Mark of the Vampire

Mark of the Vampire
Directed by	Tod Browning
Written by	Guy Endore Bernard Schubert
Starring	Lionel Barrymore Elizabeth Allan Bela Lugosi Lionel Atwill Jean Hersholt
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	26 April 1935
Running time	80 minutes[citation needed] 60 minutes (re-release version)
Language	English

Mark of the Vampire (also known as Vampires of Prague) is a 1935 horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt and directed by Tod Browning. It is a talkie remake of Browning's 1927 silent London After Midnight with the characters' names and some circumstances changed.

Mark of the Vampire was originally 75 minutes,^{[citation needed]} but was cut back to 60 minutes by MGM. Reportedly this was due to incestuous overtones - then unacceptable by the standards of the Production Code - between Count Mora (played by Lugosi) and his daughter.^{[citation needed]} However, the audio commentary on the DVD makes no mention of incest but suggests that much of what was cut was comic material, particularly surrounding the maid.

Cast

• Lionel Barrymore as Professor Zelen
• Elizabeth Allan as Irena Borotyn
• Bela Lugosi as Count Mora
• Lionel Atwill as Inspector Neumann
• Jean Hersholt as Baron Otto von Zinden
• Henry Wadsworth as Fedor Vincente
• Donald Meek as Dr. J. Doskil
• Carroll Borland as Luna
• Ivan Simpson as Jan
• Franklyn Ardell as Chauffeur
• Leila Bennett as Maria
• June Gittelson as Annie
• Holmes Herbert as Sir Karell Borotyn
• Michael Visaroff as Innkeeper
• James Bradbury Jr as Third Vampire
• Egon Brecher as Coroner
• Jessie Ralph as Midwife (scenes deleted)

Plot summary

Sir Karell Borotyn (Holmes Herbert) is found murdered in his own house, with two tiny pinpoint wounds on his neck. The attending doctor Dr. Doskil (Donald Meek) and Sir Karell's friend Baron Otto (Jean Hersholt) are convinced that responsible for the murder is a vampire, specifically Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and his daughter Luna (Carroll Borland), while the Prague police inspector (Lionel Atwill) refuses to believe. Now his daughter Irena (Elizabeth Allan) is the count’s next target. Enter Professor Zelen (Lionel Barrymore), an expert on vampires and the occult, who’s sent in to prevent her death. At the same time, secrets are revealed surrounding the circumstances of Sir Karell’s death.

Reception

The merit of this film is still debated among horror movie fans due to the ending, which reveals that the vampires were in reality actors hired to help trap a murderer. While films of the previous decade commonly revealed the supernatural threat to be fake—such as The Cat and the Canary or The Gorilla -- the arrival of such films as Dracula and Frankenstein in the thirties saw horror films become more fantastic. This is perhaps why some see the ending as a cop-out and Bela Lugosi reportedly found the idea absurd (then again, the film is a semi-remake of Browning's London After Midnight in which Lon Chaney played a vampire who turned out to be a detective in disguise, so it couldn't have been that unexpected). Many viewers see the film as a satire on the conventions of the horror film.^[1]

See also

• Bela Lugosi filmography

References

1. ^ Internet Movie Database (IMDb) reviews of Mark of the Vampire".

External links

• Mark of the Vampire at the Internet Movie Database
• Mark of the Vampire at AllRovi