 Ostensibly based on a short story titled " Dracula 's Guest " by Bram Stoker , the film bears little or no resemblance to the original source material . David O. Selznick initially purchased the rights to the story for Metro @-@ Goldwyn @-@ Mayer . Selznick , probably knowing he could not legally make the film because of Universal 's copyright on the original film , sold the rights to Universal . After first assigning the picture to James Whale , Universal production head Carl Laemmle , Jr. finally put Hillyer in the director 's chair . 
