FILM REVIEW OF ''SON OF DRACULA" (1943)

Although I'm a super big fan of Lon Chaney, Sr., I've never admired his son Lon Chaney, Jr. While Junior fared better as the sympathetic Lawrence Talbot in "The Wolf Man," this big lug of a lout is woefully miscast as the urbane, sophisticated Count Dracula in Robert Siodmak's "Son of Dracula." Okay, I'll give Chaney credit for being the first Dracula with a mustache. Was it Chaney's idea or Siodmak's? Other than John Carradine and Christopher Lee, most Draculas are smooth-shaven gents, but Junior needed more than a mustache to make a menacing bloodsucker of himself in this otherwise imaginative but flawed chiller. Junior constitutes the chief flaw. His delivery is stiff beyond belief. When he utters 'decadent' as de-kay-dent, you want to chuckle. He doesn't radiate that evil Bela Lugosi glint in his eyes. Moreover, he doesn't send a chill either up or down your spine. The lack of aristocracy in his appearance doesn't help. Odd enough, Dracula comes off as somewhat of a chump in “Son of Dracula.” Moments of atmosphere, particularly the off-beat setting for this second sequel, and the strange nature of the screenplay compensate for some of the weird things about “Son of Dracula.” The sight of Dracula and his bride going to a Justice of the Peace is faintly amusing. On the other hand, the Count’s emergence from the swamp is a nice touch.

Appropriately enough, “Son of the Dracula” (**1/2 out of ****) opens with a pair of hands clearing out cobwebs. Remember eight years had passed since the release of “Dracula’s Daughter.” The Southern Gothic setting and the swamp is wonderfully sinister. Initially, Frank Stanley (Robert Paige of “Flying G-Men”) and Dr. Harry Brewster (Frank Craven of “Barbary Coast”) arrive at a railroad depot to greet Count Alcuard. The Transylvanian nobleman, however, is nowhere in sight. They spot the railway luggage cart that is stacked with three trunks bearing the family crest. Immediately, Brewster notices that Alucard spelled backwards reads Dracula. Dracula (Lon Chaney, Jr.) makes his first appearance outside ‘Dark Oaks,’ the antebellum house where Katherine ‘Kay’ Caldwell (Louise Allbritton of “Parachute Nurse”) eagerly awaits his arrival. She plans to marry Dracula.

Katherine’s elderly father, Colonel Caldwell (George Irving of “Coquette”), is Dracula’s first victim. When the Colonel’s will is read, Katherine inherits Dark Oaks. Frank is madly in love with Katherine, but she only has eyes for Dracula. She met Dracula initially in Budapest. Meanwhile, Dr. Brewster summons a renowned vampire hunter, Professor Lazlo (J. Edward Bromberg of “Invisible Agent”) from Memphis. Like Van Helsing, Lazlo knows everything about Dracula. Frank shoots Dracula with a revolver after he learns that Kirby has married them. He cringes in horror when his first bullet penetrates Dracula and kills Kay. Kay was standing behind Dracula when Frank fired his first shot at the Count. Frank fires two more shots, discards the gun, and charges through the dark swamp. Later, he turns himself into the authorities and takes the blame for Kay’s murder. Dr. Brewster visits Dark Oaks but finds Kay alive.

Dracula’s first rendezvous with Kay in the swamp is truly atmospheric. The Count’s coffin emerges from the watery depths like a submarine. A mist percolates out of it and turns into Dracula. Literally, Dracula levitates himself across the water to Kay. They drive off to the Justice of the Peace with a jealous Frank shadowing them. The special effects transformation where Dracula turnS his back to the camera and then turns into a flying bat is impressive for its day. It looks cool when the lady vampire dematerializes as a fog bank in the jail cell. The burning of Dracula's coffin as a way to destroy him was a new one on me. Mind you, every studio that has ever made a vampire movie tampers with the formula. The premise that a woman would flirt with Dracula to obtain immortality then double-cross him is interesting. Dracula cuckolded!? Indeed, "Son of Dracula" seems more like film noir than horror. Things get pretty complicated and these complications make "Son of Dracula" worth watching.

The gimmick of spelling Dracula's name backwards is clever. Anybody but Lon Chaney, Jr., would have made a serviceable Dracula. The guy looks like he ought to be stuffing baloney into his big hammy jowls instead of draining bodies of blood with his fangs. Incidentally, you never see his fangs, but then you never saw Lugosi's fangs or Carradine's fangs. The Production Code Administration probably ruled out such a toothy display on the grounds that it was too repellent. George Robinson's black & white photography is textbook excellent. He takes a two-dimensional format and gives it a three-dimensional look by bringing out the foreground from the background and the mid-ground.

Altogether, "Son of Dracula" surpasses “Dracula’s Daughter.” Nevertheless, you have to overlook the obvious lapse of continuity in “Phantom of the Opera” scenarist Eric Taylor’s screenplay that he derived from Siodmak’s story. Basically, the studio maintained no continuity for Dracula. Siodmak and Taylor make no references to previous "Dracula" movies. Universal Studios observed far greater continuity in the "Frankenstein" and "The Wolfman" franchises. Doesn't it say something when the second sequel to "Dracula" appeared eight years after “Dracula’s Daughter?” The latter in-name-only sequel without Lugosi and only a glimpse of the infamous Count in a coffin with a stake driven into his heart amounted to a letdown compared with the vintage original. The change in the character of Dracula is even more apparent in “Son of Dracula.” Perhaps they simply couldn't conjure up a reasonable excuse about how to keep reviving the count. Of course, Universal should have brought back Lugosi. Presumably, studio politics kept Lugosi from encoring in the role until "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." "Daughter's Daughter" and the remaining "Dracula" movies qualify as stand alone sequels. Remember, Countess Zaleska burned Dracula’s body in “Dracula’s Daughter.” In “Son of Dracula,” however, the vampire expert states the Dracula died in the 19th century.