The Evolution of the Vampire's Image: Part II

In Part I, I described the vampire image as seen in different cultures, 19th century literature and in the early, silent film "Nosferatu." In 1931, however, a new vision of the vampire appeared which would change our perceptions forever...

To many, Bela Lugosi is thesignature vampire. And thus it was director Tod Browning's 1931 version of Draculathat led to a radical change in the common concept of what a vampire looked like, sounded like and acted like.

Lugosi had already played Dracula on Broadway in the Deane/Balderston play. However, the film version released by Universal Studios allowed Lugosi's Dracula image to become widespread, reaching so many more people than theatre could ever have.

For anyone who had seen Nosferatu,there was little similarity between Lugosi's Dracula and Max Schreck's Count Orlock. Lugosi's Dracula wore a tuxedo and a long, black opera cape. His voice-the first vampire voice to be heard in the movies-was weighted with a luxurious Hungarian accent, and it could now be heard by all movie-goers (with the then-recent advent of talking pictures). And gone were the less-than-attractive features (hairy palms and bad breath) mentioned in Bram Stoker's novel. Although he wasn't Clark Gable, Lugosi still cut a much more attractive figure as a vampire than Stoker's Dracula (and, most certainly, Count Orlock of Nosferatu) ever had.

Bela Lugosi etched an image of the vampire that would from then on be honoured, imitated and even parodied. Even such figures as The Count from "Sesame Street," or Count Chocula of breakfast-cereal fame, resonate with that decades-old image of Bela Lugosi.

However, if you look at these childhood icons, and if you think of other vampires in recent movies (like Interview with the Vampireor Buffy the Vampire Slayer,)there is one thing that Lugosi's Dracula didn't have that has been long associated with the vampire.

Fangs.

Although Bram Stoker's novel mentioned "peculiarly sharp white teeth (which) protruded over the lips," vampire films made before the late 1950s (including Nosferatu, Dracula, Son of Dracula, House of Dracula)didn't have those signature fangs.

Before the late 1950s, fangs (and the copious amounts of blood that go with them) were not a physical feature of vampires in the movies. It was only once Christopher Lee sported those razor-sharp canines in Hammer Films' The Horror of Dracula,(1958) that they became synonymous with the image of the vampire. Indeed, there is rarely a vampire in films today that doesn't flash his or her fangs at some point in the movie.