{
  "title": "DRACULA",
  "category": "[NOVEL]",
  "article": "Tod Browning’s film of Dracula (1931) may have initiated Hollywood’s horror cycle of the\nThirties, but it took radio to create a version of the Bram Stoker novel that brought the genre to its\nfull height as the decade (and the cycle) drew to a close. Welles had originally intended to kick off\nhis Mercury Theatre series with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, but when the rights to\nDracula became available he jumped at the opportunity. Skillfully patching together the novel’s\ncrazy-quilt of diary and journal entries by divers hand into a seamless whole—and keeping the\nproceedings at so swift and hypnotic a pace that lapses in narrative wouldn’t be noticed anyway—\nhe fashioned a masterpiece that ranks with his best work on the air. The cast is a standout,\nparticularly Coulouris’ desperate Jonathan Harker (“I’m alone in the castle! Alone!”),\nMoorehead’s entranced Mina who struggles to free herself in the end, and Orson himself in the\ndual roles of Dr. Seward and the Count.",
  "origination": "WABC, New York City, New York (CBS).",
  "duration": "July 11, 1938.",
  "personnel": "John Dietz (sound engineer), Larry Harding (assistant director), Bernard Herrmann (music),\nJohn Houseman (scriptwriter), Dan Seymour (announcer), Orson Welles (scriptwriter, director).\nCAST: William Alland, Ray Collins (The Captain of the Demeter), George Coulouris (Jonathan Harker),\nMartin Gabel (Professor Van Helsing), Agnes Moorehead (Mina Harker), Karl Swenson (The Coach Driver /\nThe First Mate), Orson Welles (Count Dracula / Dr. Seward), Virginia Welles [billed as “Elizabeth Farrar”]\n(Lucy Westenra).",
  "extant_recordings": "Yes.\nTHE MERCURY THEATRE ON THE AIR (WABC, NEW YORK—CBS)\n[Monday—9:00-10:00 PM]\nJuly 11, 1938\n“Dracula”",
  "chronology": "",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}