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Mark of the Vampire (1935) More at IMDb Pro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags.

The author and critic Kim Newman thinks so; and he says as much on his DVD commentary track. We may imagine that an introductory scene was cut in post-production tampering; but no one knows.

That's a bullet wound. Count Mora had had an incestuous relationship with his daughter before strangling her and shooting himself. Or so it was before the final cut. As it is, we don't know where the mark came from, and we don't know the exact nature of Luna's relationship with the count.

Well, actually we do. In the twist ending we learn the the two supposed vampires are really actors pretending to be Count Mora and Luna.

See: Arthur Lennig, The Immortal Count: The Life and Times of Bela Lugosi, 2003, p. 220.

In other words, how did Baron Otto drain the blood of Sir Karell? He heated the rim of a drinking glass with a candle. Then he stabbed his victim in the neck and put the rim of the glass over the wound. According to Prof. Zelin, this created a powerful suction. Believe it or don't.

No. We never learn why these actors playing vampires stalk around in character when no one is looking. We never learn how they are able to pull off seemingly supernatural tricks. We never learn why the hoaxers play out some of their phony scenes, even when the person they're trying to fool is nowhere around. We never learn why the whole vampire scheme--which the police inspector hilariously thought would be "simple"--was necessary when it seems that Prof. Zelin could have just hypnotized Baron Otto, as he eventually does.

Although London After Midnight (1927) is lost to time, the script and production stills still exist. These surviving artifacts allowed Rick Schmidlin to film a recreation of what the original silent movie may have looked like. (This 2002 production, also called London After Midnight, is available on DVD.)

The two plots are nearly identical. The main difference is that the vampire turns out to be the Professor in disguise. In other words, the characters played by Bela Lugosi and Lionel Barrymore in the remake are, in the original, a single character, played by Lon Chaney.

The happiest difference is that the murdered nobleman is shot by his assailant, who makes no attempt to blame vampires. The vampire idea is all the Inspector's. In Mark of the Vampire the killer implausibly drains out his victim's blood and uses local superstition to divert suspicion from himself.

It's unclear if London shares its remake's habit for creating false red herrings, such as the supernatural occurrences that can't be explained away, or the performances made by the hoaxers when no one is around to be hoaxed. (See above.)