Ep. 10 Elaine and Lilith und Ly - Oh My!

A Return to the Supernatural and the Birth and Proliferation of the Supernatural Vampire on Film

There are two films we will discuss in episode 10, but unfortunately only one has survived - and only a portion , at that. We trace the evolution of the vampire from the femme fatale "vamp" to the first mention of the supernatural vampires as we know them.

First up is the 1914 American damsel-in-distress serial Exploits of Elaine. In fourteen chapters, it tells of the story of Elaine, played by Pearl White, who seeks the help of a detective, played by Arnold Daly, to track down the villain, known as the Clutching Hand, who killed her father.

Photograph of Pearl White signed for Raoul Paoli. Campbell Studios, 538 Fifth Avenue, New York City (1903-1928), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

We look at chapter 6: The Vampire. Unfortunately, we could find footage of The Vampire, but here is Chapter 10 of the series:

The Exploits of Elaine, Chapter 10: The Life Current (1914)

Movie director Fritz Lang, aged 79, arrives in Schiphol. April 10th, 1969. Joost Evers / Anefo, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

We next discuss the early life of German director, producer, and writer Fritz Lang, who would go on to write and direct such films as Metropolis (1927), M (1931), The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), and The Big Heat (1953), among many others. He wrote our next film, Lilith und Ly (1919), a lost Austrian film directed by Erich Kober. This film is the earliest depiction of a supernatural vampire as we think of it. As previously mentioned, this film is lost, but some production stills survive:

Lilith und Ly (1919) dir., Erich Kober, production stills

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