Francis Dolarhyde

Francis Dolarhyde
Hannibal Tetralogy character
Ralph Fiennes as Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon.
Created by	Thomas Harris
Portrayed by	Tom Noonan (Manhunter) Ralph Fiennes Red Dragon
Voiced by	Frank Langella (Red Dragon, deleted scenes)
Information
Nickname(s)	The Tooth-Fairy Mr D. "D." The Dragon
Aliases	The Great Red Dragon
Gender	Male

Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist featured in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.

Character overview

Dolarhyde is a serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth-Fairy" due to his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other apparent oral fixations. He refers to his other self as "The Great Red Dragon" after William Blake's painting "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun".

Character history

Dolarhyde's backstory is supplied in the novel and alluded to in the film adaptations. Born in Springfield, Missouri on June 14, 1938 with a cleft lip and palate, he is abandoned by his mother and cared for in an orphanage until the age of five. He is then taken in by his grandmother, who subjects him to severe emotional and physical abuse. He begins torturing animals at a young age to vent his anger over the abuse. After his grandmother becomes afflicted with dementia, Dolarhyde is turned over to the care of his estranged mother and her husband in St. Louis; he is further abused by this family and is sent back to the orphanage after being caught hanging his stepsister's cat. After being caught breaking into a house at age 17, he enlists in the United States Army. While on his tour in Japan and neighboring countries, he learns how to develop film and receives cosmetic surgery for his cleft palate. He later gets a job with the Gateway Corp. as the production chief in their home movies division.

Dolarhyde is a bodybuilder and exceptionally strong; it is mentioned in the novel that even in his early forties, Dolarhyde could have successfully competed in regional bodybuilding competitions.

Dolarhyde begins his killing spree by murdering two families within a month after discovering The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, which gives voice to his alternate personality. He commits both crimes on or near a full moon; it is hinted in the book that he had killed before that, however. He chooses his victims through the home movies that he edits as a film processing technician. He believes that by killing people — or "transforming" them, as he calls it — he can fully "become" the Dragon. On a trip to Hong Kong during his army service, he has a large dragon tattooed across his back and had two sets of false teeth made; one of them normal for his usual life, the other distorted and razor sharp for his killings, based on a mold of his grandmother's teeth. There is also a sexual component to his crimes; he molests the corpse of one adult female victim, and he often masturbates to the films he himself makes while committing murder.

FBI profiler Will Graham is asked to return from early retirement to aid in his capture. Graham had previously captured Garrett Jacob Hobbs and Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, a cannibalistic psychiatrist and serial killer, whom Dolarhyde idolizes. Graham visits Lecter in the Chesapeake Mental Institute, hoping that the doctor would be able to help identify the Dragon or at least assist in creating a psychological profile. Following this meeting, Lecter "helps" by sending Dolarhyde Graham's address in code with the note, "Kill them all." Dolarhyde is foiled when FBI Director Jack Crawford intercepts the message in time to warn Graham's family and the local sheriff.

Dolarhyde reads The National Tattler, a tabloid, which runs sensationalistic stories, collecting clippings about Lecter's arrest and trial, about Graham, and about his own murders. In an attempt to provoke Dolarhyde out of hiding, Graham gives an interview to Freddy Lounds of The Tattler, in which he refers to the "Tooth-Fairy" as impotent, homosexual, and possibly the product of incest; he also implies that Lecter is offended that the killer considers himself Lecter's equal. The interview enrages Dolarhyde, who kidnaps Lounds, intimidates him into recanting his article on tape, and then bites his lips off. Dolarhyde returns to Chicago, sets Lounds on fire, and rolls him down an incline into The Tattler's parking garage.

Dolarhyde develops a relationship with a blind female coworker named Reba McClane. The relationship quells his murderous impulses at first, but her presence only infuriates the other part of Dolarhyde's psyche. Desperate now to retain control of himself, Dolarhyde flies to New York, where he devours the original Blake watercolor, believing that doing so would destroy the Dragon. This plan fails, though, as his ingestion of the painting only makes the Dragon angrier. Dolarhyde kills coworker Ralph Mandy after seeing him with Reba at the door to her house. He then plans to kill her and himself by setting his house on fire with her in it. He relents at the last minute, however, and apparently shoots himself in the face with a shotgun.

It turns out, however, that he has actually shot the corpse of Ralph Mandy. Being blind, McClane was fooled when she felt the shattered head of the corpse. Dolarhyde comes to Graham's home in Florida, where he stabs Graham in the face, severely disfiguring him. Graham's wife Molly shoots Dolarhyde, killing him.

Film adaptations

Tom Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter.

Dolarhyde has been twice portrayed in film adaptations of Harris' novel: By Tom Noonan (in which he was called 'Dollarhyde') in 1986's Manhunter, and by Ralph Fiennes in 2002's Red Dragon. In deleted scenes in Red Dragon, Dolarhyde's Great Red Dragon personality is voiced by Frank Langella.

In Manhunter, Dolarhyde was filmed two different ways; shirtless with an elaborate tattoo covering his upper torso and back (as opposed to Dolarhyde's tattoos in the book, which only covered his back), and with a shirt on thus covering his tattoo. The former was not used in the finished film, partly because the tattoos were considered too distracting and similar to the ones that the Yakuza wore. The look, however, appeared on promotional photos for the film.

In the first movie, Graham kills Dolarhyde, while in the second, both he and his wife have a hand in Dolarhyde's death, with Graham firing the majority of the shots in a crossfire with Dolarhyde, and his wife finishing him off as Dolarhyde rises back up, even with the bullet wounds.