Mark of the Vampire (1935)

Some film reviewers try to slip by saying that the actors in the movie seemed bored. What that generally means is that there is nothing in the plot or characters to energize the interest of intelligent or experienced actors—or audiences.

Well, the actors in Mark of the Vampire appear absolutely catatonic and I would guess that the staff and crew weren’t far behind. Among classic horror films with any kind of pedigree, this may be the worst. And if it’s true that director Tod Browning lost interest in Dracula after the death of its intended star, Lon Chaney, this somnolent remake of Chaney’s original London After Midnight, also directed by Browning, is a Nyquil cocktail.

The name above the title is Lionel Barrymore’s. He’d worked with Browning before (The Show, 1927; West of Zanzibar, 1928) and would again (The Devil-Doll, 1936) but I wonder if he wanted to make this one, if he’d lost a bet, signed contracts in his sleep, had to do what MGM told him to do, or just wanted to help a pal after the fiasco that had been Freaks (1932).  Barrymore plays a police detective posing as a doctor and his performance is so hammy you expect it to come with a hunk of Swiss between two slices of rye. 

The story is set in 1934. Sir Karell (Holmes Herbert) has been killed and his blood drained, apparently by a vampire. The Professor (Barrymore) has been called into the case by Inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwill) and Baron Otto (Jean Hersholt) because they fear the monster may return to kill Sir Karell’s daughter Ilsa (Elizabeth Allen).  Of course, she has a worried fiancé Fedor (Henry Wadsworth) and the household is rounded out by the usual 1930s staff of comic relief servants.

The villains next door are the vampire team headed by Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and the wide-eyed Luna (Carol Borland). Their abode is filthy and bedecked by cobwebs. Opossums hiss and scurry, representing, I suppose, mutated rats. Lugosi and Borland, in mostly non-speaking roles, even descend a grand staircase, passing through (off camera) a large cobweb without breaking it.

Any single element of this movie, no matter how insignificant, that reminds the viewer of Dracula is purely intentional.

Lugosi is said to have disliked what was done with his character and petitioned Browning to make changes, but the director stuck with the script as written by Guy Endore, Bernard Schubert, John L. Balderston, H.S. Kraft, Samuel Ornitz, and Browning himself (the latter four uncredited).  Even with the talent involved, the screenplay is such a mess, determining whether director or actor was right is a waste of time.  Nothing could salvage this stinker and I suspect that everyone but Lugosi knew it. Without Chaney’s unique talent for verisimilitude through makeup and gesture, this one became silly on page one.

Only the cults of Browning and Lugosi have kept this one breathing as long as it has—those pus one of the most gob-smackingly out-of-left-field endings you’ve ever not-quite-believed you were seeing.

Mark of the Vampire is a must for classic horror and/or Browning and/or Lugosi fans, but even at a little over an hour it will tax the patience and credulity of anyone else. I mean, I’ve seen it a half dozen times and I still don’t believe it. It just reminds me how much, like Browning, I miss Lon Chaney.