In Universal Classic Horror How Many Dracula's Are There?
While reading a thread about the forthcoming Hammer 4k of Horror of Dracula, (and hoping that it exceeds our expectations) I began thinking about how Dracula is manipulated by the Universal script writers in order to appear in the films that followed the Bela Lugosi original.
After being staked by Van Helsing, then having his body engulfed in flames by his daughter, how did he show up in other films?
Here's my two cents.
Consider this:
In Dracula's Daughter, Countess Zaleska sets her father's staked corpse ablaze, hoping to be "released from the curse of the Dracula's"....note the plural. This hints that there are more than a single Count Dracula.
We have a Count Dracula in '43 Son of Dracula (Lon Chaney)....again in House of Frankenstein.....and again in House of Dracula. (both played by John Carradine)
In all cases, the vampire Count Dracula is dispatched by the rays of the sun.
Suddenly he appears in the '43 Son of Dracula. But how? He has to be another Count Dracula. Plain and simple. He meets his demise via the rays of the sun during his confrontation with Frank Stanley.
In House of Frankenstein, Prof. Lampini tells Neimann and Daniel that he's acquired the skeleton of Count Dracula by proxy, complete with casket and staked skeleton. Is this the skeleton of Dracula last seen in the swamp area from Son of Dracula, or another in the line of male vampires?
A) It's the skeleton from Son of Dracula in Louisiana USA, now back in the gentle confines of Europe.
B) It's another male vampire from the Dracula lineage.
While Neimann makes a deal with the Count to always have his coffin ready for him, we learn that Neimann can't be trusted and Daniel throws the coffin out of the trailer as the local police pursue Dracula....and meets his demise by the sun's rays, again reduced to a skeleton.
Now we come to House of Dracula, where out of the blue...er, the dark, Count Dracula appears at the abode of Dr. Franz Edelmann, all hale and hearty, showing zero signs of being "sunburned" in the earlier film. How do we account for this? IMO, we again recall from Countless Zaleska that there's a race of Dracula's, not just one. This Count Dracula has met Milizia Morelle, Dr. Edelmann's assistant in an earlier encounter, and comes calling seeking a cure for his malady, just as Countess Zaleska had done with Dr. Jeffrey Garth.....but I've always seen this as a ruse, because he's really after Miliza. Anyway, again those pesky sun rays get in the way of his plan when Edelmann exposes him to them....back to skeleton form.
So there are at least three Count Dracula's:
1.Dracula/Dracula's Daughter.
2. Son of Dracula/House of Frankenstein.
3. House of Dracula.
......or four, if you choose to seperate the vampires in Son and House.
One thing we know is, continuity is never a strong point in our favorite Universal monster films. We accept them and go on and enjoy them without getting too caught up in reality versus the reel-ality.
By the way, I've purposely ignored the appearance of Count Dracula, played by Bela Lugosi in the '48 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That's a film worthy of its own discussion.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Added Update:
Author and film historian Tom Weaver offers this:
"Universal intentionally threw "the chronology" out the window when they made SON OF DRAC, and even announced that they had. I wrote in the SON OF DRAC book (now out of print, have I mentioned that?) ......
Son of Dracula exists “in a different universe” (as the kids say today) from the 1931 Dracula and the 1936 Dracula’s Daughter: When Prof. Lazlo says that the vampire Dracula was destroyed in the 19th century, he makes us aware that the events in Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter never took place in the universe of Son of Dracula. One of the pressbook articles actually refers to Son’s start-from-scratch approach:
“Although Son of Dracula is not a ‘continuation’ of [the 1931 Dracula], it is based mainly on the same ghoulish legend of the vampire….”
The same tack was taken a year later by The Invisible Man’s Revenge: All previous Invisible Man movies are kicked to the curb as a nutcase named Griffin (Jon Hall) becomes a guinea pig for a kooky recluse scientist (John Carradine) developing an invisibility formula. Coincidentally or maybe not, both of these out-with-the-old, let’s-start-fresh series entries were Ford Beebe productions."
After being staked by Van Helsing, then having his body engulfed in flames by his daughter, how did he show up in other films?
Here's my two cents.
Consider this:
In Dracula's Daughter, Countess Zaleska sets her father's staked corpse ablaze, hoping to be "released from the curse of the Dracula's"....note the plural. This hints that there are more than a single Count Dracula.
We have a Count Dracula in '43 Son of Dracula (Lon Chaney)....again in House of Frankenstein.....and again in House of Dracula. (both played by John Carradine)
In all cases, the vampire Count Dracula is dispatched by the rays of the sun.
Suddenly he appears in the '43 Son of Dracula. But how? He has to be another Count Dracula. Plain and simple. He meets his demise via the rays of the sun during his confrontation with Frank Stanley.
In House of Frankenstein, Prof. Lampini tells Neimann and Daniel that he's acquired the skeleton of Count Dracula by proxy, complete with casket and staked skeleton. Is this the skeleton of Dracula last seen in the swamp area from Son of Dracula, or another in the line of male vampires?
A) It's the skeleton from Son of Dracula in Louisiana USA, now back in the gentle confines of Europe.
B) It's another male vampire from the Dracula lineage.
While Neimann makes a deal with the Count to always have his coffin ready for him, we learn that Neimann can't be trusted and Daniel throws the coffin out of the trailer as the local police pursue Dracula....and meets his demise by the sun's rays, again reduced to a skeleton.
Now we come to House of Dracula, where out of the blue...er, the dark, Count Dracula appears at the abode of Dr. Franz Edelmann, all hale and hearty, showing zero signs of being "sunburned" in the earlier film. How do we account for this? IMO, we again recall from Countless Zaleska that there's a race of Dracula's, not just one. This Count Dracula has met Milizia Morelle, Dr. Edelmann's assistant in an earlier encounter, and comes calling seeking a cure for his malady, just as Countess Zaleska had done with Dr. Jeffrey Garth.....but I've always seen this as a ruse, because he's really after Miliza. Anyway, again those pesky sun rays get in the way of his plan when Edelmann exposes him to them....back to skeleton form.
So there are at least three Count Dracula's:
1.Dracula/Dracula's Daughter.
2. Son of Dracula/House of Frankenstein.
3. House of Dracula.
......or four, if you choose to seperate the vampires in Son and House.
One thing we know is, continuity is never a strong point in our favorite Universal monster films. We accept them and go on and enjoy them without getting too caught up in reality versus the reel-ality.
By the way, I've purposely ignored the appearance of Count Dracula, played by Bela Lugosi in the '48 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That's a film worthy of its own discussion.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Added Update:
Author and film historian Tom Weaver offers this:
"Universal intentionally threw "the chronology" out the window when they made SON OF DRAC, and even announced that they had. I wrote in the SON OF DRAC book (now out of print, have I mentioned that?) ......
Son of Dracula exists “in a different universe” (as the kids say today) from the 1931 Dracula and the 1936 Dracula’s Daughter: When Prof. Lazlo says that the vampire Dracula was destroyed in the 19th century, he makes us aware that the events in Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter never took place in the universe of Son of Dracula. One of the pressbook articles actually refers to Son’s start-from-scratch approach:
“Although Son of Dracula is not a ‘continuation’ of [the 1931 Dracula], it is based mainly on the same ghoulish legend of the vampire….”
The same tack was taken a year later by The Invisible Man’s Revenge: All previous Invisible Man movies are kicked to the curb as a nutcase named Griffin (Jon Hall) becomes a guinea pig for a kooky recluse scientist (John Carradine) developing an invisibility formula. Coincidentally or maybe not, both of these out-with-the-old, let’s-start-fresh series entries were Ford Beebe productions."
