"THE VAMPIRE" "Creatures in armour-plating." "Creatures weird in form and movement." "Hieratic living sculptures." "Graceful and scary." "Inspiration of so many legends." "Voracious jaws causing catastrophe." "Diseases spread among men and beasts by insects" "or by the liquid found in their legs... gorging themselves on blood." "The Cameroon cricket, prototype perhaps for the Negro mask." "Easy to see why the vampire came to be imagined in human form drinking blood from human throats like Nosferatu in Murnau's film." "But vampires do exist." "The European bat may drink blood if insects are in short supply." "But the true vampire inhabits" "Panama, Guiana, the Antilles, and above all, the "Green Hell" of the Chaco bounded by Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil." "Even as far as Trinity island..." "Our star is the Brazilian:" "Desmodus Rotondus." "Ten centimetres in body length, this bat has a wing-span of 30 centimetres." "It can fly, hang by its claws from branches, and climb head downwards." "By night, it attacks warm-blooded beasts... especially horses, cattle and their keepers." "Unlike other bats, the vampire can walk on the ground or on its victims." "It limps along, supported by forefeet doubling as wings." "The harelip beneath the palpitating flesh of the muzzle stresses its hideous aspect, though its victims are normally asleep." "Filming entailed lighting, and rather than human prey..." "a guinea pig..." "The researcher's obedient assistant..." ""The Kiss of the Vampire."" "The vampire sucks the chosen spot." "Its saliva is perhaps a local anaesthetic." "So the victim remains insensible to the pain that might waken it." "Pulling out the hair, the vampire proceeds to operate." "Its harelip allows the incisors easy access." "An anticoagulant in its saliva ensures a flow of blood." "At one sitting, it can drain a guinea pig's 200 cubic centimetres of blood." "The blood is piped through a channel formed by the harelip and the tongue above it." "Underneath, the tongue is concave, not intended for lapping, like a cat's." "The loss of blood in larger animals is trivial." "But the vampire's bite turns man and beast rabid." "Moreover, thanks to the microscopic trypanosoma, a parasite shown in enlargement here, amid blood globules, the vampire's bite also transmits an endemic sickness known as Caderas' disease, a form of sleeping-sickness, rife among" "South America's horses." "The Vampire's Salute." "After a good dinner, one stretches and prepares for bed until the next night..." "Having first attended to one's toilet." "Subtitling Titra Film Paris"