House of Dracula *** (1945, Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine, Onslow Stevens, Glenn Strange, Lionel Atwill, Martha O’Driscoll, Jane Adams) – Classic Movie Review 2770

‘The Super-Shock Sensation Of All Time… All Together… All Terrific… Bringing All NEW Thrills.’ It’s a monster mash! The Dracula scenes in House of Frankenstein are completely separate from the Frankenstein’s Monster and Wolf Man scenes in House of Frankenstein (1944) so the first true meeting of all three monsters is here in director Erle C Kenton’s welcome 1945 sequel.

This time, Lon Chaney Jr is the main star as the Wolf Man, aka Lawrence Talbot, and Onslow Stevens plays Dr Franz Edelmann who tries to cure both him and Count Dracula (John Carradine).

It starts when Dracula, calling himself ‘Baron Latos’, arrives at Dr Edelmann’s office asking him cure his vampirism. But this is only a trick to get near Edelmann’s beautiful assistant Milizia Morelle (Martha O’Driscoll) and turn her into a vampire.

Next up, Talbot arrives at the office seeking a cure for his lycanthropy. But Edelmann fails and Talbot tries to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. Edelmann searches for Talbot and finds he survived the fall but has turned into the Wolf Man, who attacks him but suddenly returns to human form.

In a cave, they find the catatonic Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange), still clutching the skeleton of Dr Niemann. Edelmann takes the Monster back to his lab, and, his efforts to cure the monsters having sent him crazy, finally revives the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange).

Lionel Atwill plays the Police Inspector again as he did in House of Frankenstein, this time Inspector Holtz, while Jane Adams plays Edelmann’s hunchbacked assistant Nina. As Nina is a hunchback, she was billed as one of the monsters in the film, but her character is portrayed sympathetically and the use of an attractive actress to play a misshapen person is notable for the time. Jane ‘Poni’ Adams died on May 21 2014, aged 95.

Jane ‘Poni’ Adams died on May 21 2014, aged 95.

This cheaply made Universal Studios chiller is a heady brew, and it is fast-moving, sprightly and dynamically handled and energetically performed. All in all, it is undeniably good vintage monster fun, thanks to the imaginative use of its horror themes, the sterling cast and the iconic presence of classic monsters together at last.

Also in the cast are Skelton Knaggs as Steinmuhl, Ludwig Stossel as Siegfried, Jane Nigh, Fred Cordova, Dick Dickinson, Joseph E Bernard, Beatrice Gray, Gregory Marshall, Harry Lamont and Casey Harrison.

Alas there is no Boris Karloff this time, no doubt to save money as he had cost $20,000 in House of Frankenstein, though he does appear in a dream sequence. And sadly there is again no Bela Lugosi either, Carradine having previously stepped in for him in House of Frankenstein. Footage of Chaney Jr as the Monster from The Ghost of Frankenstein and Boris Karloff from Bride of Frankenstein is economically recycled.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2770

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