Dracula's Daughter/Son of Dracula

Starring:Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill, Edward Van Sloan, Gilbert Emery, Irving Pichel, Halliwell Hobbes, Billy Bevan, Nan Grey, Hedda Hopper, Claud Allister, Edgar Norton, E.E. Clive, Hedwiga Reicher, Vernon Steele, Bert Sprotte, George Kirby, Eric Wilton, Silvia Vaughan, John Power
Director: Lambert Hillyer, Robert Siodmak
Studio: Universal Studios
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Dracula's Daughter This cut-rate sequel to Dracula, sans Bela Lugosi, turns out to be an unexpectedly sleek and stylish movie. Gloria Holden, tall, dark, and continental, is the aristocratic title character fighting her nature and seeking a cure for her affliction. A sympathetic psychiatrist, Dr. Garth (Otto Kruger), encourages her to "face her fears," but when she lures a pretty young streetwalker to her room to model for a painting, the temptation of her fleshy offering proves too much to overcome. Edward Van Sloan reprises his role as Van Helsing, held by the police for the murder of Count Dracula (the film opens on the final scene from Dracula) but released in the nick of time to help Garth, now at the mercy of the bitter and vindictive vampire. Director Lambert Hillyer makes the most of his low budget, with austere, angular sets and an almost abstract sense of the foggy city night. Holden's mysterious face and tall, willowy body make her an even more striking vampire than Lugosi, and Irving Pichel's offbeat servant is like an American gangster with the breeding of a European aristocrat: thick and thuggish, but always proper. The script falls into the usual rut of Universal's later horror films, losing the mood in the busy plot, but the smooth style and Holden's dignified performance lift Dracula's Daughter above most Universal sequels.

Son of Dracula It was perhaps inevitable that, after playing the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, and the Mummy, Lon Chaney Jr. would round out his horror resumÃ© with a turn at the great bloodsucker himself (not, as the title would suggest, his son). Looking dapper and dignified under the cape, if not exactly threatening, Chaney plays Count Alucard (that's Dracula spelled backwards), a mysterious Carpathian summoned to America by a "morbid" heiress (Louise Allbritton). Eric Taylor's script is rather clunky, but the story (by horror specialist Curt The Wolfman Siodmak) is often quite clever, playing like a supernatural twist on a psycho-thriller. Allbritton's frustrated fiancÃ© Robert Page accidentally "kills" her while trying to shoot Alucard (who imperiously stands up to the hail of bullets) and then goes stark raving mad as he watches the dead rise to life and the living disappear in wisps of smoke and morph into creaky stage bats.

Description

Feature titles include: Dracula (1931), Dracula (1931) - Spanish Version, Dracula's Daughter, House of Dracula, Son of Dracula

Customer Reviews:

GREAT.......2007-03-25

GREAT MOVIES
IT SEEMS THE HORROR ACTORS BACK THEN PUT THEIR ALL INTO THEIR CHARACTERS

Great Horror Classic.......2007-03-15

This Legacy collection of "Dracula" isn't really as bad as most folks would think. Even though, the restored version of "Dracula" is better (cause all they did was "brighten" it up thats it), and they won the Rondo Award for it, and it is better than this version of the movie.However, dont over look it because of that alone. Its a wonderful set with other movies that make up for it, try finding the movies on your own and be successful!..trust me!, it would be very hard to do so today on DVD..so, buy the set on that alone..highly recommended!!

The blood is the life.......2007-02-28

Bram Stoker's vampire novel has been remade dozens of times, but perhaps the best adaptation is the classic Bela Lugosi version. And "Dracula - The Legacy Collection" collects not only Lugosi's movie and the Spanish version, but three inferior sequels that are still moderately entertaining -- basically a vampire-lover's delight.

A solicitor, Renfield (Dwight Frye), is travelling to Count Dracula's castle for a real estate deal, despite the locals freaking out and crossing themselves whenever Dracula's mentioned. He soon finds out why -- the Count (Lugosi) is a vampire, who enslaves a mad Renfield to his will. Soon after, a ship with a dead crew (and Renfield and Dracula in the hold) arrives in England.

Soon Dracula has moved into his new home, Carfax Abbey, and is insinuating himself with the Seward family -- and especially with pretty Lucy Westenra, who dies of blood loss and is reborn as a vampire. Only the intervention of the mysterious Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) can stop Dracula's attacks in London.

Then there's the Spanish-language one, which is virtually identical and was filmed on the exact same sets, during the hours when the English-language one was not being shot. It's incredibly good, and although it lacks that iconic intensity that Lugosi brought the English-language film, it's full of atmosphere and amazing acting.

And there's an immediate sequel, "Daughter of Dracula," about a beautiful Transylvanian vampire -- created by Dracula -- who comes to England seeking a way out of her eternal torment, now that her "father" has been permanently killed. But her sinister servant wants to keep her enslaved to her bloodlust.

Then there are two inferior sequels: "Son of Dracula," which is basically a whittled-down plot set in the early twentieth century, with an exceptionally wooden "Count Alucard" played by Lon Chaney Jr. He moves in next to an heiress's house, kills her father, and marries her, so it's up to her ex-boyfriend to save the day.

And finally there's "House of Dracula," in which the very popular Dr. Edelmen (Onslow Stevens) gets two requests for supernatural cures from some kind of miraculous mold: Count Dracula (John Carradine), and the wolfman Lawrence Talbot (Lon Cheney Jr). Talbot is suicidal over his transformations, and Dracula is secretly pursuing Edelman's vacuous nurse and driving the good doc insane. And they stumble across Frankenstein's monster too.

It's a mixed bag, vampirewise. The first two are among the best classic horror ever made, but the sequels deteriorate as they proceed -- "Daughter" is a very solid movie on its own, and "Son" is cliche and wooden. By "House," they've decided to just be silly and campy, and throw in as many fictional monsters as they can fit in.

The direction in the first three movies is quite solid, eerie and gothic, with plenty of memorably haunting moments ("I never drink... wine," Dracula says smilingly). Lots of cobwebbed castles, foggy London streets, bats and women drifting around in white dresses. The last two are strictly B-movie fare in terms of directorial skill, and some moments like the flaming mine are simply awful.

Lugosi is simply brilliant as Dracula. While not the stately, imposing figure that Stoker described, he has a blazing intensity that works just as well, as well as great charm. Carlos Villarías is not quite as good, but does an excellent and faithful job in the Spanish version. Carradine doesn't seem to be trying too hard, and Cheney just doesn't work as a vampire (though he's glorious as Talbot).

These actors are backed by casts that range from the sublime (creepy, bug-eating, cackling Frye) to the ridiculous (the dreamy-eyed, hammy nurses in "House"). Gloria Holden deserves special kudos for her tormented, bisexual vampiress torn between good and evil, and Edward Van Sloan as Dracula's nemesis, Van Helsing.

"Dracula - The Legacy Collection" has a dud and a campy monsterfest, but the first three movies are divinely dark horror/suspense movies. Definitely worth getting and enjoying.

LEGACY COLLECTION IS THE BEST BET FOR NOW.......2007-02-22

I bid you Velcome. I have both the Legacy collection and the 75th ann. Buy the Legacy set and wait for HD DVD. The biggest reason is you get more for your money. If you are not familar with this film, your too young to understand just how great it is!
Bela is Dracula!....nuff said!

A Most Have Collection.......2007-02-07

This is a true gem. Of course all the Universal Horror Legacy Collections are but Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are by far my favorite. They come in cool and spooky looking cases that have a view window to see the spooky picture on the DVD case. The only real complaint I have is that the DVD menu that usually appears on the inside covers of DVD cases, that lists what each DVD has on it, is just laying loose inside the case and there's no real place to put it. I tried putting it in the actual case but then the case won't close right and then won't fit back in the box right. But the selections found on this DVD collection are hard to find movies unless you tape them off TCM during October-LOL ;) So I have no qualms about saying that this collection is worth the price you pay for it and I've watched all the movies over and over again. If you are a Horror, vampire, or Universal movie fan then this collection is a must have for you.

Average customer rating:

Daughters and sons
A great, strange flick paired with a dud
Great Double Feature
AN ALMOST CLASSIC AND ITS "B" SIDE
Good but uneven sequel to Dracula

Dracula's Daughter/Son of Dracula
Starring: Otto Kruger , Gloria Holden , Marguerite Churchill , Edward Van Sloan , and Gilbert Emery
Director: Lambert Hillyer , and Robert Siodmak
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005LC4J
Release Date: 2007-07-24

Amazon.com

Dracula's Daughter This cut-rate sequel to Dracula, sans Bela Lugosi, turns out to be an unexpectedly sleek and stylish movie. Gloria Holden, tall, dark, and continental, is the aristocratic title character fighting her nature and seeking a cure for her affliction. A sympathetic psychiatrist, Dr. Garth (Otto Kruger), encourages her to "face her fears," but when she lures a pretty young streetwalker to her room to model for a painting, the temptation of her fleshy offering proves too much to overcome. Edward Van Sloan reprises his role as Van Helsing, held by the police for the murder of Count Dracula (the film opens on the final scene from Dracula) but released in the nick of time to help Garth, now at the mercy of the bitter and vindictive vampire. Director Lambert Hillyer makes the most of his low budget, with austere, angular sets and an almost abstract sense of the foggy city night. Holden's mysterious face and tall, willowy body make her an even more striking vampire than Lugosi, and Irving Pichel's offbeat servant is like an American gangster with the breeding of a European aristocrat: thick and thuggish, but always proper. The script falls into the usual rut of Universal's later horror films, losing the mood in the busy plot, but the smooth style and Holden's dignified performance lift Dracula's Daughter above most Universal sequels.

Son of Dracula It was perhaps inevitable that, after playing the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, and the Mummy, Lon Chaney Jr. would round out his horror resumé with a turn at the great bloodsucker himself (not, as the title would suggest, his son). Looking dapper and dignified under the cape, if not exactly threatening, Chaney plays Count Alucard (that's Dracula spelled backwards), a mysterious Carpathian summoned to America by a "morbid" heiress (Louise Allbritton). Eric Taylor's script is rather clunky, but the story (by horror specialist Curt The Wolfman Siodmak) is often quite clever, playing like a supernatural twist on a psycho-thriller. Allbritton's frustrated fiancé Robert Page accidentally "kills" her while trying to shoot Alucard (who imperiously stands up to the hail of bullets) and then goes stark raving mad as he watches the dead rise to life and the living disappear in wisps of smoke and morph into creaky stage bats.

Future film noir legend (and Curt's brother) Robert Siodmak (The Killers) does wonders with the swampy, misty Deep South setting despite his obviously threadbare budget, transforming the usual clichés into moments of inspired melodrama. Only the clumsy antics of the skeptical cops and the plodding exposition spouted by an old Carpathian doctor (he just happens to be the local MD) get in the way of this moody minor horror gem. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

Daughters and sons.......2007-06-17

Anything worth doing... is worth making a bunch of sequels to.

That's what Hollywood has always thought, anyway. And in the case of Bela Lugosi's classic "Dracula," it resulted in two decidedly disparate sequels. While "Daughter of Dracula" is creepily erotic and darkly intriguing, "Son of Dracula" is just a tepid, lifeless remake of the original, more or less.

"Daughter of Dracula" is an immediate sequel, taking place only hours after the end of the original film. A beautiful Transylvanian vampire Marya (Gloria Holden) -- created by Dracula -- arrives in England to confirm that her "father" is permanently dead. She mesmerizes the cops, steals Dracula's body, and cremates it with the help of her creepy servant.

With her "dad" burned away, Marya hopes to escape her immortal torment, and live as a normal woman. She even enlists a psychiatrist to cure her of her hunger for blood. But she can't escape her bloodlust, or her longing for the love of Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger) -- and when she abducts his girlfriend, the only one who can stop her is Van Helsing (Edward van Sloan).

"Son of Dracula" has few tangible links to the original story, despite its basic similarity -- a mysterious Count Alucard (whoa, that's original) arrives in the American South from Budapest. The count (Lon Chaney Jr.) was invited by an occult-obsessed heiress, Katherine "Kay" Caldwell (Louise Allbritton), to help her overcome her fear of death.

And of course, odd things happen -- Kay's dad drops dead, and she falls madly in love with Alucard, much to the chagrin of her ex-boyfriend Frank (Robert Paige). Imagine how upset he is when he accidentally shoots her, and she doesn't die -- leading to a battle between the mystery vampire count and the humans who are trying to stop him from setting down roots in the New World.

Basically one film is the best example of a sequel, and the other is the worst kind -- one enhances the original story while telling its own, while the other is basically a stale retread with a silly anagram. I can only see dear ol' Dracula being proud of one of these apparent offspring, although technically we're never told Alucard's origins.

And direction also varies, "Daughter"echoes the original "Dracula's" murky, eerie atmosphere, full of old-world exoticism, dark London flats, midnight pyres and gothic visuals. Unfortunately "Son" has pedestrian direction on par with a mid-level melodrama, with lots of cape-waving in place of spookiness or atmosphere. The creepiest thing is that old voodoo priestess.

Holden deserves heaps of praise for her performance -- she manages to pack in poignant longing, hope, desperation and a bit of lesbian bloodlust into her performance, making viewers repulsed and pitying toward the countess. Chaney, sadly, turns in a horribly wooden performance; he's too husky and ruddy to look like one of the undead.

But in both cases, we get some solid supporting performances -- Allbritton as the passionately weird heiress, Van Sloan as the relentless, intelligent Van Helsing, and Irving Pichel as Marya's murderous, malignant servant, who wants her to stay a vampire and make him into one too.

With their fingers tipping into Bela Lugosi's film, "Dracula's Daughter" and "Son of Dracula" draw heavily on the vampire mythos with varying results. One is sublime, one is too dull to be ridiculous.

A great, strange flick paired with a dud.......2007-02-07

Dracula's Daughter: This one is weird and wonderful--a mid-30's vampire film with strong homoerotic overtones. Although it picks up exactly where Lugosi's Dracula ends and features that film's Dr Van Helsing, this odd but effective sequel is less stagy and more atmospheric that the first film.

BTW, this DVD also features Son of Dracula, a more formulaic sequel starring Lon Chaney Jr.--not so hot. Chaney plays "Count ALUCARD." --Get it? ALUCARD? Nudge-nudge?

Great Double Feature.......2005-04-19

Just Stick with Dracula - 1931 and NO I DON'T MEAN THE STUPID LEGACY COLLECTION just the oop DVD and this one, this deserves a good place on your shelf

AN ALMOST CLASSIC AND ITS "B" SIDE.......2005-03-29

Dracula's Daughter is little known and even less scene. I cannot recall having ever seen it on TV, or at least not for many years and is one of the most ignored Univeral horror films.

Dracula's Daughter is the direct sequel to the 1931 classic although it did not appear until 1936. The film opens mere moments after the events in Dracula as two English constables enter Carfax Abbey and find the body of Renfield lying at the bottom of the stairs after being killed by Dracula. They then see Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan0 emerge from the crypts and admitting to driving a stake through Dracula's heart. A Wax dummy stands in for Lugosi.

Van Helsing is arrested as they do not believe his tale of Vampires. Van helsing contacts an old friend Dr. Garth (Otto Kruger) to aid him. Garth agrees and soon meets a mysterious, dark haired woman who introduces herself as Countess Zaleska. She also seeks Garths aid but she wants release from her curse as a vampire, the daughter of Dracula!

When Garth figures out just what the Countess is he refuses to help but Zaleska and her servant Sandor kidnap Garth's assistant and take her back to Transylvania and Castle Dracula which we get to see again. Zaleska offers to release the woman only if Garth will allow her to turn him into a vampire and to live as her immortal lover.

This was an interesting movie. Gloria Holden as the countess was every bit as mysterious (well almost) as Lugosi with her aristocratic look and penetrating eyes. She was well-cast for the role. The film doesn't have the gothic atmosphere of the original but Director Lambert Hillyer infuses it with more sexuality including a rather strong (for the times) lesbian sequence where Zaleska invites a prostitute to her studio to pose rather provocatively and ends up killing her in a rather sexually charged scene.

Van Sloan is relegated to a rather minor role this time and his scenes are basically at the beginning and end of the film. Irving Pichel plays the very creepy servant Sandor and famed gossip columnist Hedda Hopper has a minor role as well. This is really Holden's movie, however. How exactly she is related to Dracula isn't explained but one can surmise that she isn't his daughter in the literal sense since she's mentioned to have died only one hundred years ago while Dracula had been dead for five hundred years. Holden is quite statuesque and mesmerizing in her performance and this is a very underrated sequel.

With 1943's "Son of Dracula" the Dracula series officially became 'b" movie fodder as most of Universals horrors of the 1940's were. The movie opens with Count Alucard (Lon Chaney) coming to stay at the southern home of a wealthy and rather morbid heiress Katherine Caldwell (Louise Albritton) whom he met when she was in Hungary. Katherine has become smitten with the Count and after he kills her father, she asks only to be given the home, while all the rest of the estate can go to her sister Claire (Evelyn Ankers).

Katherine slips away to a nearby swamp as the Count's coffin rises from the depths of the swamp and he emerges in a cloud of mist which was a very effective special effect in its day. The two are married and Claire breaks the news to her fiancee Frank. Frank confronts them back at the house and tries to shoot the count, but the bullets simply pass through him, and kill Katherine who was standing behind. Soon Professor Brewster realizes that Alucard is Really Count Dracula and contacts a Hungarian professor Laszlo for assistance to help destroy the vampire.

Son of Dracula does have some things going for it. The additions to the vampire mythology of turning to mist is very effective and allows Dracula to sneak up on his enemies or to escape when Laszlo shows him a crucifix when Dracula tries to strangle Brewster. The film also shows Dracula levitating across the swamp which one makes the guess was basically his mist form given shape. Son doesn't have the gothic trappings of the original but the set pieces are still fairly effective. And of course any movie with Evelyn Ankers is always a treat.

Unfortunately a major drawback is star Lon Chaney Jr. While Chaney was fine playing the tortured Larry Talbot, Dracula is a role that requires much more charisma and presence, particularly sexual presence which Chaney was sorely lacking in. He comes off much too stiff and monotone in delivering his lines and there's not a hint of Hungarian accent to him.

Also there is no "Son" at all here. He proclaims himself as Dracula and while maybe this was intended to be more in title than literal, there was still no explanation on he being Dracula's son. But then, Continuity was never much of an important factor to Univeral back in those days.

Certainly no classic, it is one of Universal's better B movies of the 1940's. Call it 3 1/2 stars.

Good but uneven sequel to Dracula.......2004-10-19

Look, this film picks up where Dracula ended (in more ways than one). Right after Van Helsing drives a steak through Drac (in the original film) this movie begins. After being arrested by Scotland Yard for Drac's "murder" Van Helsing never tries to contact John Harker or Professor and Mina Seward. Why not? Those three were alive at the end of film one and surely they could help Van Helsing prove Drac was inhuman. But they no longer figure into things by this movie. As for the rest of the film I hate the lesbian angle of Drac's daughter fixated on that pretty girl, Lily. Unless the filmmakers were saying that homosexuality is unholy (which it is according to the trusted Holy Bible), then I like it. Sexist attitudes (of a more traditional kind) against women abound in this film but hey it was made nearly 70 years ago so whaddya expect?

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