Saturday, October 7, 2017

Dracula Month Day 7: Son of Dracula

Lon Chaney Jr. built his career at Universal Pictures more-or-less on his father's reputation. Sure, he had talent, but because Chaney Sr. had been well-remembered for his own Universal horror pictures it made sense for Universal to bank on the younger Chaney's name. I haven't done the math, but I believe Chaney Jr. was ultimately the lead in more Universal horror pictures than any other star. He played virtually every Universal monster, including Dracula in 1943's Son of Dracula, directorial debut of Robert Siodmak.

Son of Dracula is the third of Universal's Dracula pictures; after this he would appear only in Universal's "team-up" pictures (House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). Although the title refers to a "son," that's just a lame sequel title - Chaney Jr. is supposed to be Dracula here, although he spends much of the film going by "Alucard" (a deception which throws people off for about 2 seconds). The film sees Dracula visiting the USA and wooing a morbid young woman; the woman's lover, Frank, tries to kill Dracula for taking her from him but when he fires his gun at Dracula the bullets pass through the vampire's body and kill Frank's ex-lover instead; she soon rises from the grave as a vampire. As you can see, Frank is not your typical Universal horror protagonist - he's got more in common with the flawed Hammer film protagonists.

Son of Dracula shows the limits of the Universal horror tropes; although Universal cast Chaney Jr. all over the place he had a pretty narrow range - he was wonderful at playing frightened, worried men, but I find him an ill-fit for the role of a supremely confident figure such as Dracula. Dracula ought to be played by someone with a bit of swagger and Shakespearean extravagance. Although Siodmak's direction hints towards his future as a film noir auteur, Son of Dracula was a little behind the times; over at RKO, Val Lewton was showing new ways to capture horror on-screen. For Universal, there wasn't much left to do with their venerable cast of creatures but run the team-up films.

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