40's American Horror Part Four

SON OF DRACULA

(1943)

Dir - Robert Siodmak

Overall: MEH

With Frankenstein sequels and the double-billed, re-release of both the initial 1931 Dracula and Frankenstein in theaters in 1942 all proving to be lucrative, Universal dusted off their undead count again for Son of Dracula.  With this film, Lon Chaney Jr. became the first actor to portray all four of the studio's main monsters, though his performance here as Dracula's not-so-clever alias Count Alucard is one of the lesser regarded.  In Chaney's defense though, he is certainly adequate with the material, but the script from Curt Sidmak and Eric Taylor does not leave him much to do besides disappear for large chunks of screen time and stand around turning into a mist or a bat on occasion.  The plot is remarkably simple, perhaps too simple in fact and director Robert Sidmak fails to create a properly atmospheric mood.  Everything is played seriously and it is tightly structured, but there is still no denying the rather unremarkable nature of the entire production.  John Carradine would give the title role a go in the following House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula entries, but while certainly silly, each of those movies would at least provide an amusing monster-mash quality that sadly, this one is lacking.

 

THE UNINVITED

(1944)

Dir - Lewis Allen

Overall: GOOD

One of the most popular and enduring supernatural horror films from Hollywood's Golden Age was an adaptation of Dorothy Macardle's novel Uneasy Freehold, which was released as The Uninvited in the US as its cinematic version likewise was.  Originally offered to Alfred Hitchcock, it was eventually taken on by Lewis Allen who stages a small handful of expertly spooky scenes.  The overall tone is far too sensationalized to viscerally connect with an audience as Victor Young's romantic musical score plays almost persistently throughout.  Also, various whimsical attempts at humor are made and the primary focus is on uncovering the ever-widening mystery.  Thankfully though, said mystery is quite compelling and even though women are prone to fainting and being offered sedatives to calm their nerves, the usual cliche of skeptical characters talking down to people is at least nowhere to be found.  Instead, the supernatural occurrences are taken seriously by all parties involved, with benevolent curiosity driving everyone to ultimately tell the mean ghost to go away, which it rather undrerwhelmingly does.  Still, it is a pretty classy production from top to bottom and provides a nice, more lighthearted alternative to such macabre material.

STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP
(1946)

Dir - Frank Wisbar
Overall: MEH

 

Frank Wisbar's remake of his own 1936 German film Fährmann Maria was this low-budget entry from Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the many Poverty Row studios operating in Hollywood at the time.  Here titled Strangler of the Swamp and still co-written by Wisbar, nearly every detail of the script is changed from the original.  The ferrywoman is called Maria once again, yet she falls in love with a completely different character and the ghostly stranger of the title is not an anonymous spectre as it was before.  Running just under an hour, no complaints can be lodged at the movie's pacing and overall, Wisbar maintains a snappy control over the material.  As far as fog-ridden scenery goes, it is piled on liberally thick here with characters completely disappearing in it during numerous scenes.  The film's horror elements are remarkably tame even for the era and as is also unfortunately common, it does not help that Alexander Steinert's stock, lush musical score hardly lets a single scene play out to natural silence.  It mostly gets by on its dated limitations though and is a more conventional improvement over its German counterpart at least.