Vampyr (1932)

A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.

Director:

Carl Theodor Dreyer (as Carl Th. Dreyer)

Writers:

Sheridan Le Fanu (based on a book by) (as J. Sheridan Le Fanu), Christen Jul (screenplay)

Stars:

Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Julian West	...	Allan Grey
Maurice Schutz	...	Der Schlossherr (The Lord of the Manor)
Rena Mandel	...	Gisèle
Sybille Schmitz	...	Léone
Jan Hieronimko	...	Der Dorfartz (The Village Doctor)
Henriette Gérard	...	Die alte Frau von Friedhof (The Old Woman from the Cemetery) (as Henriette Gérard)
Albert Bras	...	Der alte Diener (The Old Servant)
N. Babanini	...	Seine Frau (His Wife)
Jane Mora	...	Die Krankenschwester (The Nurse)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Georges Boidin	...	Limping Man

Storyline

Allan Gray arrives late in the evening to a secluded riverside inn in the hamlet of Courtempierre. An old man enters his room, puts a sealed parcel on the table, blurts out that some woman mustn't die, and disappears. Gray senses in this a call for help. He puts the parcel in his pocket, and goes out. Eerie shadows lead him into an old house, where he encounters a weird village doctor. The doctor receives a bottle of poison from a strange, old woman. Through the window of an old castle Gray recognizes the old man from the inn. A shadow shoots the man, who drops dead. Inside the house Gray finds his two daughters, Gisèle and Léone, and some servants. He opens the parcel, and finds an old book about vampires. Léone is seriously ill after being bitten by a vampire. Instead of helping her, the village doctor places the bottle of poison at her bedside table, and then abducts her sister Gisèle. An old servant starts reading the old book, and finds out that the vampire in Courtempierre is a ...

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Plot Keywords:

vampire | gothic horror | doctor | book | servant | 

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Germany France

Language:

German

Release Date:

14 August 1934 (USA)

Also Known As:

Castle of Doom

Filming Locations:

Abbaye de Braye, Braye, Aisne, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Tobis Filmkunst

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min (original) 70 min (DVD) 73 min (restored)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.19 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie was dubbed into English, French, and German versions for different markets. Its actors came from varied national and linguistic backgrounds, and so in certain versions it appears that some of them are speaking their lines phonetically. Additionally, the film was shot fairly cheaply using an experimental sound process, and the technical quality of the soundtrack leaves much to be desired. Most versions in distribution through the late 1990s (including those on video) are composites of the German and French versions, which differ for cuts made by the censors in each of those countries. As of 2004, no prints of the English version are known to circulate.

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Goofs

At exactly 16 minutes (in the Criterion DVD) as the camera pans right, there is a reflection in a glass window of the camera operator cranking the camera.

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Quotes

Der Dorfartz (The Village Doctor): How is she doing?
Der alte Diener (The Old Servant): Not well at all.
Der Dorfartz (The Village Doctor): Oh? Why is that?
Der alte Diener (The Old Servant): We found her out on the grounds.
Der Dorfartz (The Village Doctor): Well, let's go see.
Der alte Diener (The Old Servant): She has another of those marks on her neck.

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Connections

Featured in Carl Th. Dreyer (1966)

User Reviews

Required Viewing!

Brilliant! Breathtaking! This film was worth the long wait I imposed on myself to see it. It is not the most cohesive narrative about, but it has images that linger with you....haunt you. The film is basically a silent with some speaking. It tells a story about Allan Grey and how he was introduced into a vampire's conspiracy to kill two sisters. Grey is brought in for aid by their father who dies while trying to fight the infection coursing through his daughter's veins. What then follows is pure cinematic magic as Grey...opening a book that the father wrote was to be opened upon his death...begins reading the book on vampires whilst it is going on right around him. The mixture of action and the text from the book create a wonderfully eerie atmosphere and convey a feeling of dread and despair. There are many scenes in Vampyr, directed with fluidity by Carl Dreyer, that are incredibly well-done. The dream sequence in particular explores various camera angles, hitherto not used. As I said before, it is not the tightest story and it has some gaping holes in the plot that are never explained, but that really is not very important because the film succeeds as a film of haunting imagery...fear based on illusion and shadows.