The talkies’ arrival was a major hardship in many respects for the movie industry, as theater owners had to install expensive new equipment, and studios could no longer easily export fresh product to lucrative foreign markets. One solution weighed to the latter dilemma was making alternative versions of features in different languages. Universal took that idea farther than most in late 1930 by shooting “Dracula” twice on the same sets, with entirely different casts and directors. One was, of course, the legendary Tod Browning film with Bela Lugosi. The other, directed by George Melford (who’d guided Rudolph Valentino in his most famous role as “The Sheik”), had Spanish emigre Carlos Villarias as the caped bloodsucker. It was forgotten for decades until a 1990s restoration and revival led some latter-day viewers to pronounce it the better of the two.
That curious footnote to cinematic history has now inspired “Los Vampires,” the first directorial feature in decades from scenarist Craig Mitchell. Like the 2000 Willem Dafoe vehicle “Shadow of the Vampire,” this is a fiction spun from the reality of a fabled production shoot. Henry Ian Cusick and Thomas Kretschmann play fictionalized stand-ins for Villarias and Lugosi, as immigrant actors touchy about “sharing” a starring role that could be a huge break for both.
