Dracula's daughter

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Movie
German title Dracula's daughter
Original title Dracula's daughter
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1936
length 71 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Lambert Hillyer
script David O. Selznick
Garrett Ford
production Universal Pictures
E.M. Asher
Harry Zehner
music Heinz Roemheld
camera George Robinson
cut Milton Carruth
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Dracula's son

Dracula's Daughter is an American horror film made by Universal Studios in 1936. The film continues the story of Dracula (1931) and is loosely based on Bram Stoker's short story Dracula's Guest and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla . Directed by Lambert Hillyer and the title role played by Gloria Holden .

action

Professor Von Helsing is in prison for the murder of Count Dracula. He had driven a wooden stake through the heart of the aristocrat and told that the count was a blood-sucking vampire . Because Van Helsing is believed to be insane, he demands that the professor's psychologist Jeffrey Garth, an old friend, be consulted.

Garth initially thinks Von Helsing is also crazy. Only when the corpse of Dracula disappears from the pathology , he gradually begins to believe him. In the meantime, a new face has appeared in London's upper class: the charismatic Hungarian Countess Marya Zaleska.

It turns out that she is the daughter of Count Dracula. It was she who stole his body and burned it in the hope of being able to free herself from her father's curse. When she realizes that the destruction of Dracula's body is not bringing the desired result, she hopes that the respected psychologist Garth can help her to cure her obsession with blood. After this fails and Garth also rejects the Countess' love, her inner demon breaks through and she kidnaps Janet, his secretary, whom he loves, to Transylvania .

In Dracula's old castle, Zaleska gives Garth a choice: Either he becomes a vampire and spends eternity with her or Janet has to die. Garth sees no other way out of saving Janet and agrees to become Zaleska's companion.

Suddenly the countess collapses, hit by a wooden arrow that has pierced her heart. Sandor, her servant, who was in love with Zaleska and to whom she had promised immortality as a reward for his services, killed her out of mad jealousy. When he puts the next arrow on Garth, he is shot down by the police storming in. Van Helsing was able to persuade the police chief of London to let him prove his vampire theory.

When the Countess dies, her hypnotic influence on Janet is broken and she and Garth hug each other.

Sequels

Seven years after Dracula's daughter , another sequel was produced with Dracula's son , this time making no reference to the previous films. The mysterious Hungarian Count Alucard intends to move into his new home on a plantation in the southern United States . A series of eerie events began with his arrival.

In the following two years attempts were made to build up the tension by combining several film monsters in one story. In Frankenstein's house and Dracula's house, in addition to a mad scientist with a hunchbacked assistant, Count Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster met each other.

Universal's Dracula series came to a close two years later with the comedy Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein , in which the studio's most popular monsters were satirized. Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula in a film for the first time since 1931.

DVD release

Dracula's daughter is part of "The Monster Legacy DVD Collection".

Others

  • In Dracula's daughter should first James Whale directed lead. His script was rejected by the producers and he was pulled off the project.
  • Bela Lugosi was to play his role from Dracula again and has already made himself available for some publicity photos for which he received a fee of 4,000 US dollars. However, he did not appear in the film itself. It is believed that the studio wanted to steer the film in a new direction after the release of James Whale and therefore renounced the star.
  • Dracula's daughter was Universal's last production under the direction of Carl Laemmle .
  • Four days after production ended, Standard Capitol Corp. took control of Universal and put the entire Laemmle family, including their patriarch Carl Laemmle, who founded the studio, in front of the door in a completely informal manner.
  • Director Lambert Hillyer suffered an accident on the ninth day of shooting. A smaller spotlight fell on his head, which lost half a day of shooting while he was being treated in the hospital.
  • With a budget of $ 278,000, Dracula's daughter was one of the most expensive universal productions of the 1930s.
  • The title character, Countess Zaleska , only blinks once in the entire film.
  • Edward Van Sloan's character was renamed from Van Helsing to Von Helsing for reasons unknown .
  • The advertising line for the film at the time was: “ Look out, she'll get you! "

Web links

Commons : Dracula's Daughter  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files