Mark of the Vampire (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1935)

One Sheet Poster

Originally announced under the title of The Vampires of Prague, Mark of the Vampire reunited Bela Lugosi with director Tod Browning, with whom he had made The 13th Chair (1929) and Dracula (1931).

The film is essentially a remake of Browning’s 1927 silent Lon Chaney vehicle London After Midnight, now presumed lost. Fourteen minutes of footage explaining Lugosi’s character’s suicide, he has a bullet wound on his head, after murdering his daughter, played by Lugosi protégé Carroll Borland, with whom he had an incestuous relationship were cut shortly before release. Universal Studios took legal action to block the release of the film, claiming it infringed on its Dracula copyright. MGM prevailed thanks to Mark of the Vampire’s ending which revealed that the vampires were actually actors involved in unmasking a murderer.

Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Producer: Edward J. Mannix

Director: Tod Browning

Assistant Director: Harry Sharrock

Screenplay: Guy Endore and Bernard Schburt

Dialogue Contributors: H.S. Kraft, Samuel Omitz and John L. Balderston

Original Story: The Hypnotist by Tod Browning

Cinematography: James Wong Howe

Camera Operator: Charles Salerno, Jr.

Matte Painter: Warren Newcombe

Photographic Camera Effects: Thomas Tutwiler

Make-up: Jack Dawson

Make-up Assistant: William Tuttle

Recording Director: Douglas Shearer

Production Sound Mixer: G.A. Burns

Sound Effects Editors: James Graham, T.B. Hoffman and Michael Steinore

Art Director: Cedric Gibbons

Associate Art Direct0rs: Harry Oliver and Edwin B. Willis

Editor: Ben Lewis

Gowns: Adrian

Recording Engineer: Douglas Shearer

Sound Mixer: Gavin Burns

Musical Director: Edward Ward

Effects Mixers: T.B. Hoffman, James Graham and Mike Steinore

Still Photographers: Jimmy Rowe and Clarence Sinclair Bull

Stand-in for Carroll Borland: Harry Sharrock

Running Time: 59 minutes

Copyright Number: LP5490, April 15 1935

Cast:

Lionel Barrymore: Professor Zelen

Elizabeth Allan: Irena Borotyn

Bela Lugosi: Count Mora

Lionel Atwill: Inspector Neumann

Holmes Herbert: Sir Karell Bororyn

Jean Hersholt: Baron Otto von Zinden

Jesse Ralph: Midwife

Carroll Borland: Luna Mora

Donald Meek: Dr. Doskil

Ivan Simpson: Jan

Egon Brecher: Coroner

Henry Wadsworth: Count Fedor Vincenty

Lily Malyon: Sick Woman

Leila bennett: Maria

June Grittelson: Annie

Michael Visaroff: Innkeeper

Franklyn Ardell: Chauffer

Mrs. Lesovosky: Old Woman in inn

Rosemary Glosz: Innkeeper’s wife

Clare Vedara: English woman

Guy Bellis: Ronnie

Baron Hess: Bus driver

Zeffie Tilbury: Grandmother

Christian Rub: Deaf man

Torbin Meyer: Card player

Robert Greig: Fat man

James Bradbury, Jr.: Vampire

Louise Emmons: Gypsy hag

John George: Gypsy

Jane Mercer

Patricia Reel

Unknown Newspaper

The Film Daily, May 1935

The New York Times, May 3, 1935

At the Rialto and the Mayfair

F.S.N.

Horror being a precious commodity in the cinema and a potent lure to the box-office, it is not altogether surprising this week to discover that two Broadway houses—the Mayfair and the Rialto—have avidly laid claims to the same picture. Its name is “Mark of the Vampire” and it manages, through use of every device seen in Dracula and one or two besides, to lay a sound foundation for childish nightmares. Even the adults in the audience may feel a bit skittery at the sight of two or three vampires, a bevy of bats, a herd of spiders, a drove of rodents and a cluster or two of cobwebs, not forgetting the swarm of fog.

The undead, which is the professional name for the zombies of the piece, have chosen the tiny village of Visoka in Czechoslovakia for their depredations this time. There is a ruined castle whose sole tenants are believed to be the vampires, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi in private life) and his red-lipped daughter, Luna (Carol Borland). One night Sir Karell Borotyn is found dead, the telltale marks on his throat, his body drained of its blood.

“Vampires!” wail the villagers. “Murder!” insists Inspector Neumann. Lionel Barrymore drops in to become Professor Zelen, savant and delver into the occult. He scatters bat-thorn (also known as wolf’s claw) about the place to keep the vampires away, but soon it is apparent that Sir Karell’s daughter and her fiancé are being unwilling blood donors to the earth-bound spirits.

To go further into the story would be unfair to Tod Browning, director of the piece, and its authors, Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert. Let it be enough merely to add that, for all its inconsistencies, “Mark of the Vampire” should catch the beholder’s attention and hold it, through chills and thrills, right up to the moment when the mystery of the vampires of Visoka is solved. Like most good ghost stories, it’s a lot of fun, even though you don’t believe a word of it.

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, from a story by Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert; screen play by the Messrs, Endore and Schubert; directed by Tod Browning; produced by E. J. Mannix for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Professor Zelen . . . . . Lionel Barrymore Irene Borotyn . . . . . Elizabeth Allan Count Mora . . . . . Bela Lugosi Inspector Neumann . . . . . Lionel Atwill Baron Otto . . . . . Jean Hersholt Fedor . . . . . Henry Wadsworth Dr. Doskill . . . . . Donald Meek Midwife . . . . . Jessie Ralph Jan . . . . . Ivan Simpson Chauffeur . . . . . Franklyn Ardell Maria . . . . . Leila Bennett Annie . . . . . June Gittelson Luna Mora . . . . . Carol Borland Sir Karell Borotyn . . . . . Holmes Herbert Innkeeper . . . . . Michael Visaroff

The Nevada Daily Mail, May 8, 1935

The Telegraph, May 9, 1935

The Telegraph, May 10, 1935

The Toledo News-Bee, May 11, 1935

The Miami News, May 14, 1935

The Film Daily, May 15, 1935

The Film Daily, May 20, 1935

Lawrence Journal-World, May 25, 1935

Picture Play Magazine June 1935

Modern Screen, June, 1935

Sarasota Herald-Tribune, June 5, 1935

The Daily Times, June 6, 1935

The Daily Times, June 7, 1935

The Film Daily, June 10, 1935

Timely Topics

Weird Camera Effects Due To Absence of Tricks

Filming weird, startling effects in a sinister drama does not depend on “camera tricks.” In fact, it depends on the absence of any trick whatever, or any attempt to make the lens of the camera deceive the audience or distort what is placed before it. It is done by the creation of illusions such as human forms in mist, bu the placing of lights to get hard mysterious shadows – and then letting the camera “play straight” – in other words, photograph exactly what is on the stage as the eye sees it. If you were photographing a stage magician performing one of his illusions, you would do it exactly this way – photograph exactly what the eye sees. When odd lights and effects are staged for a picture the same thing is true. To attempt to diffuse or do other lens tricks would blue or distort the effect, hence we use the camera simply as a scrutinizing eye, and let it see everything done in the effect. In one scene of “The Vampires of Prague” we had the camera low to the floor, so that when Bela Lugosi approaches there is the effect of towering height of a great shadow. That was not a camera trick. The camera simply looked from where the person lying on the floor before Lugosi would have looked – hence the camera saw just what the person saw. Most believe these weird effects are camera trick, but they aren’t. The camera is never tricked.

James Wong Howe.

The Spokesman-Review, July 3, 1935