Lugosi's portrayal of Count Dracula is inextricably linked to the vampire genre established by Browning. As film critic Elizabeth Bronfen observes, "the notoriety of Browning's Dracula within film history resides above all else in the uncanny identification between Bela Lugosi and his role."Bronfen, 2006 p. 160Barson, 2021: "Lugosi's " unctuous line readings that made him inseparable from the character of the elegant vampire.Eaker, 2016: "Lugosi himself discussed how intensely Browning directed his acting in the film, stating that the direction was very different than the way he had played the part on Broadway." Browning quickly establishes what would become Dracula's— and Bela Lugosi's—sine qua non: "The camera repeatedly focuses on Dracula's hypnotic gaze, which, along with his idiosyncratic articulation, was to become his cinematic trademark."Bronfen, 2006 p. 153 Film historian Alec Charles observes that "The first time we see Bela Lugosi in Tod Browning's Dracula...he looks almost directly into the camera...Browning affords the audience the first of those famously intense and direct into-the-camera Lugosi looks, a style of gaze that would be duplicated time and again by the likes of Christopher Lee and Lugosi's lesser imitators..."Charles, 2006 p. 81 Lugosi embraced his screen persona as the preeminent "aristocratic Eastern European vampire" and welcomed his typecasting, assuring his "artistic legacy".Bronfen, 2006 p. 160: Bronfen provides a sympathetic sketch of Lugosi's post-Dracula career.Eaker, 2016: "...Browning did have a rewarding collaborative partnership with...Lugosi, even if he did not find it as satisfying" as his association with Lon Chaney.
