MarkoftheVampire

Mark of the Vampire (1935)

Everyone knows about Dracula, but not everyone is aware that director Tod Browning did a 2nd vampire movie with actor Bela Lugosi. The movie is called Mark of the Vampire and is actually considered to be a remake of another earlier silent movie called London After Midnight (sadly which is lost). Here the action starts off with a local nobleman being found dead with all of his blood drained from him. The locals believe it is the work of a vampire and the police make no headway. A year later the woman is attacked in a similar way. This brings Professor Zelen, an expert in vampires, on the case. Will the vampires be caught? Can the professor save the girl? You will have to watch this movie to find out.

Mark of the Vampire is a difficult movie for me to review. I’m a very big fan of classic horror movies and I think that Browning was a great director. Fans of the director’s other movies will be pleased to notice the familiar atmosphere and how the camera and lighting are used to create it. You can certainly tell a Browning directed movie from all of his contemporaries. Plus the cast for Mark of the Vampire is amazing, with Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Lionel Barrymore. Younger fans might not recognize anyone other then Lugosi, but there is a lot of talent here. This only makes what happened to the movie all the more frustrating.

The movie is very confusing at times with characters dropping in and out, seemingly at random. Heck Barrymore’s character, Professor Zelen just sort of appears in the movie! Also the plot has several holes in it that really doesn’t make much sense. I’ll never forget the 1st time that I watched it I kept feeling like I had missed something. The truth is I did. After finishing the movie the studio cut the hell out of it. Some accounts say that as much as 20 minutes was lopped out of the movie. Now never having seen the movie as the director intended it to be, but I would wager that much of what I noticed is because of this butchering of Mark of the Vampire. Still in spite of the cuts what is left is worth checking out. The atmosphere that is common to most of Browning’s horror films is present. And again the cast is really great. Though it looks like they cut of Lugosi’s lines until the very end where he speaks a couple of sentences.

If you enjoy the classic horror films and especially if you like Dracula or The Old Dark House you owe it to yourself to track down a copy of Mark of the Vampire. I know that it is available on several of those collections that gather together Lugosi movies. So it isn’t going to be a difficult movie to track down, and should be rather inexpensive. As for the movie itself I’m still disappointed in what it could have been. But what we have isn’t too bad.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer