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to be made in horror. I was putting together my pitch to persuade the Laemmles to let me direct, but Thalberg had gone to MGM, and when he offered Tod a deal to come over there, I reconsidered. I’d been in Tod’s shadow for so long at Universal, they probably just considered me a gopher. And since Tod had gotten the okay to bring me with him to MGM, I decided one picture would get us established and I could make my pitch there. Unfortunately, that one picture was Freaks .”
    Markov shook his head, the regret still fresh after all these years. “Tod had been determined to do it for years, and on the heels of his Dracula success, Thalberg humored him. The movie was an utter disaster. People ran from the theater at the preview. Watching those real-life sideshow freaks was unbearable to most people. Tod’s career never recovered. He and everyone associated with him fell into disfavor. I stuck around, visions of directing burning in my head, but nowhere to take them. MGM certainly didn’t want to hear from Tod Browning’s ‘personal assistant,’ and I was sure that going back to Universal would be a dead end.
    “As eager as I was to start my own career, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him when he was at his lowest. I stayed with him, hoping I could help him turn it around. But the handwriting was on the wall. MGM only gave him four pictures in the next seven years. For me the best part of that whole miserable period was learning more about the camera from James Wong Howe when he shot Mark of the Vampire .”
    “One of the all-time great cinematographers.”
    “Without question. He told me Lon knew more about the camera than any actor he ever worked with. In the early days at Universal, Lon had done some directing. He loved to make home movies. Sometimes he’d film things between takes, some short scenario he’d concocted. When we finish here I can show you the one I mentioned earlier.”
    “I’m looking forward to it,” Quinn said.
    Markov nodded, gazing sadly at his brandy but leaving it on the table, as though some memories were beyond its capacity to heal.
    “In 1941, Tod finally gave up and retired to Malibu. I stayed in Los Angeles to pitch whatever stories I came up with. I didn’t need the work or the money. I’d gotten rich by using my insider knowledge to invest in sure things in the film industry—technological breakthroughs, productions I knew would make money. So I spent my time writing.
    “My obsession with the Dracula legend had always made me want to make my own version. I saw what Tod did wrong—the staginess, the slow, talky pace, unimaginative camera work, and so on—and was convinced I could do much better.
    “My Dracula couldn’t be a remake. Aside from copyright issues, I didn’t want to be bound by the story as Stoker told it in his novel, or the stage version that had been adapted for the movie. Both were severely flawed, as far as I was concerned. I wanted to make a sequel. That way I could tell whatever Dracula story I wanted to tell. At that point, I didn’t know what that story would be. All I knew was that it would pick up where Dracula had left off—right after Van Helsing had driven the stake into his heart. Unfortunately, Universal was thinking the same thing. While I was still trying to come up with a good scenario, they came out with their sequel.”
    “ Dracula’s Daughter ,” Quinn said. “1936. Gloria Holden played the part.”
    “Yes. And she had cremated his remains. How could I bring him back to life after that? I kept groping for a plausible premise. Then, in 1938, Universal re-released their biggest box-office hits as a double bill— Dracula and Frankenstein . When I saw the blockbuster business they did all over the country, I had a eureka moment: combine the central ideas of the two most popular horror stories. I wouldn’t need Dracula’s body. I could use the dead to create the undead. An entirely new Dracula. Not the suave Lugosi. More like