Your Daily Dracula – Lon Chaney Jr as Count Alucard, Son of Dracula (1943)
‘Frank, isn’t eternity together better than a few years of ordinary life?’ ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
Credit to the Siodmaks – director Robert, writer Curt – for finding a different story and giving Dracula an unfamiliar role. Fittingly for the 1940s, it’s a film noir set up about a woman who ensnares one man (Count Alucard, ie: Dracula) to get what she wants (being turned into a vampire) so she can dump him and move on to the guy she really wants (or, more credibly, the guy she wants next). Almost all other Dracula victims are versions of Lucy (weak, willing and disposable) or Mina (strong enough to resist). Louise Allbritton’s Kay Caldwell really deserves better than the ending she gets. Though the casting hasn’t been well-liked, Chaney Jr, a passive manipulable victim in most of his monster movies, is just right for this Dracula. The film might have stuck in Anne Rice’s memory, since it prefigures her vision of vampire relationships.
Although admittedly outdated by 2026(not least in depiction of the “darkies”), Son of Dracula has its moments- such as when Kay Caldwell(Louise ALbritton) drives to the Louisiana bayou and watches Count Alucard(Lon Chaney Jr)’s casket emerge from the deths, with a whitish mist oozing from within(which quickly resolves into Alucard’s physical body) Kay’s interest in becoming a vampire is intriguingly the opposite to Countess Marya Zaleska’s in “Dracula’s Daughter” in 1936- Kay wishes to become immortal due to her thanatophobia(consuming fear of death) whreas Zaleska wishes to be mortal again, so that she2can live a normal life, think normal things, even play normal music again!), as is Alucard’c oming to America”a virile young country”- not one sucked dry by him and his ilk. The exchange in whcih Kay enters Frank’s (Robert Siodmak) cell in the shape of bat and ingests some of his blood(not enough to kill or change him just enough to make him amenable to her wishes) is priceless as is Alucard’s despairing shriek when he sees his coffin being set on fire”put it out, I tell ya, put it out!” Some may argue that Frank’s decision to kill Kay at the film’s conclusion is wrong, but I think it’s justifiable! Kay’s soul is more important than her physical body!
Posted by hsp62uk6@outlook.com | October 17, 2026, 8:30 am