Dracula Dodges Friday the 13th

Dracula was due to open on Broadway on Friday the 13th in February 1931, until Universal moved it up a day because its director, Tod Browning, "goes in for superstition." The Valentine's tagline everyone repeats, "the strangest love story," is harder to pin down, since the only 1931 trade-paper ad we found with those words is for a different Universal picture.

The story as it is told

Picture Valentine's Day 1931. Universal's Dracula is in theaters, and couples are being told they are in for "the strangest love story of all" (or "ever told"). That is how retellings have it. An Austin Chronicle listing says the film "debuted in theatres on Valentine's Day, 1931, billed as 'the Strangest Love Story of All.'"

What we can confirm

An Electric Sheep essay gives the Thursday Feb 12 premiere, says the opening was "moved forward a day from the unlucky Friday 13," and calls the love-story tagline "apocryphally advertised."

Universal registered Dracula for copyright on Feb 2, 1931. (CCE; AFI Catalog) The next day, The Film Daily reported that the film, "produced by Universal from the stage hit," would have its Broadway first run at the Roxy "starting Feb. 13," with three members of the stage cast, Bela Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan and Herbert Bunston. (Film Daily, Feb 3, 1931)

A week later the date changed. Under the headline "Superstition Wins," the paper's Feb 10, 1931 front page said: "Opening of Universal's 'Dracula' at the Roxy has been moved up from Friday to Thursday. 'U' explains this was done in deference to the pleadings of Tod Browning, director of the mystery, because this Friday is the 13th and he goes in for superstition." So the film opened Thursday, Feb 12, 1931. On Feb 16, Film Daily reported that it drew "approximately 50,000 paid admissions" in its first two days at the Roxy. The AFI Catalog gives the general release date as Feb 14, 1931.

That put the film in theaters over Valentine's weekend, but the 1931 copy we could read sold fear. In Washington, the Rialto's ad in the Friday, Feb 13 Washington Times promised the count would come "out of the cobwebby darkness of an age-old castle heavy with the dust of centuries" to "roam the night," and added: "The play was great, but the picture is far greater." The next day's review by Andrew R. Kelley warned the picture "is not for those who believe in the boogie man." In South Bend, Hope Halpin called it "positively uncomfortable" and "not a picture suitable for the children." Universal's own trade ad gathered New York reviews: "3 star spine chiller" (Irene Thirer, Daily News) and "one of the creepiest mystery melodramas ever screened" (Julia Shawell, Graphic). (Film Daily, Feb 15-16, 1931)

What about "the strangest love story"? We searched the full OCR text of The Film Daily for January to June 1931, Variety for April 1931, and Film Daily for July to December 1931, and the phrase does not appear in any Dracula item there. It does appear in a Universal ad in Film Daily for Aug 20, 1931, for George Melford's East of Borneo: "the strangest love story ever screened … a white woman in the power of a cruel native prince." That does not prove no Dracula ad used similar words, since posters, pressbooks and local ads were not all searched. It does mean the line cannot be quoted as Dracula's 1931 tagline without a source.

The Washington review records one more scene lost from most later prints: "When it's all over," Kelley wrote, "Edward Van Sloan steps out of his character of Dr. Van Helsing to reassure the timid." The AFI Catalog cites a Motion Picture Herald review of this afterword, in which Van Sloan warned that vampires do exist, and says modern sources date its removal to 1936.

The facts

• © 2Feb31, LP1947; renewed by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. (PWH), Dec 30, 1958 (page image reads "30Dec58"), R227698. CCE, Third Series, Vol. 12, Parts 12-13, 1958, Motion Pictures, archive.org. AFI confirms LP1947, Feb 2, 1931.
• Roxy first run planned "starting Feb. 13." Film Daily, Tue Feb 3, 1931, archive.org (search inside: "Dracula for Roxy").
• "Superstition Wins": opening moved to Thursday because "this Friday is the 13th and he goes in for superstition." Film Daily, Tue Feb 10, 1931, p. 1, same volume (scan leaf n356, confirmed on the page image: archive.org).
• About 50,000 paid admissions in two days at the Roxy. Film Daily, Mon Feb 16, 1931, same volume (scan leaf ~409).
• General release Feb 14, 1931; 74-75 min; 9 reels; cost $341,191.20 per a studio shooting schedule. AFI Catalog, catalog.afi.com
• Washington Rialto ad copy, Feb 13, 1931. Washington Times, Feb 13, 1931, p. 23, loc.gov
• Kelley review, "'Dracula' Is Weird Film Feature," and the epilogue description. Washington Times, Feb 14, 1931, p. 7, loc.gov
• Halpin review, "Stoker's Mystic Thriller Lives in Film Edition." South Bend News-Times, Feb 15, 1931, p. 21, loc.gov
• Universal ad quoting New York critics. Film Daily, Feb 15-16, 1931, same volume.
• Fainting story: a Binghamton paper reported "one woman fainted at the afternoon performance and another in the evening." Film Daily, Fri Mar 27, 1931, crediting the Binghamton Sun, same volume (scan leaf 752).
• "The strangest love story ever screened" in a Universal ad for East of Borneo. Film Daily, Thu Aug 20, 1931, archive.org

Related: Is Dracula (1931) public domain? · What enters the public domain in 2027

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