Abbott and Costello Meet Frankensteinwas Lugosi’s last hurrah as Count Dracula for Universal. He is excellent in this well-mounted comedy. The fact that Béla ended up starring in Ed Wood movies does not dull his monumental contribution to Dracula lore.
Hammer’s first Technicolor horror film introduced the world to a new, dynamic, sexy, and powerful Count Dracula: Christopher Lee. Dracula[ Horror of Draculain the US, Terence Fisher, 1958] also brought Lee’s Dracula a worthy foe in Peter Cushing’s driven Van Helsing. Both Lee and Cushing would go on to play these roles for decades although, unlike Lugosi, their wide range of character roles continued (and for Christopher Lee, continues) for the rest of their careers.
Hundreds of Draculamovies have been produced since then, including an excellent BBC adaptation starring Louis Jourdan as the Count and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing, and two big-budget feature productions: Dracula[John Badham, 1979], with Frank Langella as the Count and Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula[Francis Ford Coppola, 1992], starring Gary Oldman, with Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing. Universal tried to milk this bat once again with the monster rally Van Helsing[Stephen Sommers, 2004], starring Hugh Jackman as an action-man Van Helsing, in an attempt to create a new franchise.
The folkloric rules of vampirism have been reinvented in almost every vampire film. Kathryn Bigelow’s terrific Near Dark[1987] brought us a motley group of vampires trying to survive in the modern American west. Anne Rice’s bestseller Interview With the Vampirewas made into a lavish film [Neil Jordan, 1994] starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, with the young Kirsten Dunst playing an older woman still in the body of the child she was when bitten. Her anger and frustration with her plight is identical to the vampire boy-child Homer in Near Dark, who is played by Joshua Miller with a raging intensity. The wonderful, Swedish, Let the Right One In[Tomas Alfredson, 2008] deals with a child vampire in a stark and poetic way.
Innocent Blood[John Landis, 1992] stars Anne Parillaud as Marie, a vampire who finds herself stranded in Pittsburgh alone and hungry. She refuses to take what she calls “innocent blood,” and so must feed on criminals. Although she is careful not to create more bloodsuckers, by mistake she creates a vampire out of Sal “The Shark” Macelli (Robert Loggia), a vicious mafioso. She joins undercover cop Joe Gennaro (Anthony LaPaglia) to try and deal with a developing plague of monster mobsters. He falls in love with her, but isn’t quite sure if he can trust a vampire, let alone make love to one.
In 30 Days of Night[David Slade, 2007], a gang of vampires led by Danny Huston besiege an Alaskan town. Daybreakers[Michael and Peter Spierig, 2009] takes place in 2019, after a plague has turned the majority of the world’s population into vampires.
Vampires continue to intrigue, scare, attract, repel, and entertain us. I’d like to end with a strange request in a guide about movies: I urge you to read Stoker’s original book. The story is told through letters and diaries and it’s not only postmodern, it’s really scary!
Vampires[ Book Contents]
Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood [Malcolm Rymer, 1847]
An illustration from the 1847 “penny dreadful” pamphlet edition of James Malcolm Rymer’s gothic vampire story. Many persistent vampire behaviors originated here.
Vampires[ Book Contents]
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave [Freddie Francis, 1968]
Christopher Lee as the bloodthirsty Count.
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Dracula [George Melford, 1931]
Carlos Villarías as “Conde Dracula” and Lupita Tovar as “Eva Stewart” in the Spanish language Dracula, shot at night on the same sets as Browning’s version.
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Interview With the Vampire [Neil Jordan, 1994]
Brad Pitt as Louis de Pointe du Lac, the vampire in Neil Jordan’s 1994 film of Anne Rice’s novel Interview With the Vampire.
Vampires[ Book Contents]
30 Days of Night [David Slade, 2007]
Andrew Stehlin as Arvin, one of the vampires laying siege to an Alaskan town in 30 Days of Night.
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Dracula’s Daughter [Lambert Hillyer, 1936]
Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula’s Daughter, seen here burning her father’s body in the hope that this will free her from the curse of vampirism.
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Nosferatu [F. W. Murnau, 1922]
Max Schreck as Nosferatu in this, the first (and unauthorized) screen version of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. This German expressionistic silent was remade as Nosferatu the Vampyreby Werner Herzog in 1979.
Vampires[ Book Contents]
Max Schreck in the title role arrives in Wisborg; everyone else on board the ship is dead, apparently killed by a plague that leaves strange marks on the necks of victims.
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Nosferatu the Vampyre [Werner Herzog, 1979]
Klaus Kinski, in make-up based on Schreck’s in Murnau’s silent original, realizes too late that the sun is coming up. The beautiful Isabelle Adjani is Lucy Harker.
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London After Midnight [Tod Browning, 1927]
In this movie mystery, the “vampires” are a red herring used to trap the real culprits. One of the most sought-after “lost films,” mainly because of Lon Chaney’s extraordinary make-up. Remade as Mark of the Vampire[Tod Browning, 1935] with Béla Lugosi as the “vampire.”
Vampires[ Book Contents]
Dracula [Tod Browning, 1931]
Béla Lugosi as Count Dracula about to bite Frances Dade as Lucy in the film that forever typecast the Hungarian actor as the vampire. Lugosi never wore fangs as Dracula.
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Lugosi’s entrance: “I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.”