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todmichel wrote:

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Between "Drakula Halalà" and a last Hungarian movie shot in 1944 (he died the following year), apparently Lajthay made only one movie as director - or rather as a co-director. And curiously, it was a French movie, "L'enfant du Danube", an obscure melodrama released in 1936. The co-director was André Alexandre. It COULD have been one of these movies made in several "language" versions, one in Hungarian directed by Lajthay and one in French helmed by Lajthay and Alexandre, but the Catalogue of French Films 1929-1939 by Raymond Chirat lists it only as a French movie (but the title is so obscure, it could be a mistake). And - still according to Chirat - the co-director's name on print was Charles Le Derlé !!!

L'ENFANT DU DANUBE (1936) was indeed a purely French production. Apparently in response to the new Hungarian regime's constant purges of personnel and strict censorship, Lajthay relocated to Vienna in the 1920s, and then moved on via Berlin to Paris in the early 1930s. During his years in Paris, he worked primarily in the theatre as an actor and director, with L'ENFANT DU DANUBE seemingly representing his only contact with French cinema. He returned to Budapest in 1938, and worked in various theatres and cabarets.

Here's an image of Lajthay during his early years as a movie actor, in VORREI MORIR (1918), the first film he both directed and acted in (a print resurfaced in Moscow several years ago). Sadly, he forgot to hold out his fingers like talons, so as to be as creepily coincidental as the other two Hungarians pictured above!

todmichel wrote:

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Incidentally, the Catalogue 1929-1939 doesn't make the connection between Le Derlé and Lajthay. It mentions, however, another participation to French cinema, in 1935 - but as a writer ("Scénario: Charles Lederlé"). It was for LE COUP DE TROIS, directed by Jean de Limur, with René Lefèvre and Jeanne Fusier-Gir. Another (really) obscure movie...

And this time we are dealing with a multi-language version, it seems! LE COUP DE TROIS was a Czechoslovak-French co-production, and an alternate version of KOHO JSEM VČERA LÍBAL (literally, 'Who Did I Kiss Yesterday?'). The story and scenario of the Czech version are credited solely to Moníka Jelinková, whereas the French-language version gives the scenario credit to both Jelinková and Lederlé (according to Czech sources, at least). So apparently Lajthay was responsible, specifically, for the French adaptation of the material (although dialogue in the French version is credited to Guy d'Abzac and Ninon Steinhoff, who were presumably able to render the dialogue in more idiomatic French than émigré Lajthay might have been able to). The Centre national de la cinématographie claims to have the original negative to LE COUP DE TROIS (!).

It seems to me that a profile of Lajthay would certainly be an interesting addition to any publication of the DRAKULA HALÁLA novella, since he appears to have had quite an international career, even though I doubt most of us have ever heard of him outside the context of this one (pseudo-)vampire movie.