By the 1940s, Universal's four most well-known monsters in its horror series were Dracula, Frankenstein's creature, a mummy and a werewolf. Having already emerged as the studio's primary shocker star of the 1940s as the titular characters from "The Wolf Man" (1941), "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and "The Mummy's Tomb" (both 1942), with "Son of Dracula," Lon Chaney Jr. had played them all. Although the misleading high-concept title, "Son of Dracula," has caused some confusion over the identity of Chaney's Dracula, it's less bewildering if you just ignore the title, or think of it as alluding to Jr. being the real- life son of Lon Chaney Sr., who played the Dracula-esque role in "London After Midnight" (1927). Additionally, "Son of Dracula" has nothing to do with the two prior films in Universal's Dracula series, the 1931 "Dracula" and its direct sequel, "Dracula's Daughter" (1936), nor does it with the subsequent monster-rallies "House of Frankenstein" (1944) and "House of Dracula" (1945), with Chaney reprising his role as the Wolf Man in each and John Carradine playing a Dracula with an entirely separate storyline from the one here.
"Son of Dracula" has its faults, but despite many negative reviews to the contrary, Chaney is not one of them. It may've been his best monster. The Frankenstein and Mummy series had turned slipshod by the time he joined them, and his Wolf Man is more whiny as a man than as a dog, but he does Dracula justice. I suspect the problem some have with his Dracula is that we're used to the suave Count immortalized by Bela Lugosi in the '31 film. Fair enough, Lugosi's performance is my all-time favorite, too, but it wasn't faithful to Bram Stoker's novel. Chaney's mustached, arrogant, rude, bullet- permeable, shapeshifting, super-strong, telepathic vampire is closer to Stoker's description. At the very least, Chaney is the first screen vampire I know of to be relatively faithful to Stoker's vision in this many particulars. His ability to emerge from a swamp-submerged coffin and his vulnerability from his coffin being burned aren't accounted for by Stoker, but they work well here. (The burning coffin was taken too far in the 1970 Franco adaptation, though.) The sunlight vulnerability may be a movie invention beginning with "Nosferatu" (1922). There's one thing that bothers me about this Count, but I'll save it for the end. Also, this Drac has some peculiar tastes, as he attacks the elderly and a child, as well as his bride, but that's neither here nor there, or, rather, is all over the place.
Updating and moving Dracula to invading the American South is fine, but doesn't really add anything new otherwise. A similar alteration in "The Return of Dracula" (1958) added the spectre of Cold-War politics. I didn't sense anything similar here, such as, perhaps, allusions to the contemporary WW2, which there are, however, in the other 1943 vamp film, "The Return of the Vampire." The semordnilap of Dracula using the alias "Alucard" is ridiculous, but even more so is that the same screenplay ridicules it in the Doctor and Professor's phone conversation, with the Doctor asking, "Why should he assume that name of all others? Oh, he wouldn't," the Professor replies, "not if he were sane ." What a riot. This is even funnier than the word "vampire" being protested in film as a slur; they prefer the more politically- correct terms of the "undead" or "immortals," you see.
The Doctor and the Professor both play Van Helsing types—wasting much of the runtime in an echo chamber on their shared belief in vampires. The Doctor, however, could also be seen as a Seward type from Stoker's novel—what with his first response to any trouble seemingly to prescribe they be locked up in an insane asylum. Seriously, what kind of doctor is he? Anyways, in one scene, he appears to be reading the novel "Dracula," or part of Jonathan Harker's diary, which is a surprising self-reference if that's the case. Other vampire films have included vampire books within their narratives (again, "Nosferatu," for instance), but I'm not aware of another that features the very book it's based on. That the film earlier mentions that the last-known record of Dracula was his death at the end of the 19th century, which is when Stoker wrote the book, evidences the intentionality of this self-reference further.
Besides Chaney and the book, probably the best thing going for this film is its special effects. Prop bat technology had clearly come a long way since Tod Browning's more-laughable wire acts in "Dracula" (1931) and "Mark of the Vampire" (1935), but they're still cheesy. Ditto the animation for the bat-to-human transformations. More impressive is the use of mist as a form the vampires can materialize as, and the floating scene of Dracula crossing the swamp is a standout.
(Mirror Note: This is what most bothers me about "Son of Dracula:" The reflection of Chaney's vampire can be seen in the same hallway mirror in two separate shots. This seems to be just careless, as the mirror is positioned as a mere accessory in the corner of these scenes. As far as I know, only Universal, of all studios, has screwed up vampire reflections in Dracula movies, and they've done it thrice: here, in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "Dracula" (1979). Correction: Hammer's series gave vampires reflections a couple times, too.)
(Note: The DVD I viewed had brief audio distortion in one or two scenes.)
"Son of Dracula" has its faults, but despite many negative reviews to the contrary, Chaney is not one of them. It may've been his best monster. The Frankenstein and Mummy series had turned slipshod by the time he joined them, and his Wolf Man is more whiny as a man than as a dog, but he does Dracula justice. I suspect the problem some have with his Dracula is that we're used to the suave Count immortalized by Bela Lugosi in the '31 film. Fair enough, Lugosi's performance is my all-time favorite, too, but it wasn't faithful to Bram Stoker's novel. Chaney's mustached, arrogant, rude, bullet- permeable, shapeshifting, super-strong, telepathic vampire is closer to Stoker's description. At the very least, Chaney is the first screen vampire I know of to be relatively faithful to Stoker's vision in this many particulars. His ability to emerge from a swamp-submerged coffin and his vulnerability from his coffin being burned aren't accounted for by Stoker, but they work well here. (The burning coffin was taken too far in the 1970 Franco adaptation, though.) The sunlight vulnerability may be a movie invention beginning with "Nosferatu" (1922). There's one thing that bothers me about this Count, but I'll save it for the end. Also, this Drac has some peculiar tastes, as he attacks the elderly and a child, as well as his bride, but that's neither here nor there, or, rather, is all over the place.
Updating and moving Dracula to invading the American South is fine, but doesn't really add anything new otherwise. A similar alteration in "The Return of Dracula" (1958) added the spectre of Cold-War politics. I didn't sense anything similar here, such as, perhaps, allusions to the contemporary WW2, which there are, however, in the other 1943 vamp film, "The Return of the Vampire." The semordnilap of Dracula using the alias "Alucard" is ridiculous, but even more so is that the same screenplay ridicules it in the Doctor and Professor's phone conversation, with the Doctor asking, "Why should he assume that name of all others? Oh, he wouldn't," the Professor replies, "not if he were sane ." What a riot. This is even funnier than the word "vampire" being protested in film as a slur; they prefer the more politically- correct terms of the "undead" or "immortals," you see.
The Doctor and the Professor both play Van Helsing types—wasting much of the runtime in an echo chamber on their shared belief in vampires. The Doctor, however, could also be seen as a Seward type from Stoker's novel—what with his first response to any trouble seemingly to prescribe they be locked up in an insane asylum. Seriously, what kind of doctor is he? Anyways, in one scene, he appears to be reading the novel "Dracula," or part of Jonathan Harker's diary, which is a surprising self-reference if that's the case. Other vampire films have included vampire books within their narratives (again, "Nosferatu," for instance), but I'm not aware of another that features the very book it's based on. That the film earlier mentions that the last-known record of Dracula was his death at the end of the 19th century, which is when Stoker wrote the book, evidences the intentionality of this self-reference further.
Besides Chaney and the book, probably the best thing going for this film is its special effects. Prop bat technology had clearly come a long way since Tod Browning's more-laughable wire acts in "Dracula" (1931) and "Mark of the Vampire" (1935), but they're still cheesy. Ditto the animation for the bat-to-human transformations. More impressive is the use of mist as a form the vampires can materialize as, and the floating scene of Dracula crossing the swamp is a standout.
(Mirror Note: This is what most bothers me about "Son of Dracula:" The reflection of Chaney's vampire can be seen in the same hallway mirror in two separate shots. This seems to be just careless, as the mirror is positioned as a mere accessory in the corner of these scenes. As far as I know, only Universal, of all studios, has screwed up vampire reflections in Dracula movies, and they've done it thrice: here, in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "Dracula" (1979). Correction: Hammer's series gave vampires reflections a couple times, too.)
(Note: The DVD I viewed had brief audio distortion in one or two scenes.)