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House of Dracula
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| House of Dracula | |
|---|---|
 House of Dracula movie poster |
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| Directed by | Erle C. Kenton |
| Produced by | Paul Malvern |
| Written by | Edward T. Lowe Jr. |
| Starring | Lon Chaney Jr. John Carradine Martha O'Driscoll Lionel Atwill |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 7, 1945 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 67 min |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | House of Frankenstein (1944) |
| Followed by | Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
House of Dracula was an American horror film released by Universal Studios in 1945.
The film was in essence a sequel to the previous entry in the Universal Monsters series, House of Frankenstein, insofar as it continued the theme of combining Universal's three most popular monsters: Frankenstein's monster (played by Glenn Strange), Count Dracula (John Carradine) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). However some elements of continuity from the previous film were dropped, such as the death of Dracula.
Dracula actually appears in a more-or-less self-contained vignette early in the film when he appears to be searching for a cure for his vampirism, visiting the Blood specalist Dr. Edelmann (Onslow Stevens). The main plot, however, involves Lawrence Talbot seeking, once again, a cure for the curse that turns him into a werewolf (Talbot's return from having been killed in the previous film is also unexplained), also from Dr. Edelmann. The Frankenstein Monster plays a minor role in this film, not actually going into action until the climactic finish, which results in Talbot finally being cured of his affliction and falling in love with Edelmann's attractive assitant (Martha O'Driscoll), but The Monster once again seemingly destroyed.
Also appearing in the film is Jane Adams, whose character, Nina, is a hunchback and was thus billed as one of the monsters in the film. In fact, her character is portrayed sympathetically and the use of an attractive actress to play an otherwise misshapen individual is notable for the time. It is jarring, however, to see her character's search for a cure go unfulfilled at the film's end.
House of Dracula is generally considered the finale of the classic Universal Monsters series, although the characters would appear again a few years later in the spoof Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Although Glenn Strange appears as The Monster in most of the film, during the finale, footage of Chaney as The Monster from The Ghost of Frankenstein was recycled.