"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Who else but Hannibal Lecter, so memorably brought to life by Sir Anthony Hopkins in "The Silence of the Lambs".

Audiences who can stomach Lecter's peculiar contribution to the culinary arts will no doubt be eager to see "Hannibal", which catches up with the flesh-eating serial killer ten years after his last screen appearance.

But while Hopkins has left an indelible imprint on the role, he was not the first actor to play 'Hannibal the Cannibal'. That honour goes to Scottish thespian Brian Cox - and there are many who prefer his interpretation in Michael Mann's film "Manhunter" (based on Thomas Harris' book "Red Dragon").

Fleshy, sardonic, and sallow, Cox's Lecter is very different from Hopkins' prim, fastidious, and rather camp psycho. And where Jonathan Demme's film was as Gothic as an old Universal horror movie, "Manhunter" felt like an extended episode of "Miami Vice", the 1980s cop show on which director Mann made his name.

"Hannibal" provokes its own share of fascinating comparisons. In "Lambs", Jodie Foster made a vulnerable, tortured Clarice Starling, still haunted by her father's tragic death. But in Ridley Scott's sequel, Julianne Moore plays her as an altogether more forthright, antagonistic figure.

All three films have one person in common, though, and that's Frankie Faison. In "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal" the actor plays hospital porter Barney. But look closely in "Manhunter" and you'll spot him as a cop named Fisk.