Bela Lugosi as Dracula

Classic Movie Monsters
Bela Lugosi 1882-1956 in Dracula (1931)

The Hungarian matinee idol Bela Lugosi achieved cinematic immortality as the world's most famous vampire
This is a USPS postcard with matching stamp.
unused from 1997

The Invisible Ray

...delving into new, strange fields of mystery!
(Boris) Karloff
as the Luminous man and
Bela Lugosi
in

The Invisible Ray

with Frances Drake
and Frank Lawton

The Invisible Ray, 1936. From Grafton
Classic Science Fiction Movie Posters: 2006

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A visionary doctor, Dr. Janos Rukh (Karloff) invents a telescope that can look far out into space — into Andromeda — and pick up rays of light that will show the Earth's past. Looking at the past on a television-like screen, a group of assembled doctors as well as Dr. Rukh see a large meteor hit the earth thousands of years ago. Rukh convinces the doctors to go on an expedition to find the meteor that appeared to land in Africa. While in Africa, Rukh finds the meteor but is exposed to strong radiation ("Radium X") from the rock. Dr. Benet (Lugosi) takes a piece of the stone back to Europe and uses the meteorite to heal people, including curing the blind. Rukh, suffering from the radiation, glows at night when not treated and is slowly losing his mind.

Dracula (1931)

Dracula
(Shown are Bela Lugosi and Helen Chandler)

- - - - - - -

Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character.

Today, Dracula is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi's portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula. Lugosi had a powerful presence and authority on-screen. The slow, deliberate pacing of his performance ("I bid you… welcome!" and "I never drink… wine!") gave his Dracula the air of a walking, talking corpse, which terrified 1931 movie audiences. He was just as compelling with no dialogue, and the many close-ups of Lugosi's face in icy silence jumped off the screen. With this mesmerizing performance, Dracula became Bela Lugosi's signature role, his Dracula a cultural icon, and he himself a legend in the classic Universal Horror film series.

However, Dracula would ultimately become a role which would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. Despite his earlier stage successes in a variety of roles, from the moment Lugosi donned the cape on screen, it would forever see him typecast as the Count.