CINEMA'S FIRST VAMPIRE BITE

Monster movie fans know that we never actually saw Bela Lugosi's Dracula biting his victims. It wouldn't be until Hammer unleashed Valerie Gaunt, who we see (briefly), to chomp down on the hapless John Van Eyssen in HORROR OF DRACULA. After that, the blood gates were opened and it was fair game to show vampires biting their prey.

For the first on-screen vampire bite we have to go all the way back to the silent era--to 1912 in fact--and a Danish production titled THE VAMPIRE DANCER, directed by August Blom. There's one caveat: the vampire in this film is not of the supernatural kind, but a "vamp" of the type (think Theda Bara) when women were portrayed in various films as predatory, metaphorically sucking the life out of impassioned men lured into thinking they've got the implied chance of sex. Still, the actress, Clara Wieth, is portrayed as a "vampire" and through her allure, causes the end of a man hopelessly infatuated with her.

A rehearsal scene for the play during the film.

This is a synopsis of the story from the DANISH SILENT FILM site:

The artists at a popular variety show are in an uproar when dancer Sylvia Lafont’s dance partner Enric falls seriously ill. If they are to perform the famous vampire dance, they must find a substitute in a hurry. An ad in the newspaper prompts a number of hopeful applicants to come to the theatre, and Sylvia is quick to make her decision: she chooses Oscar, a taciturn but handsome young man. During the rehearsals, Oscar falls head over heels in love with Sylvia. However, she is happily engaged to someone else. She gently rejects his fierce advances and tries to persuade him to concentrate on their performance. But Oscar’s emotions cannot be tamed: sick with jealousy, he makes a tragic decision.

The final scene of the film.

All film prints of the 25-minute long erotic melodrama are now lost, with the exception of a single "print on paper" from the US Library of Congress. The process, which projected each frame of a film onto photo-sensitive paper, was often used to file a copyright without having to submit actual reels of film.

THE VAMPIRE DANCER (1912)