October 15: Juxtaposing London After Midnight with The Mark Of The Vampire

 

Director Tod Browning remade his London After Midnight (1927) as The Mark of the Vampire in 1935. His original intent was to have Lon Chaney reprise his role of the professor, but Chaney died at the age of 47 in 1930. The next logical choice was Bela Lugosi whom Browning had directed in Dracula in 1931. Today a full print of the London is one of the most sought after films in the world.  Mark of the Vampire however, is very much intact and available for viewing. Just a few still comparisons follow. 

Spooktaober 27: The Head of Janus (1920)

 

I know... this is two Conrad Veidt films in as many days, but this lost gem is so much more.  It has connections to so many other really famous horror and near horror films (Karl Freund was the chief cinematographer), many of them amongst the most well known silents films out there. The most recognizable connection is that it's a Murnau film from 1920. Murnau needs no introduction; he was famous in his native Germany and later in his adopted United States. Veidt would follow a similar path, via the U.K. But, it is yet another player in this silent German adaptation of Stevenson's Jekyll And Hyde, who became a much bigger fixture the American psyche than Veidt or Murnau combined who is of interest here: Bela Lugosi. Lugosi who was famously Hungarian, born in what is now Romania and a World War I veteran, made his way to Germany after the war (he had already appeared in a Hungarian production directed by future Casablanca director Michael Curtiz), where he appeared in a handful of films, including this one. The film is lost, but stills do survive. We are fortunate that one of them contains Lugosi in his role as Dr. Warren's Diener. 

 

 

Born Today October 20: Bela Lugosi

1882-1956

Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó was born on this date in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)--now part of Romania as Lugoj and not far from the real Transylvansia [Note: in the original placing of his name, his surname would have come first as par the norm with Hungarian names].  He was born into a Hungarian speaking family with 3 older siblings; his father István was a banker; his mother was of Serbian ancestry.  He was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition.  At the age of 12 he dropped out of school to work.  He would find work in the town of Resita, where traveling performers would frequent.  He said that her became enamored with acting through watching them there.  He started his acting career around the age of 20 in 1901 or 1902--he acted in smallish parts in all types of performances in regional or provincial theaters.  By 1903 and 1904 he had steady performance work.  By 1911 he had graduated to larger, even starring, roles and had even taken on Shakespeare.  In that same year, he relocated to Budapest on joined the National Theater.  He was there from 1914 through 1919 in mostly supporting roles (though he would later claim that he was a top billed actor to bolster his acting bonafides).  These years were interrupted by active military service from 1914 through 1916 in World War I, fighting in the Austro-Hungarian Army, where he ultimately rose to the rank of L.  He was a leader of ski patrol and his outfit was sent to the Russian Front, where, as he recounted they were nearly all slaughtered.  He, himself wounded twice before, was wounded a third time, surviving amongst the dead of his unit; for his service at the Front he was awarded the Wound Metal; but his wounds would leave him with lasting sciatica (and possible, at least for a time, PTSD).  Despite his war injuries, he returned to theater but left in 1919, fleeing the country during the revolution in Hungary that year. He first made his way to Vienna, and then on to Berlin, were he settled for a short time and attempted to continue his acting career. He eventually immigrated to the United States via a merchant ship as a working crewman that docked in port at New Orleans. He made his film debut in his native Hungary in 1917 under the acting name of Olt Arisztid, despite that he had been using the name "Lugosi" both privately and professionally for well over a decade (a name that was derived from his birthplace Lugos and meant to honor it).  The film was title Álarcosbál, translated into English it is Masked Ball and was directed by fellow Romanian born Hungarian: Alfréd Deésy. Bela, or rather "Olt," appeared in the male lead opposite Annie Góth. Lugosi actually appeared in nearly 15 films in Hungary before fleeing, one--the Michael Curtiz film 99 in 1918--under the name "Albert Lugesi." His last Hungarian film was another Deésy film entitled Casanova in which Bela played the title character. He also made a large number of films while living in Germany; the first of which was Nachenschnur des tot.  It was in Germany that he appeared in his first horror film and it a famous one--famously lost. Billed as Bela Lugosi he assayed the role Dr. Warren's Diener in F. W. Munau's The Head of Janus in 1920.  A complex psychological horror, the leading roles were occupied by Conrad Viedt and Margarete Schlegel; it was Murnau's Jekyll and Hyde.  His last German film was Ihre Hoheit die Tänzerin starring Lee Parry and directed by Richard Eichberg in 1922.  His first American film was a Fox spy melodrama with a Panama Canal plot; The Silent Command was directed by J. Gordon Edwards. Bela, being an actual foreigner, of course was cast as the terrorist Hisston (and credited, due to a mistake, as Belo Lugosi), the film was released in August of 1923.  His movie appearances over the next few years were scant due his working in live theater in New York, eventually making it all the way to Broadway.  He would not appear in a great number of fully silent films after this in fully credited roles. He appeared in only one credited film in 1924--the very small budgeted The Rejected Woman  and just two films in 1925. He did make an uncredited appearance (in two places in the film) in Victor Sjöström's very famous He Who Gets Slapped starring Lon Chaney in 1924 (only very recently verified actually). Probably his two most well known silents came in 1925. The Midnight Girl is definitely the better known of the two, due it's wide availability and inclusion in several "Bela box sets" (I have two copies of it in such box sets, and a further 2 more from budget horror sets, though the film is a melodrama; so it is AVAILABLE!). The other is the George Terwilliger directed spy melodrama (yes, another one) in which Bela plays a Russian agent Daughters Who Pay.  Both appearances are rather famous for on-screen kisses that Bela's characters have; the one in Daughters Who Pay has been remarked on due to it's blood content...his character kisses a dancing woman with a rose in her mouth and it sticks his character Romonsky, who then is seen with blood running down his lips...something that we are deprived of in his role as Count Dracula.  He did not appear again in a feature until 1929, which came in the now lost Fox melodrama The Veiled Woman, a film that was released in one sound version and one silent version, and barley worth the mention in Lugosi's career as the "murdered suitor" if it were not for the fact that film also features Lupita Tovar in an equally small role. It is notable because Tovar would appear in the "Spanish Dracula" Drácula in the "Mina" character place of "Eva" in 1931. That the two appeared in a film together just two years prior is certainly worth the note (the film was Tovar's debut). He had just three more performances in 1929. His first talking sequence film was as a night club owner in the partial silent Prisoners, a Warner's crime film. He did not act in the Conrad Veidt film The Last Performance, but rather provided the Hungarian dub for Veidt's main character for release back in his home country. It is ironic that, to my knowledge, this is his only Hungarian speaking role in a horror film (he did provide Hungarian dub for at least one other film in 1930's that we know of, there may have been more).  One might be tempted to think that this was one of the reasons he got cast in Dracula, if it were not for his performance as Inspector Delzante in Tod Browning's full sound The Thirteenth Chair--released on the 19th of October, just one day prior to Lugosi's 47th birthday.  It also his last film of the decade. He appeared in six films in 1930, the first of which was Such Men Are Dangerous--a film directed by Kenneth Hawks, Howard Hawks' ill-fated brother.  His seventh film appearance of the 1930's is the big one: Count Dracula in Tod Browning's Universal classic Dracula.  I would say "the rest is history"--especially in regards to Lugosi's typecasting in horror, but his career has one final silent film connection. In 1935, Lugosi appeared in another Tod Browning film Mark of the Vampire.   The film was close to being a scene by scene--but all talking--remake of Browning's now famously lost silent horror of 1927 London After Midnight, which is equally famous for starring Lon Chaney.  Lugosi struggled with the burden of typecasting; he also struggled with drug addiction after getting hooked on pain killers legally prescribed for his massively painful sciatica. Bela Lugosi passed away of a heart attack on the 16th of August in 1956 at the age of 73.  His last acting role came in in the  scifi/horror film The Black Sheep in 1956; he appeared along side Basil Rathbone, John Carradine and Lon Chaney Jr. He also did two guest appearances on television shows; his debut on the small screen came in the anthology  series Suspense (A Cask of Amontillado) and he made an appearance on variety show The Paul Winchell Show in October of 1950 (this is the appearance that has become infamous when it was included in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood--as the version seen in the film is pure fiction--Lugosi did not have trouble with his lines and the appearance came years before collaborations with Wood). He is buried at the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City in California.  He was buried in his famous cape. Though he is a huge horror icon now, that is not what he envisioned his acting career would be--quite the opposite actually, as he wanted to play romantic leads and greatly enjoyed classical drama. None the less, us horror hounds are eternally grateful!! Happy Birthday Bela! 

 

 

(source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

(source: Charlie (Find a Grave)]

 

Official Site 

 

IMDb 

 

Wikipedia 

 

Find A Grave entry 

 

(still from The Midnight Girl)

 

Born Today September14: Robert Florey

1900-1979

Born in Paris, Florey developed an obsession with Hollywood very early on in life.  He actually grew up in a part of Paris that was very near the Melies studio. His first job in the world of cinema came when he managed to get job as an assistant to one of the most influential silent film directors of the feature length and serial motion pictures in France of the 1910's Louis Feuillade, [I had a little piece that a wrote up about him during a Countdown To Halloween in 2011...looking forward to this year's Countdown BTW.] in his studio in Nice. He managed to work his way up into some acting roles in some of Feuillade's later films.   He wanted to immigrate to the United States, and did so, but seems to have done so by way of Switzerland, where he said he produced some one-reels; very little or anything is known about them--they were likely lost very soon after production (or perhaps they didn't exist at all).  In Hollywood he became an assistant to another giant of the silent age Josef von Sternberg, himself an immigrant.  Some of Florey's earliest important work came at the end of the silent era, one with his co-direction of an experimental short with Slavko Vorkapic (a Serbian immigrant) in 1928 and his own experimental Skyscraper Symphony shot in Manhattan NYC in 1929.  His biggest personal influence was German Expressionism, he also, curiously had a fascination with New York City that seemed to work on the avant-garde part of his mind (I guess Hollywood, the place, must have been a bit of let down in appearance).  His Hollywood career really started for real with a full on directorial debut in 1927, and he went on to have one of the longest most prolific directorial careers in Hollywood, transitioning to directing television episodes, amongst them for Alfred Hitchcock, the first Twilight Zone series and the first Outer Limits series.  He directed comedy giants The Marx Brothers early on in their film appearances in the later 20's.  But his talents were not limited to directing, producing and acting; he was also a prolific writer and contributed significant part to the script treatment of Frankenstein (1931) which he was slated to direct.  It was he that interviewed Bela Lugosi for the part of the monster and actually screen tested him.  He went seriously uncredited because of differences that arose within the studio system--I'm not going to wade too far into these waters, that would warrant a whole other post on one the most famous early talking features in history!  He did, however go on to direct Lugosi in Murders In Rue Morgue in 1932, just a year after his appearance in Dracula.  This, is after all this is a blog devoted (mostly) to the silents.  In terms of his writing, however, he did actually author a number of books and is considered a first rate Hollywood historian. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.

A shot from his Love Of Zero (1927) showing the invluence of German Expressionism on his work.  In this case, obviously, by The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.  

His Early Work:

Note:  This is numerically listed, not by credit (many of these he has multi-credits on for writing)

Saturmin ou le bon allumeur (1921) (short)

L'orpheiline (1921)

Parisette (1921) (A serial, a specialty of  Feuillade!)

Robin Hood (1922) (a Douglas Fairbanks penned film under pseudo-name Elton Thomas, stars Wallace Beery, currently on Amazon Prime)

The Big Parade (1925) (VERY early soundtrack sequenced film, sound provided by Western Electric)

Parisian Nights (1925)

The Masked Bride (1926)

La Boheme (1926)

Bardelys The Magnificent (1926)

Exquisite Sinner (1926)

The Magic Flame (1927) (partially lost film)

One Hour Of Love (1927) (Hollywood directorial debut, it very unfortunately a lost film)

The Romantic Age (1927)

Face Value (1927)

Johann The Coffinmaker (1927) (one of his experimental films, often regarded as a horror film.)

The Woman Disputed (1928)

The Life And Death Of 9431, A Hollywood Extra (1928) (co-directed with Vorkapic as "Vorkapich"--Florey as multi-credits on this important experimental avant-garde film.)

Hello New York (1928) (a real strange one that featured Maurice Chevalier and wife, arriving by boat and "poking" around NYC.)

Pusher-in-the-Face (1929) (F. Scott Fitzgerald penned the screenplay from his own story for this.)

The Hole In The Wall (1929) (listed on yesterday's Born On post for Claudette Colbert)

The Cocoanuts (1929) (The Marx Brothers!!, early musical talkie with sound by Western Electric)

Night Club (1929) (early musical short, partially lost for sure.  There is some question as to whether this is a separate exhibition film from a film by the same name from 1929.  If that is the case, then the full length film is completely lost--this sort of confusion doesn't happen very often,)

Batter Of Paris (1929) (early talkie)

Skyscraper Symphony (1929) (this is a short film that I have a great deal of affection for!  But, I too, am an NYC lover!)

The Midnight Girl (1925)

It's a silent melodrama from 1925 with Lugosi!  Not the best movie in the world by any means, but it is at least of historical interest...and hey it has BELA!