[–] 2 points 8 hours ago

Dracula was published in 1897 and put the vampire count's origin in Transylvania, Romania. Bela Lugosi was born and raised in what is now Lugoj, Romania, and would go on to play Dracula on Broadway in 1927, then the the Dracula movie began production in 1930.

Bela certainly made his mark on the character, but the accent was just typecasting not an artistic choice.

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  • [–] 9 points 18 hours ago

    The absolute best are rainy days without lightning in a place with some nature and privacy. I feel like dancing naked in the rain and being able to come back in to a dry house, a towel to dry yourself, a good book, and a hot tea, is a very rare experience these days. Thunderstorms are great too when you have safe shelter. But dancing naked in a thunderstorm feels a bit like tempting fate too much, which is thrilling too in a way but also I've got creatures inside depending on me staying safe.

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  • [–] 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

    There is a whole podcast series about Lugosi and other movies of this era, You Must Remember This. I'm not sure if this specific detail is covered explicitly. But my impression (and very hazy memory) leads me to believe that it may be a situation where Lugosi was cast because he looked like the expectation of a vampire from the other movie, but then Lugosi performed better and caught the public's attention better. Kind of like Hydrox vs. Oreos. Hydrox was first to market, but ultimately lost to the copycat. To be fair to Lugosi, he still added several other elements of style we now consider essential to the quintessential vampire character. He just happened to naturally have a widows peak and authentic "old world exotic accent" (he barely spoke English when he got his start in Hollywood), which gave him an advantage.

    EDIT: I should clarify that Karina Longworth's podcast, You Must Remember This, is about WAY more than Bela. That was just a short series within that podcast. It's a great listen is you have any interest in film history or long form non-fiction podcasts in general.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago

    They are black with white stripes. You can look it up, or you can just look closely at a zebra. I wouldn't recommend the later outside a controlled situation with protected contact though. Zebras are assholes. There's a reason they haven't been domesticated.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago

    Common names of animals often describe phenotype not genotype. If it looks like a ducks, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's common name is duck. There are lots of animals with common names grouping them by physical characteristics and ecological niche rather than genetic relationship, especially animals named longed before we had any real scientific study of their genetics.

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