Frankenstein Wednesday: "House of Dracula" (1945) – Test The Blood of Dracula!

  Continuing my weekly "But What Do I Know!" through Universal's first 8 Frankensteins...

"That... That's IT?!"

 Here is a publicity still of Award-Winning Make-Up Artist Jack Pierce, preparing Boris Karloff for "Bride of Frankenstein" in 1933:

 And here's a publicity still of Onslow Stevens, making up his stand-in, Carey Loftin, for "House of Dracula" twelve years later (source):

 I don't know who did Onslow Stevens' makeup. My guess is it might also have been Onslow Stevens – there's something just not very Award-Winning-Make-Up-Artist-Jack-Piercey about it. John Carradine may also have done his own make-up as Dracula – a little talc to the temples – but at least in this film his moustache stayed on.

Not a play. A scene from an actual film.

 Digital restoration can be unkind, and blog least-favourite Erle C. Kenton's "House of Dracula" does not bear close examination, if any. It is a bad film. I may just keep talking about the make-up then. Stevens is sporting a fake beard because he is playing a scientist, Dr. Franz Edelmann. Edelmann has been approached by Dracula who wants to be cured of Vampirism, or maybe just because he has a crush on Edelmann's nurse Miliza (played by Martha O'Driscoll), it's not clear which. Both motives are rubbish, but at least this film didn't have a misleadingly good opening like "... of Frankenstein".

"I wear this top hat so my waddle when ascending or descending stairs might describe an even wider arc. And I ascend and descend stairs a lot"

  Just as in the previous sequel, Carradine's Dracula introduces himself as "Baron Latos", possibly because he's trying to conceal his identity, or possibly because nobody wants to hear John Carradine say "I am Dracula." He's moved his coffin – bearing the Dracula crest – into Edelmann's cellar though, and showed it to Edelmann the moment they meet, so it's probably the latter. Edelmann, a man of science, believes Vampirism is simply a mental disorder, so prescribes a series of transfusions of his own blood into Dracula's as a cure. 

 But (?) Dracula then tricks (?) Edelmann by reversing the flow of the syringe (??) which (???) transforms the good doctor into an evil Mr. Hyde version of himself. You can see the make-up for Edelmann's HIDEOUS TRANSFORMATION at the top of this post, as well as below IF YOU DARE. I have literally no idea what anyone was thinking at this point.

  "Push the button, Frank!"

Also, excuse me but who in red hell is Onslow Stevens, and why is he the star of this film? Anyway! Believing now in vampires, the good doctor moves Dracula's coffin into the sunlight, killing its occupant, and ending Dracula's stupid story that makes no sense. Meanwhile! Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, natch) has also come to Edelmann looking for a cure for his Werewolfism, which makes a bit more sense, except that both he and Dracula definitely died in the last film. Edelmann, however, is too busy with "Baron Latos", so Talbot hands himself in to the local police station, where he transforms into the Wolf Man, but it's fine because he's safely locked up. He doesn't escape or anything. Nobody is killed. It's all fine, and so is his make-up.

 "This is actually fine."

 If he looks a little bushier than before, that's because – according to The Titus Andronicus Project – the War had caused a serious shortage of European yak hair, which Jack Pierce previously relied upon for the fur. It's still basically fine. Talbot is then released from his cell and throws himself into the sea. Edelmann follows him on a winch to look for him in the mud, where he finds the reliably unconscious body of Frankenstein's Monster. He brings both back to his not mad hospital/lab/castle, where he then does not revive the Monster because another nurse, trailblazing FEMALE hunchbacked assistant Nina (played by Jane Adams) points out that this would be bad. He does cure Talbot though, which is good, and so ends the Wolf Man's stupid story.

"You have been cured with spores. Now I love you."

 We haven't seen a moustache on Talbot before, but obviously he has every right to try one; perhaps he'd just seen "A Matter of Life and Death" and hoped that, in concert with silk pyjamas and head bandage, it would make him look more like David Niven (and not Houdi Elbow). It looks real anyway. Martha O' Driscoll and Jane Adams both look superb, but that doesn't mean they didn't also do their own make-up. Adams really sells the scoliosis too. Her performance as Nina is probably the best thing in the movie, which is not to say that her role isn't exploitative and infantilising. Regardless, she manages to make Nina the protagonist of every scene she's in – heroic, if childishly heroic – until she is horrifically thrown to her death down a trapdoor at the end by Mr. Hyde Edelmann, in long shot, because this film is bad.

  Also fine is Glenn Strange's make-up as the Monster, athough, yet again, he has absolutely nothing to do for most of his time onscreen, except lie unconscious on a gurney until called upon to break free from its straps by a mad scientist, so there isn't much that could have gone wrong. If his firey death the next minute, trapped beneath Linda Barker's shelves, reminds you of the end of "Ghost of Frankenstein", that's because it is. The studio literally recycled the footage. And so ends the Monster's non-story. It doesn't look like Strange was given a dresser either:

"Lon Helping Glenn into his Costume" Actual caption.

 Lionel Atwill's back and probably did some recycling too, wearing the same uniform for Inspector Holtz he wore for Inspector Arnz in "House of Frankenstein" and Inspector Krogh in "Son of Frankenstein", while Skelton Knaggs is a new face, this film's version of the sweaty weirdo who the whole village listens to instead of their Police Inspector, and I'm not sure anyone did his makeup. I'm not sure he's wearing any. I think that face is just Skelton Knagg's deal.

 Anything else? 

 Oh, there's one other death; a scene in which the evil Edelmann toys with, then murders, his gardener. For this one scene we're reminded of the queasily attractive power fantasy that Horror promises, what Steven Moffat called "the game of the monster", While there's so much more to the best of these films than this game, you still have to play it. It's through this game, in fact, we first came as children to Frankenstein, and Dracula, and the Wolf Man, not through "Scooby Doo". Exactly as we might have dressed up as super heroes, we groaned, and hissed, and adopted the stiff walk, and suddenly felt power because people were running from us, because that was the game. And the fangs, and the claws, and the face paint, and the stick-on bolts, and the scars were the toys we bought to play that game. We learnt of these monsters through make-up. House of Dracula forgot the rules of that game however, and there would be no sequel the following year.

Next week... "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man" in which a comedy comes along to finally sort all this shit out, and then we're done!