CAST:
Otto Kruger (Jeffrey Garth),
Gloria Holden (Countess Marya Zaleska - Dracula's Daughter),
Marguerite Churchill (Janet Blake),
Edward Van Sloan (Professor Von Helsing),
Gilbert Emery (Sir Basil Humphrey),
Irving Pichel (Sandor),
Halliwell Hobbes (Hawkins),
Billy Bevan (Albert),
Nan Grey (Lili),
Hedda Hopper (Lady Esme Hammond),
Claud Allister (Sir Aubrey),
Edgar Norton (Hobbs),
E.E. Clive (Sergeant Wilkes)

SCRIPT:
Garrett Fort

PHOTOGRAPHY:
George Robinson

MUSIC:
Heinz Roemheld

EDITING:
Milton Carruth

COSTUMES:
Brymer

Synopsis:

In the coastal English town of Whitby, vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing has just driven a hawthorn stake into Count Dracula's heart. The dead body of Dracula's assistant Renfield is also lying at the scene of the confrontation, and the old professor is trying to explain the events that took place to two policemen who want to arrest and detain him. He first explains to Sergeant Wilkes and policeman Albert, and then to the skeptical head of Scotland Yard, Sir Basil Humphrey, that Dracula is a vampire who has been dead and undead at the same time for 500 years, and that he could only be killed by driving a hawthorn stake into his heart.

When Sir Humphrey tells him that under British law he must be charged with murder, Professor Van Helsing decides to turn to his former student, the English psychiatrist Jeffrey Garth, for help. While the vampire's body is being guarded by a frightened policeman, Dracula's daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska, suddenly appears, hypnotizing the policeman and stealing her father's body. She takes the deceased's body to his homeland of Transylvania, where she gives him a true vampire funeral, with a burning pyre over which she says a prayer to exorcise his spirit.

Marya hopes that she will be able to free herself from the vampire curse that her father cast on her, and after the ceremony, she returns to London with her servant Sandor, who is in love with her. But there she will realize that she still behaves like a vampire, and after performing hypnosis she will drink the blood of the starving poor model Lili, a girl who wanted to commit suicide, and whom Sandor offered her as a sacrifice. But that's just the beginning of the story, which will soon involve, in addition to Professor Garth, his secretary Janet Blake, who is also his lover, the elegant Lady Esme Hammond, the dazed Lili who suffers from amnesia after being bitten by a vampire, and, of course, the vampire herself, the Countess Zelenska.

Although the film Dracula directed by Todd Browning from 1931 was a huge success, it took even five years for the heads of the Universal studios to decide on filming a sequel. It also took five years for them to film the sequel to Frankenstein, titled The Bride of Frankenstein, and another seven years will pass before the third installment of the Dracula series, titled Son of Dracula. Unlike the Frankenstein series, Universal did not bring back the original antagonist in the Dracula films, which was partly logical because Bela Lugosi did not want to re-incarnate the character that made him famous, until during the 40 -s due to impoverishment did not become less picky. The second part of the reason lay in the fact that in 1934 the Hays censorship code was imposed on Hollywood studios, due to which the motif of Dracula's seduction of young women became undesirable and taboo, so Universal found a solution in rejecting Dracula as a central character and in promoting his descendants, first a vampire's daughter, and then a son.

Director Lambert Hillyer was a reliable craftsman who in the late 1930s and during the 1940s mostly asserted himself as the author of popular B- and C-westerns, and in 1943 he also signed the first screen adaptation of the superhero comic about Batman, with Lewis Wilson in the role of the swashbuckling protector. Gotham City. Thanks to his excellent direction, Dracula's Daughter is perhaps even superior to the original film, in contrast to which it was filmed according to the original script, on which, according to numerous sources, the famous producer David O. Selznick collaborated under the pseudonym Oliver Jeffries.

While Dracula was mostly based on the hit theater play, and to a lesser extent on Bram Stoker's novel, this sequel very freely handles the writer's short story added later as a literary basis. It is about a story entitled Dracula's Guest, which was published in 1914, after Stoker's death, and the rights for which were bought by David O. Selznick from his widow Florence. Compared to the first film, this one may not be as spectacular, but as a whole it seems somewhat more compact, even more layered and intriguing. The vampire this time is not a simplistic embodiment of evil, as was the case with Lugosi's Dracula, but a more sympathetic and somewhat nuanced character who struggles with his own bloodsucking nature and all the bad things that it entails, while realizing that certain needs are not can release.

Hillyer's direction is suggestive and atmospheric, he skillfully leads the characters and builds dramatic tension, and skillfully exploits the great Gloria Holden (The Life of Émile Zola by William Dieterl) in the title role, who enriched the character with effective style and elegance. Despite some redundant scenes and unnecessary chatter in places, Dracula's Daughter is an extremely successful film free of clichés, which is possibly due to its relative brevity, as it lasts only 71 minutes. Universal producer Carl Leammle, Jr. At first he wanted James Whale to direct the film, and when he turned it down due to different plans, dominant comedy director A. Edward Sutherland appeared as an option, who also turned down the offer, and Hillyer was eventually chosen. According to the initial plans, Bela Lugosi and Jane Wyatt were to appear in the main roles, and Boris Karloff and Colin Clive in the supporting roles, while Dr. Garth was to be portrayed by Cesar Romero. But those plans did not materialize, so the final cast was completely different.

Text author: Josip Grozdanić

b/w, 71'