Son of Dracula *** (1943, Lon Chaney Jr, Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, Frank Craven, Evelyn Ankers) – Classic Movie Review 2766

Director Robert Siodmak’s engaging, highly watchable 1943 vintage horror chiller sequel is the first film where a vampire is shown transforming into a bat. The third movie in Universal Studios’ Dracula trilogy, preceded by Dracula (1931) and Dracula’s Daughter, it is the first Universal Dracula film to bring the Count out of Europe and to America.

Trying to fill Bela Lugosi’s grand shoes, Lon Chaney Jnr looks right and is creepily sinister but lacks true menace as the mysterious Hungarian stranger called Count Alucard (in fact Dracula himself) who arrives from Budapest and makes himself at home among the swamps of the American Deep South.

There he weds black magic cultist called Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton), one of the daughters of New Orleans plantation owner Colonel Caldwell (George Irving) who invited him. But he also finds four nemeses – the woman he loves, a medical doctor (Frank Craven), a university professor (J Edward Bromberg), a jilted fiancé (Robert Paige).

Director Siodmak brings bags of eerie visual style to the clichéd old tale, with its old dark house, remote countryside setting and vampire killings. The performances, script and production are all satisfactory. Curt Siodmak (brother of the director) provides the original screen story from which Eric Taylor carves out the screenplay.

But, acting-wise, Robert Paige strikes the one weak note in a dreary performance as Britton’s ex-fiancé Frank Stanley, who wants to put the couple out of everyone’s misery, with the help of psychologist Professor Lazlo (J Edward Bromberg) and wily doctor Brewster (Frank Craven). It also stars Samuel S Hinds as Judge Simmons, Adeline DeWalt Reynolds as Madame Zimba, and Evelyn Ankers as Claire Caldwell.

Also in the cast are Patrick Moriarty as Sheriff Dawes, Etta McDaniel as Sarah, Walter Sande, Sam McDaniel and Robert Dudley.

The vampires never display any fangs. Mexico’s Germán Robles, playing Count Karol de Lavud, was the first actor to show fangs as a vampire in El vampiro (1957), shortly before Christopher Lee in the British Hammer Studios’ first Dracula [Horror of Dracula] in 1958. Count Alucard casts a reflection in the hallway mirror when he walks towards Colonel Caldwell’s room!

Though the opening credits bill Chaney as Count Dracula, in the film the vampire is referred to as Alucard. In 1944 Universal continued their Dracula-related series with House of Frankenstein.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2766

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