Actually not the son but the man himself, whose moved to America to start a new life. Although Bela Lugosi was still around Universal decided to cast Lon Chaney Jnr, who they were building as a star - although Chaney was a brilliant wolfman and an OK Frankenstein's monster he's a very poor Dracula, this chubby mid-Westerner looking ill at ease as a suave European.That's a shame since this film as so much else going for it: vampires totally fit in with the "world" of the American south where most of the action takes place (swamps, black servants, plantations, bayous, rich old men in wheelchairs), the central story is a good idea (Louise Allbritton wants to marry Dracula so he'll turn her into a vampire and can spend all eternity with her real boyfriend, Robert Paige), there's a great scene where Paige shoots at Dracula but the bullets go through him and his his fiancee, the Robert Paige character is pretty much emotionally destroyed by all the stuff he goes through in the film, Frank Craven and J Edgar Bromberg offer good character support.
No comments:
Post a Comment