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LUGOSI, BELA (1882–1956). Hungarian actor.
To
garner some understanding of this remarkable performer, consider this analogy:
suppose that Laurence Olivier had, for some reason, emigrated to Russia after
his success on the stage. Struggling with his uncertain grasp of the language,
he happens to land a role as a vampire, which proves unexpectedly popular and
leads to fame and several offers to appear in horror films. At first pleased by
the attention and the income, he unhappily discovers that he cannot escape
typecasting, and all his attempts to break out of horror into mainstream films
prove futile. Thus, forced to work in one miserable horror film after another,
he increasingly consoles himself with alcohol and drugs.
The
analogy is not precise, since Lugosi was probably never an actor in Olivier's
class; the point is that this is the way Lugosi would have characterized
himself—an excellent, multi-talented actor unable to obtain roles in
excellent films that would draw upon his multiple talents. And the sure
knowledge that one could have been a contender has driven many a man to tears,
and to drink. However, unlike other self-destructive performers who experienced
long and embarrassing declines, like John CARRADINE and Lon CHANEY Jr., Lugosi
commands respect for two reasons: he had some genuine acting talent, and he
never gave less than his all to any performance. Here was a man who literally
believed in the old theatrical cliché—"There are no small parts, only small
actors." You will never observe him going through the motions or sleepwalking
through a role, as is often the case with Carradine or Chaney; instead, he is
always striving to provide a memorable performance (even in ludicrous
travesties like Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire and Bride of the
Monster), always doing his best to move and entertain his audience, even as
he recognized that none of this would do anything to salvage the film or
improve his fortunes. And it is this unwavering devotion to the craft of
acting, I believe, that Thomson mistakes for his devotion to horror.
Lugosi has given the horror film two of its most memorable characters: Dracula,
evocatively introduced in the 1931 film and most effectively reprised
in the unofficial pastiche The Return of the Vampire (though
also credibly reenacted in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein);
and the charmingly sinister hunchback Igor, who provides Son of
Frankenstein with its liveliest moments and virtually takes control
of The Ghost of Frankenstein. Worthy of note as well are his
commanding presence in the glacially-slow White Zombie, his
surprising heroics in The Invisible Ray, and his mad scientist
in Return of the Ape Man, but almost any Lugosi performance
has something to offer the attentive viewer. One might even watch
Zombies on Broadway and Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire
to see how calmly he endures the company of clowns. His most conspicuous
failures came in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, where he
was instructed to play the Frankenstein monster as a blind man though
that information was omitted from the film, and in Bride of the
Monster, where even the dying Lugosi's best efforts could not
make an Edward D. WOOD, Jr. film watchable.
(The unspeakably awful Plan Nine from Outer Space, filmed three
years after Lugosi's death to make use of three minutes of Lugosi
footage shot for a proposed vampire movie, should not really be counted
as part of his filmography; for had he actually been on the set, he
might have shamed everybody into doing a little bit better.)
Like Boris KARLOFF, with whom he had a
long and complex love-hate relationship, Lugosi has endured after
death as an icon, his image as Dracula endlessly replicated in comic
books, cartoons, toys, and cereal boxes. Though never mentioned as
an Oscar-worthy performer during his lifetime, Lugosi posthumously
enabled Martin LANDAU to earn an Oscar by
portraying him in Tim BURTON's sentimental
biopic Ed Wood (1994). While devotees might challenge some
aspects of Landau's performance, he did powerfully convey that Lugosi
was a man determined to maintain his dignity at all costs; and one
likes to imagine that the award Landau received was also intended
as Hollywood's belated tribute to Lugosi himself.
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