The Last House of Universal

HOUSE OF DRACULA-1945-In his castle laboratory the kindly eminent Dr. Edleman (Onslow Stevens) conducts experiments with the assistance of two nurses Nina (Jane Addams) and Miliza (Martha O'Driscoll) a hunchback. One dark night Count Dracula using the alias "Baron Latos" (John Carradine) visits Edleman. The urbane count says he wants to be cured of his vampirism. He sounds sincere but almost immediately sets his hypnotic eyes on Nina. While doing blood tests on Drac, the doc also receives a visit from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr., now with a mustache looking none the worse for wear especially since he was killed by a silver bullet in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN) who wants a cure for his curse of lacanthropy. Edleman thinks he can help Larry but he must first  attend to the count who's getting way too flirty with his nurse. Larry makes a big point about his condition by having the local police chief (Lionel Atwill in his last finished movie) lock him up during a full moon. and he transforms right in front of their eyes.

During a blood transfusion Drac makes Edleman and Miliza go to sleep. He then reverses the transfusion and injects his blood sucking blood into the doc's! He plans to fly away with Nina. Edleman is revived in time to thwart the count's plan but he becomes a paranoid power crazed vampire type creature intent on reviving the Frankenstein monster (he and Talbot found it early with the skeleton of the monster's last would be savior Dr. Niemann; this is the only connection to HOF that makes any sense). The new blood seeking creature has a scary leer, watches his mirror image fade and (thanks to scenes from previous entries in the series) has a weird dream with the monster helping him attack the local town. He occasionally snaps out of his curse and plans on helping Miliza but she insists he operate on Talbot first. He does and the operation is a success! The full moon doesn't affect him! After vampire Edleman kills one of his workers (Ludwig Stossel) he begins tinkering again with the monster (Glen Strange). Miliza discovers this and Edleman promptly strangles her. Talbot enters just as the monster awakens. Meanwhile an angry mob lead by the dead worker's brother (Skelton Knaggs) storms the castle. In a rather sad (in more ways than one) ending the just cured Talbot shoots the crazed Edleman who seems to have a relieved look on his face when he dies. The monster gets mad, flails around a bit and tries to attack Talbot who starts a fire which it would appear kills the mistreated monster for good.

Not counting the next film to feature the three classic Universal monsters (ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN), HOUSE OF DRACULA brings to a close the horror series that really began with the original FRANKENSTEIN in 1931. It's not exactly a fond farewell despite having Earle C. Kenton as director. He'd done ok with the previous entries (HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN; FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN) but the story here is rushed and the monster is wasted with just a couple of brief cameos before being destroyed. The acting is good especially from Stevens and O'Driscoll but the story is kind of mean spirited with Miliza after all her dedication to Edleman and his work winds up being strangled and her corpse thrown haphazardly aside. 

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Lon Frank

THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN-1942-In the wake of events that transpired in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, the angry villagers blow up Castle Frankenstein despite the best efforts of Ygor (Bela Lugosi; also in BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT the same year) to dissuade them (the broken neck ex-assistant to Wolf Frankenstein seems to have recovered from being shot to death in the last installment). Their explosive blasts unleash the monster from his sulfur pit doom of the previous picture much to the delight of Ygor (“My friend!”). After being struck by lightening the monster becomes stronger. The duo decided to visit Vasaria where the baron's second song Ludwig Frankenstein (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) lives. Ludwig is a brain surgeon who studies “diseases of the mind” and is assisted by the cheerful Dr. Kettering (Barton Yarborough; later in the I LOVE A MYSTERY series of films) and the unhappy Dr. Bohmer (Lionel Atwill; also in PARDON MY SARONG with Abbott & Costello the same year) and his daughter Elsa (Evelyn Ankers; in the previous year's THE WOLFMAN). 

Igor and his friend walk right into the village square and scare children. The monster befriends a little girl (“Are you a giant?”) and takes her to the rooftops to retrieve her ball. After returning the girl to her daddy he's overpowered by the cops and townspeople. Cut to Ludwig's residence where town prosecutor Erik (Ralph Bellamy; also in THE WOLFMAN) tells the doctor about an imprisoned madman who killed 2 villagers. But unbeknownst to Erik, Ygor has already met with Ludwig to discuss helping fix his friend's “sick brain”. When he's put on trial the monster escapes and almost kills Ludwig but Ygor's horn playing pacifies him. Bringing him back to Ludwig's laboratory the monster kills Kettering and gas is used to subdue him. Ludwig plans to take the monster apart “piece by piece” but his father's ghost (also Hardwicke) intervenes and Ludwig decides to put Kettering's brain into the monster's head! Ygor convinces Bohmer (who feels his part in Frankenstein's experiments have been overlooked because of a mistake he made years before) to put his demented brain in the monster's skull. Erik accuses Ludwig of deception and the doc nearly 'fesses up but the monster kidnaps his little girlfriend and all that's put to the side. The operation is a success but of course the monster's evil brain has been replaced by one that is even eviler. It doesn't go as planned though. The monster, now talking with Ygor's voice plans on ruling the world but it turns out Ygor's blood doesn't match the monster's and he (they?) go blind. The monster kills Bohmer and starts a fire that burns down the house, killing him (for now) and Ludwig while Erik saves Elsa. 

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN director Earle C. Kenton made this fine if a little convoluted follow-up which although cheats on story continuity provides some good scenes and great performances. Cedric Hardwicke is excellent as the noble scientist who wants to do the right thing but once again falls victim to the “Frankenstein curse”. And having Lugosi back as the scheming Ygor (especially since he was killed at the end of SON) is a major plus. Though criticized a lot for his portrayal Lon Chaney (in the first post-Karloff role of the monster) does an acceptable job considering he's not given much to do! Atwill of course is at his best here, the seemingly co-operative assistant hiding a bitter vengeance driven other self. The screenplay is by W. Scott Darling, a prolific film writer before his death by drowning in 1953. GHOST of course features several actors in un-billed roles: Holmes Herbert, Richard Alexander, Harry Cording and Dwight Frye.

Director Kenton later worked with Abbott and Costello and also made two "sequels"  HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA.

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Merry Christmas

RACKET SQUAD-THE CHRISTMAS CAPER-1952-This is a Christmas episode of the long running TV crime drama that based it's stories about "bunco" artists and con men on true events. Reed Hadley stars as Captain John Braddock who works for the San Francisco police department. In this seasonal story a nice old man Charles Dooley (Lloyd Corrigan) promises some kids a lot of Christmas toys, so to make money he gets a job as a Santa Claus collecting for a charity which is actually a front for some con men (future Uncle Fester Jackie Coogan and familiar TV actor Alan Dexter). Willie Best shows up in one scene as a janitor who actually explains the whole caper to Dooley! After the two bad guys are arrested Dooley takes the stolen money that he was suppose to deliver to his fraudulent bosses and spends it on presents for some needy kids (including a cripple girl) while of course dressed as Santa Claus. Braddock's hot headed detective (John Phillips) wants to arrest Dooley but Braddock relents and they give some of their own money to help the kids. Argentina Brunetti and William Fawcett are also featured.

This episode was directed by Earl C. Kenton who in the forties had made several Abbott & Costello comedies and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN. It was written by Arthur E. Orloff, who wrote many TV episodes around this time. I just wanted to mention that because his last name is Orloff. Ironically, strangely, coincidentally (?) Santa portrayer Corrigan also played a guy impersonating Santa in a episode of WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE that I recently saw!

Merry Christmas and thanks for reading!