Up today I’ve got the original Universal Dracula films, which (somehow) I’ve never seen. We’ve all seen snippets of the original Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, it was this portrayal that pretty much set in stone what we all think Count Dracula looks and acts like. Directed by Tod Browning, it opens on a man, Renfield, traveling in Transylvania to visit Dracula on a business matter. Renfield is unaware of the local superstitions about Dracula and laughs it off when some locals try to warn him away. He gets to the castle by a bat-driven coach and meets the sinister vampire. Dracula wants Renfield to secure a rented castle in England, where he intents to move for awhile. Dracula ends up feeding on Renfield which turns him into a sycophant, and then heads off to England. There, he enters society and begins feeding, as whispers and rumors start to fly, drawing the attention of a vampire hunter named Van Helsing. It’s a great film, and it’s so funny watching it today for the first time. So much that was introduced in the film has (for almost a hundred years now) been the standard for what we envision when we think of Dracula. The newer Nosferatu film is more of an interpretation from the original 1922 film (and original book), showing the vampire as more of an undead monster, whereas in Dracula, Legosi has the pale skin, mesmerizing eyes, black cape, etc, that we all know. It holds up great and is still a must-watch for film lovers. ★★★★
A sequel, Dracula’s Daughter, came 5 years alter, in 1936, and picks up where Dracula ends. The vampire is dead, his body discovered with a stake in his heart, by two police officers, with Dracula’s dead assistant Renfield nearby. The only survivor of the fiasco is Van Helsing, but his story about vampires is laughed off by Scotland Yard, and they treat him as a suspect in murder. Dracula’s legacy lives on though, in his “daughter” Countess Marya Zaleska, a former victim of Dracula that he turned into a vampire a century ago. She wants to escape the vampire curse and believes she can if she can destroy Dracula’s body, but when she steals it from the morgue and sets it ablaze, her desire for blood remains. She begins to take new victims, which gets the police snooping around, as well as a psychiatrist and friend to Van Helsing, Jeffrey Garth. Van Helsing has asked Garth to help in his defense, and while hesitant to believe the vampire stories for much of the film, he becomes a convert in the end after his secretary, Janet, goes missing. Jeffrey flees to Transylvania to save her and put a stop to the Countess. The film was pretty infamous at the time for a couple not-so-subtle lesbian-esque scenes, though the film is careful to not say or show anything overt, so as to get by the Hayes Code. Besides Janet, the Countess lures another woman to her studio to “pose” and the woman half undresses, with the rest left to imagination. The minor titillating scene was leaned on heavily in promotion. The movie is a poor followup to such a great original film, with a half baked plot and nothing really spooky or chilling ever. ★★
Son of Dracula followed in 1943, and was directed by Robert Siodmak, before he had made a name for himself. A good man behind the chair and in front of the camera (Lon Chaney Jr took on the role of Dracula) couldn’t save this movie though, and it’s pretty ho-hum. A high society girl, Katherine, is secretly engaged to the secretive Count Alucard (“Dracula” spelled backwards, which the film takes great lengths to point out again and again) and it isn’t long before dead bodies showing up, including Katherine’s father and, before long, Katherine herself, though she is resurrected shortly after. Katherine approaches her former beau Frank with a plan to kill Alucard and free her from his spell, but the plot goes haywire before the end. There’s a ton of plot twists and dead ends, and it seemed they were throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the viewer to see what stuck. Little did. ★½
I jumped ahead to House of Frankenstein, despite it being a sequel to a movie I haven’t seen yet (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man), because it is a 1940s “Avengers” film, in that it is marketed as a team-up by all of Universal’s monsters. What I didn’t know is, while Dracula is in it, he dies before 30 minutes in, so I should have included it with my upcoming Frankenstein movie set. C’est la vie. In this movie, Dr Niemann is in prison for trying to continue Dr Frankenstein’s work, but he escapes with Daniel (a hunchback) and shortly after, kills a man named Professor Lampini, who owned a traveling horror show. Niemann takes Lampini’s identity and continues the show, which carries Dracula’s coffin with the stake still in the vampire’s heart. Eventually, Niemann removes the stake and revives Dracula, tasking him with seeking revenge on the person who put Niemann in jail. Once that ugly business is done, Niemann gets down to brass tacks to continue his research. He comes across the Frankenstein monster and the Wolf Man (Larry, when the full moon isn’t turning him into a werewolf) encased in ice, and starts to thaw them out. Larry comes around first, and Niemann promises to use Dr Frankenstein’s notes to undue the werewolf curse. Daniel meanwhile has fallen in love with a gypsy girl, but unfortunately for him, she only has eyes for the dashing Larry. Daniel tries to warn her that Larry will kill anyone, her included, when the moon is full, but she scoffs. It all comes to a head one fateful night, when Frankenstein’s monster comes alive again and a full moon comes out. This movie was destroyed by the critics when it came out in 1944, but honestly I liked it a whole lot more than the last two Dracula films. There’s nothing deep here, but the cast list reads like a who’s who from this era (Boris Karloff is Niemann, Lon Chaney Jr is the Wolf Man, John Carradine is Dracula, etc) and they are each game to give it their all. Fluff, but entertaining fluff. ★★★
The final Dracula film from this era is 1945’s House of Dracula, which is another monster mash-up similar to the above film. So much for righting the ship, this one is rough from the get-go. Much of the same cast returns, but the story is outlandish, meandering, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone flying the plane. Dracula (alive again?) comes to the home of Dr Franz Edelmann to plead for the doctor to find a cure for his vampirism (why does Dracula finally want to end his curse?). Shortly after, Larry the wolf man comes along, also seeking a cure. Not too long until they find Frankenstein’s monster in a cave (at least he doesn’t want a cure too). In a search for his own immortality, the good doctor takes a blood transfusion from Dracula, which had adverse affects, turning him into a monster himself. He goes on to terrorize the town. It’s a jumbled mess that never gets anywhere. ★½
Jons Movie Takes 