Mon 24 Jan 2011
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: SON OF DRACULA (1943).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[4] Comments
SON OF DRACULA. Universal Pictures, 1943. Lon Chaney Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, Evelyn Ankers, Frank Craven, J. Edward Bromberg. Story: Curt Siodmak; screenplay: Eric Taylor. Director: Robert Siodmak.
Lon Chaney Jr., last mentioned for his performance of Witch Woman [reviewed here], also starred in of one of Universal’s more successful chillers, Son of Dracula directed by Robert Siodmak, who went on to create some iconic films noir, including The Killers and Christmas Holiday.
Siodmak handles the tale of Count Dracula coming to modern-day America in search of fresh blood with authentic creepiness, possibly remembering the expressionist German Horror films of his youth and bringing them to America as well.
Aided by John P. Fulton’s special effects, he gives the film a splendidly gothic look, with eerie mists and floating coffins, and even elicits an off-beat performance from Chaney fils, whose hulking vampire suggests some of the virility Chris Lee brought to the part years later.
I should also note that Robert Paige, as the hero of the tale ranks a few notches above the average bland leading man in a monster movie. Classic horror films have a perversity that has always appealed to me, in that the Monster is generally more sympathetic, or at least more interesting, than the putative good guys.
Not here. As Son of Dracula develops, Paige becomes not so much hero as patsy, set up by a scheming girlfriend for a grisly fate, and struggling throughout with forces that outmatched him from the start.
In fact, Siodmak reused the plot in basic outline in one of his grimmer noirs, Criss Cross (1950) with Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea in the thematic roles done here by Paige, Louise Allbritton (very effective as a literal femme fatale) and Chaney Jr. And Paige (who had a title role in the Monster and the Girl a couple years earlier) invests the part with real pathos.
In keeping with this moody, fatalistic feel, Son wraps up on a haunting note, with the hero still wanted for murder and haunted by a love that he betrayed.
It makes me wonder what the little kids thought of all this as they left the theater back in the 40s, particularly since Son of Dracula was double-billed with Universal’s The Mad Ghoul, a surprisingly classy B-feature with echoes of Caligari and an ending that copies the opening of a 1937 Woolrich story, “Graves for the Living.”
January 24th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
It’s definitely one of the more interesting of Universal’s 1940s horror output. The Noirish idea of Dracula being used by the heroine as part of her plan is fascinating. Allbritton’s vampire is actually a rather sympathetic figure, and her actions are motivated entirely by love rather than supernatural malevolence. Part of you actually wants her to win at the end! If you’ve never seen it, then it’s worth a look.
January 24th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
I’ve always found this and DRACULA’S DAUGHTER far superior to the Lugosi film, this one, as someone once suggested, almost a Woolrichian take on Dracula.
Chaney is very close to at least one aspect of Stoker’s Dracula in that he describes him as bloated when he has fed.
As for what the kiddies thought seeing this one, DRACULA’S DAUGHTER is even darker and more adult with hints of lesbianism and darker themes, but then the erotic underpinnings of horror are nothing new.
But this one is certainly one of Universal’s most unusual — and successful — later horror films, in part thanks to a rare collaboration between the Siodmak brothers once they reached Hollywood.
January 26th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
As one of those little kids who saw this on its original release, I thought it was just fine, and it’s still one of my favorite Universal horror films, superior to the anthology monster bashes the studio was doing at the time. I doubt, however, that I saw the adult erotic elements that David mentions, being more taken with Louise Allbritton’s clinging white dress.
I didn’t think much of Robert Paige’s patsy hero, and still don’t, but I liked Frank Craven’s performance then, and still do.
January 27th, 2011 at 7:18 am
I know everyone drools over the “lesbian elements” in DAUGHTER, and I suppose they must be there, but director Lambert Hillyer pretty much ignores them. Considering that Hillyer started out with some fine W.S. Hart westerns and went on to the first BATMAN serial, I’m not even sure he knew what a lesbian was.