The At The Flicks team proudly present for your Halloween entertainment, a show six years in the making. In fact, it’s so big we have split the story over two podcasts. We are talking Dracula. Not just any story about Dracula, the story behind the famous Universal release in 1931. Here in part one we investigate what happened between the book’s publication in 1897 and the film going into production just over 30 years later. In part two, coming tomorrow we look at the making of the film – both the English and Spanish language versions. This will of course Jeff’s unique review of both movies (as strange and unusual as you have come to expect). Getting into the weeds of this story took a lot of time to verify the facts – especially the events leading up to the film going into production. That’s why it took 6 years to script and record (also being old we occasionally forgot what we were making, and there was sleep, much of it). As a tease, in this part, we will reveal to you: - The famous event that over shadowed Bram Stoker’s death - When Universal studios were first lobbied to make a big budget version of Dracula - How the makers of Nosferatu revealed a detail they shouldn’t have at the German premiere (and as a result were successfully sued by Stoker’s widow Florence) - The facts behind the creation of the stage play (which went on to be more inspirational on the film version than the novel) - Who first played Dracula on stage - How the Universal film actually saved Nosferatu for future generations - Who was originally considered to be the best actor to bring the character of Dracula to life (clue – it wasn’t Bela Lugosi) And much, much more…. This was a great deal of fun to put together – the research proved to be very revealing. To all those who helped with the facts, both directly and indirectly, thank you very much. We hope you enjoy this labour of love from the At The Flicks team and look forward to your thoughts on both this episode and part two which follows tomorrow. Bye for now.