Magyar News, 2000. szeptember-2001. augusztus (11. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2001-05-01 / 9. szám
Dracula This year marks the 70th anniversary of Dracula’s debut on the movie screen. On February 15, 1931 the blood sucking entity first scared moviegoers with his exploits and what started out as a retelling of a Victorian tale by Bram Stoker has turned into a modern-day cottage industry. Besides the countless books, films, numerous TV and cartoon shows, the famous Count can also boast nearly 100 Web pages ranging from his very own home page to the Transylvanian Society of Dracula; a worldwide society dedicated to the study of Stoker’s Dracula, fiction and film derivatives, and Vlad the Impaler Dracular myths. The 1931 film Dracula was directed by Charles Tod Browning. For those of you who are only familiar with Francis Ford Coppola’s version or the recent Dracula 2000, the original plot was about a Transylvanian vampire who enslaves his real estate agent and moves to London. There, he meets his match in a Jewish scientist. For many, this is the Swan Lake of horror movies, a classic in its own time and the production that launched Universal Studios’s string of horror movie successes which lasted for 30 years culminating in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho.” Béla Lugosi, the screen legend who made Dracula one of Hollywood’s most enduring villains, was bom Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó on October 20, 1882 in Lugos, Hungary. The youngest of four children began his stage career in 1901 after studying at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts. Thanks to piercing eyes and a cruel mouth, the tall, aristocratic, and sinisterly handsome banker’s son spent the next two decades building a reputation as one of Hungary’s great matinee idols. But political turmoil in his homeland drove Lugosi to Germany, in part because of leftwing activities (reportedly for organizing an actors’ union, which he would also do in the 1930s as one of the founding members of the Screen Actor’s Guild). Lugosi emigrated to America in 1921 and struggled to earn a living in stage melodramas and routine shows before assuming the title role in the 1927 Broadway production of Dracula. The thick, almost impenetrable accent that hampered him in most roles actually proved to be an asset when he played Stoker’s Transylvanian vampire. Film rights to the play were sold to Universal, which announced that Lon Chaney (famous for his role as The Wolf Man) would play the title role. But Chaney’s untimely death from cancer in 1930 prompted producer-director Browning to cast the Hungarian actor and the rest is history. Browning himself was a Page 6 little bit of a gypsy. He fell in love at the age of 16 with a dancer in a circus and left behind his well-to-do family to follow her travels, where along the way he became a clown, jockey and director of a variety theater. But all of this came to an end when he met the famous American director DW Griffith and became an actor. The man who would go on to make Dracula was once dubbed "the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema" and most critics agree all Browning’s talents and shortcomings as a director are to be found in his 1931 classic. "The atmospheric opening scenes are still creepy and evocative, but once the action shifts to England, the film becomes a stilted exercise in canned theater, carried mainly by Lugosi’s archetypal performance," wrote American film critic Leonard Maltin. Browning followed the vampire tale with a film drawing on his circus days called the “Freaks” (1932) and “Mark of the Vampire” (1935), again with Lugosi. Sadly, both Lugosi’s and Browning’s careers rapidly declined after reaching this pinnacle of success. Once a distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Lugosi ended up a drug-addicted pauper in Hollywood. This was thanks in large part to typecasting brought about by his most famous role and a major career blunder in refusing to play the monster in Frankenstein (1931). Lugosi turned down the role that launched Boris Karloff’s career on the grounds it offered him no dialogue and would submerge him beneath heavy makeup. Lugosi compounded the error by then deciding to accept pretty much any part, which led him to play pathetic parodies of his greatest role for Abbott & Costello and others. An addiction to morphine finally got the better of him and in 1955 he checked himself into a rehab hospital for treatment. He ended his career working for the legendary "Worst Director of All Time", Edward D Wood, Jr in “Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). He died of a heart attack on August 16, 1956 during production and his scenes were completed by a stand-in. Ironically, Martin Landau won an Oscar for impersonating Béla Lugosi in the Tim Burton-directed cult classic film “Ed Wood” starring Johnny Depp, where as Lugosi himself never came close to winning any award, other than the unofficial "tragic career" consolation prize. Lugosi was buried in his full Dracula costume, including the famous cape. According to Vincent Price, when he and Peter Lorre went to view the body during Béla’s funeral, Lorre, upon seeing Lugosi dressed in his Dracula garb, joked, "Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?" Later he was interned at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, USA. (The specific interment location if you are so inclined is Grotto, L120, 1). Even after death the Béla Lugosi legend lives on thanks to archive footage. His image has graced the screen in 110 movies, most recently in the 1999 film The Road to Dracula. In fact, his film career spans nearly the entire 20th century with screen credits dating back to the 1917 Hungarian film “The Antique Store” (A Régiséggyűjtő under the name Arisztid Olt ) to “Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld” where faded celluloid has brought back the Transylvanian count. Vlad the Impaler, C.1431-C.1476, prince of Walachia (1456-62, c.1476), fought bitterly against the Turks and, because of his sadistic cruelty toward subjects and Turkish prisoners alike, became the source of the Dracula legend. Deposed in 1462, he was later reinstated (c.1476) but soon was caught and beheaded by the Turks. His father was known as Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil)—hence the son's name Dracula (or son of the Devil). Vlad has never been in Hungary, not even in Transylvania.
