MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

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Monday, January 25, 2010

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

This Tod Browning production (a remake of his legendary lost silent LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT/’27) helped close out the early Talkie wave of comic horror mystery pics like THE BAT WHISPERERS/’30; THE OLD DARK HOUSE/’32; and the silent THE CAT AND THE CANARY/’27.* The cast sounds tempting (Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, Jean Hersholt, Lionel Atwill, Donald Meek), but Browning seems unwilling to make any adjustments in pace or staging to his stiffening technique. The film is even more arthritic and stage-bound than his DRACULA was back in ‘31. Thanks to lenser James Wong Howe it’s all handsomely lit, but the whole vampire set up is played out in such an absurdly hammy manner that the trick ending hasn’t a chance of coming off. It’s the sort of moviemaking that makes you wonder if anyone working on it has ever seen let alone made a film before. Browning's next, THE DEVIL-DOLL/'36, is infinitely better.

*The next wave emphasized comedy with stars like Bob Hope & Abbott & Costello in the leading roles.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Monday, January 25, 2010

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE