then a howl is heard. Suddenly they hear a child crying. Following the sound a little way they come upon a small child lying beside a tombstone. Picking it up they carry it back to the door of the tomb, where Dr. Seward tries to comfort it.

C- INSIDE THE TOMB AGAIN

Van Helsing has prepared everything for his dreadful task. The stake is
sharpened with the end charred. He takes out from a surgical case a long scalpel, which he lays on the edge of the coffin. Then he says to Harker, "you must hold the stake in place just over the heart." Harker closes his eyes with horror, holds the stake in place, and Van Helsing picks up a great stone lying near, using it as a hammer to drive the stake thru Lucy's heart. As he raises the stone CUT TO:

C-22 SEWARD AND GODALMING-OUTSIDE

It is growing light. They listen and suddenly there is a wild agonizing wail from the inside of the tomb. Godalming attempts to enter the gate but is held back by Seward, and then covers his face with his hands in horror.

Van Helsing and Harker come out of the tomb, closing the door and locking it.

Van Helsing sees Godalming in suffering, and says:

"that wild cry was not the cry of Lucy, but of the evil spirit which infested her body. Lucy is no longer undead. She is now at peace and her soul is saved. If you could see her face, you would believe me."

where he must rest by day. We shall put this - (holding up the second stake) thru his heart and so destroy him and save our lovely Mina."

"Now for Carfax Abbey. The sun has risen and with luck, we shall find the monster sleeping in one of the coffins

The move toward the ruined Abbey, which is on the other side of the graveyard.

N.B. If they still have
the child, it could be sent to the gardener's cottage with Seward.

C-23 THE IRON-STUDDED DOOR OF THE ABBEY.

With some difficulty they batter down the door and find themselves in a long corridor, thru which we have already seen Dracula disappear at the close of the second sequence.

They come, by the light of the torches, to a stairway which leads apparently into the bowels of the earth. They descend this, the camera accompanying them, down - down - down, until they come to a great vaulted chamber, like that which Harker has already seen in the Castle Dracula.

N.B. Weird sounds and
what-not can accompany this descent.

On the floor of the vaulted rooms are four coffin-like boxes. The place is filled with bats and in the back, at bay, glitter the red eyes of enumerable rats.

Van Helsing, holding the Host before him and murmuring in Latin, advances into the unholy place. Harker exclaims, "there is no doubt, these are the same boxes I saw leaving Castle Dracula, but there were five of them." them back. He says he will keep them at bay while the others perform the work. One by one they rip open the boxes. All are filled with earth, but none contain the form of Dracula. In dismay, Van Helsing exclaims, "he has escaped and hidden the fifth box else-where as a refuge.

Unless we find it he has escaped and Mina is doomed. He has already put his stamp upon her. Unless we destroy him, he will claim her."

Van Helsing, bids them tear open the boxes. In one of them must be the undead body of Dracula, himself. The rats advance toward them as they begin work. Van Helsing , with the Host before him, drives Harker, in despair, cries, "What must we do? What can we do?" To which Van Helsing exclaims, "Only God, or a
miracle can help us now. We must go at once to Mina."

C-24 MINA'S BEDROOM AGAIN

The burly keeper and Mrs. Triplett have both fallen asleep in grotesque attitudes. On the bed, Mina, half unconscious, is moaning incoherently. The door opens gently and Harker and Van Helsing enter the room. Harker bends over her and is about to take her hand when Van Helsing says, in a hoarse whisper, wait. . . listen!"

From the mutterings of Mina a few words become distinct. She murmurs. "Oh Master, don't leave me. Do not put the water between us. Do not go away".

Van Helsing, in a fierce, excited whisper says, "Wait! Perhaps we have found a way to capture and destroy him. Perhaps God has delivered him into our hands."

Bending over Mina, Van Helsing begins to stroke her forehead and to question her. In a low voice he says, "what do you see?" And in a hypnotic trance, Mina describes a ship with the name "Black Eagle" lying against the wharf, which they recognize from her description as the "Chelsea Pier".

The ship is weighing anchor just as a coffin-like box is borne on board.

Suddenly Mina wakens and recognizes John and Van Helsing. John attempts to embrace her. Again
she cries out, "do not touch me, I am unclean". Van Helsing, straightening up, says, "we must act at
once. Dracula is in that box. He is escaping and we must pursue him. He cannot escape so long as he is
on a ship. A vampire cannot cross open water. Our chance of capturing him is when he lands between
sunrise and sunset."

In excitement Van Helsing shakes the keeper awake and orders him to bring a newspaper with the
shipping new at once. The keeper obeys and steps out on the errand.

John Harker, charges also with excitement, calls Seward and Godalming and excitedly breaks the
news to them. They all plan to depart at once in pursuit. They set about preparing to go. Mina, rising
in the bed insists that she accompany them and Van Helsing agrees with her. It is the only way to
protect her in case Dracula has played them a trick of some kind. She must never be out of their sight.

The keeper returns with the paper. Harker turns frantically to the ship news and finds that the

"Black Eagle" has sailed at daybreak for Costanza, at which he cries, :he is fleeing to

Castle Dracula." Van Helsing says, "if he gets there before us, everything is lost. He can hide himself
away and sleep a hundred years, until we are all dead. We must catch him while he is still chained to
that box of earth.

END OF SEQUENCE "C" S E Q U E N C E "D"

Sequence four is the race between the gypsies who are transporting the fifth box of earth,
containing Dracula and the party consisting of Harker, Mina, Van Helsing, Godalming and Seward.

It is a race against time to capture the body of Dracula and put a stake thru his heart before
sundown, when he can escape from the box and find refuge in his castle.

It is essentially a chance with very little dialogue and a great deal of action, ending in a fight with
the gypsies just as they reach the door of the castle. When the box is captured it is opened and

Dracula is found inside.

A stake is driven thru his heart, the body crumbles into dust
and Mina is saved, and for the first time is taken in Harker's arms with safety.

N.B. It is well to note that an added suspense is given to
the chase by the fact that
each hour counts in saving Mina, who, as each hour progresses, drawn a little nearer toward her
complete transformation into a
vampire.

"D R A C U L A"

by

Louis Bromfield and Dudley Murphy

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - -

SEQUENCE "A"

FADE IN TO:

A-1 EXT CHURCHYARD FULL SHOT NIGHT MOONLIGHT

This is an atmospheric shot with a suggestion of ground mist and the eerie moonlight throws long
grotesque shadows from dimly perceptible tomb
stones.

THE CAMERA IS MOVING SLOWLY THRU the churchyard as we are moving in.

After we have fully faded in we hear the long howl of a wolf. THE CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY
thru the churchyard towards a vault. As we approach the vault its door wings slowly open. Back of the
vault can be seen other tombstones.

The movement of the door is accompanied by two or three bats which fly slowly out
into the haze as we DISSOLVE TO:

A-2 INT. HUNGARIAN PEASANT BEDROOM MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT DAY

On a native bed lies a
beautiful blonde baby girl
with curly hair and six
years old. The anxious mother
and father stand in back of the bed
awaiting the diagnoses of the doctor
who is bending over the child's
throat. The soft morning
light filters thru a window
in the background. The doctor
slowly straightens up and
gravely turns to the parents. (CONTINUED) MOTHER (she speaks in

Hungarian with a pleading gesture, look

-ing from the girl to the doctor)

Is she better?

DOCTOR (shaking his head)

No! It's - baffling - - - this loss of blood.

DISSOLVE TO:

A-3 EXT. NIGHT MISTY

Scene of a larger and more modern churchyard.

Across the scene comes the lonely howl of a wolf and a suggestion of bats flying across the scene.

LAP

DISSOLVE INTO:

A-4 INT. FRENCH MAIN OPERATING ROOM OF A MODERN PARIS HOSPITAL FULL SHOT

Thru the glass skylight the room is brilliantly
illuminated and we see
a gallery of students
behind a glass partition, watching the operating
table, which is in the
center. Around the operating table are two doctors, who are bending over the
shrouded figure of a young girl patient. There are several nurses.

The whole atmosphere of
the scene is modern and
white. The CAMERA MOVES QUICKLY DOWN to a closeup of the group at the table. The Senior

Doctor straightens up after his examination of the neck of the patient and baffled
turns to the other doctor.

DOCTOR (In French

(He shakes his head) It's baffling - this loss of blood. . . . . . .

DISSOLVE TO:

A-5 EXT. NIGHT FULL SHOT LARGE ENGLISH CHURCHYARD

There is the same suggestion of mist and in the sound
track we hear again, the
long howl of a wolf and
a suggestion of bats flying across the scene. LAP DISSOLVE TO:

A-6 INT. FULL SHOT WELL

APPOINTED BEDROOM ENGLISH PEER HOME

This is a large room and
around the bed are grouped two doctors and two English trained nurses. In the foreground, in a big
chair, sits an aristocraticlooking woman of about 50 years, leaning with one hand on a
walking stick and bending forward intently watching the doctor, who is bending over the patient.

The patient is a beautiful young girl of seventeen or eighteen. The doctor is examining her neck.

He straightens up, shakes his head and says:

DOCTOR

It's baffling - the loss of blood. . .

MOTHER

If it's not anemia, what is it, Doctor?

DOCTOR

I don't know - none of us know. There have been
several cases reported lately. One is Paris last week.

The patient had three blood transfusions, but she died.

He pauses - looks down
at neck, taking magni
fying glass from nurse, and bending over patient looks through glass.

A-7 CLOSEUP

Patient's neck, spots seen through glass.

Over this scene we hear the doctor's voice:

DOCTOR'S VOICE

And in each case, these
same two marks were
found on the neck of the victim.

FADE OUT

SEQUENCE "B"

FADE IN:

B-1 INT. PRIVATE LABORATORY OF DR. VAN HELSING. BIG CLOSEUP

Dr. Van Helsing's eyes are seen thru heavy lenses, which magnify his eyes so that they fill the screen. The eyes are staring directly at an object beyond the camera.

In the sound track we hear the dripping of water, drip, drip, drip, and the suggestion of wind thru the trees.

We continue this scene with the eyes staring fixedly ahead until the effect gets ahold of us. We then truck back very slowly until we see the head and
shoulders of Dr. Van Helsing. His eyes keep staring in the same direction.

THE CAMERA TRUCKS BACK TO

B-2 MED. SHOT

On the white glass table before Van Helsing a microscope and beside it a test tube half
filled with blood in a rack over an alcohol lamp. Near Van Helsing at the table is his assis
tant who is reading an enormous book which lies on the table before him. Also at the table,
backs to camera and opposite

Van Helsing, sit three doctors. They are the English doctor we have seen in Sequence A, the French Doctor and a little hunchback Austrian. Their attention is concentrated on Dr. Van Helsing. Van Helsing, with a pair of wire tweezers, lifts the test tube and tilting it carefully adds a
chemical which changes the color in the tube with a sudden hissing sound. He points dramatically to his assistant, instructing him to read. As the assistant starts to read, in Latin, we CUT TO

B-3 CLOSEUP OF A LARGE, OF FIFTEENTHCENTURY BOOK

It is printed in block Gothic type and written in Latin which we do not translate. The bony finger of
the assistant traces the words as he reads. CUT TO:

B-4 CLOSEUP VAN HELSING

As he pours a single drop of blood on a
glass slide. Over
this he places a tiny square of glass, and thrusts the whole under the microscope.

We hear the voice of the assistant reading in Latin from the book.

CUT TO:

B-5 MED. SHOT OF GROUP

They are all concen
trating on Dr. Van Helsing as he bends forward and peers through the
microscope. He studies it and slowly an expression of horror comes over his face. The doctors bend
closer, watching him intently. He straightens up and looks at them.

DOCTOR VAN HELSING

Gentlemen, our theory is confirmed. (Pause) We are dealing with the undead.

The look at him, horrified, in their realization. There is an intake of breath. The Austrian almost
under his breath -

AUSTRIAN

Nosferatu!

Van Helsing nods slowly.

VAN HELSING

Yes, the Vampire, the undead, and earthbound creature that leaves its grave at night to feed on the
blood of the living.

There is a pause as the realize the import of his discovery.

ENGLISH DOCTOR

Dr. Van Helsing, which patient's blood proved the theory?

VAN HELSING

Case Number Nine, Renfield, insane patient, confined in the sanitarium of Dr. Seward, Whitby,

Yorkshire, England.

FADE OUT

SEQUENCE "C"

FADE IN

C-1 EXT. SEWARD'S SANITARIUM LATE AFTERNOON CLOSEUP

On a gate over which is an iron scroll reading "John Seward, Esq. Sanitarium"

The camera trucks through the gate and we see the facade of the sanitarium. As we do so, we hear a
blood-curdling scream and the camera pans rapidly along the facade and trucks to a barred window on the second floor. Thru the window we see Renfield on his knees, pleading with Martin the Keeper.

CUT INSIDE:

C-2 INT. RENFIELD'S ROOM MED. SHOT

As Renfield pleads, Martin is wrenching a fat spider from his hand. In disgust he throws it to the floor stepping on it.

MARTIN I'll teach you to leave those spiders and flies alone.

Renfield pleads.

You are going to eat what the doctor tells you to - - we are going to cure you.

As he turns in disgust he sees some sugar on the window sill and with a gesture he brushes it to the floor.

MARTIN I am sick of this mania you have of trapping flies with sugar.

He turns to the door.

Renfield pleads with him with no avail. Martin goes out, slamming the door which doesn't completely close. Renfield goes to the window sill, and as he starts to brush up the sugar which is on the floor he sees through the window the scene which attracts his attention. As he stares fixedly,

CUT TO: C-3 EXT. GROUNDS OF SEWARD HOME. LONG SHOT

We see thru the trees from Renfield's point of view, the garden wall. On the wall Mina Seward is seated and John Harker stands with his arms around her waist beside her. Beyond them can be seen Whitby Harbor and the North Sea stretching out to meet the horizon. The CAMERA MOVES RAPIDLY down to a SEMI CLOSEUP OF THEM.

C-4 SEMI CLOSEUP JOHN AND MINA

MINA Four weeks is a long, long time dear - I'll be lonely.

JOHN I'll miss you too, darling.

MINA Somehow - I wish you weren't going.

JOHN (smiling) but why, dear?

MINA The Carpathian mountains! It sounds so wild and far away.

JOHN Nothing can happen to me.

OFF SCENE is heard the voice of Renfield.

RENFIELD'S VOICE (excited) Don't let him go, Miss Mina Don't let him go.

Mina and John turn and we CUT TO:

C-5 MED. SHOT PAST MINA AND JOHN, OF RENFIELD

As he comes in, Mina
speaks to Renfield.

Her manner is one of calm as she has been living in the Sanitarium for some times and treats him as a harmless lunatic.

JOHN What's that?

Continued MINA (jumping down from the wall, goes up to Renfield and pats him on the arm)

RENFIELD

Don't let him go, Miss Mina. Don't let him go to Transyvania.

CUT TO:

C-6 CLOSEUP OF JOHN

He reacts in astonishment.

JOHN Why don't you want me to go to Transylvania?

CUT TO:

C-7 CLOSEUP OF RENFIELD

RENFIELD (intently)

Don't ask me! Don't ask me! CUT TO:

C-8 FULL SHOT OF HOUSE

On the portico stands Lucy and her uncle, Dr. Seward. The cart drives up in front of the house.

Thru the open door runs Martin, the Keeper. He is a blustering, burly character, like Wallace

Beery. He blusters thru the door and appears very excited. He stops as he sees Dr. Seward.

MARTIN (to Dr. Seward)

Beg pardon, Sir. But he's escaped again.

DR. SEWARD (smiling tolerantly) Who's escaped, Martin?

MARTIN (exasperated almost beyond words)

That spider eater - that fly eater - that bloke that's always craving life to eat. I'm losing weight keeping
track of him. Heaven help me if he starts climbing trees after birds.

Contiinued DR. SEWARD (smiles, looking off) There he is, Martin, with Miss Mina.

Martin goes off in a blustering way as if he was going to kill him.

Dr. SEWARD (calling after him) Be gentle with him, Martin.

Lucy, who has been
listening to all this, looks seriously toward Renfield. She turns to her uncle and speaks to him.

LUCY Uncle John, what would happen if you gave Renfield what he wants?

DR. SEWARD Why Lucy, why do you ask that?

CUT TO:

C-9 MED, CLOSEUP OF DR. SEWARD

He is watching Lucy closely as she answers him.

LUCY (slowly)

I don't know (a pause) . . .I really don't know.

Lucy is looking off
toward the wall. Dr.

Seward follows her gaze.

CUT TO:

C-10 MED. SHOT EXT GARDEN WALL

Martin has Renfield by the arm.

MARTIN

Come along, Renfield - come along. Tell them goodbye.

Renfield ignores Martin and pleads with Mina

RENFIELD

Don't let him go - don't let him go. I know - I know - I've been to Transylvania.

MARTIN (whispering to him) Come - come, Renfield, I'll give continued

MARTIN you a lump of sugar so you can catch more files.

Renfield turns. His eyes are wild. Martin leads him out of scene.

Mina and John look after Renfield, sympathetically.

JOHN (turning to Mina He gets no better>

MINA (shaking her head)

No - worse. It's life - always life - - spiders - flies - anything - - anything.

(shudders)

As she shudders we hear Dr. Seward's voice.

DR. SEWARDS'S VOICE (calling) John, John, you'll miss your train.

As John looks at his watch, Mina looks off, calling.

MINA All right, father - we're coming.

This snaps them out of their sympathetic attitude towards Renfield, John puts his arm around Mina and with ad lib conversation they exit.

CUT TO:

C-11 FULL SHOT FRONT OF HOUSE

The coachman has finished putting John's bags in the cart. Dr. Seward and Lucy go down to the cart as John and Mina hurriedly enter.

John shakes hands with Dr. Seward and kisses

Lucy on the forehead,
he then turns and helps Mina into the cart, climbing in himself, after her. The cart starts down the driveway. Dr. Seward glances at his watch and seeing that it is late, calls after the coachman.

Continued

DR. SEWARD Peterson, you have to furry. Don't let Mr. Harker miss his train.

As the cart winds down the driveway, we CUT TO:

C-12 LONG SHOT OF DRIVEWAY WITH GATE IN FOREGROUND

We see the cart winding
down thru the beautiful trees. The coachman
cracks his whip. Suddenly the peacefulness of the
scene is broken by Renfield's unearthly scream, as he comes from behind some trees into the middle
of the gateway.

RENFIELD (frantically)

Don't let him go - don't let him go!

CUT TO:

C-13 EXT. ROAD LONG SHOT

Of cart going down the road. Mina and John are facing us with their
backs to the horse. They are paying no attention to Renfield. John has his arm around Mina, and we
see him bending close to her, as the cart jogs off.

CUT TO:

C-14 MED. SHOT OF RENFIELD

He is standing in the gateway frantically calling after them.

RENFIELD

For Heaven's sake, Miss Mina, don't let him go - don't let him go

In the background, Martin, the keeper, can be seen lumbering towards Renfield as we

FADE OUT.

SEQUENCE "D"

D-1 FADE IN EXTERIOR TRANSYLVANIA MOUNTAIN PASS> LONG SHOT

On a narrow mountain gorge in the wildest part of Transylvania. In the background the sun is just setting. Thru the gorge and approaching the camera, comes a mountain coach, drawn by four horses at top speed.

CUT TO:

D-2 SEMI -CLOSE SHOT

Taken from in front of the coach toward the driver as he is encouraging the horses on.

DISSOLVE TO:

D-3 INTERIOR COACH. MED. SHOT

There are two long seats running lengthwise in the coach. The passengers are a mannish-looking Englishwoman in tweeds. Her secretary, a little mouse
like woman, with thick
glasses. Two natives of

Transylvania, husband and wife who speak broken English and their little four year old girl, and John

Harker.

The people are being jostled about uncomfortably as the coach charges at break-neck speed over the bad road. The Englishwoman, however, has her feet braced against the seat opposite her and is stoic in her lack of concern. Her secretary is reading from a Beadeker.

SECRETARY

The coach lurches and she is shot across the aisle, into Harker's lap. She recovers her composure
and with the aid of Harker gets seated as the Englishwoman who has paid no attention to Sara, the
secretary's discomposure

"Approaching Bistritz, the road leads through the heart of the

Carpathians, one of the wildest and least know-known parts of Europe."

ENGLISHWOMAN

Where were we, Sara

SARA

"The wildest and least-known CONTINUED parts of Europe."

ENGLISHWOMAN

Continue, Sara.

SARA "Among its rugged peaks are found crumbling castles of a bygone age."

Again the coach lurches and she is thrown again at Harker who is seated opposite her. John
assists her, smiling, and leans forward to speak to driver who can be seen through a square window in the front of the coach.

HARKER A bit slower.

The native husband grabs Harker's arm and pulls him back

NATIVE

No, no, - look!

They all look from the window and we see

CUT TO:

D-4 LONG SHOT

Taken through window, of a beautiful sunset against the jagged peaks of the mountains.

CUT BACK TO:

D-5 INTERIOR COACH. MED. SHOT

As John and passengers look back from window. John is looking quizzically at the native as -

ENGLISHWOMAN

What are they looking at, Sara?

SARA A sunset

ENGLISHWOMAN

Get the kodak. Have the driver stop.

Sara reaches for the kodak and putting her hand through the window in the front of the coach pulls
the

(continued)

driver's coat-tails, telling him to stop but the native peasant excitedly stops her

NATIVE No, no, he must not stop. We must reach the Inn by sundown.

The Englishwoman turns to the Hungarian.

ENGLISHWOMAN (Coldly) And why!

The native leans forward superstitiously and in a sort of hoarse whisper as if he was almost afraid to speak -

NATIVE It is St. George's Eve - the night the evil spirits roam.

Sara reacts. Her eyes roll in terror. The Englishwoman is intolerant and with her nose in the air sniffs and looks at Harker as if to say, :What can you expect from these stupid peasants?"

The peasant is annoyed by her attitude and leans forward -

NATIVE If you lived in these parts, you would not sneer. It is a night, madame, when doors are barred and prayers are offered to the Virgin.

As he is speaking, DISSOLVE TO:

D-6 INT. NATIVE HUT. FULL SHOT

At the window an old man is hanging some herbs against the glass. He is muttering to himself in Hungarian, and crosses himself. He goes to the door and places a little lighted oil lamp at the foot of an Ikon which is fastened over the door. And old woman is seated in the foreground, telling her rosary in Hungarian.

This continued prayer of hers
is heard throughout the entire
scene Monotonous, Intense prayer. Over a peasant cradle a young
girl is bending. In the
cradle is a baby. The girl
takes the baby in her arms
sees that it is all right,

Continued Puts a little
crucifix around its neck and lays it gently back in the cradle.

The white-haired old man with a piece of chalk draws a Maltese Cross on the door.

DISSOLVE TO:

D-7 EXT. COURTYARD OF INN. FULL SHOT. DUSK

In the foreground are two big gates through which we see the Inn, a ramshackled, bedraggled building with thatched and jutting roof. All the angles and shadows are weird and sinister. In front of it hangs a sign with a wolf's head painted on it, and a small fir tree which is hung upsidedown.

In back of the Inn the last rays of the sun can be seen disappearing over the distant mountain peaks. Thru open gates we hear the sound of horses' hoofs in the distance. The door of the Inn opens. The Proprietor comes out, looks toward the camera, turns back and calls someone in Hungarian. The Proprietor's wife and porter come out excited. As they do so the stage coach dashes in the gates. It pulls up in front of the Inn and stops. As the porter runs forward to close the gates, we DISSOLVE TO: B-8 CLOSER SHOT OF COACH NEAR TAVERN DOOR

The driver hurriedly gets down from seat, starts to unhitch the horses. Peasants climb down from the coach, greet the proprietor and wife and exit into Inn.

Englishwoman and secretary also exit into Inn. John Harker, as he gets out of stage, speaks to the Proprietor:

JOHN HARKER Will I have time for tea before the coach leaves?

The Proprietor who is
standing there nervous, tells the driver in Hungarian to hurry up get inside.

CONTINUED) Turns back to John

PROPRIETOR

The coach goes no farther tonight.

He exits toward Inn. John starts after him and says -

JOHN HARKER

I say - wait!

They exit thru door

CUT TO:

D-9 INT. TAPROOM OF INN. MED> SHOT

The taproom of the inn is 'a low, sinister room with enormous beams. A fire is burning in one
corner and the shutters and door are all marked with Maltese crosses made in chalk. In the background
are a half dozen natives of the most wild and savage appearance, sitting at tables. At one end of the
room is a stairway leading to a balcony from which a door leads the bedrooms.

The proprietor enters, followed by John

JOHN HARKER

Do I understand you to say this coach does not go on tonight?

PROPRIETOR

It's St. George's Eve.

ENGLISHWOMAN

I know. I heard all about St. George's Eve - the haunted castle - evil spirits.

PROPRIETOR

I have seen their victims.

the wife and Proprietor are standing near and cross themselves.

HARKER

But see here - I must reach Borgo Pass by midnight. There's a carriage to meet me there.

CUT TO:

D-10 CLOSEUP PROPRIETOR

PROPRIETOR (in a hoarse whisper) Whose carriage?

CUT TO:

D-11 CLOSE-UP JOHN HARKER

JOHN HARKER

Count Dracula's!

(We hear an intake of breath from the people in the Inn. Then a moment of deathly silence, followed by a sudden uncanny scream) and we

CUT TO:

D-12 CLOSEUP OF PROPRIETOR'S WIFE
as she is clutching the crucifix. She is staring at John Harker. She rushes out of scene.

CUT TO:

D-13 MED. SHOT WHERE HARKER IS STANDING

She rushes in a falls on her knees in front of him and holds the crucifix up to his face. Harker stares at it. The Proprietor's voice comes across the scene and says -

PROPRIETOR'S VOICE (in a hoarse whis Dracula! per)

CUT TO:

D-14 GLASS SHOT OF WEIRD, RUINED CASTLE

On a jagged mountain top.

DISSOLVE TO:

D-15 INT. CRYPT IN THE BOWELS OF CASTLE DRACULA. FULL SHOT

As we are dissolving, the camera in no motion, approaching some coffin-like boxes which lie in the crypt. Through a lattice-like, Gothic window the last rays of the sun can be seen, throwing a fantastic shadow on the wall. There is a sinister atmosphere in this
continued crypt, a suggestion of
movement of weird animals on the floor.

The camera moves slowly up to the corner of one
of the boxes and as it
does so, we see the fingers of one of Dracula's hands coming under the lid of the box. As the hand
emerges, we pan the camera to the light effect on the wall, The sun goes down and as the light effect disappears, we pan back, and Dracula is discovered with his back to camera, bending over and closing the box. He straightens up and slowly glides toward camera. We keep him in the lens until his eyes entirely fill the screen as he approaches. He walks right into the camera, fading the picture
out.

We hear the long howl of a wolf which carries over into the next scene.

CUT TO:

D-16 INT. OF TAPROOM OF INN. MED> SHOT

John has money and is arguing with the proprietor and driver about the price of the coach. As the wolf's cry dies out, the natives cross themselves.

HARKER I will give you twenty pounds sterling, and drive the coach myself. I will return it in the morning.

D-17 HARKER, PROPRIETOR, DRIVER FULL SHOT

The three are in the foreground. In the background are the terror-stricken
faces of the peasants,
listening and watching. The Driver accepts John's proposition. The peasants are horrified as they realize John is about to leave.

As the bargain is closed, John looks towards his bags.

Continued Have the boy put my bags in the coach.

No one will budge and John, exasperated, grabs his handbag and portfolio and starts toward the door, muttering in disgust. The proprietor
moves toward him and stops him at door.

CUT TO:

D-18 SEMI-CLOSE OF DOOR

As Proprietor points his finger at John.

PROPRIETOR

Do you know where you are going and what you are going to do?

John has lost patience by this time.

HARKER Yes, I know - I know

The proprietor sees it is hopeless and moves away. John turns to leave.

CUT TO:

D-19 PROPRIETOR. MED. CLOSE SHOT

His wife runs up to him and talks to him hurriedly in Hungarian, holding the crucifix. The Proprietor shakes his head in disgust and the woman turns toward John, calling to him and runs out.

CUT TO:

D-20 HARKER AT THE DOOR MED. CLOSE SHOT

He turns as the proprietor's wife runs in. She puts the crucifix over John's head.

PROPRIETOR'S WIFE

Wear it for your mother's sake, wear it - - it will protect you.

John, to please her, accepts the gesture and opens the door -

CONTINUED All right - - all right.

Proprietor comes in, unbolts the door and holds it ajar just a crack. John takes his bags and exits.

As he does so, we hear the howl of a wolf.

CUT TO:

D-21 CORNER OF ROOM. MED SHOT

As the natives hear the
howl of the wolf cross
themselves. The English
woman is disgusted and
annoyed by the superstition of the natives and in disgust motions to Sara to
place the gold stick seat which we have planted before, for her to sit on. Sara,
however, is staring towards the door as she is holding the stick, scared by the
wolf's cry, and confusedly and with her mind of the wolf, she places the stick with the seat down and
the point up. (Note: This action is taking place in the foreground of the shot).

CUT TO:

D-22 DOOR AS JOHN EXITS. MED. CLOSE SHOT

Proprietor slams door and bolts it.

CUT TO:

D-23 SARA. MED CLOSE SHOT

As she places stick for

Englishwoman, point up.

Englishwoman sits down on it. The point sticks her, and with a scream she takes it big. The natives
cross themselves

Over this scene, we hear the sound of prancing of horses' hoofs.

CUT TO: D-24 EXT. COURTYARD FULL SHOT

As Harker, having
climbed to the seat of the coach is starting the horses out onto the road. As the coach
moves out onto the road, we see the curtains
pulled back from one of the windows of the Inn and the Proprietor wife's eyes in the window.

D-25 THE WINDOW, CLOSE SHOT

As we see through it, the Proprietor's wife's face pressed against the pane. She crosses herself and
raises her hands in prayer. Over this we hear the crack of a whip and the carriage wheels moving out
down the road. As they die out, we hear the long howl of a wolf.

From the woman's terrorstricken face against the pane, we DISSOLVE TO

D-26 EXT TRANSYLVANIA MOUNTAINS BORGO PASS AT CROSS-ROADS FULL SHOT

Moonlit, cloudy sky.

Here, on a pile of rocks, is a primitive cross marking a grave. Up the road, beyond the cross comes the
coach driven by Harker. It halts at the cross and Harker climbs down, taking the bridle of the horses in
his hand. With the other hand he takes out his watch and looks at the
time.

INSERT OF WATCH

It is twelve o'clock.

CUT TO:

D-27 EXT. TRANSYLVANIAN MTS. MED. SHOT AT CROSSROADS

As Harker surveys the barren countryside. He takes out his two bags and as he starts to attach the
horses to a dad tree by the side of the
road, a nearby wolf howls. Howl of wolf . . . nearby. D-28 EXT. TRANSYLVANIA MTS. CLOSEUP

OF HORSES

As they rear, and with a
terrific whine, gallop
down the road, throwing Horses whine Harker to one side as they Gallop of hoofs, etc. go.

D-29 EXT. TRANSYLVANIA MTS. FULL SHOT AT CROSSROADS

As the horses' hoofs die
out, there is a moment of
deathly silence, then as Horses' hoofs. . . .distant. if from a wide circle around
him, comes the howling of Encircling howling of wolves. wolves.

A mist rises and obliterates
the moon and accompanying
the mist comes the sound of
horses' hoofs. Approaching horses' hoofs.

Harker, for a moment, thinks that the horses are returning, but then notices that this new sound of
hoofs is from a different direction and then, as if dissolving out of a mist, there appears a fantastic
cabriolet drawn by two black horses, with a driver on the box. It comes up a wild gallop, halting
before Harker, who looks up at the Driver.

D-30 EXT. TRANSYLVANIAN MTS. CLOSEUP HARKER AT CROSSROADS

His reaction as he looks up at the Driver. We CUT TO what he sees:

D-31 SEMI CLOSE SHOT LOOKING UP FROM HARKER's POINT OF VIEW TOWARD

DRIVER.

He is wrapped in a great coat with a black hat pulled down over his eyes. The collar of the coat is
turned up so that all that is visible are two burning eyes. D-32 CROSSROADS. MED. SHOT

As the Driver opens the door and motions Harker in. Harker, hypnotized for the moment by the
eyes, stares at him, then handing his bags up to the driver, he gets in.

D-33 EXT. TRANSYLVANIA MTS. FULL SHOT AT CROSSROADS

As the coach starts to move, the mist which surrounded it on its arrival, gathers and as we hear the
horses' hoofs start up in a gallop
the mist obliterates the disappearing coach and in CLOUDS forms BEFORE THE CAMERA. Thru
these clouds which we continue to photograph can be heard the clatter of horses hoofs. This continues
for
several seconds and then as the mist clears, we see:

Horses' hoofs' starting up.

Horses hoof's continued

D-34 INT OF COACH. MED. SHOT

We hear the continuation of the horses' hoofs, galloping apparently at xxxxxxxxxx breakneck
speed.

Speeding Hoofs (continued)

Harker is being jostled about so terrifically that he leans forward and looks out of the window to
speak to the driver.

CUT TO:

D-35 EXT. ANGLE SHOT DRIVER'S SEAT. FROM HARKER'S VIEWPOINT

There is still a slight mist which seems to cling to it and we see distinctly that the Driver is
missing. . .but above the horses' heads flies a great bat.

D-36 CLOSEUP OF HARKER

His head sticking out of the window of carriage. He is mystified by what he has seen.

DISSOLVE TO:

D-37 EXT. MINIATURE SHOT
of a weird, fantastic castle on the mountain top, as up the winding road the carriage
approaches.

DISSOLVE TO:

D-38 REAL CASTLE. ANGLE SHOT

With big, massive oak gates in the foreground, with the fantastic castle rising behind it.

The coach comes past the camera as the horses' hoofs grow louder and as it approaches, the gates
majestically swing open to admit the coach.

Thru the gates we see the coach advancing to another great iron-studded door of the castle itself in
the courtyard.

D-39 EXT. FRONT OF CASTLE COURTYARD . MED.SHOT

The carriage is before the door. Harker gets out in bewilderment. There is no driver and his bags
are gone. As he stands there for a moment in the courtyard the inner door to the castle opens of its own
accord. Harker enters.

CUT TO:

D-40 INT. LONG TUNNEL-LIKE HALL> TRUCK SHOT

The door closes behind Harker. Harker, as if drawn by some mysterious force, approaches. The camera slowly follows trucking back with him as he glances about in astonishment and slowly approaches. We now . . CUT TO: D-41 TRUCK SHOT OF HALL

From Harker's point of view. Camera slowly advances.

The hall is a long tunnellike vaulted room lighted by three or four large candles stuck in sconces along the wall. There are two or three suits of armor in bad state of repair and covered with blood stains. They are leaning back against the wall.

The camera panning reveals these things in turn and while panning moves forward. Near a Gothic window in the upper part of the hallway some bats hang from some tapestry, and suddenly they flutter away.

A curtain moves mysteriously. As the camera follows down the hall, it comes to a big door which opens of its own accord. The camera passes through and the door is heard to close and bolt itself my
steriously.

The camera comes to a great staircase which leads up and up and up into the upper part of the castle. As the camera rounds a turn in this staircase, we suddenly see a giant and dust-covered cobweb which is stretched completely across the hall as if spun by some gargantuan spider. In front of it stands Dracula.

Dracula is a tall, thin man of distinguished appearance. His lips are pale but his large eyes burn with a weird glow and can be recognized at once Sound of door being closed and bolted.

Continued
as those of the
coachman. He is
dressed in a kind of black, officer's
uniform, or full dress, with a ribbon on his shirt front. In manner her has a sinister distinction and is
suave and polite in a cold blooded way.

D-42 HARKER. SEMI-CLOSE

From Dracula's point of view as he stares in surprise at seeing someone for the first time.

CUT TO:

D-43 SHOOTING UP STAIRWAY TAKING IN BOTH HARKER AND DRACULA. MED. SHOT

Dracula bows DRACULA

I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.

Harker is too surprised to speak and is in
articulate, and as he stares we hear the long howl of a wolf nearby, answered by another howl of a wolf
in the distance. Harker is nervous CUT TO:

D-44 DRACULA. CLOSEUP

As he speaks - DRACULA

Listen them - the children of the night - what music they make!

CUT BACK TO:

D-45 DRACULA AND HARKER MED. SHOT

DRACULA

It is late. My people are not available.

D- 46 DRACULA. CLOSEUP

As he continues with a gesture, motioning Harker
to follow him.

Continued DRACULA

If you will please follow me.

He turns and starts up the stairway toward the cobweb. Camera follows him as he
approaches cobweb. As he comes up to it, we CUT TO:

D-47 HARKER CLOSEUP

Preceded by camera taken through cobweb. He
suddenly stops and stares in astonishment.

CUT TO:

D-48 DRACULA AND HARKER. MED SHOT

As dracula continues up stairs on the other side of cobweb. Harker can hardly believe his eyes, but
as Dracula waits for him to follow, Harker breaks cobweb nervously and continues. CUT TO:

D-49 A GIANT SPIDER, QUICK PAN SHOT

As spider is disturbed by Harker and scurries up the wall.

CUT TO:

D-50 DRACULA. SEMI-CLOSE SHOT

As he comes to head of staircase. He turns, looks back at Harker.

DRACULA

The walls of my castle are broken and the shadows are many. I am the last of my race.

CUT TO: D-51 UPPER HALLWAY. REVERSE ANGLE. MED> SHOT

Through broken crevices
of the wall moonlight

filters. As Dracula
finishes speaking, he
crosses hall to a
door, followed by Harker. As Dracula opens door and holds it for Harker,

Camera moves up to them
and shoots through door
past them into a luxuriously appointed and comfortable bedroom. An open fire is
burning in a big stone fireplace.

John enters and the camera follows Dracula through, continuing to shoot into the room. They stand
backs to the camera. John reacts to the room's comfort. Ad Dracula closes door, he turns to Harker and
smiles.

DRACULA

I did not expect you to feel at home among my dust and cobwebs.

CUT TO:

D-52 INT. BEDROOM. REVERSE ANGLE. MED. SHOT

John is relieved and as Dracula leaves door, he
moves to a table which
is laid for supper. There is a solid silver ser
vice and the whole atmosphere of the room is one of tremendous wealth.

As Dracula indicates table -

DRACULA

Come, your supper awaits you.

john hesitates -

HARKER

I am afraid I haven't much appetite, Sir

Dracula takes a bottle
of wine from the table
and placing a seat for Harker insists on his
sitting down. As he pours the wine he hands the glass to Harker.

DRACULA

Well at least - a glass of wine to refresh you.

On August 26, 1930 Lon Chaney died. This is where the script being prepared for him stopped.

During the confused weeks that followed Universal decided not to drop the project for they already
had Chaney's director Tod Browning under contract.

96

Following are the titles for the 1931 silent version if Lugosi's Dracula

.

FINISHED NEGATIVE TITLES & INSERTS PICTURE #109-2 BROWNING (SILENT)

U N I V E R S A L

PART I PART TITLE "D R A C U L A"

____

FADE IN - PICTORIAL ANIMATED MAIN TITLE

CARL LAEMMLE

"D R A C U L A'

With

BELA LUGOSI

From the book by BRAM STOKER

A TOD BROWNING PRODUCTION

PRODUCED BY CARL LAEMMLE, JR.

Copyright MCMXXXI by Universal Pictures Corp.

Carl Laemmle, President

DISSOLVES INTO:

-----

Associate Producer E.M. Asher

Playscript Garrett Fort

Art Director Charles D. Hall

MPPDA

Titles Gardener Bradford

Cinematographer Karl Freund

Supervising Film Editor Maurice Pivar

. . .DISSOLVES INTO

-----

DIRECTED BY TOD BROWNING

. . .DISSOLVES TO

-----THE PLAYERS

Count Dracula. . . . . . . . . . . .BELA LUGOSI

Mina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .HELEN CHANDLER

John Harker . . . . . . . . . . . DAVID MANNERS

Renfield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dwight Frye

Van Helsing. . . . . . . . . . . . . Edward Van Sloan

Dr. Seward . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herbert Bunston

Lucy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Frances Dade

Maid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Standing

Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Gerrard

. . .FADE OUT

S.T.

1 "- - approaching Bistritz, the road crosses the Carpathians mountains, one of the wildest parts of

Central Europe."

2 "Tell the driver to slow up."

3 "No! No! We must reach the Inn before sundown! It is Walpurgis night - - a night of evil!"

4 "Don't take my luggage down - - I'm going on to Borgo Pass."

5 "The driver asks if you can't wait until morning. It is Walpurgis night - - he is afraid!"

6 "I'm sorry - - but at midnight I am to met the carriage of Count Dracula."

7 "You mustn't go! Dracula is one of the un-dead- a vampire! On this night, he and his wives leave
their coffins - - "

8 "Sometimes they take the form of bats - for wolves!"

9 "But this is all superstition --"

10 "The sun is setting! Soon Dracula and his wives will come out of their coffins to feast on the
blood of the living." 11 "But I must go - - it's important business."

12 "Wear this cross for your mother's sake -It will protect you."

13 "Is this the coach to Count Dracula?"

14 "I am Dracula!"

15 "For a moment, I thought I was in the wrong place!"

16 "The walls of my castle are broken but come - - I bid you welcome."

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 1

DRACULA

------

U N I V E R S A L

PART 2

DRACULA

17 "The eternal struggle for life - - the spider spinning his web for the unwary fly!"

18 "The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield!"

19 "I ordered some food for you - - I thought you might be hungry."

20 "I thrust you have kept your coming here a secret."

21 "I have followed your instructions implicitly."

22 "And now, if you are not to fatigued, I would like to discuss the lease of Carfax Abbey,"

23 "I trust I brought enough labels for you luggage."

24 "I am taking with me only three - - boxes."

25 "Tomorrow, I shall be elsewhere - - but we will meet after sundown."

26 "I hope you will find this bed comfortable."

27 "It's nothing serious - - just a cut from the paper clip."

28 "This is very old wine - - I hope you will like it."

29 "Oh, aren't you drinking?"

30 "I never drink - - wine."

31 "I have chartered a boat and we will leave for England tomorrow evening."

32 FADE IN

Aboard the Vesta - - bound for England.

FADE OUT

33 "Master! The sun is down!"

34 "No! No! Spare the crew, or the ship will be wreaked!"

35 FADE IN PICTORIAL LONDON word dissolves into scene

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 2

DRACULA

-----

U N I V E R S A L

PART 3

DRACULA ______

S.T.

36 "After you have delivered th emessage you will remember nothing I now say!"

37 "You are wanted on the telephone, Doctor Seward."

38 "Might I inquire if you are the Doctor Seward whose sanitarium is at Whitby?"

39 "I'm Count Dracula. I have leased Carfax Abbey which adjoins your grounds."

40 "May I present my daughter, Mina."

41 "Miss Lucy Weston and Mr. Harker."

42 "Count Dracula has just leased Carfax Abbey."

43 "Carfax Abbey reminds me of my own castle in Transylvania."

44 "The Abbey always reminds me of the toast - - "

45 " - - 'Lofty Timers - - the walls around are bare - -echoing out laughter as though the dead were
there'."

46 "To die - - to be really dead - - that must be glorious!"

47 "There are far warse things awaiting man than death."

49 "The third death - - and in each case, the same two tiny marks appear on the throat."

50 "Miss Weston like the others died from an unnatural loss of blood."

CHEM. FADE IN

CLOSE UP OF NEWSPAPER INSERT

INSERT #1 LATE LONDON EDITION

MYSTERIOUS DEATH ATTRIBUTED

TO STRANGE MALADY

MEDICAL PROFESSION BAFFLED.

Dr. Seward Consults Eminent Specialist, Prof. Van Helsing

Following a series of mysterious deaths in

London and. . .etc

S.T.

50 "Doctor Seward, we are dealing with the undead - - the vampire."

51 "But Professor Van Helsing - - modern science doesn't admit of any such creature!"

52 "Yet this experiment proves Lucy to be the victim of one of the very creatures whose existence
you deny."

53 "We must search for someone who believes he must have the blood of living things to sustain
his own life - -"

54 "When we have found that person I will prove that the superstition of yesterday is the scientific
reality of today!"

55 "Spiders now is it? Flies ain't good enough for you!"

56 "Flies? Poor puny things! Who wants to eat flies?"

57 "You do, you looney - -ever since we found you crazy on that bloomin' boat."

58 "Not while I can get nice fat spiders!"

59 "All right, come along now - - the doctor wants to see you."

60 "Your description of the man Renfield, who was taken off the Vesta, convinces me we are on
the right track."

61 "I'm professor Van Helsing - - I am here to help you, Renfield."

62 "Keep your filthy hands to yourself!"

63 "Doctor Seward! Send me away! My cries at night might disturb Miss Mina."

64 "They might give her bad dreams, Professor Van Helsing - - bad dreams."

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 3

DRACULA

-----

U N I V E R S A L

PART 4

DRACULA

-------

65 "What was the unearthly wail?"

66 "It sounded like a wolf."

67 " 'E thinks they're wolves! 'E thinks they're talking to him! 'E' s crazy!"

68 "Mr. Renfield, we know how to make them stop!"

69 "You know too much to live, Van Helsing!"

70 "We won't get any more out of him tonight."

71 "On yer way, fly-eater!"

72 "I'm warning you! IF you don't send me away, you must answer for what will happen to Miss

Mina!"

73 "What is that herb that excited him so?"

74 "Wolfbane! The natives of Central Europe wear it to protect themselves against vampires."

75 "You say Renfield escapes from his cell at night. Have him closely watched - see where he
goes."

76 "No! No, Master! Not her - - not her!"

77 "Don't, Master! You took Lucy - - please don't harm Mina!"

78 FADE IN

The following evening -

FADE OUT

79 "I had a terrible dream last night -

80 "- - I thought I heard an unearthly howling - and then it seemed as though the room filled with
mist."

81 "And then I saw two red eyes staring at me - and a livid white face looking down out of the
mist."

82 "It came closer and closer. I felt it's breath - - and then its lips - - "

83 "Those lips you felt in the dream - - where did they touch you?"

84 "How long have you had those little marks on your throat>"

85 "I first noticed them this morning."

86 "What could have caused them?"

87 "I trust I do not intrude."

88 "On the contrary, you are most welcome."

89 "Pardon me! Count Dracula, meet Professor Van Helsing."

90 "Van Helsing! A most distinguished scientist, whose name we know, even in Transylvania."

91 "I had a frightful dream last night - - I can't get it out of my mind."

92 "I hope you haven't taken my stories too seriously."

93 "I endeavored to amuse your fiancee with some grim tales of my far off country."

94 "I can imagine."

95 "I think, Mina, that you had better retire."

96 "I am sorry that my visit was so illtimed."

97 "On the contrary, you may be of very definite service."

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 4

DRACULA

------

U N I V E R S A L

PART 5

DRACULA

------

98 "A moment ago I stumbled upon an amazing phenomenon - - "

99 " - - something so incredible I distrust my own judgment."

100 "My humble apologies - - it was unavoidable." 101 "For one who has not lived even a single
lifetime, you are a wise man, Van Helsing."

102 "What's that running across the lawn? It looks like a wolf!"

103 "Dracula is our vampire! He is responsible for Lucy's death - - for the marks on Mina's
throat."

104 " I thought you suspected Renfield!"

105 "A vampire casts no reflection in the mirror! That proves that Dracula, not Renfield, is our
man."

106 "Be guided by what he says - - it is your only hope!"

107 "Take Mina away before - - "

108 "No! No, Master! I didn't tell them anything! I'm loyal, Master - - I'm loyal!"

109 "What have you to do with Dracula?"

110 "I never heard the name before!"

111 "If you don't tell the truth you'll die in torment with innocent blood on your soul."

112 "No! No! God knows the powers of evil are too great for those with weak minds!"

113 "Miss Mina's lying out there - - on the lawn - -"

114 "Try and tell me exactly what happened."

115 "I remember a dense red mist - - and two red eyes that drew me forward with a hypnotic power

I could not resist - - "

116 "- - they drew me nearer - - and nearer - -until I could see a face - - that same livid face that
came to me in my dream."

117 "Miss Mina, I promise that from this moment, you will be released from this horror."

118 "I am afraid it is too late, Professor Van Helsing. Something tells me I am about to die."

119 "Darling, you're not going to die - - you're going to live!"

120 "It's all over, John - - all our love - - our life together - - "

121 "Please explain to him - - I can't."

122 "Miss Mina, you must come in-door!"

123 "If Mina's in danger, I'm going to protect her!"

124 "Mina's going with me to London! If you can't save her, I will!"

125 "I must be master here! This room will be guarded with wolfbane - - to prevent Dracula's
return."

126 "Say what you like - - Mina's going with me!"

127 "Miss Mina is to wear this wreath of wolfbane around her neck. See that she does not remove
it in her sleep.

128 "But you don't understand, Mr. Harker! The vampire appears only at night! During the day, it
must rest on the earth in which it was buried."

129 "But that's ridiculous! Dracula would have to return every night to Transylvania!"

130 "He must have brought boxes of his native soil to rest in by day - we must find the, and drive a
stake through his heart."

131 "Gentlemen!"

132 "Isn't this a strange conversation for men who are supposedly sane?"

133 "Renfield! I shall have to put you in a straight-jacket!"

134 "The doctor's pet looney is loose again."

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 5

DRACULA

------

U N I V E R S A L

P A R T 6

DRACULA

135 "The Master came and stood below my window and promised me things - - "

136 "- - not in words, but by making them happen!"

137 "A red mist spread over the lawn like a flame of fire - -"

138 "- - then he parted it and I could see thousands of rats and he seemed to be saying - - "

139 "Rats! Rats! Thousands - - millions of them - and every one a life!"

140 "All these will I give you if you will obey me!"

141 "What did he want you to do?"

142 "That which has already been done!" 143 "Strike me dead, Doctor, if he ain't torn them iron bars
like they were cheese!"

144 "Dracula is in the house!"

145 "Martin - - put Renfield where he can't escape again."

146 "Come on, old fly-eater!"

147 "Van Helsing!"

148 "Now that you have learned what you have learned, it would be well to leave here at once."

149 "In intend to remain - - and protect those whom you would destroy!"

150 "You are too late! The blood of Dracula now flows through Mina's veins!"

151 "She will live though the centuries, even as I have lived!"

152 "We may not be able to save Mina's life - but we do know how to save Miss Mina's soul - -"

153 "A stake through her heart!"

154 "If she dies by day! But I shall see that she dies by night!"

155 "Before you succeed, we will find your earthboxes and drive a stake through your heart!"

156 "Come here!"

157 "Your will is strong, Van Helsing!"

158 "More wolfbane, Professor?"

159 "More effective than wolfbane!" 160 "Miss Mina wouldn't go to bed - - she's out on the terrace."

161 "Why are you looking at me like that?"

162 "Mina! You're like a changed girl! You look wonderful!"

163 "I feel wonderful! I never felt better in my life!"

164 "Miss Mina - - you must come in-doors!"

165 "The fog's lifting!" How plainly you can see the stars!"

166 "Nothing is the matter. Come - - let's sit down!"

167 "Night is the only time when I feel really alive!"

168 "Yes!"

169 "I will!"

170 "You will what?"

171 "Why, I didn't say anything."

172 "That funny little professor - - he has a crucifix - - "

173 "- - I want you to get it and hide it."

174 "I'm sorry, Mina - - but I'm afraid we both misunderstand the professor."

175 "Give me that cross, Professor!"

176 "The cross! Put it away!"

177 "But what's happened - - tell me!" 178 "Oh John! You must believe everything the Professor says!

It's true - - Dracula - -"

179 "Dracula? What has he done to you?"

180 "He came to me. He opened a vein in his wrist

181 "What's wrong, Martin?"

182 "I took a shot at that big bat."

183 "No bullet of yours can kill that bat!"

184 "Ne's crazy!."

185 "They're all crazy except you an' me - -"

186 "And sometimes I have me doubts about you."

U N I V E R S A L

END OF PART 6

DRACULA

_______

U N I V E R S A L

P A R T 7

DRACULA

187 "You will now retire - - and remember nothing."

188 "That's Renfield heading for Carfax Abbey! He may lead us to Dracula's earth-boxes!"

189 "I'm here, Master - - I'm here!"

190 "Mina! Mina! 191 "I didn't lead them here, Master - -I swear it!"

192 "No! No! Don't kill me, Master! Let me live!"

193 "The sun is rising! If we can keep Dracula in sight, he will lead us to his earth-box!"

194 "Here! Here! I've found them!"

195 "Get me a stone! Anything to drive a stake through their hearts!"

196 "Mina - - she is not here!"

197 "Then she may be alive!"

198 "Dracula had to go to his earth-box! The daylight saved me."

199 "At last Dracula is really dead - - a stake through his heart - - his soul at peace"

200 "And for you, too, the horror is over - -"

201 FADE IN PICTORIAL TRADE MARK T H E END

Whirling globe - ray of light - words appear

IT'S A

UNIVERSAL PICTURE

. . . FADE OUT

202 FADE IN - PICTORIAL CAST

A GOOD CAST IS WORTH REPEATING Mina. . . . . . . . . . . .HELEN CHANDLER Count

Dracula. . BELA LUGOSI John Harker . . . .DAVID MANNERS Renfield . . . . . . DWIGHT FRYE Van

Helsing . . . Edward van Sloan Dr. Seward . . . . .Herbert Bunston Lucy . . . . . . . . . . Francis Dade Maid

. . . . . . . . . . .Joan Standing Martin . . . . . . . .Charles Gerrard

U N I V E R S A L END OF PART 7 DRACULA

Appendix A

NOSFERATU, a symphony of horror the 1922 Shooting Script

(Above) Max Shreck takes a break during the shooting.

(Below) Hutter (Harker) meets Count Orlok (Dracula) disguised as a coachman

N O S F E R A T U
by

Henrik Galeen

(F.W. Murnau's hand annotations and scenes additions and location markers are in Bold Print) ACT 1

Fade in.

Fade out

8 meters location shot: Wismar

Townscape

View over the roof's of a small old-fashioned
town built in the style of the 1840s. The sun
shines peacefully on pointed gables and
leafy squares.

Two shot, one from the church tower onto the town the other from the harbour over towards the town.

1st: view of Lübeck.

Dissolve to harbour of Wismar

Scene 23

Fade-in

Outside a window

4 meters 2x

There are flowers in green window-boxes. On the window sill a kitten is playing in the morning
sun. With graceful movements she tries to catch a ball that dangles from a thread. Now the ball is
being pulled in through the window. The cat jumps in after it.

Scene 34

Small neat kitchen

Ellen's sitting room 7 meters 2x

The morning sun casts the shadow of a window
frame onto the floor. Ellen, by the window, is
pulling the thread with the ball, the cat follows it
with a leap. Then she puts the little animal on her
arm. Playing with it she sits down on the window
sill bathed in sunshine and looks out dreamily.

She squats on the floor opposite the animal and
plays with it. Her dressing gown moves in the breeze,
her big child-like eyes a laughing.

Scene 34a

A small sitting room (attic)

20 meters Hutter white jabot blue waist coat. Poor-looking and tidy. A bed, a chair in the period
style. Hutter is standing in front
of the mirror. He is about to put his jacket on. He pauses to listen, takes a look
through the side window. Smiling happily he finishes dressing and goes out.

4a A small flower garden Shot from above. Hutter appears, gardening
knife in hand, looks up front of Hutter's house beaming with joy. He finds a clump of carnations,
cuts the flowers with a quick gesture and makes a bouquet.

Scene 5

The small kitchen Ellen, still playing with the kitten, hears Hutter coming and jumps up.

Shot of cooker

Shot of door: Ellen comes over and begins to busy herself with the sauce pans, with a childlike
earnestness towards her house-wifely duties.

Hutter is standing in the doorway and laughs and laughs. Hiding the bouquet behind his back, he
laughs and laughs

Shot of cooker Ellen turns around, catches sight of her husband
and seems a little ashamed that she hasn't yet made breakfast. Now Hutter moves closer to her,
looks into the sauce pan holds it upside down indicating that it is empty, and looks at her
reproachfully.

Title: Ellen!

She is sulking now and trying to placate him. But he pulls out his watch; it is late already; he has
to go. He kisses her good-bye, but she calls him back again to confess that she hasn't got any money
left to do the shopping. He pulls out his purse with a sad look and holds it up: there is nothing in it!

They both sigh. He leaves with a heavy heart. The moment she is alone she takes a small basket of
potatoes, which is all she can find, the last resort of the poor
house-wife, and starts peeling them. A potato drops on the floor, the kitten comes up and
plays with it.

Fade-out

Long Shot They are rushing towards each other, Ellen throws herself into Hutter's arms

He produces the bouquet, hands it to her beaming all over his face. She is touched then, saddening, she
takes the glowers looking at the stems and stroking them. His voice asks for the reasons of her
behavior she says:

Title Why have you killed them ... the beautiful flowers?

Fade-out Hutter is taken aback for a moment. He apologizes and kisses her.

Then she forgives him, they stand in an embrace. 2x

Scene 5a

Fade in

Street with front gardens

10 meters Lauenburg

Title: Professor Bulwer

Professor Bulwer is walking vigorously, yet slowly along the road, enjoying the morning and the
sunshine. His stick strikes the ground energetically.

Suddenly he stops and turns around. Who is following him in such haste? Isn't it Hutter? He grasps the
passing man by his sleeve; he holds on to it. Hutter greets him, looking pleased. Bulwer laughs and
looking deep into his eyes says:

Title: Why so hasty , my young friend? One
reaches one's goal soon enough. Hutter, of course, doesn't understand him. He has to get to office
quickly. He greets him again and again. Until he manages at last to break free with a laugh and rushes
off. Bulwer stands there for a moment, then he resumes the regular rhythm of his walk.

Scene 6

Fade-in

Dusty cramped office

6 meters Caption: Knock - a house agent

Pale light is falling through tiny blind window-panes into the strange room which is eccentrically
decorated with bits of old-fashioned furniture. KNOCK is standing at a high desk. People call him a
house agent.

Close-up Knock's spindly hunch-backed figure. Grey hair, weather
beaten face full of wrinkles. Around his mouth throbs the ugly tic of the epileptic. In his eyes
burns a sombre fire. He is reading a letter.

Close-up

Med. Close-up The letter. On a sheet of paper decorated on the margin with grotesque vignettes a
medley of intricate and quite illegible signs.

Knock seems to be able to make sense of the strange letter, for his ugly mouth sets into an
understanding smile. Then he turns and opens the door.

Scene 7

Small room adjoining the office

5 meters

Very narrow and dark, totally without sun. Hutter, buried in files. Knock looks through the door
and calls him in.

Another clerk is present

Scene 8

The dusty and cramped office

30 meters

Knock and Hutter enter. Knock points to the letter with mysterious gestures and tells Hutter:

Title Count Orlock - His grace - From Transylvania wants to buy a beautiful house in our little Town

Close-up Knock's demonic face with wide open eyes

Title You could make a nice bit of money . . .

It will take some effort, however . . . a few drops of sweat and blood. . . Perhaps a little blood.

Closeup In Hutter's face expressions of mounting joy and strange apprehension are fighting each
other. Yet joy wins in the end.

Long shot Knock digs up and old atlas from the depths of the cabinet and opens it. His finger runs over
a page.

Closeup The route from England to Transyvania on the map.

Long shot Transylvania? asks Hutter, his eyes suddenly shin
ing at the thought of a journey. Yet Knock has turned back to the letter, now reading the last page.

Closeup The back page of the letter, covered with the same illegible squiggles.

Long shot Knock seems to be able to make sense of this page too. He turns back to Hutter who is
already day-dreaming about his journey.

Title He wants a handsome deserted house.

Long shot For a moment Knock is lost in thought, then he has an idea. He limps over to the
window.

Scene 9

Section of window

4 meters Window frame, take in Knock View down the street

The deserted house. A dilapidated facade. Black and hollow windows. Not a sign of life. Shadows on
it.

Daytime - Sun

Scene 10

The dusty and cramped office

15 meters

Knock walks back from the window and says to Hutter:

Title That house...just opposite yours. Offer him that!

Hutter seems to be a little taken aback, but he rallies around quickly. Knock urges him to set out
on the journey at once, hands him some money and documents and pushes him to the door.

Fade-out 18 meters 2x As in scene 8

Scene 11

Room in Hutter's House

Ellen is sitting by the window. Now she can see him coming. She waves to him. Her face lights up
with joy. She hurries over to the door. Presently Hutter enters. Moved and happy, he puts his arms
around her and tells her his great news:

Title I shall go on a journey far far away to the country of mountains where there are bandits and
ghosts still.

Ellen is startled. A shadow passes over her forehead. She wants to hold him back. But he is not
listening. He has got to pack; already he is leaving her.

Fade-out

Scene 12

The attic room Fade-in

Fade out Scene 13 (Lord)Harding's park

15 meters Frau Schroeder without shawl saddlebags

Hutter is packing his little travelling bag. Ellen appears in the door behind him. Suddenly she
starts to beg him tearfully, en
treating: Do not go! I am worried about you! But he rejects her remonstrations. Now he has finished
packing. He gets up. Ellen
realizing that he has made up his mind steps back, resigning herself. But there is fear
in her eyes. Seeing her like this he hes
itates for a moment. But then he embraces her again with determination, takes up his bag and leaves
the room with her.

15 meters

Hutter, all ready for the journey, takes his leave from Harding and his sister Anny. Ellen, weeping is
supported by Anny.

Close-up The two men. Hutter, taking both of Harding's hands and looking deep into his eyes:

Title I entrust Ellen to your care.

Harding promises his friend to look after Ellen, she can live here, she will never be alone.

Long shot of all characters Hutter gives his hand to Anny and then to Ellen One last farewell kiss. At
this moment her grief is over. As if she had a premonition she says:

Title Farewell! There is no escape left.

At first they are all startled by these words. Then Hutter breaks away. Another farewell, another
wave of the hand and Hutter vanishes into the park. Ellen is staring vacantly into the distance.

Scene 14

Square with fountain A number of healthy-looking people are walking about in the sunshine. Tied to
the fountain a lonely sattled horse. Hutter appears, mounts the horse gives one last backward look and
gallops off.

Fade out Scene 15 9 meters Schlesische Hutte

Title

Fade-out

Scene 16

Long shot

Outside the Carpathian inn.

The Carpathian Mountains

Wild and rocky mountains. Contre jour Evening

10 meters

The big mail coach drawn by four horses drives up and comes to a halt.

Shot of door of inn The inn-keeper, a small old Jew, comes out and sees the coach.

Shot of coach: Hutter jumps out first. He looks around.

Long shot: The house. One part of brick-walled living area, the
other coach house and open stables Shot of coach In the meantime the other passengers have got
out. Long-haired, black Huzules. All identically dressed and of identical appearance like ghosts. they
go into the house.

The inn-keeper has gone up to Hutter and greets him with an inviting gesture.

Shot of coach The horses are now unharnessed, the coach is being pushed into the coach house. Night
is falling.

Scene 17 8 meters servant: Frau Kurz

Inside the Inn. A large smoky room with an enormous tiled stove.

A central hanging lamp throws out dazzling light At tables in the background the passengers.

Hutter who came in last, is standing in the foreground, he looks around and sits down right in front. At
once the old servant approaches with a glass and puts it down in front of him. He overcomes a strange
anxiety that was brought on by the evening mood in a strange country and puts on a sudden show of
liveliness. He knocks on the table and says:

Title Quickly, my meal -

I must be off to Count Orlock's castle.

The servant recoils in horror. The strangely identical looking passengers, sitting in the background
rise up abruptly to stare at him.

Shot of bar The old hunch-backed Jew pricks up his ears. Long shot Hutter looks around in
embarrassment, then takes up his glass resolutely and downs it in one gulp.

Scene 18

A grassy slope behind the inn

4 meters Walddorfsenke

The ground falls away towards the back. Night mists are creeping up from the valley. The horses are
put out here to graze. Suddenly, they raise their heads, as if frightened and, scattering, gallop away.

Scene 19

Inside the inn

Shot of window: The passengers, seen from behind are standing by the win
dow, looking out apprehensively. The old servant has not go the courage to go up to where they
stand and makes the sign of the cross. Hutter stands alone, looking around. He is perplexed and wants
to ask what is happening. The old servant comes up to him and whispers into his ear.

Title You mustn't go there now there are wolves about Spend the night here.

Fade-out19a

19b

Scene 20

A room at the inn. Hutter understands and decides to stay.

Hyena

Horses, panicking

6 meters

A tiny white-washed room with sharp angles: a flickering light from the old servant's candle. Now

Hutter enters. She puts the candle down, goes out without a word. Her eyes expressing concern for
him.

Hutter alone. He goes over to the window, throws it open and looks into the starless night.

Scene 21 (missing from script)

Scene 22

Inside the inn

5 meters

The pale passengers, now without Hutter in the enormous room, look frightened. They, too, are
listening to the horrible howling. They look at each other and are crossing themselves in terror!

Scene 23

The tiny white-washed room

Medium close-up

Long shot

Close up

20 meters

In the light of the candle Hutter, shivering, closes the window. He is no longer sleepy. He walks up
and down the room restlessly, stopping in front of a little bookcase. Looking for something to distract
him Hutter pulls out a book at random.

He moves back to the candle, sits down on his bed and opens the book. He gets interested in it.

The book's title page: VAMPIRE

The page os being turned over.

THE NOSFERATU

From the bloody sins of mankind a creature will be born which will seek revenge for the sin
committed by the parents and visited on their children and children's children. Whosoever lusts after
blood without reason in under his spell, the spell of the vampire NOSFERATU.

Shot of bed Close-up Hutter, shaking his head, continues reading Book:...grown up on his native
soil - from which alone he draws his power.

Hutter shuts the book, having lost interest. It seems confused to him. He yawns and puts out the
candle.

Fade-out

Scene 24

Fade-in

Small white room
at the inn

12 meters

Morning sun is flooding in from the window. Hutter wakes up. Yawning like someone who has
slept deeply but not well. He sits up rubbing his eyes. They fall on the book on the bedside table. He
reads the title

Close-up

Normal shot:

Scene 25 VAMPIRE
spits on the floor in contempt of the confused rubbish and throws the book playfully into a corner.

Then he pauses to listen, goes over to the window to open it. He takes a deep breath of the morning air.

6 meters Walddorf

The grassy slope in the morning light. Coachmen and grooms are rounding up the horses with long
whips and lots of shouting.

Scene 26

The small room

5 meters

Hutter steps back from the window. His eyes are laughing, as he turns round. He stretches himself
happily; then he takes off his shirt, goes over to the washstand, pours water over his body. He has a
proper wash.

Scene 27 In the yard

Dolny Kubin

The old servant, mother to all animals, throws corn to her chickens. There are sparrows, too.

Everything is bathed in sunlight.

Scene 28

Outside the Inn

10 meters

The bustle of departure. The horses are in harness. The passengers have got into the coach. Now, in the
morning light, one can see their differences. They are much less uniform than they had seemed the
previous nightfall. They are chattering noisily to the people who are staying behind and with the
peasants and nosy children who are gathered around the coach.

Close-up The coachman is about to climb onto his seat, but the
small Jewish inn-keeper holds him back: one passenger is missing. They look up to the windows;
angry about the delay the coachman cracks his whip a few times.

Shot of inn: Hutter appears in an upstairs window, still only half dressed; he gives a wave: I am
coming. And disappears again.

Shot of door Hutter comes rushing out with his travelling bag. Shot of coach He climbs to his seat on
the coach-box, the horses start moving.

Scene 29

Outside the inn The Huzules take off their hats. The children are waving.

The old servant has joined them. God bless the travellers. May he guard them against evil spirits.

They stretch out their hands as if warding them off.

Medium close-up Fade-out

Hutter breaks into loud laughter.

Scene 30 12 meters Westerheim

A Mountain range Long-range shot

Scene 31

The mail coach Medium close-up Medium close-up In the distance a steep path cutting through the
wild scenery, on it the mail coach creeping slowly upwards. 10 meters road to the Schlesische Hütte

The mail coach is moving into the setting sun A coach window, and old woman. Hutter leans out,
giving the coachman a push with an umbrella

Title Drive on!

The sun is setting Next to her another old woman, identical looking She is staring into the abyss. Now
the first one turns to look in the same direction: two identical faces.

Scene 32 4 meters View from Schlesische Hütte

The rocky gorge Wisps of mist are rising and falling in the last
rays of the setting sun. Patches of sun and shade Fade-out

Scene 33 10 meters Close to Arler Hütte

Title At the crossroad

A carved madonna casts a long shadow across the road. Behind it an old woman on her knees, deep
in prayer. She lifts her head and looks down the road. The mail coach approaches, the horses are
pulling with difficulty, breathing hard. She seems to ask herself: do they want to drive to the haunted
castle? and gets into the middle of the road to warn them off. The mail coach stops. Hutter gets off the
coach box. Now he stands at the crossroad. The passengers are anxious to move on gesturing violently
to him not to take the left fork. But Hutter disregards their shouting He waves farewell with his hat
and walks briskly off.

33a Hutter walking past the carved madonna Scene 34

Distant mountains

8 meters Vratna Pass

View through the cut made into the rock by the road into the far distance. In the background the
fantastic
castle of Count Orlok in the evening light. One can see a steep road leading straight up into the
sky. Something comes racing down. A coach? A phantom? It moves with unearthly speed and
disappears behind a ground swell.

1) Castle Orlok, dissolve

2) Steep road between boulders

Scene 35

At the crossroad

Angle as in Scene 33

4 meters Near Schlesische Hütte

Mortally fightened, the coachman beats the horses. The old woman has disappeared as if
swallowed up by the ground. Astonished, Hutter follows the vanishing coach with his eyes. He is all
alone now, standing like this for a while. Then he pulls himself together and walks resoltuely along
the road on the left.

Fade-out

Scene 36

Fade-in

Carpathian virgin forest.

Scene 37

A fairy-tale forest

Scene 38

Long shot of a snakelike bend.

Vratna Pass

The trees are castling long shadows on the forest path. Hutter appears. He halts: what's that?

Something comes racing up, turns around as if moved by a hidden force and moving jerkily. Stops
dead. Hutter likewise. A black carriage. No wheels? Two black horses - griffins? Their legs are
invisible, covered by a black funeral cloth. Their eyes like pointed stars. Puffs of steam from their
open mouths, revealing white teeth. The coachman is wrapped up in black cloth. His face pale as
death. His eyes are staring at Hutter. Raising his whip he makes an inviting, almost commanding
gesture. He waits. Hutter cannot rally enough strength to follow the invitation. Yet those eyes assert
their power. Step by step, as if pulled by invisible threads, Hutter approaches the uncanny creature. He
gets into the carriage. It reverses quick as lightning, dashes off a disappears.

5 meters At the Vratna Pass, behind Tyer Hora Empty. By the roadside a wise, man-sized raven.

Its shoulders hunched up. It turns its head listening. Then takes two hops forward and looks down
the road. Who's coming? The familiar vehicle sweeps up and past. A young man, holding on
desperately,
sits inside, looking terrified. The raven follow him with mocking eyes behind glasses.

Coach drives at top speed through a white forest 5 meters

Valley. Deserted lane. Only a lonely twisted will-tree with a straggly top can be seen. Again the
carriage races past. Like an ancient man who has been
disturbed in his rest the tree looks after the vehicle with blank eyes. Isn't there a grin on its mouth?

Drives over stone bridge across deep gorge Scene 39

Count Orlock's castle 39a

Medium close-up

39b

15 meters Poczamok

The arch of a gate in the shade. The silhouette of the carriage drives underneath it at a sharp angle

and disappears in the moonlit spacious castle yard. Shot of castle yard The porch. The carriage stops
in front of it. Al

-most in a faint, Hutter slides down. As if in a
whirlpool, the carriage circles round him and
disappears. Hutter turns around and follows
it with his eyes. He stands in front of the closed
gate, holding his bag.

Then, very very slowly the two wings of
the gate open up. Somewhere far back
in the dark corridor a man can be seen
standing motionless. He is holding a
candle which lights up his chalk-white
face. He is waiting. Who is that? Hutter
bounds up the two steps and stands in
the doorway. He would still like to go
back. Yet it is too late now. Hesitantly
he walks towards the stranger. Behind
him the gate closes

End of Act 1

Act II Scene 40

Hall.

Medium close-up

Close-up

Medium Close-up In the center Orlok, the candle in his hand. The walls of the hall are plunged in
darkness from which Hutter's back emerges. He faces the motionless figure. It is pale, ghostly creature
with
hollow eyes and thin mouth the lord of the castle himself?

The face twists into a polite grimace. Sharp ratlike teach appear over the lower lip.

They are now face to face. It must be the count for this is no servant's gesture with which he now takes
hold of his visitor's bag.

Title The servants are asleep It is almost after midnight.

Hutter's clenched fingers let go. Bag in hand, Orlok turns around. He holds up the candle
and walks ahead. Hutter follows.

Scene 41

Gallery of ancestor's portraits

Medium Close-up

Long shot panorama One of the castle owner's ancestors , frontal view. For centuries he has been
asleep like this with his eyes closed. Now something approaches. His eyes begin to move. Two figures
are passing: Orlok and his visitor.

He follows them with his eyes. They walk close to the wall where portrait follows portrait.

Scene 42

Dining room.

Close-up

Close-up

25 meters

Gigantic dimensions. In the center a massive Renaissance table. Somewhere in the distance a fire
place. Flanked by two armoured figures. Black and motionless. In older times this must have been
used by knights for their drinking bouts. Are these their armour? Is that long line that runs across the
wall a crack in the old structure? Or a lance left hanging there? Suddenly, Hutter notices that the count
is waiting. Quickly he hands him the plans of the deserted house and Knock's letters. With a smile

Orlok takes them and begs him to take a seat. The meal is waiting. Hutter sits down. Orlok lifts up the
papers and studies them.

Orlok reading. The back page of the letter shows a confusion of numbers, legible and illegible letters.

The holy number seven is repeated several times. In between, cabbalistic signs. The spindly fingers
holding the letter cover up the rest like claws.

Hutter is spell bound, his eyes wide-open

Closeup

Close-up Over the top margin of the letter Orlok's eyes appear. He is looking over to Hutter like a
snake about to hypnotize it's victim.

Hutter eating. He puts a morsel into his mouth. He lifts up his eyes. His look turns into a stare. He is
unable to swallow

Long shot The hall with the halo of light in the center; the figures are looming above the table.

Close-up An antique clock with a pendulum. A hammer strikes the hour. The big hand points to 12
o'clock.

Medium close-up: Hutter staring into space as if transfixed. After the twelfth stroke he drops his knife
and fork. The knife grazes his hand, it is bleeding.

Medium Close-up Quick as lightning the count rushes up to him
offering his help. He prevents Hutter from wiping off the blood. The knife might have been
poisoned The sticky blood should be removed from the cut. His lips are sucking at the hand hastily.

Frightened, Hutter pulls away his hand from his grip. He moves backwards towards the fireplace.

Medium Close-up By the fireplace. The Count is polite; he has lost his ghostlike appearance. He is
asking for something in a friendly, almost sad manner.

Title Shall we stay up together
for a little while? It's a
long time to go till sunrise . . . And during the day I am always out and about.

The Count sits down. And Hutter cannot resist his chivalrous manner. He sinks back into the
massive chair.

Scene 43

Fade-in

The same hall

18 meters

Hutter wakes up in the large armchair near the fireplace. He can hardly remember the events of the
night. The armchair opposite seems to be empty. But there is light on it. Hutter's gaze wanders across
the hall over to the window.

Shot of window

Shot as before

Close-up

Normal close-up It is very high and divided up into small panes. Morning light is streaming in.

An old-fashioned window. An ancient hall, very dusty. Nothing strange about it. Hutter yawns. His
eyes fall on the cut in his hand and he remembers a few more things. What has he got on his neck? He
touches his throat. Must have been mosquitoes. A mirror! His bag is nearby on the floor. He takes out
his mirror and looks at his neck.

The mirror shows two red spots on his neck, very close together.

Why should he worry about a few little spots? he thinks and puts the mirror away. He yawns once
more. But suddenly he stops. What's this? He looks at the table, astonished.

Close up:

Normal:

A still-life of food: fruit, a joint, all kinds
of gastronomic delicacies.

He is overjoyed. He rushes over to the table and begins
to eat as if he were starved.

Scene 44

The dilapidated terrace

22 meters Poczamok

Still eating, Hutter steps out into the sunlight. He looks around, seeming relaxed. He holds a sheet of
paper and a pencil in his hands. Then he casts about for a suitable place and, leaning against the stone
wall He begins to write a letter.

Close-up: Normal: The beginning of the letter: My dearest, my only one. . . Hutter stands upright,
looking at the clouds. Why does that stupid mosquito buzzing around his nose stop him from
concentrating? He catches it quickly. And now he knows how to continue. He puts pencil to paper
again.

Close-up:

Long shot: Part of the letter:...the mosquitoes are a real pest. I have been stung at the next by two
at once, very close to
gether, one on each side...

Hutter keeps writing

Scene 45

Forest near the castle

14 meters Poczamok

A man on horseback is approaching. He stops occasionally and peers over to the castle as if he were
scared of it.

Outside the porch: Hutter stands there, waving with the letter. The rider comes up cautiously and takes
the letter without dismounting The he dashes off at a gallop showing signs of great fear.

Scene 46

Fade-in.

Dining room

15 meters

Orlok is sitting by the fireplace bent over some plans. Hutter is standing behind him. Orlok shows
more interest in the young man than in the papers lying in front of him. Looking over his shoulder he
asks for some more information. Hutter rummages among the papers in his bag. A little picture falls
on the table. He wants to hide it quickly, yet Orlok was quicker. He has picked it up and is looking at
it.

Close up A miniature portrait of Ellen.

Medium close-up Orlock asks about the person in the picture. And Hutter is forced to answer him.

Close up: Orlok's eyes open wide. His lips look even thinner than before. Contemplating the picture he
whispers:

Title What a beautiful throat your wife has... Medium close-up: Hutter is breathing hard. The fear
which grips
him in the count's presence is replaced by a sudden fear for his wife. He forgets himself and
reaches for the miniature. For the first time he touches Orlok's body. The count jumps up. He raises
himself to his full height with triumphant determination and a glazed look in his eyes, and says,
anticipating the horrors to come with pleasure.

Title I shall buy the house... The handsome deserted house opposite yours.

Quickly, he takes up the contract and signs it. He hands it back to Hutter. Hutter bows uneasily and
retires. Orlok watches him go, a satanic look has come into his eyes. His hands have turned into claws.

Hutter takes his bag with him

Fade- out:

Scene 47

Fade-in:

A small room in castle

15 meters

Candle is burning

Hutter is standing in the middle of the room, quite dazed. He shakes off his misgivings. He decides to
leave tomorrow. He kisses the picture and starts to undress, when to his amazement he discovers a
book in his pocket. The old book from the inn. Did the in-keepers wife put it there? Mechanically, he
opens it.

Close-up: The book

Chapter II

Night is the vampire's element.

He can see in the dark
which is a wonderful ability to have in this world half of which is night.

We humans, however, are helpless and blind at night

Normal Hutter shuts the book. A horrible thought has
occurred to him. He is feverish. Is it this book, these ancient walls which make him believe in the
existence of ghosts? Did not the count seem to have vampire-like claws and rat's teeth. He jumps up,
first running, the sneaking to the door.

Scene 48

Dining hall

View from door deep into the dining hall

Medium close-up

4 meters

By the fireplace Count Orlok, no, not Orlock but a gigantic vampire, a motionless, sombre watcher
in the night.

He looks at Hutter with a fixed glaze.

The small room.

Shot of door: Hutter. He supports himself against the doorpost. A ter
rible realization has dawned on him. Shut the door, shut it quickly! There is no bolt. No lock. He
looks around, puts the heavy oak-chair against the door. Is it possible to escape?

Medium close-up: Window. Hutter rushes up and flings it open.

Scene 50 3 meters Tegeler Forest

Night. Undergrowth. A pack of wolves, raising their heads howling.

Scene 51

The small room Long shot:

8 meters

Hutter falls on his knees by the side of the bid. Hutter clutching the bedclothes, he stares at the
door behind which the horror is waiting.

What is this?

Medium close-up: Moved by an invisible hand the door opens to half its width in one single jerk.

Long shot: Hutter. Terrified, he covers his eyes with his arms, pulls at the bedclothes and shields his
eyes. He mustn't see it. He mustn't look!

Fade out. Scene 52 Title

6 meters

The same night

Ellen's bedroom at the Hardings

She wakes up suddenly. She has been dreaming. As if she
had seen a vision ... She has a premonition of danger ... Now she gets up. Moves over to the
window and steps out on to the balcony.

Scene 53

Harding's study

6 meters

Night. Harding is sitting at his desk. He hears a noise Rushes out.

Scene 54

Ellen's bedroom

Medium close-up of door leading to the balcony Ellen is perching on the edge of the balcony. Harding
rushes into the room. Discovers that the bed is empty. He shouts: Ellen!

Title Ellen!

He catches sight of the sleepwalker at the moment when, woken up by his shouts, she loses her
balance and falls over. He runs up to her and gathers her in his arms. He carries her over to the bed. A
servant, alerted by the noise appears in the door. A doctor! shouts Harding. The servant disappears.

Fade-in.

The small castle room

Long Shot

Hutter in bed, tense and doubled up. Slowly,

Nosferatu creeps up on him.

Irresistible, he bends over the terrified and helpless man and buries his fangs in his throat.

Fade-out.

Scene 56

Fade in.

Ellen's bedroom Long shot:

7 meters

Ellen shouts:

Title Hutter!!!

Long shot:

Scene 57

The small castle room Medium close-up

Long shot Ellen in bed ...in delirium. Anny is kneeling by her side. A doctor. Professor Sievers, is
taking her pulse. Harding

Ellen trembles like a wounded bird. She doubles up throws herself about and retreats into a corner of
the bed.

8 meters

Night

NOSTERATU turns his head. He is listening intently as if he could feel - hear the terrified shouting in
the distance.

NOSTERATU moves away from Hutter's bed. He dissolves into the air! leaves the room

Scene 58 8 meters

Ellen's bedroom

Medium close-up: Ellen is calming down slowly. Her terror turns into apathy. Breathing weakly.

She settles back listlessly into her pillows. Sievers can tell the improvement from the pulse-rate and
says to Harding:

Title: Normal congestion of the blood. . . caused by an awkward position during sleep...

He has assumed an academic air. His beard trembles in his eagerness.

Fade-out.

Scene 59 3 meters Poczamok

Behind a pointed gable of the castle the sun is rising slowly.

Fade-out.

Scene 60

Fade-in.

The small castle room

7 meters

The light of dawn is falling through the window as though a sky-light and moving along the wall
until it reaches Hutter's face, looking half-faint

-ing, half asleep.

Suddenly he wakes up

Scene 60 continued

Scene 61

Dining hall He starts up and clutches his throat. He jumps out of bed, clenching his fists, runs over. To
the door. Carefully ...he looks out

6 meters

Daytime.

The room is empty ...Hutter, pale and hollow-eyed, staggers in. He looks around ...nothing. Shaking
his head, fists clenched with wild determination, he drags himself forward.

Scene 62

Portrait gallery with flight of stairs

62a. A curving gallery exterior

Scene 63

6 meters

Hutter is dragging himself along with difficulty. He goes down a few stairs. At the end of the
corridor he finds a door. He opens it.

Hutter opens one door after the other

15 meters

A vault Empty and dark.

In the center of the darkness a black coffin. Hutter has pushed the door open and enters. He starts
back. He stares without understanding. Fear grips him. But he must make certain. Trembling heavily,
he lifts up the coffin lid. He recoils in horror. Dropping the lid, he retreats into the darkest corner. For
inside the coffin he has seen, black and long, the lifeless body of NOSFERATU. Horror-stricken,

Hutter almost collapses. Then he rushes out.

Fade-out. Scene 64 Fade in. Sunset.

Scene 65

Fade-in.

A niche inside the castle

3 meters Poczamok Vratna Pass Tatra

Between a line of bizarre tree-trunks evening approaches like a ghost...

6 meters

The small castle room .

Hutter is crouched on the floor. His body is twisted with fear. His hair is standing on end ...his eyes are
staring. Suddenly, he starts up and listens. Can he hear a noise in this desolate place? Could it mean
his salvation? With difficulty he drags his weakened body over to the window.

Scene 66 Window frame for out-door shot

3 meters Poczamok

The walls of the castle seen from outside

Scene 67 Hutter stares from a window.

He refuses to believe what he sees.

The crossbar of a window

[12] meters 6 meters Poczamok

One can see a low-wheeled cart with the two fantastic horses harnessed to it. And now: is it a shadow?

A ghost. Nosferatu. He is moving to and fro, to and fro. From the cart to the castle. And back again.

Carrying boxes. Black coffin like boxes. From the back door of the castle to the carriage He piles them
up. Box on box. Into a gigantic pyramid. All this happens at an uncanny speed.

Scene 68

Part of the castle wall

3 meters Poczamok

Hutter, staring at the phantom with glazed eyes.

Scene 69 Castle yard

6 meters Poczamok

The carriage is now loaded. Suddenly the phantom jumps on to the topmost box and disappears inside
it. Instantly the horses dash off with the cart at lightning speed. The big gate closes behind them with a
bang.

Scene 70

The small castle room

8 meters

Hutter jumps back from the window.

Title Ellen!

NOSFERATU is on his way. Ellen is in danger. He has to hurry. Save Ellen. Ellen! Ellen!.

Suddenly, he starts tearing down the wall-hangings and tearing up the bedclothes. He tears them
making long pieces and knotting them into a rope.

Fade-out. Scene 71 The abyss

Medium close-up.

10 meters Poczamok

Hutter dangling from a window in the castle walls on a rope. But the rope is too short.

Beneath him, the abyss still opens up.

And yet he risks the drop - dead or alive. So he hurls himself down. Hutter is lying at the bottom of the
abyss, between trees and boulders. Tossing and turning in fever and pain. So he tries to lift himself up.

But pain seizes him again. Then he faints.

Scene 72

Fade-in.

By the river Pruth Waag

10 meters

The river flows majestically through the immense plain. The scenery is bathed in sunshine. All is
peaceful.

Then a large raft appears around a bend in the river and gloats slowly into view. Boatmen with long
poles are pushing it with considerable effort. At the stern a high pile of boxes. Black, coffin like
boxes. Stacked into a pyramid. An uncanny sight. Indefatigably, the boatmen go on punting The raft is
coming closer and closer - like doom.

Fade-out.

End of Act II Act III

Scene 73 12 meters

Title A Budapest hospital

Hospital Ward A long line of white beds.

In the foreground, Hutter. In bandages ... his eyes closed.

The doctor comes to him now.

He examines him. Questions the nurse She tells him about the case:

Title He was brought in yesterday
by Huzules who said he had fallen down a mountain. He is still feverish ...

As the doctor continues his examination Hutter wakes up, opens his eyes.

There is fear in his feverish look still.

The nurse hurries up to him to hold him.

Yet he crawls away to the end of the bed.

Spreads out his hands to defend himself.

Suddenly his eyes go dead. He collapses.

His lips are murmuring something ...

The doctor bends over to hear what he is saying. Hutter muttering to himself

Title Coffins - - -

Medium close-up: Doctor and nurse look at each other without
understanding.

Fade-out.

Scene 74

Fade-in.

The port of Varna

Close-up:

Normal shot:

18 meters

At the quayside, ready for loading, and next to other cargo the pile of black coffins. Custom
officials are examining the lettering and papers. They are approaching the boxes. The man searches
among the papers and hands over the freight letters to his boss.

Freight letter

Mixed cargo, from Varna to Whitby

Content: garden soil for experimental purposes. The inspector smiles incredulously. He orders a
search!! Barefooted dock-workers drag up one of the apparently very heavy boxes, heaving and
swearing. The inspector gives an order.

They open the lid with difficulty. There is earth inside! The inspector gives another order: turn it out!

The workers obey. Sand is falling out nothing but earth.

Satisfied, the inspector turns to another pile of cargo. Yet in the earth . . .something moves violently

...something is alive ...jumps out...horrible animals ...rats! One of the dock workers, who bends over to
scoop the scatters earth back hits out violently. Did not one of the animals...reeling from the blow ...

bite his foot?

Long shot: The big hand pulley [steam crane] hauls up one
of the boxes and drops it into the belly of the sailing-boat that is anchored at the quay. At the ship's
stern one can discern a name, underneath the baroque figure head; DEMETER

Scene 75 Title

12 meters

Professor Bulwer, a Paracelsian, explains the nature of carnivorous plants
to his students

The institute

Medium close-up: Professor Bulwer, surrounded by a few students,
quiet and simple people. They are listening to his lecture. Now he points emphatically to a plant
with a very strange shape.

Close-up: A flower. Its petals reaching out like tentacles.

Motionless. Now. And insect. Hovering, attracted by the scent . . . settles on the colorful calyx.

There in a flash the tentacles have gripped it. The insect is caught. Its struggling is in vain. With
irresistible force the flower has drawn it into the recesses of the calyx . . .

Medium- close-up: Bulwer pointing at the flower. Slowly his lips are moving:

Title: The patient who came in yesterday has had an attack.

Scene 77

Lunatic's cell

12 meters

Sievers and the attendant stop short at the door way. Straining their eyes to see into the semidarkness.

There, in the corner. Something moves slowly. It is a man. Now his face is in the light. Like a panther
preparing to leap, his ferocity restrained, he raises himself up slowly. His crazed burning eyes staring
at Sievers. And now we recognize him at last . . . it is Knock!!!

Suddenly, in one leap, he is at the window. Sievers is startled, says something to the attendant. Who
prepares the straitjacket be brought along. Yet the expected attack does not come.

Knock remains at the window, arms jerking, he begins . . . to catch flies which he puts into his mouth.

Horrible food. The madman's face twists into a grin that resembles distant lightning. His swollen lips
are murmuring something:

Title: Blood is life! Blood is life!!!

Suddenly, the madman starts up and throws himself with all his might on the unsuspecting Sievers.

Who can barely ward him off. But the attendant comes to his help quickly and throws the
straightjacket over the raging man's head.

The Institute:

Close-up: Bulwer, in a quiet, scholarly manner with his students. He points to an aquarium.

On a piece of rock in the water hangs a small polyp. Now it stretches out its tentacles, grabs a small
fish and pulls it up to its mouth. It is almost transparent, colorless and of a jelly-like consistency.

Title: And this one . . .a polyp with tentacles . . . transparent . . . almost incorporeal . . . almost a
phantom . . .

Scene 79

Lunatic's cell. Close-up

8 meters

On the floor, in his straitjacket, whining pitifully, mad Knock. His face. Turning his sad eyes
upwards. He notices something there. His lips form a word:

Title: Spiders . . . !

Close-up: A spider-web with a live spider which clutches, vampire-like an insect and is sucking its
blood.

Normal: Knock in exultation.

Sievers stands motionless . . . does not understand. Brusquely, he gives an order and leaves.

Fade-out.

Scene 80 4 meters

Fade in.

The graveyard of

Whitby

View from the pier-head towards the shore. In the foreground the surging sea. Further back, where the
shore rises steeply, the graveyard of Whitby.

Closer: The graveyard. Afternoon light. In front of the graveyard
a long row of benches. People are strolling up and down looking out on to the sea . . . sitting on the
benches and enjoying the view.

Medium close-up: A bench, somewhat apart from the others. Ellen is
sitting there. Dreamily, her eyes searching a distant country beyond the sea. She seems to be in an
anxious daydream about her distant lover. Now she shuts her eyes, because tears are welling up.

Scene 81 4 meters Croquet?

In Harding's Park Harding, youthful and athletic, is batting. The shuttlecock
flies high up into the air. Anny, in a light dress, shouts with joy . . . catches it . . . throws it back.

The shuttlecock flies backwards and forwards. It is a picture of health and light.

At the park gates. The postman, a small old man, rummages
in his leather bag and produces a letter which he hands with an air of importance to Harding's
servant who is as old and wizened as he. Before he leaves, the postman points to the stamp which
seems to be of special value, lifting up his eyebrows: This letter has travelled ar . . . it comes from a
very remote country. The two old men bend over the rare letter. Then the old servant takes it in.

Scene 83 In the park

6 meters

As the servant approaches. Harding and Anny stop playing. Anny takes the letter, reads the address
and runs to her brother. It is for Ellen, she says, pointing into the distance. Shall we take it to her
straight away. Harding agrees, they hand their rackets over to the serand walk off.

Scene 84

At the graveyard Medium close-up:

3 meters

Ellen is still sitting there, looking over the vast waters, lost in her sad longing thoughts.

Scene 85 The sea

3 meters Heligoland

Distant view over the sea. A sand bank skirted by rocks, jutting out into the surf waters.

Scene 86

At the graveyard.

12 meters

Harding and Anny are approaching. They are joining the lonely Ellen. shaking hands and trying to
cheer her up. Guess what we have brought you! They show her the letter. Ellen trembles. She takes the
letter quickly and tries to open it! I cannot do it. Gladly and quickly, Anny takes over. You'll see, he is
safe and sound and sends you good news. She starts to read it gives a joyful laugh, she was right. All is
well. The worries were unfounded Happily she gives Ellen the letter. But barely has she read the letter
when Ellen's face assumes an expression of hurt certainty. Does she derive evil premonitions from
these lines?

Close up: The letter.

the mosquitoes are a real pest. I have been stung on the neck by two at once, very close together,
one on each side . . .

Normal: Ellen's face is distorted as if she were suffering physical pain. Harding and Anny are
perplexed.

Scene 87

Title:

The port of Galaz at night.

Fade-out:

Scene 88

The hospital at Budapest GALAZ

The 'Demeter' is anchored off the jetty. Nobody is about on the quay. A stormy night, strange
uncertain light. Suddenly - a gentle movement from the ship down the gangway to the shore . . . rats . .

.

The coffins are reloaded

10 meters

Hutter, dressed, stands in front of his bed. He looks pale and weak still, yet full of resolution. The
nurse notices his unsteady stance. She fusses around him. You ought to stay a few more days! Have
some more rest! But he wards her off. His gestures are restless and fluttering, a strange force has taken
possession of him.

Title: I have to get home by the shortest possible way! !

So he says goodbye, disregarding the nurse's advice, thanks her for her care and goes out quickly.

Scene 89

Title: Constantinople

The port. Night. Wild dogs are barking from the debris in the street up to the distant firmament,
writhing in the mud like snakes.

Focus on quay: The "Demeter" at anchor. What's scuttling over there? . . .

A shadow from the ship to the land . . . rats. . . one. . . four. . . ten . . . and endless stream . . .the
carry terror with them.

Scene 90 8 meters Polnischer Kamm Non-stop rain Entry to the Vratna Gorge

Title: In the Hungarian plain.

Coach station in the Pusta The mail coach is arriving at top speed. The coachman whips his
exhausted horses into a last effort. The coach has barely stopped when Hutter jumps off. He calls for
more speed. Now fresh horses are being brought along.

Hutter joins the grooms and tells them to hurry on! To hurry on!

The tired horses have been taken out of harness and are being led to the stable. Bring fresh horses!

Hutter gives a helping hand. Now the straps are done up. The coachman blows his horn. Some late-
comers appear. They get into the coach. Hutter is the last. And the heavy coach rumbles off, the horses
galloping, sparks flying from the hooves, dust rising, into the pathless country.

Fade- out. Hutter leads a limping horse through

Scene 91

Fade-in:

The port of Constantiople

Long shot.

In a fresh breeze, the "Demeter" emerges from the confusion of mast-heads and gains the open sea.

Scene 92

Lunatic's cell

15 meters

In a stupor, Knock is perching on his bunk. The attendant holding a broom, is about to leave the cell.

At this moment Knock lifts his eyes. With a look of artful cunning and with rigid concentration he
follows the attendant's movements. Now, he seems to have discovered an opportunity; softly, he
sneaks up on the unsuspecting man and takes away the newspaper that sticks out of his pocket. The
attendant does not notice and shuts the door behind him. The moment Knock is alone he unfolds the
paper trembling with expectancy and starts reading. searching for something with wide-open eyes.

Now he has found what he was looking for. He is riveted to this passage.

Close-up: The Newspaper

PLAGUE

In Transyvania and in the Black Sear ports of Varna and Galaz a plague epidemic has started. Young
women in particular fall victim to it in large numbers. All the victims show the same peculiar wound
marks on the neck whose origin is still an enigma to the Doctors

The Dardenelles have been closed to all ships suspected of carrying the epidemic. It is out of the
question that the epidemic will reach Western Europe.

Medium close-up: Knock's mocking, triumphant face assumes an
expression of demonic grandeur. He straightens himself up, lifts up his head, raises his arms as if
greeting the evil.

Scene 93 8 meters North Sea

Title: Open Sea

Sea. The Mediterranean. In the distance the "Demeter" sailing through the waters gleaming in the
evening light.

Dissolve. Medium close-up The ship's deck

The ship's mate is running up the companion-way in great agitation and crosses the deck on his
way to the captain's cabin.

In the captain's cabin The captain of the 'Demeter' bent over maps, making entries in the log-book.

The mater enters and reports excitedly:

Title: Below deck a sailor has fallen ill. He is talking in a fever.

The captan looks up, shocked. He leaves his work and follow the mate.

Scene 95

Below deck.

Medium Close-up:

Shot of hold

12 meters

In the background the ship's hold. Among other cargo in the deep darkness the coffins. To be seen
through an open door. In the foreground the crew's cabin with hammocks In one of them the delirious
sailor.

Captain and mate go up to the patient who stares at them as if they were ghosts. He seems to listen
intently. Every noise makes him start.

Brooding, intense darkness. The lid of one of the coffins seems to open a little.

Medium close-up: The captain, more angry than concerned, advises the patient
in his uncouth sailor's way to have a strong drink. Promptly the mate produces his bottle and give
it to the patient. The smell seems to wake him up from his lethargy and he takes
a long sip. The captain tells him to have a good rest and goes out again with the mate.

The sailor alone. His eyes wandering . . .

Suddenly, they remain fixed, as if spellbound, on the door leading to the hold.

In horror he sits up and remains in a crouching position as if turned to stone.

Pan to the door leading into the hold. There, horrible and awe-inspiring, stands NOSFERATU And . . .

he . . . approaches.

Fade out

Scene 96 10 meters Hornunger Moor Lüneburger Heide

Wild and desolate scenery In the distance a galloping horseman on the plain. He comes closer and
closer . . . moving at tremendous speed. It is Hutter.

Dissolve

Medium close-up: Hutter, standing near his horse and examining its injured hoof. With a desperate
gesture, he lets go of it. Yet he has made his decision. He must go on. He takes the horse by the reins
and walks on, dragging the limping animal after him.

Title: The gulf of Biscay

On deck, the 'Demeter'

Shot of ship's side Evening. In the last light of the sun captain and mate are about to push the
shrouded corpse of the last sailor over the railing. They have covered their mouths and noses with
cloths for protection.

The corpse is slid down into the water by ropes.

On deck. For a moment the two last survivors pause in quiet contem
plation of the horror of death. Suddenly, the mate's body stiffens, he has made a resolution. For a
short moment, he shuts his eyes and tries to master the horror that is rising up inside him. Then he
pulls himself together, tears the cloth off his face, takes up an axe and, brandishing it in the air, calls
out:

Title: I'm going down!!! If I haven't come back in ten minutes . . .

With the courage of a desperate man he hurries over to the companion-way.

Scene 98

Below deck.

12 meters

There are the black boxes. They are the man's target. He lifts his axe at the first one and shatters its
lid. There it is: He is tempted to retreat.

Rats! All round his ankles he feels the crawling of horrible creatures. Yet he pulls himself together for
a second time. Another box, smashed by a second blow. And the same thing happens again: rats! only
rats! He is wading through wriggling bodies which surround him from all sides. Yet he withstands the
horror. There, a third box.

Close-up: The mate. In despair, foaming at the lips, he prepares for the third blow.

Long shot: The axe falls from his hand. His hair is standing on end.

Quick as lightning NOSFERATU rears up from the box. Now the mate is finally overcome by
horror . . . Covering his eyes with his hands he runs upstairs, crazy with fear. Slowly and steadily,

NOSFERATU is approaching.

Scene 99 Fade-in. On deck

8 meters

The captain is guarding the helm. Then from the hatch, the mate emerges . . . his hair has turned
grey . . . his face looks crazed . . . he is foaming at the mouth . . trying to escape. . . he sways . . .turns
deliriously in a circle . . .loses his sense of direction. . .does not see the railing. . . and overshoots it.

Falling head first.

The captain watches in horror. Now he is left all alone. But his face remains determined. He picks up a
rope and ties himself to the helm, not to be tempted to leave. Thus he awaits the horror. . .

Fade out. End of Act III

Acr IV

Scene 100

Fade-in.

A cliff by the coast

Scene 101

Anny's room.

5 meters Heligoland

Night, roaring surf.

The storm is howling. A gigantic wave moves up, breaks the water splashes high up.

Moving coach

5 meters

Night. Anny is asleep.

The storm is pushing against the windows, opening them. The curtain is billowing and fluttering in the
wind. Anny wakes up. Confused, Terrified, she jumps up. She tries to shut the window, yet cannot
bring herself to do it. The storm is pushing her back . . . she recoils. She runs out of the room.

Waves

Ellen

Anny wakes up Carriage

Ellen walking forward

Waves

Carriage Hutter Anny wakes up Waves

Ellen Anny

Boat

Scene 102

Ellen's room at the Hardings

3 meters

The storm is sweeping through the open window. The bed is empty . . . Anny enters. She knows at
once what has happened, - rushes out.

Scene 103

Roof of Harding's mansion

4 meters

Ellen, her clothes fluttering in the wind, her hair like a flag, is sleeping in the storm. She stretches
out her arms defensively. A white figure against the black night sky.

Scene 104 Scene 105

Sea. XXXXXXXXXX

6 meters Contre jour North Sea

High Sea.

The storm is raging, enormous tidal waves . . . In the distance a sailing ship, the 'Demeter' at full sail,
racing to its perdition.

Trick

(Scenes 106 and 107 are missing)

Scene 108

View across the town at night

6 meters

The storm is tossing the trees.

Sailing boat moving towards it objective. Scene 109 is missing Scene 110

Sea

12 meters Wismar

The storm rages violently. The sand bank threatens 'Demeter', the fatal ship, has closer, still moving at
full speed.

Scene 111

Roof Balcony of Harding's mansion

View from the sea towards the harbor. Sailing ships are coming in at full sail. Contre jour

(wismar). Trick

Ellen runs out from room

Broken axle

Ellen runs through garden

Ship moves towards objective

Knock 1

Ship coming into the harbor

Hutter running street. Knock

Ship in harbour. Nosferatu appears Hutter running through street

Nosferatu through gate with coffin Door Hutter

Knock escape

Nosferatu square or street

Room]

4 meters

Ellen in Anny's arm. Her hair is fluttering in the wind. Ellen stretching her hands towards the sea,
as if trying to defend herself.

Title: I must go home. He is coming.

Scene 112

At the graveyard

View over the sea In the foreground the crosses. In the back sandbank and
cliffs. In the distance people, hurrying to rescue the shipwrecked. The sand bank. The ship crashes
into it . . . turns over on its side.

View through archway: the sailing boat is moving past. Weimar

Scene 113 Lunatic's cell Long shot:

4 meters

Knock alone. He drags up a chair . . . to the window. He climbs up on it.

Medium close-up:

Scene 113a

The stranded ship

Medium close-up Knock pulls himself up by the bars, trying to look out. The wind, blowing in,
makes his hair stand on end uncannily. 10 meters

Dead and forsaken. a rope is dangling from the deck. It is swaying in the wind.

An endless number of rats climbing down the swaying rope.

Shot of deck. The hatch. It opens slowly. NOSFERATU climbs out. He carries the last coffin. Remains
standing. Motionless. The image of death. Then he approaches slowly.

1) Ship anchored in the harbor. Dissolve

2)Ship's hatch with a piece of deck.

Trick: 1) Canvas glides away from hatch. 2) Hatch lid is lifted.

3) Rats are rushing on deck.

4) Nosferatu coffin in arms climbs out.

Scene 114 8 meters Lauenburg or Travemünde

Town center.

Medium close-up: Trees, shaken by storm. A carriage races up, stops abruptly. Hutter jumps from the
carriage.

An axle is broken.

The coachman seems at a loss.

Hutter cannot wait. He leaves the carriage and runs off.

Scene 115

Archway with a view of the harbor:

5 meters

Nosferatu enters the town

Scene 116

The roof of Harding's mansion.

Title:

6 meters

Ellen's room at the Hardings'

Ellen and Anny. Ellen suddenly breaks away. Overjoyed as if she had a happy vision she throws her
arms up and shouts:

I must go to him. He is coming!!

Scene 117 She moves off and vanishes.

Anny wrings her hands in despair.

4 meters

Storm-tossed trees. A white figure comes out of the house. It is Ellen. She is running through the park.

118

118a
perhaps Lüneberg Street

Shuttered windows. Nosferatu striding Hutter, running along the street.

Scene 119

Lunatic's cell

Long shot:

Medium close-up:

8 meters

Knock, moving away from the window wall

The madman is listening for outside noises, as if he had received a signal from the other world . . .

triumphantly . . . he whispers to himself:

Titles: The master is near . . .the master is near . . .!

Long shot: Suddenly, he listens attentively.

He creeps over to the door. There he waits expectantly . . . The door opens. The attendant appears.

He looks around the room. Not noticing that Knock is behind him. Knock creeps carefully behind his
back. Suddenly frightened, the attendant turns around. Knock makes for his throat like a vampire. The
attendant falls over. The madman is at his throat
for a moment only, then he lets go and sneaks out.

Scene 120

In front of Hutter's house

Scene 121

5 meters

Hutter comes running up. He looks up: no light. He is just about to enter when - somebody is calling.

He turns around Ellen!!!!! They fall into each other's arms.

Square with fountain 5 meters

Nosferatu, coffin under his arm, is standing in the middle of the square. Looking around to orientate
himself. Then he strides on.

Scene 122

Hutter's parlour

4 meters 2x

Ellen's sitting room

A lamp is shining. Hutter and Ellen. They are sitting on the chaise lounge. The happiness of being
reunited was too much. Overpowered by emotion, he sinks down on her arm.

Scene 123

In front of Hutter's house

4 meters

Nosferatu, staring up

Scene 124 Fade-in.

6 meters

Hutter and Ellen, on the chaise lounge. He sits up, looking deep into her eyes.

Title: Thank God . . . you are well . . .now everything has come all right.

She does not understand him. But the joy of being together again is stronger than anything else.

And the room is bright.

[Scene 125]

Street in front of Hutter's House

Shot of Hutter's house The deserted house

10 meters

There is nobody about. But in the middle of the street stands NOSFERATU, hidden by the night,
carrying the coffin. Slowly, he turns his head and looks over to Hutter's house.

[There is a friendly light in the window]

Empty! Carrying the coffin - Nosferatu appears in picture.

Medium close-up: NOSFERATU. Once more he turns his head. He looks over
to the other side. The deserted house is over there. He makes for that now, walking slow.

Then he goes into the house.

Fade-out.

Scene 126

On the stranded ship

Close-up:

Close-up:

12 meters

The captain, collapsed in death, is tied to the helm. In the foreground, some men, Harding among
them, are climbing up on deck. They are aghast at the terrible sight. The dead captain. Tied to the
helm in discharge of his duty! One hand is still on the helm. The other, holding a crucifix, clutches his
chest in mortal agony.

His head sunk back, face distorted. There are two red marks on his neck . . .

Harding. He cannot comprehend the horror . . .

Scene 127

Sandbank harbor Long shot:

Close-up:

Medium close-up:

6 meters

The stranded ship is in sight. It is night-time In the blowing wind nocturnal figures . . .townspeople

Down the tilted hulk a man is climbing along a rope. By the light of a torch! the captain of the harbor
with a number of old people . . . Looking like fishermen. The climber approaches and reports.

Title: Everything has been examined . . No living soul on board.

The captain receives the report . . . jots down some notes.

Scene 128

On board ship. Long shot:

Captain's cabin:

10 meters [Is inserted below]

Night

Back-board with helm.

Some men are lifting up the dead captain, and carrying off the corpse.

Harding alone . . . he finds a book next to a masthead that is affixed to the helm. In the light of a dim
lantern he reads:

Close-up: A page of the book

Varna - July 12

Crew - apart from myself the captain - one helmsman mate and five sailors.

Departing - for the Dardanelles.

Normal Shot: Harding shakes his head.

He is puzzled.

On deck. Harding emerges from the cabin with the book in his hand.

Fade-out.

Scene 129

Fade-in:

Port Authority building

Medium Close-up:

15 meters

Daytime

A large hall. On the walls a number of figure heads Models of ships are suspended from the ceiling.

The dead captain [is carried] in lying in state.

Dr. Sievers is examining him. He notices the marks on his neck.

Dr. Sievers turns to Harding. He, too, cannot make sense of this case. Nevertheless he talks
incessantly. Harding comes closer shows him the log-book. Both of them are reading:

Close-up: The log-book. A page:

Second day: July 13

A sailor has fallen ill with a fever. Course: SSW. Direction of wind:

Third day: July 14

Mate is talking strangely. He says there is an unknown passenger below deck.

Course SE. Direction of wind NE.

Volume of wind 3.6.

Normal shot: Sievers and Harding are looking at each other. Sievers' white beard is trembling. They
continue reading.

Tenth day: July 22

Rats in the ship's hold. Danger of plague.

Normal shot: Harding has been reading this aloud.

Now Sievers understands at last. He points to the book with his finger. Danger of plague! That's
what it is. Danger of plague, he calls out.

Title: Danger of plague!

Go home!

Shut all your windows and doors!

Deeply frightened, the bystanders move away. The women put the ends of their head-scarves into
their mouths. Panicstricken .the crowd leaves the room.

Fade-out.

Scene 130

Fade-in

A deserted square:

Medium close-up: Medium close-up:

Medium close-up:

(Perhaps end of act) 15 meters

Nobody is about. Except in the center of the square, the town-drummer with his large drum.

The drummer. He beats a mighty roll.

A closed window. The hatch opens and a woman's head appears: totally emaciated, sunken cheeks,
long dishevelled hair. The disease has gripped her too. On her neck the ominous little marks.

The drummer has produced a piece of paper and reads it aloud:

Title: All citizens are notified that the honorable
magistrate of this town prohibits any movement of plague-suspects into hospitals to prevent the
plague from spreading through the streets.

The drummer has finished reading and goes off.

End of Act IV

Act V

Scene 131

Fade in.

A bend in a street

15 meters

A man emerges from a front door. He shuts the door behind him. Quickly and with circumspection
he chalks a white cross on the door. Then goes on.

Panning shot: The adjoining house. The man knocks hard on the door. From a window above a head
looks out. There are still people living here. The man moves on.

Panning shot: The first house in the side-street. A coffin is being
carried out. Men carrying it have white bandages over their mouths. The man comes along and
draws a cross on this house, too. Then he walks on, following his horrible business.

Scene 132 15 meters 2x shaded candle on table near armchair.

Ellen's bedroom Close-up:

Dissolve to: Book-cover Inscription

(Vampire) See Chapter 1 of book.

Ellen by the window, the book on her knees continues reading, overcoming her aversion. Chapter II
appears.

Medium close-up: Ellen is pondering on what she has read.

Hutter comes into the picture, with agitation almost hostility he grabs the book.

Ellen, standing now, looks straight into his eyes, turns and points over to the deserted house.

Compare the following
black dress and shawl

Hutter, black waist-coat and jacket.

Ellen's room. Long shot:

Medium close

Scene 133

The deserted house Almost at once dissolve to window.

Medium close-up:

Ellen by the window. Hutter approaches from the door

Suddenly, she grabs his arm, stares out of the window pointing out, she shouts: There!!! Her body is
tensed up like a bow trembling with excitement.

3 meters

Seen through Ellen's window frame.

A window, divided into four rectangular panes. Light from behind. Stuck to the window, almost
completely covering it,
something looking like a black fourlegged spider. It takes a moment before one can make out

Nosferatu's fingers which are clawing the window frame. In the center of the body, grinning
lasciviously, the waxen face with ratlike teeth.

Scene 134

Ellen's bedroom.

8 meters 2x

Ellen holds frantically on to Hutter's hand [shaken] breathing heavily

She bends her head back. towards him saying.

Title: This is how I see it- every evening. . .!!!

She bends her head back. She knows all she has to know. And there is peace in the knowledge.

Hutter has not come to that yet. He finds her calmness disturbing. He follows the retreating figure
with his eyes.

Medium close-up: Medium close-up: Fade-out.

Ellen is swaying.

Hutter, despairingly, presses his fist against his face.

Scene 135

In front of Hutter's house 6 meters

It is now evening. The lamp-lighter comes down the darkening street and lights up the street-lamps.

The he walks on.

! remains!

Scene 136

Fade-in:

Anny's bedroom Long shot:

10 meters

Anny crouching on a chaise lounge. Bent over her Harding who is holding her hands and trying to
calm down the struggling woman who is shaking fitfully. She collapses with exhaustion. Then pulls
himself together and decides:

Title: I will run over quickly . . . I shall get Sievers.

And he is gone.

Medium close-up: Anny, having almost fainted with fear, comes to
again. She opens her eyes. She lifts her head. Nobody around?? Is she all alone?? Isn't there
something moving about in the corner? Something fluttering at the window?

Medium close-up: The window, covered by the curtain. Behind it
the shadow of a giant bat.

It grows and grows. Soon it isn't a bat any longer. A vampire! NOSTERATU?!

Medium close-up: Anny's body hits the wall. She jumps up and pulls the bell. Then half crazed with
fear, she runs into the background.

Scene 137

Anny's bedroom.

Long shot:

Night. Servants running to and fro in the direction of the bedroom.

137a

137b The bell is ringing.

Servant's room. A servant asleep doesn't hear, turns over in his sleep

138

Anny's Bedroom 3 meters

Anny pressed close to the wall. Servants are rushing in. There!

She shouts pointing to the window. Like a flock of chicken the women are huddling together. Anny
rushes over to them, but they are already so gripped by fear that they imagine her fingers, which they
are trying to push back, to be the vampire's claws. Shrieking, they run off in all directions. The door is
slammed shut. Anny beats against the door. She is waiting for the horror, but she doesn't want to see
it, much rather die first. She grabs a table cloth and covers her head and neck. Then she collapses.

Fade-out. Scene 139 3 meters

Fade-in.

Ellen's bedroom Daytime. Ellen by the window . . .looking out. She stands motionless. Paralysed by
misery she witnesses the daily scene of wretchedness.

Scene 140 8 meters

Street in front of Hutter's's house Ascending. In the distance, a strange procession is wandering
across the street. One coffin after another carried by survivors. Past Hutter's house, towards the
procession, a man is dragging himself along, tired to death. She supports himself by a stick. He
catches sight of the distant procession and lifts up his hands to heaven in misery.

Scene 141 with window -frame Ellen

Ellen's room. Ellen, on the point of fainting, turns away from the window She cannot bear the sight of
this wretchedness any longer. She sinks into a chair, resting her head in her hands.

Close-up: Close up: The book, open. She has been reading it for days A page of the book:

ONLY IF A CHASTE WOMAN

CAN FEARLESSLY MAKE

HIM

MISS THE FIRST CROWING

OF THE COCK WILL HE DISINTEGRATE IN THE LIGHT OF

DAWN

Close-up: Ellen lifts up her head, staring into space like a visionary.

She knows. She shuts her eyes.

Fade out. Scene 142

Fade-in.

In front of Harding's mansion..

Medium close-up:

Fade-out.

3 meters

The porch. Harding - haggard - a broken man, comes out. He closes the door and supports himself
against the door-post. His hand reaches up, paints a black cross on the door . . .and falls down. His
hollow eyes refrain from looking at his work . . . again . . . they cannot bear to see the symbol. He
moves forward with a glazed look in his eyes. Harding: black cape, dark trousers

Scene 143

Fade-in.

In front of deserted house

7 meters

Street

A group of emaciated men with a fanatical look about them are standing around. An unkept-looking
woman is haranguing them. They are raising their fists.

Title: He has been seen!

He ran out of the house! He strangled the attendant!

Scene 144

Well in the market-place

Close-up:

8 meters

Two ancient women are sitting by the well. Death has no terrors for them. Since every new day is a
present to them.

The are whispering to each other; their heads are trembling.

Title: In the deserted house. . .

that's where it is hiding.

He strangled him. The vampire.

Medium close-up:

Close up: Long shot: Further back agitated people are running across the square, shouting
excitedly to one another. The two woman turn around gesturing fiercely.

The clench their bony fists threateningly. Harding can be seen behind the well. He has heard
everything. He utters a bitter and mocking laugh.

Harding walks on.

144a

Street shot from above:

Close-up: 10 meters

Crossing. Crowd gathering from all sides, then moving in one direction.

A street-corner with a man
who points at something above. People rush up to him; they all turn to face the same way, look
up, make threatening gestures Somebody throws stones.

Scene 145

Gable of a house A figure is crouching on a roof-top

Scene 146 (?)

Medium close-up:

Scene 147

Ellen's bedroom

Medium close-up:

It is Knock. He is looking down with a sneer on his face and pokes out his tongue A stone
whizzes part him. He suddenly gets up and clambers off.

8 meters

Ellen in an old armchair, busy embroidering a cushion in the cross-stitch manner of the 1840s An
inscription reading:

I LOVE YOU

She puts down her work, resting her head. Tired, she falls to day-dreaming. Then she lights a lamp.

Ellen takes up her work again, determined to finish it.

Scene 148

Back of deserted house.

Evening 4 meters

The street is empty. Knock jumps down a wall and runs off. In the distance some men appear, chasing
him. They catch sight of him and rush after him.

Scene 149

Meadows outside the town

8 meters

Shot against a wide expanse of sky. In the distance running figures, no more then silhouettes (Turn
slowly) Knock in front. His pursuers following a long way behind.

Scene 150 Fields.

3 meters

Evening mists. Cornfields waving in the wind. Suddenly, right in front between the ears of corn head.

Dishevelled hair. Then a bony back The heads turn around slowly.

It is Knock.

Scene 151

A lane between fields.

3 meters

The landscape has grown dim in the evening light. The men chasing Knock are approaching. They
stop. They seem to have lost the trail.

Suddenly, one of them sees something. He opens his eyes wide, shouting: there!!!

They all look one way. They dash off in that direction.

Scene 152

Cornfield, Long-shot:

10 meters

In the distance one can still the back and dishevelled head. Is it Knock? He seems not to hear or see
his pursuers. The men are coming near, rushing towards him across the field.

They lift their sticks and fists.

Scene 152 continued Medium close-up

Long-shot: A scare-crow. A black coat is dangling on a stick. Bits of straw and tattered rags. The
men fall on it in the disappointment. Suddenly they stop. There! What can that be !!!

A hundred feet away a head has appeared. Then the figure of a man. It is moving away quickly. The
chase starts up again.

Fade-out.

Scene 153 3 meters

Title: Night

Deserted house. Medium close-up:

Nosferatu at the window.

Dissolve

Scene 154

Ellen's bedroom Medium close-up:

Long shot:

Medium close-up: 8 meters 2x

Ellen wakes up. She sits up in bed, listening as if she had heard somebody calling her. She gets up,
walking as if pulled by invisible threads.

She goes over to the window. In the foreground Hutter asleep in an armchair, looking worn out.

Ellen is clinging to the window. She sees.

Scene 155.

Deserted house. 3 meters

Nosferatu at the window. He raises his arms slowly.

156

Ellen's room

Medium close-up: Ellen is about to collapse by the window.

Shaking with fear she struggles violently with herself. The last battle.

Twice her hands comes up to open the window and drops down again weakly; then, with sudden
determination, she pulls herself up dead straight and deliberately throws the window wide open.

157

Deserted house. Medium close-up:

Scene 158

Ellen's room. Close-up:

4 meters

Window

Nosferatu moves away from the window, turns around and disappears.

4 meters

Ellen trembling with fear and apprehension

Scene 159

Deserted house

Medium close-up Locked-up gates

Suddenly the gates swing open: Nosferatu appears

Scene 160

Ellen's room.

Medium close-up: 12 meters 2x

Ellen is covering her face with her hands, seized with mortal fear.

Long shot; window
moves out of picture Ellen at window. She wants to call for help.

She staggers forward. She stops in front of Hutter. One last moment of indecision.

Then she wakes him up. Hutter jumps to his feet. He catches the trembling figure in his arms. and
carries her over to the sofa.

She begs him, hands raised as if in prayer:

Title: Bulwer . . . Fetch Bulwer!

She entreats him to go. Hutter takes her hands, she quickly kisses his head,

Then he rushes out.

Scene 161

In front of Hutter's House.

3 meters

A path bordered by flowers.

Hutter rushes out.

Trousers, pleated shirt, collar without tie. No hat no waist coat.

Scene 162 Ellen's room Long shot. 5 meters

Ellen is still looking in the direction she saw Hutter leave, then she gets up and walks toward the
window.

Scene 163

Deserted house.

Long Shot:

Nosferatu is walking forward and moves out of the picture. The house looks more deserted than ever!

164

In front of Hutter's
house

Nobody is about. Nosferatu is approaching. He comes to a halt. (He is preparing to jump, looks up) He
enters the house.

165

Ellen's room Ellen turns around suddenly. She is shaking with
fear, anticipating the horror about to happen. And it is coming - - slowly, tensed like a predatory
animal. She recoils, moves backwards step by step, and step by step it follows her

Heart! - Hand

Bulwer's laboratory (Living room)

In addition to the already familiar fish tanks there
is a large telescope by a window. A profusion of antiquated scientific gadgets, globes etc. A lamp
is burning. Bulwer asleep in dressing-gown and night-cap in the armchair. Cages with birds and all
kinds of animals. Hutter rushes in. He wakes Bulwer, begs him to come with him. Bulwer starts to get
dressed.

Scene 167

A municipal building on the period (town hall)

Scene 168

An office room inside the town hall

A large crowd is gathering in front of the town hall. Knock has been captured. More people keep
pouring in from all sides.

Omitted

5 meters

Sievers rushes in excitedly from the adjoining room accompanied by a man who has brought him
the news. From the other side Knock is being brought in. The lunatic is trembling with fear. exit

Scene 169 Ellen's room

Scene 170

4 meters

Night. Ellen in bed, the strangler is at her throat, his fingers clawing her arms. Her eyes, widened in
mortal fear, have a glazed look. Then she seems to have heard something.

A cock jumps on to a still-life farm implements. He flaps his wings, puffs up his throat and heralds the
morning.

Scene 171

Siever's lunatic's cell Inside the town hall

6 meters

Knock

Knock at the window, held by two men. Trying to ward them off, he shouts anxiously:

Title: The master . . . the master . . .!

Scene 172

Ellen's room. Nosferatu raises his head. He looks drunk with
pleasure. Ellen eyes are full of terrible fear. She must not allow Nosferatu just to go. She pulls her
arms around him: he cannot resist and bends his head over her again.

Omitted

Scene 173 3 meters

The sun is rising over the small town. Scene 174

Ellen's room Ellen's last moment of apprehension. There,
isn't that a flicker of sunlight on the wall over her bed? Here eyes light up hopefully and remain
fixed on this first sign of the new day. She stretches out her hand for it. And look: it is moving
downwards.

Street with front gardens The long shadows of sunrise. Nobody is about

Then shoulders of Hutter and Bulwer appear. They are hurrying on and turning into a side street.

Scene 176 Ellen's room

8 meters

The bed is bathed in sunlight. Ellen's eyes are full of anticipation. Has she sacrificed herself in vain?

Suddenly the horrible figure jerks himself up. He looks about in amazement. He clutches his heart.

The bestial tenseness of his bearing relaxes. For a moment he stands, legs apart, as if trying to regain
his balance. He clutches his heart again and falls on his knees, his face turned to the sun, distorted by
pain.

Scene 177

Siever's lunatic cell Town hall

Medium close-up:

Knock 5 meters

Knock, in a straitjacket, alone in the sunlight which is falling through a barred window. He is
mumbling disconnected words:

Title: The master . . .the master . . . is dead.

Scene 178 Ellen's room His head sinks on to his chest.

8 meters

Nosferatu on his knees, supporting himself with one hand on the ground. He raises the other in the
direction of the sun to shield himself from the light that brings him death. But he cannot hold out
against the sun. His fingers, his hand, his arm are dissolving in the light. The sun seems about to strike
his heart. Now his body is disintegrating in the light. Ellen throws up her hands triumphantly calling:

Title: Hutter!

Scene 179

In front of Hutter's House 4 meters

Shot looking out from the doorway into the distance. Bulwer and Hutter are running, not just walking
into the house.

Scene 180

Close-up: 8 meters

Ellen in bed. In anticipation, her hand reaches out for Hutter. Hutter comes rushing in, falls on his
knees by the bed. He takes hold of her hand.

Her hand grasps his, the it lets go weakly and drops away.

Ellen's head falls over - - - -

Bulwer is standing at the window, hands behind his back looking out.

THE END

Courtesy of Frankfurt Archives, Germany

NOSFERATU
a symphony of horror

Based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker Freely adapted by Henrik Galeen Direction: F.W. Murnau

Costumes and sets by Albin Grau Photography by F.A. Wagner Music by Hans Erdmann Characters

Count Orlok

Hutter

Ellen, his wife

Harding, a shipbuilder

Anny

Professor Sievers municipal doctor Knock, a house agent

Professor Bulwer, a Paracelsian Captain

1st Sailor

2nd Sailor

Max Schreck

Gustav von Wangenheim Greta Schroeder

G.H. Schnell

Ruth Landshoff

Gustav Botz

Alexander Branach

John Gottowt

Mac Nemetz

Wolfgang Heinz

Albert Venohr

Authors Note: The best version of Nosferatu is available on Kino DVD

Max Shreck

In “The Phantom of the Opera”

“THERE IS NO LON CHANEY . . . . . . I am the character I am creating. That is all.”

My Own Story

By

THIS has always been Chaney’s reply to hundreds of questions asked about his
personal life. No one has ever been able to learn anything of the man who exists
behind the spectacular shadows we see on the screen. In writing his autobiography,

Lon Chaney breaks his mysterious silence of years

AS IS quite generally known, I am not much in favor of personal publicity. I feel that an actor’s
private life is his own and should be disassociated, as much as possible, from his work. When I appear
on the screen, I want the public to see the character I am endeavoring to portray— not the man Lon

Chaney. I do not see how an audience can seriously consider an actor’s work, if, through interviews
and articles concerning him they know every detail of his private life—what he eats for breakfast, how
many holes of golf he plays a day, and all that sort of thing. I try to dodge interviews, as a rule. Let my
work speak for me. That’s enough.

In relating this story of my life, I’m really breaking a rule that I set for myself when first I attained
some prominence in the motion picture field. I shall talk of myself, freely, for the first time. I am

doing this for just one reason. I have been told that the motion picture fans, who have made my
success possible,

In “Shadows”

In “He Who Gets Slapped”

In“ The Penalty”

In “The Tower of Lies”

Lon; Caroline.

The parents of Lon Chaney were both deaf- mutes. But, as is frequently the case when deaf-
mutes marry, their four children were all normal.

There were three children besides John, the oldest, and George and

Colorado, on April 1, 1883. I am of Irish and French-German decent.

My father and mother were both deafmutes, born without the faculty of speech or hearing. My
mother’s mother, Emma Kennedy, had two daughters and one son who were deaf-mutes, though she,
herself, was perfectly normal. While they were still children, she became greatly interested in the
problem of educating deaf-mutes and founded the Deaf and Blind State Institute of Colorado, at

Colorado Springs. Her
are really interested in knowing more about me personally. I feel that they have a right to some
information, if they really do want it. In the first place, before we go any farther, I want you to know
that I’m grateful for the opportunities which have brought me such success as I have had. I never stop
inside my own home, that I’m not grateful for it, for I’ve known so many years of wandering and of
living, oh—just anywhere. I never sit down at my own table that I’m not grateful for whatever is set
before me. I’ve known what it is to not have enough money for a meal—lots and lots of times.

I detest poverty, possibly because I’ve been so well acquainted with it. Money may not bring
happiness— but the lack of it certainly does not. I don’t ever want to be without enough of it to supply
my material wants, again. That is one reason why my family and I live in a very quiet, unostentatious
manner. We want to have enough in the bank so that if a rainy day does come along we can weather it.

But I suppose this isn’t the way to start the story, so I’ll go back to the beginning. I was born in

Colorado Springs, daughter’s husband, my uncle Hugh Harbert, was editor of the paper they got out
there for many years - the Colorado Deaf and Blind Index.

MY PARENTS had three children besides myself, John, who is older than I, and George and

Caroline, younger. As is frequently the case when deaf-mutes marry, the children were all quite
normal.

A great many people are inclined to pity deaf-mutes but I have found among them some of the
happiest most contented people in the world. They are very social. Because the outside world of
amusement does not distract them, they seek and find happiness in their own homes. Too many

American homes of today have become merely a place in which to eat and sleep. Theatres, cafes,
cabarets draw the young people and the older ones too—from the home fireside.

The “night life” with which the average person is familiar, is unknown to the deaf-mutes. They do
enjoy going to the theatre occasionally, for they can usually follow a play by reading the lips of the
actors, but the theatre is not as popular with them as it is with those who are not deprived of their
hearing. Cafe life of course means nothing to them, though they do enjoy dancing in their own homes,
and frequently give parties there. At their parties games of all sorts are played, and usually take up
most of an evening. They get more real relaxation and amusement out of the simplest games than their
more “fortunate” brothers do out of lavish cafe entertainment. And they truly appreciate their homes.

Movie Magazine

My childhood was, in most ways, the childhood of the average boy. I don’t intend to go into detail
concerning it, for I don’t recall that there were any very interesting incidents connected with my early
years. I went to school, played hookey occasionally indulged in the usual boisterous games of boyhood

. . . grew older. I was always rather serious as a youngster, and I haven’t changed much in that respect
with the passing years.

MY F A T H E R operated a big barber-shop in Colorado Springs, and we were quite comfortably
situated, until I was in my early ’teens. Then mother became an invalid through inflam- matory

rheumatism. Father spent a great deal of money trying to obtain a cure for her and , when his funds got
pretty low he risked what he had left in an endeavor in increase his fortune. Unluckily for us, his
business deals were a failure and we fell into rather straitened circumstances.

I HAD to leave school them, but even before that time I had experience in earning my own living.

My older brother was stage manager of a vaudeville and later a legitimate theatre, and I started
working props when I was still just a kid. My first job was at the Grand Opera House, and after one
glimpse of life behind the scenes nothing could keep me away from the theatre. I was fascinated by
everything concerning it. I used to stand in the wings and watch Richard Mansfield, Henry Miller, Nat

Good- win, Lew Dockstader and other popular actors of the day, and I absorbed a great deal of
knowledge of stage technique from them.

I didn’t care a great deal about school I was much more interested in leaning how to manufacture
props—and at theater time a prop boy had to be proficient in the art of making all sorts of things out
of papier-mache. I spent three years as an apprentice, learning this work and I’m quite proud of the
fact that I’m a charter member of the Stage Hands’

Union of Colorado Springs, Local 62.

I find, now that I en - deavor to write of my experiences that it is going to be impossible to set
everything down in chronological order. My life has been crowed, jammed. I’ve done all sorts of
things, and during the early years I had a try at all sorts of jobs. There seems, as I look back now, to
have been no definite pat- tern to those years. Through the theater interested me above all else, I did
not spend my entire youth in it.

For a while I was call boy in a mining stock exchange. One year—the one following my fifteenth
birthday, was spent doing housework. Yes, I mean it. That was the year when my mother became an
invalid. We had a five room house and no one to do the work, so I took it over. I learned to cook , and
very excellent meals I prepared, too. I was nurse for my mother, and I took care of my younger
brother and sister who were still in school. I swept, dusted, cleaned the house as well as any
housemaid could have done. These duties had to be performed, and it was up to me to do them.

For three summers while I was still in my ’teens, I was a guide up Pike’s Peak. As you probably
know, Colorado Springs is at the base of the mountain. My brother and I had thirty-three burros which
we rented to ambitious tourists bent on climbing the peak. My brother took care of the burros, and I
was guide. I used to take the tourists up to see the sunrise from the summit, 14,000 feet high. We
would start at ten o’clock at night, have supper at the Half Way House, and arrive at the summit at
three o’clock in the morning. I shall never forget those sunrises—the purple haze in the canyons—the
clouds turning to scarlet and gold as the sun came up—the magnificent dawn blazing forth through the
rainbow-hued mist. Though I witnessed it day after day, I never grew indifferent to it. Indeed though I
was tired from the long climb, for I had to go ahead of the burros on foot, tramping every inch of the
way. I would stand spellbound before Nature’s supreme triumph, the birth of the new day. I would turn
regretfully toward the prosaic downward trail when the exaltation of the dawn hour had passed.

The tourists season only lasted for three months of each year, from June until September. When it
was over we took up other work and it was during those same years that I learned the window-shade,
drapery and carpet-laying business, a distinctly down-to earth occupation. I really don’t know why I
took this up, except that I was interested in anything connected with interior decorating, I have some
slight talent at painting, and the blending of colors has always fascinated me. I have an instinct for this
sort of thing and, if the theatre had not already cast its charm over
me, I should probably have made interior decorating my life work.

Four years ago I went to the Antlers Hotel at Colorado Springs for a brief vacation. I had to smile
sometimes to myself, recalling that while in my ’teens I had laid the carpets and hung the window
shades and drapes in the very hotel. I had been quite ambitious, I remember to become a real decorator
and with this in view I spent three years with Cortdez and Feldhaser, a large interior decorating firm in

Denver.

The theatre cast its charm over him and no other work ever really satisfied him. It was when he
was about eighteen that he allied himself definately with the theatre, having a natural inclination
toward comedy and eccentric dancing.

But, as I have said, the theater had cast its charm over me and no other work really satisfied me. I
would give my atten- tion to a new occupation with a thoroughness which I suppose is one of my
characteristics. I never attempted anything in the half-hearted manner. I would learn all I could about
whatever work I took up, whether it was rustling props, guiding tourists or laying carpets, but back in
my mind was the thought that some day I would become an actor and identify myself prominently
with the theatre. My natural inclinations was toward comedy and eccentric dancing, I could always
pick up any step, being what is called a “born dancer”, I suppose.

I really allied myself definitely and for all time with the theater when I was about eighteen.

I was working at that time for Cortdez and Feldhauser. One day I got a letter from my older brother in

Colorado Springs, telling me that the local stage hands were going to present, “Said Pasha” a comic
opera, at a benefit performance for the Stage Hands’ Union. He was to produce the piece, and he
wanted me to join him and assist with the production. I immediately gave up my job and went back
home.

“Said Pasha” was a great success, so much so indeed that our company became very ambitious and we
decided to stage “The Mikado” as well. For this we engaged professional people for the principal rôles

, while the chorus was made up of local talent.

“The Mikado” was a hit, also, so it was but natural that we should decide to try out our talents in a
broader field. We selected “Fra Diavolo” as the vehicle to take on tour. Mabel Day was our prima
donna, her husband Leslie Stowe was the character man, Charles N. Holmes was tenor. I played one of
the principal comedy rôles and also had charge of transportation and wardrobe. For my varied services

I received $12 a week.

I was perfectly happy. In fact we all were. Most of us were young and fired with the spirit of
adventure. There were a lot of hard times ahead of us, for we were one of the real old barnstorming
companies, but we didn’t worry very much.

We toured the state, playing mostly one-night stands. Charles Holmes, our tenor, had at one time had a
company of his own on the road but had lost everything in a theater fire. When he saw that our little
company was managing to get along pretty well, he made a proposition to buy it outright. We
consented to this, and so began a three year tour through the Middle West.

When I look back at those old days, I realize how valuable my experiences were to prove in later
years. A company such as ours could not be made up of shirkers. We had to be ready to jump in and do
anything at a moment’s notice. We had to be able to put up with a lot of hardships, be willing to eat
and sleep almost anywhere, ride in freight trains. It was not a pampered life, believe me.

After we had toured around a little while, Holmes decided to make ours a repertoire company, and the

Gilbert and Sullivan operas were included in our list of plays. With them we toured Oklahoma, Indian

Territory, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Arkansas, Texas. We
certainly saw a lot of the country.

A lot of amusing experiences took place, of course. You may not believe one that I’m going to tell
you, but is the absolute truth. We were traveling through Indian Territory—had a passenger coach
hitched on behind a long freight train, The freight cars were loaded with railroad ties and the train was
progressing very slowly, the ties being dumped off along the track at regular intervals, as they were to
be used in the building of a new road through the country.

We dragged along slowly for some time, and presently some of us got restless. We were going through
wonderful quail-hunting country, and the baritone, the comedian and myself made up our minds to
hop off and shoot a few birds. The other members of the company wished us luck and we jumped
down from the coach and made our way back into the country. We bagged a lot of quail in a few hours
and then back we went toward the railroad tracks. We expected the train would probably have reached
a certain point by that time, but actually we had to sit down and wait for it to catch up with us. It
certainly was funny. Talk about “the slow train through Arkansas”!

We took the quail back into the caboose and cooked them. We had a regular feast that night, to which
the trainmen as well as everyone in the company were invited. All of our meals when we traveled on
freight trains, had to be cooked by ourselves in the trainmen’s caboose. Oh yes, it was a luxurious
existence, all right.

We played what was known as the “kerosene circuit,” which meant that the footlights, in the “opera
houses” where we presented our productions, were coal-oil lamps. Tin reflectors threw the light up
onto the stage. I’ll relate an incident which will show you how broad-minded the audiences of those
days were, and how seriously they took whatever entertainment came their ways.

In “Said Pasha” was what is known as a “dark change” which meant that the lights must go out during
a love scene between two of the principals. The lover would enter, and while speaking his lines to the
heroine he would calmly go down to the footlights and turn them down one by one. This, when finally
accomplished, left the stage in almost total darkness.

But the plot required that the Pasha himself should discover his daughter, the heroine, in the arms of
her sweetheart. Now of course he couldn’t discover them in total darkness, so when he came on the
stage he would first go down to the footlights, turn them up again, and then make the discovery. The
audience would take all this quite gravely. I tremble to think what would happen to a barnstorming
company such as ours out in the “sticks” today. Lavish motion picture productions have made our old
audiences far more sophisticated than they used to be.

Another funny incident had to do with what we called “hard tickets”. We used to guarantee the
audience that if they didn’t like our show they would get their money back. For this purpose we issued
special guaranteed, or “hard” tickets. Of course nobody ever asked for their money back—they hadn’t
the nerve—but the guarantee used to draw them into the theater. It was a good business move on our
side.

Holmes and I used to take tickets at the door, Neither the audience nor ourselves saw anything out of
the way in having the company’s principals acting as ticket choppers as well. One time we hit a town,
where the owner of the theater was also owner of a big dairy. We asked him if he had “hard tickets”

and he said yes. I noticed, as I collected at the door that night that the tickets were a different shape
and size than those generally used. I took some of them back to my dressing-room, when I left the
door, and under the light I discovered that they were milk tickets. Adults had entered on a quart
tickets, children on pints!

We were lucky, whenever we found a theater that had dressing-rooms. This happened very rarely, For
the most part, we had to put up a sheet, dividing the space back stage. On one side the women would
dress while the men would use the other side. There would seldom be room for our trunks back stage,
and so these would be heaped in the orchestra pit. Between acts we’d have to go out into the pit, open
our trunks, select whatever costumes we were to wear in the next act and carry them back stage again.

The audiences would interestedly watch this part of the performance. It helped while away the
intermission time.

As our entire company including principals and chorus, included only twenty-three people, we had to
do a great deal of doubling. This made it necessary to learn quite a lot about make-up, a study which
always interested me deeply. I always took my work very seriously , as I have said, and any
opportunity at difficult characterization , especially one requiring an unusual make-up, was relished
by me. I like to play old men parts. When we put on “The Chimes of Normandy” I was given the role
of an old miser. I was only nineteen at the time, but how I studied to make my characterization of the
aged man a faithful one! I experimented with all sorts of beards and wigs. I learned to walk as a bent,
feeble old person would. tottering around the stage in that part, I was probably the happiest person in
the company, though I did not realize at that time that extraordinary characterizations were one day to
become my life work. I thought that comedy was really my forte.

Those checkered years were filled with sunshine and shadow. We all had optimistic temperaments—
believe me the members of those old barnstorming companies had to be able to look on the bright side
of things—but sometimes we had to fight pretty hard to keep up our courage.

I remember one Christmas when we were all put to the test. You know how it is at Christmas time. If
there’s ever a time when you thoughts turn toward home, it’s then. You want to be with your loved
ones. You want to give them gifts , some visible proof of your affections for them You want a home-
cooked dinner, familiar faces around your table. Christmas is one season of the year over which we all
grow sentimental.

Well, our little company was far from home, and we were terribly poor. There had been a money panic
in the country that year, and scrip had been issued. Everyone felt the hard times and, as is usual at
such a time, the bottom simply dropped out of the amusement world. The theater is always first to feel
a financial depression.

The day before Christmas we got into some little town in Florida. God, but it was a desolate place.

Sand everywhere and just a few weather beaten, sunbleached buildings.

But we had to have our Christmas. It is never a day to be ignored, but the people of the theatre.

Wherever they are, whatever their circumstances they will observe it as best they can.

A couple of the boys and myself went out and chopped down a pine tree, for what is Christmas without
a tree? This we took to the town hall in which we were playing. then, of course, we had to have
something with which to decorate our tree. So we all dug down into our trunks and pulled out all the
spangles and dangles we could find—anything that glittered and would make a brave show. our
trimmings consisted mostly of the harem belts belonging to the costumes worn in “Said Pasha.”

Then we contributed presents, to be hung on the tree and presented at our little Christmas gathering
after the show. Presents? We didn’t have any money to by them with and so we had to make them.

some of the girls made rag dolls out of bits of old costumes. I’ve always been able to draw and paint a
bit, so I sketched the different members of the company in character. A few of our little group weren’t
able to get together any presents at all, so for the rest of us made extra ones for them to give away so
they wouldn’t feel too badly. Honestly it was pitiful. I’ve never forgotten that Christmas.

Well, finally we weathered the hard times and got back toward home. The show closed in Chicago,
and the next one I went with was “The Cowpuncher” I was second comedian in that and got $14 a
week. I only recall one thing in particular in connection with that play, and that was an accident that
happened to me one night.

The leading woman was ill and another girl had to take her place. In one scene there was some
business of her holding the villain at bay with a gun while I rushed on the scene to her rescue. She was
to hand me the gun after which I took charge of the villain.

Unluckily for me, the new girl didn’t know much about guns. When I went to take it from her she
accidently pressed the trigger.

(Continued next month)

In Treasure Island

WHEN the gun went off and the wad lodged in my hand, I knew I had the rest of the play to go
through before I could attend to the wound. There were five acts and seven scenes and through them I
suffered the worst torture imaginable. I have a bad scar on my hand now. as a momento of that certain
performance.

After "The Cowpuncher" I went out with the Frank Wade Opera Company in "The Beggar Prince,"

a light opera in which a popular motion picture actress of today made her professional debut.

We were playing in Champaign, Illinois when the prima donna failed us . . . became either ill or
temperamental, I've forgotten which. We were terribly up against it. We didn't know where to turn, for
there really wasn't anyone in the company capable of taking her place. Yet the show simply had to go
on. The theater manager finally solved the problem for us. He said that his wife's sister, who was
visiting them, was capable of playing the role. He brought her over to the theater and introduced to us

Miss Myrtle Stedman. Miss Stedman was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen in my life,
and her voice was glorious. She had just four hours in which to rehearse, but she sang Zerlina that
night. It was her first professional appearance. We all knew that success lay ahead of her.

Our tour with "The Beggar Prince" had not been particularly successful up to this time. In fact, the
barnstorming companies of those days hardly expected to reap a fortune from their ventures. If we
made enough in a town to cover expenses and get us to the next town we didn't feel that we had much
to complain of.

The "hotels" in most of the towns were a joke. I never stayed at them. When we got into a town I
would look up a first-class boarding place and I usually had the luck to find a place where the food
was excellent. Other members of the company, without my initiative would invariably try the hotels
no matter how dreadful they were nor how bad the food was. But not me. I'd turn up at the theatre for
the evening performance and make everyone else jealous, telling them about the wonderful boarding-
place I had found and the excellent dinner I had just eaten. After their own dinner of leathery steak and
greasy potatoes, they would become positively green-eyed when they found that I had dined on roast
chicken, creamed potatoes, beaten biscuits and home-made pie. They declared that I had developed a
sixth sense in the matter of finding accommodations. But it was only because I knew what I wanted
and went after it. I've always done that.

A lot of people believe, or say they believe in luck. Well, I don't. Of course one may get a good
break once in a while, but you have to be ready to make the most of an opportunity when it does come
along. Like when I was given the rôle of the cripple, in "The Miracle Man." A great many people had
never heard of me until they saw that picture. I was "lucky" perhaps, to be given that part by George

Loane Tucker. But I brought to it all the knowledge I had gained in twenty-five years of stage work. I
had started in when I was just a kid, as I've told you in an earlier chapter. When I was working as a
prop boy in the old Grand Opera House in Colorado Springs, I can honestly say that I made the most
of every opportunity given me to watch the work of the great actors who came occasionally to our
theatre. When the other kids were out playing marbles, I was standing in the wings watching Richard

Mansfield or Henry Miller, absorbing all the knowledge I could of their technique. Luck does not
make one an actor, any more than luck found me boarding-places in those old barnstorming days.

Well, "The Beggar Prince" closed presently, down in Columbus, South Carolina. While we were
discussing ways and means of getting back home, William Cranston of Winnipeg, Canada, heard of
us, and came on and picked the show up. We jumped to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and started westward
across Canada.

The Canadians received us very well. We played to crowded houses wherever we went. And, as the
tour was so successful we kept on going until we got clear out to Vancouver, B.C. We put on "The

Royal Chef " on this tour, and were rehearsing " A Knight for a Day " for the return tour. Naturally,
buoyed up by our success, we thought that the trip back would be as easy as the one going out.

But we were doomed to disappointment. It is fortunate that theatrical people are, as a rule, of
optimistic temperament, for they can never know just what is ahead of them. A play which may not
seem particularly good in rehearsal turns out to be a tremendous success, while one in which the
producers have complete faith, not infrequently is a flop. " A Knight for a Day " certainly was a flop.

We lost money from the day we started back with this play. The enthusiastic audiences of our
outward trip had apparently vanished into thin air. Since there was nothing to do but keep on going, we
kept on, hoping all the time for a more favorable reception in the next town we played.

But finally, having spent every cent of the money we had made on the earlier tour, we had to close
the show, stranded.

Being stranded, strangers in a strange place, is no joke. It was fortunate for us that we had happened to
hit a town where the people were kindly disposed toward us. They soon knew of our quandary and
when had made it known that we were going to put on benefit performances to secure enough money
to get back to Chicago, they generously turned out to see our show. We put on the benefit for three
nights, and thus got enough money together to get back home.

Home, did I say? Chicago, when one is penniless and out of work, can hardly be considered "home." I
had married some time before and now had a baby son. I will not go into details

concerning my domestic life. Everyone who knows me knows that it is my policy to keep my
family affairs out of the newspapers and magazines. I feel that they are a part of my life which
belongs only to me, so the story of my romance and marriage to a girl who was a membeer of one of
our barnstorming companies has no place here. As it is, I am revealing far more of my private life
than I ever have before, or will again, for that matter. The domestic angle will be revealed
occasionally, as it is here.

I arrived in Chicago with my wife and baby. The outlook was bleak indeed, but I knew I must find
food and shelter for them somewhere. After tramping the streets for hours I finally located a cheap
room in a neighborhood which was anything but fashionable. My wife courageously put up with the
discomforts. After all, we had our sturdy little son to work for, so it was up to us to make the best of
things as they were.

Having solved the problem of a roof over our heads, the next question was where and how to get food.

An opening soon presented itself. The musical director of our company had got a job playing the piano
in a saloon. In those days the saloons served free lunches to the men who patronized them. At one end
of the bar there would be big trays of sandwiches. They were real sandwiches, too, not the thin dainty
ones that are served in fashionable tea rooms. Those sandwiches would go quite a way to wards
keeping life in one who was starving.

So I went to the saloon where my friend was playing the piano, and slipped out a sandwhich every now
and then for my wife and baby. You weren't supposed to take any of the sandwiches unless you had
first spent money at the bar, and frequently I had to borrow a nickel from my friend for a glass of beer,
so that I could get the sandwich afterward.

Oh, I haven't learned about life from story-books, believe me. I've seen it in the raw. I've mingled with
the dregs of humanity, and I've done it not on slumming excursions but because I had to. I've been on
a equal footing with the poor, shabby unfortunates that polite society knows nothing about.

In The Unholy Three

"I can remember going to the saloon where a friend of mine played the piano. I would borrow a nickel
from him for a glass of beer so that I could get a sandwich from the free lunch counter. This I would
take home to my wife and baby.

I was always studying them, the harsh lines that life had left on their faces. If one had drawn a
philosophy, or a hope from his experience, I'd remember that. I don't like to be reminded, either, of the
old days when we all worked tobether down on Main Sreet. But we did work there nevertheless, and
were darned glad to have a job of any kind.

Frances White was a member of that company. She has since become famous in musical comedy
in New York, and is a headliner now when she goes out in vaudeville. But no one had heard of her
then. Roscoe Arbuckle was our principal comedian. Bob Leonard, who later became a famous screen
director, was also one of our crowd, while "others in the cast" were Winnie Baldwin, Arthur Hull and

Carmen Phillips. We had quite a roster of famous-names-to-be, you see.

I was learning more about make-up and characterization all the time. With the number of shows
we put on, and the variety of parts we had to play, it was up to us to keep abreast or drop out. We
weren't pampered down in those Main Street theatres, let me tell you. I relished every opportunity to
try out a new make-up, and, believe me, there were plenty of opportunities.

One Day I was sent for by a Mr. Dill, who later became well known, particularly in the West, as a
member of the team Kolb and Dill. He was producing "The Rich Mr. Hoggenheimer and he wanted me
to go with the show. This was something of a step up from the work I had been doing, and I accepted,
even though it did mean going out on the road. My job was no sinecure, for I was stage manager and
played five parts in the play, as well. I did a good deal of dancing in that show; particularly well.

It seems to me that I've given a pretty comprehensive account of those years and had passed since

I definitely gave up all thought of other work and devoted my time entirely to the theatre. The early
years, when the rosy promise of the future colored even our gloomiest hours, and the later years when,
through struggle and discouragement I finally won some security and hope for the years ahead. This
record is mostly one of hard, grinding work. But foundations if they are well built, require just that
require just that, and I was constantly building a foundation for my future.

My experiences with Dill's show, and with others that followed it, are more or less a repetition of what
has gone before.

But I was making a little more money now, though not much, and I was feeling increased
confidence in myself as an actor. Although I had had a good deal of experience by now as a stage
manager, acting was really my forte. My heart was in it, and I knew that it was really the work I was
intended to do.

Being in Los Angeles, I occasionally heard something about motion pictures now. One or another
of my friends would fill in at the studios between stage engagements. There were very few studios at
that time, and they were mostly shacks with a fenced in space called "the lot." Costly locations trips
such as the companies take now were unknown. The players worked out on the street or over in

Westlake Park, and the pictures were all one-and two-reelers. It was only natural that in time I should
become interested in this new brand of entertainment. But before I had a chance to investigate it, Kolb
and Dill had joined forces and were putting on plays up in San Francisco. They sent me up there and,
as before, I acted as stage manager and appeared in the shows as well.

I stayed with Kolb and Dill in San Francisco for two years. But before that time was up I knew that
sooner or later I would venture into motion picture work. I used to drop into the little nickelodeons
every now and then and watch the funny, jumpy films run off, and right from the first I believed that a
new field of entertainment was being opened up to the public. I did not visualize the costly, elaborate
film productions of today, none of us did at that time, but I felt that here was a new medium for
expression, a new way of telling stories, a new theatrical enterprise with which I wished to be
identified.

Lee Moran by this time had given up his stage work entirely, and was working for the Universal

Film Company, which was then located down on Sunset and Gower Streets, in Hollywood. The

Universal City of today, with its 480 acres given over to vast sets and stages had not been dreamed of.

That first Universal Studio had once been a corral. There was one ramshackle building which served
as a stage, and there were a few dressing rooms. Everyone turn his hand to whatever there was to be
done, acting, set dressing, rustling props — everything.

At this studio I presented myself one morning, having quit Kolb and Dill up in San Francisco,
determined to embark upon this new venture. Moran had told me the day before that men were needed
out at the studio, and I was readily given a job —at three dollar a day. I had been earning considerable
more than this with Kolb and Dill, but this new work compelled my interest. From the day I took that
first three dollar a day job, I've stayed in motion picture work. The old days of road tours, of being
stranded in strange places of seeking for a roof for my wife and boy were now behind me. My
hardships were not over by any means. I was to know what it was to climb part way up the ladder, and
drop down again. I was to know, even after I thought myself fairly well established in motion picture
work, the experience of tramping from studio to studio seeking almost any sort of a job. Almost every
sort of defeat and discouragement was to come my way, in my effort to establish myself on the screen.

But I believed that in time some measure of success must come to me too. So I hung on, with perhaps
a dogged determination. That's the only way you can get anywhere, I believe — by having faith in
yourself, in the work you are doing and hanging on, no matter what you have to go through.

Louise Fazenda, Max Asher and Gale Henry were all in that first company which I worked. Jeanie

McPherson, who is now scenario writer with Cecil B De Mille, had a company of her own. She worked
as leading woman, and directed her pictures as well. After I had worked in a few of the Universal
comedies, Miss McPherson gave me a part in one of her pictures. It was the first screen drama in
which I ever appeared.

Jeanie McPherson seemed to like my work, and decided to write a story for me. Of course she soon
discovered that I was greatly interested in playing parts that required unusual or even grotesque make-
up, and she hit upon the idea of having me play the part of a hunchback in a picture. I often thought of
that early picture, when I was engaged in filming the elaborate Universal production of "The

Hunchback of Notre Dame," years later.

The hunchback picture which Miss McPherson directed went over very well. I should like to have
continued on with her, but just at this time she left Universal and went to work for Cecil De Mille,
who had recently formed the Lasky Company, working in a former carriage shop over on Vine and

Selma Avenue. I stayed on with Universal and was placed in the stock company.

There followed years of doing just everything. I played in hundreds of character and comedy roles
jumping from one thing to another with hardly breathing space. The two-reelers were ground out in
one or two weeks' time, so there wasn't much opportunity for studying characterization. Nowadays I
spend a great deal of time studying a character before I decide on the make-up I'll use in portraying it,
and for some of my pictures I have spent three solid hours daily just getting into the make-up. But in
the early days there was not time for elaborate preparations. At that, we made some pretty good
pictures, and I did just as good work, in some of them, as I have ever done since.

I stayed with Universal for six years. During that time pictures increased in length from two to
three, four, even five reels in length, and the day of the costly special productions was at hand. We
moved from the modest little lot on Sunset out to the great Universal ranch. Player who had worked
long, unknown, began to see their names flashed on the screen and to experience the first thrills of
popularity and fame.

Warren Kerrigan became an idol of the film fans. He was Universal's most-popular star. The
studio officials knew that I had considerable experience as a stage director and presently I was made
an offer to direct Kerrigan.

I accepted the offer and directed Kerrigan for six months. But I wasn't given the chance to carry
out my own ideas — do things my own way, and at the end of six months I went back to acting again. I
like to direct, someday I hope to do it again, but conditions have to be favorable.

During those years at Universal I think I appeared in pretty near every picture they made. I was

just rushed from one thing to another. Finally, it seemed to me that I ought to have a raise. I was
getting one hundred dollars a week and I felt that I was worth more than that to them.

I went to William Sistrom, who was then the studio manager, and asked for a raise of twenty-five
dollars a week, telling him I would sign a five-year contract at that figure. He couldn't see it at all, told
me that I'd never be worth one hundred and twentyfive dollars a week to anybody. So after six years
with this one studio, I quit. Once again things looked dark.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH

My Own Story
by

I N THE long run, my quitting Uni
versal proved to be a wise move, but at the time
it seemed to be anything but that. For I was
absolutely unknown off the Universal lot, and

I couldn’t get a job anywhere else. You see a
character actor usually has pretty hard work
establishing himself as a personality. With
a leading man it is different. He is more or less himself of the screen, and if he does good work in a
picture he is remembered. But the character actor must submerge his own personality in a role. There
are character actors now in Hollywood, whom you have seen scores of times on the screen, men who
have done very good work, too, but their names are unknown to you. Probably if you saw photographs
of them as themselves you wouldn’t recognize them at all.

A difficulty that the character actor faces, in becoming well known to the public, too, lies in the
fact that his part is so frequently cut down to almost nothing in the cutting-room. The love-interest
remains paramount, in the usual story, so most of the footage goes to the leading man and woman.

Everyone else in the cast must remain more or less in the background. There are, fortunately for the
character actor, some exceptions to this rule, and when a story comes along giving him a chance to
really show what he can do, on the screen, he usually tries his best to take advantage of it. If he is
equal to the part, he doesn’t need to worry about the future, after that. Tol’able David established

Ernest Torrence. Willard Louis, though he had been on the screen for a good many years, first
attracted the interest of the public in Beau Brummel.

But the public had no interest in me, though I had appeared in hundreds of pictures during my six
years with Universal. And the producers had no interest in me either., I went from one studio to
another, trying to get work. I might as well have been an inexperienced extra man, for all the interest
they took in me. At first I didn’t take the rebuffs to seriously. I’d knocked about so much in my life
that I could weather a few more discouragements.

But the weeks lengthened into months, and still I got nothing to do. It was not particularly
cheering, either, to remember that Sistrom had said I’d never be worth more than I was getting when I
quit Universal.

It was a good thing that I had always lived within my income, and had been able to save some
money to tide over the months of idleness. But even with all my economy, my funds were just about
exhausted when finally I got a job.

It was with Bill Hart in a picture called Riddle Gwan.

LON CHANEY Says:

“Many people throughout the country believe I am deformed. That is not so. I have designed a
harness which I can wear for only ten minutes at a time. The pain soon becomes intolerable. But
it is this harness which permits me to achieve the appearance of deformity.”

Above: In Treasure Island

I want to say right here that I hope to keep Bill Hart’s friendship for the rest of my life. He is a
truly great man, and a gentleman in the real sense of the word. A lot of people don’t understand him.

He has the face of a sphinx, but the heart of a child. I was grateful to him, of course, for giving me a
part, when I had been idle so long, but aside form any personal feeling I have always respected and
admired him as a man.

Hart’s business manager, who was with him when I went to see him, argued against giving me the
role, He said I was too short to play a “heavy” with Hart. But Hart said that Al Jennings was a small
man, but he had been a most convincing “heavy” in real life. He overrode all objections to me. Not
only did he give me the part, which was a big one, but he left it in the finished picture. My work stood
out, and the long period of inactivity was over. Producers and directors saw the picture, sent for me. I
was at work again, and the really dark days of my career were over.

I did three or four more pictures, and then George Loane Tucker sent for me.

Now Tucker did not want me to play the part of the cripple in The Miracle Man. His idea was to get a
contortionist who was also an actor. I am not a contortionist. I’m not even double jointed. It is just as
hard for me to wrench myself out of joint as it would be for you to do it. It is only determination, a
will to succeed, that gets me through some of the rôles I portray.

Tucker at first would not tell me the story, and it really seemed that we had reached an impasse, for I
didn’t want to go

into something that I knew nothing about, and he, on his side, had great doubt of my ability to play
the cripple. He had three or four contortionists under contract but none of them satisfied him as actors
and so, finally, he consented to let me read the script and try the part out.

As soon as I read the script I was mad about the story. I’d do the thing if it killed me, and I started
rehearsing the part —by myself of course. No one, not even Tucker himself, knew what I was going to
do until the camera started grinding.

Since that unwinding scene of mine was the most difficult in the picture, it was to be taken first. If

I failed in that, the part would be given to someone else. I guess I knew that my whole future depended
on that one scene

Bill Hart gave me one of my first big opportunities. But aside from the gratitude I feel
towards him because of this, I respect and admire him as a man.

In The Miracle Man

Tucker was standing behind the cameras. I knew by his expression that he didn’t think I could do
it. I read his skepticism in his eyes. And then he called “Camera!” and I flopped down, rolled my eyes
up in my head like a blind man and started dragging my body along the ground. Tucker said just one
work — “God!” — that was all, but I knew that the part would not be taken from me.

George Loane Tucker and I were the closest of friends from that time on, like brothers, really. He
was another of the really fine men I have met in the motion picture profession. He death broke me all
up, for I thought the world of him. A short time before he died he told me that he wanted me to direct
one of his companies, and work in the pictures as well. But Fate had other plans for both of us.

Well, when The Miracle Man was released I received a great many offers. I was over-anxious to
keep working, remembering those bleak months when it didn’t seem that I should ever get another job,
and I accepted about the first thing that came along., I played that rôle in The Miracle Man for one
hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, and my salary remained around there for while, but I had at
least proved that William Sistrom of Universal was wrong in saying that I’d never be worth more than
one hundred dollars a week to any company!

My first lesson in being a good business man as well as an actor, came when I signed a contract to
play the role of the legless man in The Penalty, for Goldwyn, some time later. I was the only logical
person to portray that part and the company was willing to pay a high salary to secure my services,

But I didn’t know that —and felt that I was receiving a top-notch figure when I signed for five
hundred dollars a week. Shortly after I had started to work, I happened to overhear a conversation
between Mr. Lehr, one of the heads of the company and Clifford Robertson, the casting director.

“Do you mean to say,” asked Lehr, “that you got Chaney to sign for five hundred dollars a week? I
would have been ready to pay him eighteen hundred.”

This was quite a shock to me. It gave me a knowledge of my real value to the company. But I can
truthfully say that I’ve never abused that knowledge. I know that when a producer sends for me to do a
picture he doesn’t want anyone but me, but I’ve never held any of them up on that account. I believe in
being fair, and most of them have been fair with me.

When I did The Penalty a great many people throughout the country go the idea that I really was
legless. It would have been a relief to me, during the filming of that picture, if I had been, for I never
suffered so much in my life. Every moment before the camera was one of excruciating agony, yet I
must not let it show in my face. I had to be the character I was portraying, and disregard the pain
caused by having my legs strapped back as they were.

I designed a harness, and had it made. I could wear it only ten minutes at a time, as the pain soon
became intolerable, but, after a brief rest I’d put it on again and go on with the scene. That was work,
let me tell you. I’ve never gotten over the strain that I was put too in this picture. In fact, every
grotesque character I’ve played on the screen has taken its toll of me, physically.

The success of The Penalty proved that there was a place on the screen for the type of
characterizations which I wish to portray. A demand had been created for them, and it has increased as
time has gone on. My greatest problem, of course, is to find stories that are just suited to me. I have
been terrible miscast sometimes and I know it.

Wallace Worsley directed The Penalty and then I did three more pictures with him, The Night

Rose, Ace of Hearts and A Blind Bargain. I don’t see any particular object in listing all the pictures

I’ve appeared in. The next one to attract widespread interest was The Hunchback of Notre Dame, for

Universal. I could not help but think, sometimes, when I went back to the Universal lot as the star of
that production, of the six years of hard work I had

"The pain soon becomes intolerable. But it is this harness which permits me to achieve the
appearance of deformity.”

put in on that lot, and of the circumstances which had terminated my earlier contract with them. I
had been told that I would never be worth more than one hundred dollars a week to anyone. The

Hunchback of Notre Dame cost over a million dollars and it has paid for itself long before this.

It took a good deal of persuasion on my part to get Carl Laemmle, president of Universal, to
consent to produce this picture. He could not see it as motion picture material. But for years I had a
burning desire to bring the Victor Hugo classic to the screen, and finally I won him around to my way
of thinking. It was not that I wanted personal glory out of it, but I felt that the picture would teach a
great lesson. I hope that it has.

I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity many have within them the capacity
for supreme self sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshaped beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. I
have come in actual contact with such people, the underdogs, the very dregs of humanity. Probably
most of you who read this, haven’t. When you see a deformed ,wretched creature you instinctively
shrink from him. Your children are afraid of him. Older boys may mock and taunt him. But what do
you know of him; really? Why he, like my Hunchback, may be willing to “lay down his life for a
friend.

Again, as in The Miracle Man and The Penalty, I suffered constant agony while I was portraying
that role. My body was strapped into a harness, which gave it the appearance of being stunted and
deformed. I could work only a few hours a day, it hurt me so. I wore false teeth, which made it almost
impossible for me to speak. Over one eye was a heavy lump of putty. When I removed the putty, after
the day’s work, my vision was distorted for several minutes. So much added strain was thrown upon
my other eye, that I’ve worn glasses, off screen, ever since I made that picture.

But if The Hunchback of Notre Dame has given one person a feeling of brotherly love, of sympathy
and understand for the downtrodden creatures of earth, I feel well repaid for all that I went through.

Most of my roles since The Hunchback such as The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped,

The Unholy Three, etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or re- nunciation. These are the stories
which I wish to do. The picture which I have just completed, The Tower of Lies, is the story of a
father’s enduring love and sacrifice, even to death, for his way ward daughter. I do not know that it is
my favorite of all the rôles I’ve portrayed, but certainly it is one of them, and I consider Victor

Seastrom, who directed it, the greatest director in the motion picture profession. I have never been
happier than I am at present, under my contract with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer. Mr. Mayer, Mr. Thalberg,
and other heads of the company, bless them, understand me, and are in complete sympathy with my
desire to give the public real stories carrying vital messages to the hearts of the people. Frivolous,
vapid stories have no place on my program.

I am finishing this story of my life, upon my return from a vacation up in the High Sierras. Under
my present contract I am to have five weeks’ vacation between pictures — the first real vacation I’ve
had in twenty-five years.

Now, when I go on a vacation, I like to get just as far form civilization as I can, and my wife feels
just thew way I do about it. I always take her with me. It’s not my idea of a good time to go away and
leave her alone. She’s a wonderful companion, on a trip of the sort we’ve just taken. We rough it, live
in a tent and she cooks our meals on a collapsible stove that we carry along in the car.

My son didn’t go with us on this last trip, as he is finishing a business course in a commercial
school in Los Angeles. He’s going to be a business man, not an actor, though he has a strong
inclination in that direction. A great many people of the stage and screen are willing that their children
should following their footsteps, but I’m not, One actor in the Chaney family is enough.

It has been a long, hard trail, that which I have followed from the time I cast my lot with the
theater. I’ve traveled the length of the land with barnstorming troupes. I’ve been stranded and hungry,
and cold. I’ve fraternized with all sorts of people. I’ve tramped the streets of Hollywood, hunting for a
job. I’ve learned of life at first hand.

But the harsh experiences I went through never made me bitter. Rather, they taught me, when
finally things began to come my way, to be very thankful for everything good that has come to me,
and for every lesson I’ve learned that has helped me.

I’m grateful for my home, and my family, and for such material comforts as I possess. I haven’t
any patience with people who become blase and indifferent as soon as success comes to them. I know

I’ll never be that way. Why just recently I got a great thrill out of buying a leather coat, before I went
on a fishing trip. There had been other years when I wanted a leather coat, and couldn’t afford one. I
hadn’t forgotten.

And I’m grateful to the motion picture fans who have encouraged me to go on, and to give the
screen the characterizations I wished to present. If this story of my life has given you a clearer insight
in to my reasons for portraying unusual, and at times grotesque roles, it has served some purpose,
though I hesitated in giving it out for publication because I wish you to think of me as the character

I’m portraying, and not as the man, Lon Chaney, when you see me on the screen. I have always wished
to keep myself and my private life in the background.

There is one thing more. Thousands of motion picture fans write asking me for a photograph of
myself. Please do not think I am indifferent to your letters, but, for the reason just mention, I do not
send out photographs. I try to show my appreciation for your interest in me, through my screen
characterizations, by making them as true as it is possible for me to do. I wish my work, alone, to
speak for me in future as it it has in the past.

Lon Chaney, November 1925

London After Midnight, MGM 1927

The hat and teeth from

London After Midnight plus the eye glasses from Mr. Wu - Acherman Archives

Lon Chaney's first make up kit, formerly on loan to the Forrest J Ackerman Collection by the USC

Collections

Some of
the roles that made Lon Chaney the number one Box-Office Attraction in the World

Table of Contents

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

Chapter II

Part of the castle wall