Comments on: Drakula halála

By: pauline cook

pauline cook — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:16:53 +0000

my aunt (his wife) , died recently and all of her photoes and paperwork passed to her nephew and niece in Wales, I have not seen these yet but I will contact them and ask them to pass on any information to you. As children we heard about her marriage to him but as children you don’t pay much attention to such things, and live to regret the questions you didn’t ask at the time. Many familty stories abound. I think they were in the south of france at the outbreak of war and he made films there during wwII, but i’m not sure. sorry I can’t be of much help. I know he worked with Alexander Corder.

By: urbanora

urbanora — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:50:16 +0000

How interesting to hear from you. Karoly Lajthay seems a bit of a mystery figure in the few histories that I’ve read that mention him, but he does seem to have been a director with a particular style. Sadly, none of the silent films that he made as director or actor is known to survive. Contrary to what I say in the post, he went on to make a couple of sound films after Drakula Halala, and hopefully one or both of these survive. It seems he returned to the theatre after 1923, when he was unable to make films - do you know if this is correct?

By: pauline cook

pauline cook — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:55:16 +0000

My aunt was married to Karoly Lajthay. at the outbreak of wwII he told her to return to Wales ( her home land) for her safty. She traveled widley round europe prior to this. After the war she mnaged to get drugs to him as he was ill, through the red cross. He was about to embark for England via the south of france but at the last minute he was taken from the ship ahe was too ill to travel and died just after this. He did make other films,

By: urbanora

urbanora — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:20:12 +0000

Over, but it’ll be back next year. Glad you enjoyed it. The chances of seeing any Hungarian silents are pretty slim, because so few survive. The Hungarian National Film Archive had a retrospective at last year’s Pordenone Silent Film Festival and they only showed us two titles - one of which had a synchronised music and sound effects track (and the other one I missed).

By: Melanie A.

Melanie A. — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:10:35 +0000

Drat! The festival is over!

I have enjoyed attending it so much, and really liked the inclusion of the national cinema traditions I didn’t know as well. I hadn’t watched a Hungarian silent before this festival– and, sadly, I guess I still haven’t.

By: urbanora

urbanora — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:30:49 +0000

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the comments and for having entered into the spirit of things. I’m not sure what others have made of it. If I repeat the exercise next year, I’ll probably do it differently and make it less of an exercise in daydreaming. But the musicians were terrific - truly silent musicians.

Digging out stuff on the Drakula film took up more time than all the others, and I’m still not certain of the facts (nor where others might have got their facts from).

Back to normality now, and colour.

By: Joe Thompson

Joe Thompson — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:39:28 +0000

Luke: What an excellent program to close the festival. I think it was worthwhile to stretch the rules and show two features, since they were such important works. “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” — whatever he is called — belong together. It was a nice to opportunity to see a rare product of the Hungarian industry. I was moved by the difficulties faced by the country’s filmmakers.

Thank you for the wonderful job of programming the movies, arranging for the venues, and finding the wonderful accompanists.

Regards,
Joe Thompson ;0)