tavm
In continuing to review werewolf movies in chronological order that I manage to find on YouTube, I'm now at 1945 with House of Dracula. This was yet another in the Universal Studio's Monster series starring Dracula, The Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's Monster. They all encounter a doctor who wants to cure them. I'll stop there and just say that while John Caradine's Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolf Man are provided good storylines, the one for Glenn Strange's Monster is weak at best. (Also, there's flashback footage of that character as previously played by Boris Karloff and Chaney himself so that may confuse some viewers who can tell the difference!) There is also some fine support by Onslow Stevens as the good doctor, Martha O'Driscoll as one of the nurses who Drac takes a fancy to before she also gets involved with The Wolf Man's alter ego Lawrence Talbot, and Jane Adams as the hunchbacked nurse though it may take a while to notice that since she's so gorgeous! This also turned out to be one of Lionel Atwill's final film appearances as he'd pass away five months after this movie's release. I just saw him in Man Made Monster and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, both with Chaney. While this seemed to be the last picture in the classic Universal Monsters series, those Big Three I mentioned earlier in this review would reappear a few years later in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein with Bela Lugosi reprising as Dracula that time...
Smoreni Zmaj
Nonsense rarely seen. Acting, directing, camera and other technicalities, all are on level we are expecting from this kind of movies. Really decent, I can not complain. But screenplay is unbelievably bad. They crammed bunch of monsters and forced them together in same story. They did not stick to original legends, they did not attach to previous movies, they did not even think of some new original plot. They simply threw in bunch of cliché horror patterns into rush overladen story, that is not either original, or tense or fun at all. There's no good plot nor denouement. It simply starts, lasts some time and ends without any logical sense. It's like they cut off random parts of previous monster movies and then shuffled them and glue them together. What author did here is not writing, it's recycling and amateurish and lousy done. Movie is not unwatchable, but it is complete waste of time.4/10
ferbs54
Released in December 1945, "House of Dracula" is the penultimate entry in Universal's classic series of monster movies, stretching from 1931's "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" all the way to 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Like its immediate predecessor, 1944's "House of Frankenstein," and the 1948 film, it is an all-star monster mash-up, featuring Dracula for the fifth time (after the original, 1936's "Dracula's Daughter," 1943's "Son of Dracula" and the '44 film), Franky for the seventh time (after the 1931 film, 1935's "Bride of Frankenstein," 1939's "Son of Frankenstein," 1942's "Ghost of Frankenstein," 1943's "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" and the '44 film), and the Wolf Man for the fourth time (following 1941's original classic "The Wolf Man," "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" and the '44 film). Whew! Clocking in at a brief 67 minutes, this entry certainly makes for a compact addition to this legendary series, and like all the others, makes for a splendid entertainment for both the kiddies and their parents.In this one, Lawrence Talbot (wonderfully played, as always, by Lon Chaney, Jr.) visits still another medical expert to help rid himself of his lycanthropic curse. He arrives at the castle home of Dr. Franz Edelmann (Onslow Stevens) in the fictitious hamlet of Visaria (a locale that, due to the townspeople's Teutonic names and the doctor's oceanfront pile, the viewer must assume to be in northern Germany), only to learn that the good doctor is busy with another patient. Just the night before, by an incredible coincidence, one Baron Latos had appeared in the doctor's sitting room in the wee hours of the A.M. The stranger was received by the doctor with amazingly good grace (how many of us would engage a top-hatted stranger with such accommodating conversation at 5 A.M.?) and soon revealed that he was no less a personage than Count Dracula himself, seeking a cure for his own monstrous curse. (As in the '44 film, the old neck nosher is played here by John Carradine, with suavity to spare.) Edelmann eventually agrees to take both these new patients on, and his lot is made even more problematic when he discovers--in still another fantastic co-inkydence, one that propels the film into the realms of the surreal--the dormant body of the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange, for the second time) in the sea caves beneath his home! (At this point, the viewer might understandably begin to wonder when the Invisible Man and the Mummy will be making their entrances!) And life grows even more harried for the put-upon doctor, when he realizes that the sneaky count has turned him into one of the bloodsucking undead...and with an overriding desire to revive the Frankenstein monster...."House of Dracula" (a more appropriate title would be "House of Edelmann," of course) is a remarkable film for several reasons. In it, both Dracula AND the Wolf Man profess a desire to be cured of their earthly lot (Dracula seeks a "release from a curse of misery and horror against which I'm powerless to fight alone"; Talbot bemoans his "life of misery and despair"), and for the first time, a scientific explanation is given for both of their maladies (a blood parasite and a "different species of antibodies" for the vampire; "pressure upon certain parts of the brain" coupled with self-hypnosis and hormonal changes, in the case of Talbot). Even more startling, perhaps, is the series' first FEMALE hunchback: Nina, the assistant of Dr. Edelmann, played by Jane Adams. Although grouped with the other monsters in the film's promotional poster under the tagline "The Devil's Own Brood," Nina is actually the kindest, most sympathetic character in the entire film, and despite her deformity, prettier than her fellow assistant Miliza (Martha O'Driscoll). The fact that Nina IS such a sympathetic character only makes her ultimate fate seem like an undeserved gyp. Continuing its pseudoscientific bent, "House of Dracula" gives us some plausible solutions for the monsters' problem: blood transfusions for the count, and utilizing the spores of the "clavaria formosa" plant, to effect a reshaping of the cranial cavity, for Talbot. Besides these novel plot points, the film boasts an oftentimes remarkable use of light and shadow (DOP George Robinson had previously lent his considerable skills to films such as "The Mummy's Tomb," "Franky Meets the Wolf Man," "Son of Dracula," "Cobra Woman" and "House of Frankenstein"). The special FX by John P. Fulton are just fine--including Larry's transformations, the Drac-to-bat changes, and especially the beautiful ocean backdrop behind Edelmann's castle--while the film's direction, by Erle C. Kenton ("Island of Lost Souls," "Ghost of Frankenstein," "House of Frankenstein"), is taut and atmospheric. The film boasts several memorable scenes, including Talbot's initial jail-cell transformation; Miliza playing increasingly haunting piano music, as Dracula's spell overwhelms her; Edelmann watching his mirrored reflection slowly fade and disappear, a telltale sign of his new vampiric condition; and a surrealistic fantasy/dream sequence that Edelmann suffers. On the down side, it can fairly be said that Carradine is an unusual casting choice to play the count, that Dracula is too easily disposed of, and that the film itself wraps up way too abruptly. And (spoiler ahead) how is it even possible for the vampire Edelmann to be done in by conventional bullets? Quibbles aside, though, the film is as fun as can be, and even lets the newly cured Lawrence Talbot enjoy a happy ending, for a change! Of course, Larry would soon be in for a fairly serious relapse, as the events of "A & C Meet Franky" would clearly detail. Here's hoping that he at least had three good years between these two films....
