the seething, unstoppable evil personified by the Count is a materialization of Victorian morality's greatest dread." A number of sequences in Dracula have earned special mention, despite criticism concerning the "static and stagy quality of the film." The dramatic and sinister opening sequence in which the young solicitor Renfield (Dwight Frye) is conveyed in a coach to Count Dracula's Transylvanian castle is one of the most discussed and praised of the picture. Karl Freund's Expressionistic technique is largely credited with its success. Browning employs "a favorite device" with an animal montage early in the film to establish a metaphoric equivalence between the emergence of the vampires from their crypts and the small parasitic vermin that infest the castle: spiders, wasps and rats. Unlike Browning's previous films, Dracula is not a "long series of [illusionist] tricks, performed and explained" but rather an application of cinematic effects "presenting vampirism as scientifically verified 'reality'." Despite Universal executives editing out portions of Browning's film, Dracula was enormously successful. Opening at New York City's Roxy Theatre, Dracula earned $50,000 in 48 hours, and was Universal's most lucrative film of the Depression Era. Five years after its release, it had grossed over one million dollars worldwide. Film critic Dennis Harvey writes: "Dracula's enormous popularity fast-tracked Browning's return to MGM, under highly favorable financial terms and the protection of longtime ally, production chief Irving Thalberg." Iron Man (1931) The last of Browning's three sound films he directed for Universal Studios, Iron Man (1931) is largely ignored in critical literature. Described as "a cautionary tale about the boxer as a physically powerful man brought down by a woman", Browning's boxing story lacks the macabre elements that typically dominate his cinema. Film historian Vivian Sobchack observes that "Iron Man, in subject and plot, is generally regarded as uncharacteristic of Browning's other work." Thematically, however, the picture exhibits a continuity consistent with his obsessive interest in "situations of moral and sexual frustration." Film critic Leger Grindon cites the four "subsidiary motifs" recognized by Browning biographer Stuart Rosenthal: "appearances hiding truth (particularly physical beauty as a mask for villainy), sexual frustration, opposing tendencies within a protagonist that are often projected onto alter egos and finally, an inability to assign guilt." These themes are evident in Iron Man. Actor Lew Ayres, following his screen debut in Universal's immensely successful anti-war themed All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), plays Kid Mason, a