We at HORROR-WOOD recently received an interesting missive from Aneve Thompson, writing to us from Canada. Aneve’s e-mail carried four very interesting photos as attachments. Aneve wrote:

Would you have any idea what is the name of the film in which Bela Lugosi starred in according to the following scan which I attach? Apparently these photographs are very rare especially as they have been signed by him as well.  I really love your website. --Aneve

As you can see, dear readers, these are indeed photographs of Bela "Dracula" Lugosi in theatrical pose, perhaps for a film or stage production. Lugosi trod the boards as well as appeared in films during his long career (for example, he followed Boris Karloff in the role of the murderous brother in the stage production of "Arsenic And Old Lace"). Intrigued, we asked Aneve for more information. She wrote back:

Please note that the scans are from my private collection, which belonged to my late father. My dad was an avid collector of Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff. He was a member of the Bela Lugosi fan club, as we still have a postcard of his fan club. At the time they were selling his autograph photos 8 x 10 for .10 cents and 8 x 14 was .15 cents. This was of course in the 1930's and Bela Lugosi was in the prime of his career. As a young girl my father used to let me have a look at them but I was not allowed to touch them. They were very precious to him. Since then they have been forgotten until his death as he was a collector and not a dealer. Now we really appreciate the beauty of these rarities and what we would like to know from your readers is if anybody would know if these are movie stills or taken for publicity photos by the studios, or from stage shows. A portrait of Bela Lugosi drawn in charcoal on vulgar paper (brown paper) 8 x 10 approx. by the following artist "R. R. Hagerman 194l". I'm not exactly sure as it is difficult to read the small signature I'm wondering if anyone would know anything about this portraitist?. But the drawing is a beauty, and I'm wondering if this was taken from a Dracula scene? As you can see it was dedicated to my late father, "To JohnThompson, sincerely, Béla Lugosi" People who would have information on the above photos can contact me via email at:aneve@sprint.ca P.S. See scan of Bela Lugosi portrait below. --Aneve

Well, we at HORROR-WOOD consulted all the Lugosi literature available at Doc Seward’s sanitarium and came up with no positive identification of the venue in which these publicity photos of Lugosi were produced. They are as much of a mystery to the old fly-eater as much to Aneve. It’s truly the "Case Of The Mystery Lugosi Photos"!