Streaming Availability: Rentable for cheap on quite a few sites
Bela Lugosi's life makes for a very sad story. Watch the movie Ed Wood, you’ll get a crash course on his sad final decades and his bitterness with Hollywood. Despite creating one of the greatest performances in horror history in the original Dracula, Lugosi struggled to find a secure place outside of horror, and eventually, even within it. He was passed over for roles because of his Hungarian accent, because of his age (he’s in his sixties in today’s movie and looks it), and eventually his health problems. Eventually, by the 1950s, Lugosi could not get his calls answered by Universal Pictures. The only work he could find was in independent trash productions like Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla or Plan 9 From Outer Space.
However, between Dracula and his B-movie era, Lugosi would still have a number of solid horror movies. He's magnificent as the original Igor in Son of Frankenstein. And we also have today's movie, where Lugosi more or less reprises his great vampire role.
The Return of the Vampire, directed by Lew Landers, is besides
Dracula’s Daughter, the closest thing we have to a direct sequel to Dracula.
This is clearly unofficial in numerous ways. It claims no inspiration from Bram
Stoker’s novel, it shares no character names, and it isn’t even made by
Universal, instead it is a Columbia joint. Bela Lugosi is playing a vampire named “Armand
Tesla”. Tesla just so happens to dress like Count Dracula and behave in exactly the same
ways, but no, completely distinct figures. Please do not be confused. This was
not the second time Lugosi would play a vampire on screen, nor would it be the
last time. However, if want a dignified successor to his classic bloodsucker performance,
The Return of the Vampire is as close as you’ll get.
Before the main plot of the movie begins, we have a brief prologue featuring a super speed-run of the original Dracula story (minus some filed-off serial numbers). In 1918 London, mysterious deaths are occurring, and wouldn't you know it, women are turning up drained of blood. Professor Van Helsing, I mean, Professor Saunders (Gilbert Emery) uses his rational science to defeat the foreign dark magic. He's assisted by Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort). They drive a stake through Dracula, I mean, Tesla’s heart. This saves Tesla’s latest victim Nicki.
Nicki is only a little girl, which is
sure shocking. All the sexual overtones of vampires makes this utterly gross in a way I don't like at all. However, I realized this plot construct means Nicki can return in
the main plot as a young woman played by Nina Foch, thus becoming the Not-Mina. Still, yuck.
Also, Dracu- Tesla has a Wolf-Man “Renfield”, Andreas (Matt
Willis). This is because by the 1940s, just one monster was not enough to draw crowds,
you needed at least two. After his master is killed, Andreas returns to human form to
become Lady Jane’s sub. This werewolf costume and transformation effect is a pure rip-off from the Universal version, yet not a bad performance.
Anyway, we cut to twenty-five years later. With the return of World Wars also
comes the return of Count… you know who. A German bombing blows open the
vampire’s grave, which causes two foolish gravediggers to assume the corpse has
been defiled in the bombing. After doing the nice thing of pulling the stake
out, they unwittingly bring Tesla back to life. Bela Lugosi returns Andreas
to his hairy slave form, and then appears in London society under the alias of Dr.
Hugo Bruckner, supposedly a scientist escaping Nazi Europe.
Last movie we had a female Dracula, so this week, we have a female Van Helsing, who is Lady Jane. (Professor Saunders has died between scenes, which we're told was Dracula’s curse from beyond the grave.) Lady Jane is a perfectly competent nemesis for Dra- Telsa. Really though, Tesla's defeat is just a massive self-inflected L. By the middle of the movie he’s got Nicki under his thrall, Andreas working for him in secret, and he’s in Lady Jane’s parlor drinking something that isn’t wine – as we know, he never drinks... wine. The vampire could win this right now, but instead blows it. That pesky holy force of goodness once overcame his hypnotism powers too many times.
In a rather elegant touch, after being reborn thanks to a
German bomb, Teslacula is also undone by the same awful power. His base is blown
up and the Sun’s light paralyzes him. Andreas comes back to his senses long enough to kill his master. Lady Jane hardly defeated her enemy as much as let his plans fall apart on their own.
As for Lugosi, he’s the reason you’re here. He’s still
an imposing "Dracula". The Return of the Vampire opens with the werewolf letting the
vampire out of his coffin. Even just seen as a shadow on the wall, that
classic silhouette has so much power. We get plenty of close-ups on Lugosi’s
eyes, which have sadly lost some of their piercing powers during the last ten
years. It does feel like Lugosi is doing an impression of himself at times. But even
a diminished, older Lugosi is a fascinating figure that can carry a movie.
By the 1940s, the Universal Pictures horror era was already
turning into cliché. You can already see it happening here. We open on a
spooky graveyard covered in fog, exactly the imagery you’d assume for this period
in horror. The Return of the Vampire is not doing anything new either with
vampires or werewolves, it never becomes more than a rip-off of older and better movies. But ten years
after Dracula, we have a more modern-looking movie, at least. The camera is freer
to pan around scenes, cuts are more frequent. The director is not just filming a stage-play, the camera itself is telling the story, even in a small way.
However, if you want to talk about the power of filmmaking, we need to rewind a bit.
Next time we go back to 1932 with a classic German take on the vampire (but not that one), Vampyr.
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