(thanks, Passion4Horror!)

Confession time: I didn’t much care for the film version of Dracula. It took me three attempts to sit through that film as a kid, but it was less due to Bela Lugosi’s interestingly languid performance than the stiff “let’s put on a show!” Broadway staging most of the movie suffers from.

Over time I’ve finally come to respect and like the film a lot more, but have always found the Spanish language version far more compelling and fun to watch thanks to the additional scenes and excellent supporting cast. Unfortunately, the Dracula in that film chose to mimic Lugosi’s singular acting style a wee bit too much while the other actors eat up the scenery in that great manner supporting players do when they’re making the best of a meaty role.

That said… “bat’s” not why we’re here, folks. this post is about Tod Browning’s oddball “horror” flick Mark of the Vampire, which itself is a remake of his 1927 silent film London After Midnight, one of the legendary lost films that exists today only as a fair reconstruction using only production stills that pops up on TCM from time to time (or can be bought as part of a Lon Chaney DVD collection). Based on that version, other than Lon Chaney’s amazingly freakish makeup, it may be a lost film with plentiful chilling atmosphere but it’s certainly not a great film. In fact, other than some sets, great faces of the supporting cast, Chaney’s truly inspired vampire makeup and pre-Batman cape, calling it a “horror” film is quite misleading. It’s more of a detective story with a strange vampire angle and a twist you can see coming a mile away because it’s pretty obvious if you pay attention to a few key “scenes” and dialog as the film progresses.

Mark of the Vampire is pretty much exactly the same story with eight years’ difference adding sound and some better visual effects and performances. Browning apparently (and purposely) neglected to tell his cast he was remaking his earlier film and Bela Lugosi, making a return as a caped blood-sucker very similar to his classic Dracula, seems to have gotten the worst of not knowing this this little detail. The result is a “horror” of a detective story with an ending that’s a kick in the pants if you got sucked into the somewhat confusing tale and didn’t see it coming like the sun suddenly popping out of a toaster on the horizon. It actually works in a sort of comedic manner, but if you had the hooks in you hard, they may hurt when that finale yanks them loose.

If you didn’t see Leo the Lion roaring at the beginning and walked in after the credits, you’d also think this was a Universal horror film what with Tod Browning and Lugosi on board. But nope, this is an MGM flick partly because Universal was busy expanding its horror catalog with sequels for everything but Dracula and partly because MGM was smart enough to see the potential in getting both Browning and Lugosi to make a “vampire” picture guaranteed to rake in the box office dollars. It’s too bad it’s not a better film despite those great effects (a bat into vampire transformation is a great shot), Lugosi and Carroll Borland giving it their all as “vampires” Count Mora and Luna and plenty of atmosphere that’s undercut by some dicey editing that lends additional confusion to the mix.

I’m skipping the plot entirely as I’d written out a paragraph on it and had to stop and laugh because it came out making about as much sense as the actual film. I think that’s due to edits made after it was completed, as MoV only clocks in at a hair over an hour and this is yet another open and shut clear cut case of a classic that needed to be longer rather than shorter. However, I’ll still recommend this one if you haven’t seen it yet as it’s well worth a screening for its visual style, tone and effects more than being an overall masterpiece. I say team it up with either version of Dracula and TCM’s reconstructed London After Midnight just so you can get bitten a few times and see how it feels when you’re all spent from that time in front of the tube.