Mark Of The Vampire

Mark of the Vampire (1935)

Runtime: 60 minutes

Directed by: Tod Browning

Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Jean Hersholt

From: MGM

In vampire lore, a possum and saluki dog are as terrifying as an armadillo.

This played on TCM late last night and as it is only an hour long, I figured it would be an easy watch. Besides, this season there needed to be more very old horror pictures to view. While being lighter in tone than I expected, it was still fine and besides the intentionally funny moments like one minor character being hysterical on a near-constant basis, this movie was like the Lugosi Dracula in presenting mundane animals as somehow spooky enough to reside either in his castle or nearby. There, it was an armadillo-something that even “the youth” on Tumblr laugh about-and here it was both a possum and a saluki dog.

The plot: two guys believe that a nobleman was killed by a vampire; naturally, they suspect Bela Lugosi, and not just because he dresses like a monarch of the dark, or has a goth-looking daughter who should be loved by all the goth girls of today. They go after the nobleman's daughter, only this has at least one surprise I dare not spoil. Admittedly uneven-likely due to this being cut down to an hour-it still had nice atmosphere (especially at Bela's lair and a graveyard) and the amusing moments at least made me laugh-which is more than what I can say for some of the pictures I've seen in the past month. Plus, it was nice to see Lugosi as a vampire once again.

One odd note concerning Carroll Borland as the uber-goth Luna: she only made a few films in the 30's and this was her last credited role... before doing 1983's Scalps and 1985's Biohazard, both from FRED OLEN RAY. There has to be a good story behind that happening.