Son of Dracula (1943)

Film: Son of Dracula (1943)

Stars: Lon Chaney, Jr., Louise Albritton, Robert Paige, Evelyn Ankers, Frank Craven

Director: Robert Siodmark

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year.  If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.

Lon Chaney Jr. is almost certainly the actor that we have profiled the most in the years we've done this Halloween series, which is weird because as a rule I don't really like Lon Chaney, Jr.  This is a shame because Chaney is definitely an important figure in classic American horror cinema.  He is the only actor in American film history to star as all four of the classic Universal horror monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy.  This was his only outing as Dracula, and there's a reason for that-the most loquacious of all of the Universal monsters, this was not a great fit for Chaney's skill set.

(Spoilers Ahead) Son of Dracula is a bit of a departure from the normal Dracula format, as it takes place in the United States on a New Orleans plantation, which has been left to Katherine Caldwell (Abritton), who soon after she inherits the plantation marries Count Alucard (Cheney), much to the chagrin of her longtime boyfriend Frank (Paige).  Frank confronts Alucard, shooting him in a fit of passion, and is shocked when it does nothing to him.  As you can guess (if you can spell backwards), Alucard is Count Dracula, who has fallen for Katherine & made her a vampire like him.  Frank & Katherine's sister Claire (Ankers) initially assume that Katherine is under a spell, but it turns out she knows about Dracula, and wants to trick him into giving her immortal life & then she will have Frank kill him, so they can be together.  Frank, though, cannot follow through, and kills both Dracula and Katherine, in a downer of an ending (rare for a Universal Monster picture).

As I said above, Chaney isn't my favorite of the Universal actors-I find his acting to be too leaden and not having the pizzazz of Lugosi, Karloff, or his own father.  That said, even by my low expectations Son of Dracula misses them.  Chaney is weirdly sidelined for long stretches of the film (one wonders if this was one of the multiple productions that Chaney's violent behavior & alcoholism led to the studio having to cut chunks of the script), and it shows that the movie doesn't really know what to do with itself, particularly getting repetitive & a little bit silly with aspects of the plot.

This is weird because Son of Dracula has a fascinating story to tell.  It's not so much Dracula in this film that becomes the horror for the audience, but Katherine.  Though it's not a good performance, Albritton at least pulls off an interesting character with this woman that is obsessed with immortality, even if it means sacrificing her humanity & giving in to the Count Dracula (whom she intends to kill).  This results in one of the few truly downer endings in Universal monster films, where the "girl" is not saved, but instead burned with Dracula in the fire.  If only the acting & production had been willing to lean harder into this plot, this might have been a salvageable picture.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, The House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob, The Masque of the Red Death