Despite his reputation as a bit of an outsider and even possibly a sadist around Hollywood (he was once described as the only director to surpass Von Stroheim in the area of the bizarre and immoral), Tod Browning was one of the most important film-makers of the silent era and made 2 of the most recognizable films of the early sound era, the original "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi and the infamous "Freaks." Unfortunately his later effort "Mark of the Vampire" displays the same poor ability in terms of directing dialogue as those 2 films but only a little of their unique visual appeal. Perhaps just as he was emboldened by the success of "Dracula" to make the controversial "Freaks", the failure of that self-same film may have humbled him enough to offer MGM a relatively weak imitation of "Dracula", which he had made for Universal (Lon Chaney having abandoned the project, probably signaling the fact that his loyalty to Irving Thalberg was far greater than any such associations with Browning himself). Other than the creation of a prime female vampire archetype in Luna Mora (Carol Borland) and some nice atmosphere, this film has little that's original to offer.
In fact according to David Skaal's excellent biography on Browning, this film was done as a re-make of his 1927 Lon Chaney vehicle "London After Midnight" in an effort to avoid possible litigation from Universal. After all, who could claim that "Mark" was an imitation of "Dracula" when both films obviously owed so much to "Midnight"? The most unfortunate aspect of this decision however is the fact that they retained the cheat ending of "Midnight" where everything is explained away as a conspiracy instead of a supernatural event. Despite the comments of dozens of IMDb users, this was NOT a "highly original" ending and it would not have been hugely surprising to 1930s audiences even if it ironically is surprising today for those who haven't seen many American thrillers from the 1920s (or perhaps a few episodes of Hanna/Barbera's "Scooby Doo"). But watch a few movies by Roland West and you'll see what I mean; this kind of thing was so normal that for the 20s audience the question wasn't so much whether the monsters would end up to be criminals in disguise but rather the basic mystery element of which character was the one wearing the disguise (we also see this device in serials from the 1940s including "The Crimson Ghost"). In "London After Midnight" the surprise was pretty good it turned out that the vampire and the inspector were actually the same person (both parts being performed of course by the incomparable Lon Chaney)! This probably surprised audiences since they would have expected the vampire to be one of the criminals, and not the police. In this version we have the much less interesting premise that the vampire (Bela Lugosi) is an actor hired by the inspector (Lionel Atwill) and the vampire-hunter (Lionel Barrymore) to trick the real criminals into revealing themselves.
The only really fun aspect to this is the brief comic scene with Lugosi and Borland packing their trunks at the very end of the film. Obviously it makes most horror fans feel "cheated" but what they should try to understand is that there was a dual purpose to these types of endings. First, they did act as a kind of buffer between the supernatural elements and the audience, which might have either religious objections to the material or might feel too sophisticated to believe in the material. In that sense, it could be considered a cheat. But at the same time these kind of devices enabled the audience to enter into a kind of proxy world of moral equivocation imagine the possibility that any character in the story, from the leading man down to his little old mother, could be "the monster." In the sense by which the audience identifies with the characters in the story, this provides juicy opportunities for the viewer to identify with various possible incarnations of the monster and to experience vicariously the amorality of the adventure. I hope I've given those horror fans who felt "cheated" another perspective on the original appeal of this kind of suspense story.
As far as the meat of the film itself, like I said above there are some creepy atmospheric effects including weird music and sound effects and the wonderful image of Luna's transfiguration from bat to woman. I think the scene where she "attacks" the ingénue was probably pretty racy and fetishistic for its time. Lugosi and Borland look nice and creepy, and are kept mostly silent. You might wish Lionel Barrymore would follow their example a little more because even though his style is appropriate for this film there is just too much of him compared to everyone else and it unbalances the film. I think it was supposed to be more humorous than it ends up being, and Barrymore can do the "eccentric" humor (for example in "You Can't Take it With You") so here the blame lies mostly with Browning for the lifeless performance of Barrymore and others. I did enjoy the work of some of the character actors, especially Donald Meek.
One final note I read through the comments and a lot of people are complaining that Lugosi isn't in the film very much even though he's "top billed". In the print I saw however Lugosi appeared in the second row of the supporting credits and it was Barrymore who was the top-billed star. I suspect these people need to pay more attention to the credits of the film and less to the credits printed on the video box. Of course Lugosi is a bigger star than Barrymore nowadays, but it's completely ridiculous to hold the film to account for an exaggeration made by whoever packaged and sold the video copies currently circulating.
In fact according to David Skaal's excellent biography on Browning, this film was done as a re-make of his 1927 Lon Chaney vehicle "London After Midnight" in an effort to avoid possible litigation from Universal. After all, who could claim that "Mark" was an imitation of "Dracula" when both films obviously owed so much to "Midnight"? The most unfortunate aspect of this decision however is the fact that they retained the cheat ending of "Midnight" where everything is explained away as a conspiracy instead of a supernatural event. Despite the comments of dozens of IMDb users, this was NOT a "highly original" ending and it would not have been hugely surprising to 1930s audiences even if it ironically is surprising today for those who haven't seen many American thrillers from the 1920s (or perhaps a few episodes of Hanna/Barbera's "Scooby Doo"). But watch a few movies by Roland West and you'll see what I mean; this kind of thing was so normal that for the 20s audience the question wasn't so much whether the monsters would end up to be criminals in disguise but rather the basic mystery element of which character was the one wearing the disguise (we also see this device in serials from the 1940s including "The Crimson Ghost"). In "London After Midnight" the surprise was pretty good it turned out that the vampire and the inspector were actually the same person (both parts being performed of course by the incomparable Lon Chaney)! This probably surprised audiences since they would have expected the vampire to be one of the criminals, and not the police. In this version we have the much less interesting premise that the vampire (Bela Lugosi) is an actor hired by the inspector (Lionel Atwill) and the vampire-hunter (Lionel Barrymore) to trick the real criminals into revealing themselves.
The only really fun aspect to this is the brief comic scene with Lugosi and Borland packing their trunks at the very end of the film. Obviously it makes most horror fans feel "cheated" but what they should try to understand is that there was a dual purpose to these types of endings. First, they did act as a kind of buffer between the supernatural elements and the audience, which might have either religious objections to the material or might feel too sophisticated to believe in the material. In that sense, it could be considered a cheat. But at the same time these kind of devices enabled the audience to enter into a kind of proxy world of moral equivocation imagine the possibility that any character in the story, from the leading man down to his little old mother, could be "the monster." In the sense by which the audience identifies with the characters in the story, this provides juicy opportunities for the viewer to identify with various possible incarnations of the monster and to experience vicariously the amorality of the adventure. I hope I've given those horror fans who felt "cheated" another perspective on the original appeal of this kind of suspense story.
As far as the meat of the film itself, like I said above there are some creepy atmospheric effects including weird music and sound effects and the wonderful image of Luna's transfiguration from bat to woman. I think the scene where she "attacks" the ingénue was probably pretty racy and fetishistic for its time. Lugosi and Borland look nice and creepy, and are kept mostly silent. You might wish Lionel Barrymore would follow their example a little more because even though his style is appropriate for this film there is just too much of him compared to everyone else and it unbalances the film. I think it was supposed to be more humorous than it ends up being, and Barrymore can do the "eccentric" humor (for example in "You Can't Take it With You") so here the blame lies mostly with Browning for the lifeless performance of Barrymore and others. I did enjoy the work of some of the character actors, especially Donald Meek.
One final note I read through the comments and a lot of people are complaining that Lugosi isn't in the film very much even though he's "top billed". In the print I saw however Lugosi appeared in the second row of the supporting credits and it was Barrymore who was the top-billed star. I suspect these people need to pay more attention to the credits of the film and less to the credits printed on the video box. Of course Lugosi is a bigger star than Barrymore nowadays, but it's completely ridiculous to hold the film to account for an exaggeration made by whoever packaged and sold the video copies currently circulating.