Mark of the Vampire (1935) / Z-View
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Director: Tod Browning
Screenplay: Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert
Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan and Bela Lugosi
The Pitch: “Hey, Tod Browning wants to make Mark of the Vampire!”
Tagline: Undead…yet living on the Kisses of Youth!
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Mark of the Vampire had the potential to be a great vampire movie. Tod Browning directing, Bela Lugosi as the vampire with Lionel Barrymore! Mark of the Vampire has mood, setting and starts off with great promise.
Sir Karell Borotin is found dead drained of his blood. All evidence points to a vampire or vampires that must be found and destroyed. The film is off and running and it’s a great experience. There’s a scene with Lugosi changing from a bat to human form and then running down a hall to catch and kill a victim and it’s terrifying!
Then in the last act the film changes gears and becomes a murder mystery with no real vampires! Check out this trivia from IMDB:
The actors all played their roles as though they were in a conventional horror movie, unaware of the twist-ending until the last few days of shooting.Director Tod Browning deliberately kept them in the dark because he wanted authenticity.
When director Tod Browning revealed late in the filming process that the plot dictated that the vampires were really just actors pretending to be vampires, he met with much resistance from the cast and crew. Nobody was more incensed than Bela Lugosi, who pleaded with Browning to let him play a real vampire.
Mark of the Vampire is still worth watching but sadly isn’t near the movie it could have been.
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