Although Bela Lugosi became famous playing Dracula, he actually played far more mad scientists during his career than vampires. Amazingly, this was only the second time he played a vampire on screen (in Mark of the Vampire he was only pretending). Its lovely to see him back in the fangs and cape again, kissing female hands – he’s getting on a bit, but he’s still Bela Lugosi.
Here he’s a vampire who rises in 1918 to attack an English family – they drive a stake through his heart, but he gets brought back to life in 1944 and goes looking for revenge... which is a bit rich in my book (he was trying to kill the family, he should have expected they’d try to kill him), but there you go.
The director of this opus is Lew Lander, who previously helmed Lugosi in The Raven, and he does a good job – the film is brisk, well shot and professional. While much of the plot is regurgitated Dracula/Universal stuff – vampires holding women in trances (beautiful Nina Foch is the object of his affection), doctors running sanatoriums – there are two fresh twists (well, fresh-ish): the vampire used to be a scientist who got interested in the occult (obviously so interested he turned vampire – a concept strong enough for its own film) and his sidekick is a werewolf.
It's also interesting that the Van Hesling part in the film is a woman (played by Frieda Inescort) and that the werewolf is so sympathetic (this is the werewolf’s story as much as anyone else’s – battle for his soul). But the film loses points for some laziness at the end with the deux ex machina of the Nazi bombing.
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