Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411160044
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JIM KOCH NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Now, in as much of a metamorphosis as the bloodsucker's celebrated transformation into a bat, vampires are being portrayed by reigning Hollywood hunks like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Stephen Rea and Antonio Banderas, all of whom star in the film ``Interview With the Vampire,'' which opens today.
It's proof that no one is immune from the changing winds of fashion, not even the living dead.
In fact, contemporary vampires - or at least the film versions - are not only prettier on the outside, but on the inside as well. No longer are they seen as the embodiments of evil, but as exponents of what can only be termed an enviable alternative life-after-death-style.
One might imagine that, in his film debut, the vampire would have made an effort to pretty up, but in F.W. Murnau's 1922 German classic, ``Nosferatu,'' Stoker's grisly description of the vampire was amplified by the addition of long talonlike fingers, razor-sharp rat's teeth with prominent fangs and a bald misshapen skull that made the actor Max Schreck more than live up to his surname, which is the German word for terror).
The film's count was also called Graf Orlck, a name change that came about because the German producers carelessly forgot to purchase the rights to ``Dracula'' from Stoker's widow, who promptly sued.
The first step in the transformation of the vampire was not a personal trainer but an adaptation of Stoker's novel to the English stage in 1924 by the dramatist Hamilton Deane.
Given the theatrical conventions of the time it was essential that Dracula be made presentable enough to be allowed into an English drawing room, where much of the action was set. This is where he acquired the familiar opera cloak and evening clothes. His appearance was refined to that of a pale, decadent middle-aged aristocrat with too much lipstick and a supposedly Mephistophelean hairdo, teased to resemble devil's horns, though it now suggests Dagwood Bumstead.
The real oomph was added by Bela Lugosi when he opened in the 1927 New York stage version of Deane's play, as revised by John Balderston. While Lugosi may not set many hearts aflutter now, female audiences at the time responded enthusiastically to his Continental charm, penetrating gaze and slicked-back hair, which gave him the aura of an undead Valentino and turned the play into a huge hit.
Adding to the audience's titillation was the fact that the Count entered bedrooms at night and hypnotically commanded nice girls to do things they would never otherwise do in a decade when a woman's sexual license was still in the learner's-permit stage.
Of course, there was the possibility you could end up like the heroine Mina's best friend, Lucy, living on a liquid diet of baby's blood and ultimately having a stake driven through your heart, but more likely you'd end up like Mina - a bit anemic and smelling faintly of garlic, but with virtue reasonably intact.
When Lugosi repeated his role in Universal Picture's 1931 screen version of ``Dracula,'' he set the mold for screen vampires for the next three decades. While such contemporary screen monsters as Frankenstein and King Kong eventually elicited the audience's sympathy, Dracula was always portrayed as purely evil, despite (or perhaps because of) the perverse fascination he held for female audiences.
Certainly, the emphasis was on the perverse - at least for the time - in the vampire's next major screen appearance, ``Dracula's Daughter'' (1936). Gloria Holden as the title character showed a decided preference for female victims, quite a feat in the same year in which Lillian Hellman's play, ``The Children's Hour,'' was transferred to the screen with all references to lesbianism deleted by order of the Hays Office.
Despite this intriguing beginning it was pretty much downhill for Dracula and his ilk after that. His son turned out to be the lumpen Lon Chaney Jr. in ``Son of Dracula'' (1943), and a miscast John Carradine donned the cloak in such all-star monster jamborees as ``House of Frankenstein'' (1944) and ``House of Dracula'' (1945).
When Lugosi resumed the role for the second and last time it was in ``Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'' (1948). Obviously, the vampire was losing his allure; he didn't even get title billing.
Although there were several sporadic attempts to revive him throughout the next decade, it seemed that by the '50s the vampire had at last been laid to rest, unable to compete with such modern horrors as the atomic bomb, juvenile delinquents and Jayne Mansfield.
But in 1958 the vampire was given new blood courtesy of England's Hammer Films. ``The Horror of Dracula'' became a huge international hit by emphasizing the sex (lots of heaving bosoms) and gore, all in living color, and established Christopher Lee as the Dracula of his generation in a series that spawned six sequels through 1973s ``Satanic Rites of Dracula.'' Part of the film's success was due to the changing composition of the movie-going audience, which was becoming progressively younger.
That the vampire had regained his popularity was evident by the increasing number of appearances he made on the screen throughout the '60s and '70s. That he'd lost some of his bite was obvious through the various twists that film makers employed to liven up his tale.
These included Roman Polanski's flaming queen vampire in ``The Fearless Vampire Killers'' (1967); ``Blacula'' (1972), a black vampire in modern Los Angeles; ``Andy Warhol's Dracula'' (1974), forever frustrated in his search for virgin blood; David Niven's aging ``Old Dracula'' (1974); the canine ``Dracula's Dog'' (1978) and the George Hamilton parody, ``Love At First Bite'' (1979), a real acting challenge for the star, who was forced to cover up his trademark tan.
It took Anne Rice to re-imagine the vampire's tale with the emphasis finally placed on the vampire himself.
Starting with her 1976 novel, ``Interview With the Vampire,'' and in the ongoing series of novels that has come to be known as ``The Vampire Chronicles,'' Rice devised her own mythology for the living dead, whom she viewed as romantic figures trapped in an eternal destiny they could not control.
While her most popular creation, the vampire Lestat, may not always behave perfectly, his crimes tend to be forgivably human rather than monstrously evil. And by blurring the line between horror and eroticism, Rice gave her vampires a very seductive allure. In this author's world, a date with a vampire isn't a fate worse than death. It's something to dress for.
If ``Interview With a Vampire'' is anything like the hit it's expected to be, it can safely be assumed that vampires will no longer be perceived as monsters, but as the ultimate unattainable sex object of the 90s. Can the men's cologne be far behind?
by CNB