The Return of the Vampire (USA, 1943) 70 min B&W DIR: Lew Landers. PROD: Sam White. SCR: Griffin Jay, based upon an idea by Kurt Neumann. MUSIC: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. DOP: L. William O’Connell, John Stumar. CAST: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Roland Varno, Miles Mander, Matt Willis. (Columbia)
Atmosphere is everything in this underrated, unofficial sequel to Dracula, in which Bela Lugosi reprises his iconic role, however renamed Armand Tesla, as the name of Dracula was under copyright, and in use by Universal. The rather generic title does a disservice to a minor gem in the classic horror period, which updates the Good Count from a Gothic setting to the time of both world wars!
As the film opens, Tesla is biting necks in London during WW1. He has a werewolf servant named Andréas (Matt Willis) who is cursed to carry out his bidding. Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) puts a stake through Tesla’s heart, and thereby ends his reign of vampiric terror. Once Tesla is destroyed, his curse is lifted from Andréas, so he can resume normal life without lycanthropic tendencies. Flash forward to WW2. London is invaded by German planes. A bomb drops into the cemetery where Tesla lies buried, dislodges him from his coffin, and his terror reigns anew. Poor Andréas once again is cursed to become his unwilling servant. Tesla had previously visited an estate where young Nicki Saunders was sleeping. Now resurrected, he revisits the estate to continue pursuing her, now grown up as a young woman (played by an excellent Nina Foch, in her first feature film).
Within its framework, the film offers a couple of novelties. Decades before Buffy came along, Lady Jane is a rare female vampire slayer. Andréas is one of cinema’s few talking werewolves, chatting with Tesla in a British accent between growls.
Lugosi is fine, more or less reprising his famous screen role, in a modest production that is still more dignified than many of the cheapies he was making at the time. It is astonishing to think that this was his final leading role in a major studio title, although he would act for another 12 years.
Perhaps the film’s greatest liabilities are the scenes with underdeveloped secondary characters, especially the bumbling Scotland Yard detectives. But let’s be honest. We can levy the same charges over all the Edward Van Sloan and David Manners characters in the films by rival studio Universal.
This film is perhaps second to Universal’s The Wolf Man in its generous use of the fog machine, lending to its supernatural feel. Lew Landers (a prolific director of over 100 second features, many of which are really good) had previously made the Karloff-Lugosi vehicle The Raven (1935), and the daft horror-comedy The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) with Karloff and Peter Lorre. (Both of these titles may soon turn up in these pages). With the crisp cinematography of L. William O’Connell, and the art direction by Lionel Banks, he really turned this into an impressive mood piece.
During wartime, fewer horror films were produced. The world situation was scarier than anything Dracula or Frankenstein could bring. By this time, the Universal monster movies were largely comic books for kids, entertaining as they were. This Columbia entry has a memorably mordant tone, which differentiates it from other genre films of the time, with the possible exception of Val Lewton’s films at RKO. Its wartime setting is well-employed, especially in some offbeat though disquieting imagery of a werewolf lurking through a bombed-out London, where matinee movie horror coalesces with the horror of war.
I first discovered this offbeat picture on a Columbia VHS that I bought at a video store closeout, and then picked it up again on a Millcreek 2-DVD set that offers up four Columbia horror films. It was nice revisiting it under these circumstances, to see that the film was as good as I remembered, and that it was presented in a very rich and crisp transfer, considering it was from a budget DVD label. I got more than enough value from the two bucks I paid for it at Dollarama! (Remember when they used to sell horror movies for Halloween? Oh those were the days.) If you have the chance, The Return of the Vampire is well worth your time.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.