Dracula's Daughter (1936) - Friday Night Final Thoughts

“Dracula’s Daughter” (1936) for some years during the early era of my blog (and not long after I purchased the Dracula Legacy Set released in 1999 to capitalize on “Van Helsing” with Hugh Jackman) was my October “starter film”. Either right before work or right when I got home from work on the first of October, “Dracula’s Daughter” had sort of felt just right to kick off Halloween Month.

It came right after “Dracula” (1931), following the events of the ending of that classic when Van Helsing staked the heart of Dracula, is arrested by London cops who think he killed a man in cold blood—Renfield’s broke-neck body, his face covered by an arm to mask that this is not Dwight Frye, is also discovered at the end of the stairs—and will more than likely be prosecuted or placed in an institution. Now it was really just tonight that I thought to myself: where are Seward, Harker, and Mina? 

It wasn’t like Van Helsing didn’t have witnesses (not to mention, crew at the house of Seward and the institution were also witnesses to Dracula’s reign of terror) to Dracula’s antics, and yet when he requests the assistance of psychiatrist, Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), to aid him in the case against him, he feels quite alone. In sequels to Universal properties, even those right after the previous films, viewers have to grant a reprieve in logic issues. Sometimes, even when a sequel purposely acknowledges the previous film, details aren’t always completely foolproof. Seward, Harker, and Mina totally disappear and the start of “Dracula’s Daughter” has poor Van Helsing up for murder when they could come to his rescue. 

But with each Universal picture what happened before is touched on but the focus is always ahead on the next story. “Dracula’s Daughter” leaves no doubt of what happens to Dracula…Countess Zaleska, his daughter, burns the vampire’s body, assuring us that no Bela Lugosi return in a Universal Pictures release with him in that role again. 

Now how Dracula has a daughter and the first film doesn’t even allude to that fact (or even where Sandor comes from or how long he’s been at Zaleska’s side) is a whole other logical headache I’ll leave alone. I only mention those things now and get them off my chest for the last time I cover this film in blog form, because I really, really like a lot about “Dracula’s Daughter”. 

I really enjoy the film’s ties to “Dracula” (1931), that Van Sloan gets another chance to guest star (he’s sadly undervalued and barely in the film which is a shame) as Van Helsing (his learning that a vampire is biting necks again and that Dracula has a daughter are neat to me, even if he doesn’t get to be a major contributing factor in Zaleska’s demise), and that the film returns to Transylvania (ever too briefly) at the end. 

I love that Van Helsing actually sets foot in Dracula’s castle (his brides are nowhere to be found…yes, another nagging logic hole, but whatever…) for a moment or two and sees Zaleska’s body with Sandor’s arrow in her heart, Gloria Holden’s haunting black eyes open and staring into nothingness. 

I’ve shared my…well, not beef…so-so feelings about the whole flirtatious, lighthearted combativeness—I couldn’t help but think they should go ahead and fuck already—between Garth and his assistant, Janet (Churchill), an ongoing “lark” the film gives devotion to. I don’t really mind it, per se, but it annoys me only because Van Helsing, a character I enjoy a lot more, is thrust not only into the background but out of the film in favor of their fights over tying a tie and the love triangle that includes Zaleska. This is something I’ve discussed in depth in the past—as have I dwelt on the film’s best scene to many: Zaleska preying on Lilli, a desperate and broke beauty contemplating suicide off a bridge into the Thames, as if seduced by her allure—so I don’t think I have to run aground that again.

• *this is the kind of film that has “boring” often attached to it by certain horror fans. It does have a lot of discussion scenes about “mental release”, “obsession possibly leading to delusion”, “science against the supernatural”, and “the superstition of today being the science of tomorror”.

• *Garth is really not my kind of favorite hero. He is often snide with Janet who obviously cares for him and miserably cracks about his neurotic patients. His hunting grouse scene where his vacation trip with other hunters is interrupted by Janet, telling him to return to London to help Van Helsing shows him immediately snarky and irritable. That the film decides he deserves more screen time than Van Helsing has always stupefied me. I can only guess it was so that they wouldn’t have to pay more to Van Sloan. Nonetheless, because Universal refused to pay Lugosi more (an amount he probably deserved considering how big a hit “Dracula” was five years before), the story had to be rewritten and updated, so we will always be left to wonder, “What if?”

• *I greatly admire the use of Sandor as the main driving force behind Zaleska’s failure to rehabilitate herself after the destruction of her father’s corpse. He’s really the main villain in the film considering Zaleska clearly wants to be free from biting necks and draining blood. The awesome (to me anyway) piano scene is such an example, Sandor encouraging her to “go darker” when trying to play a cheerful tune. Each time she wants to be free, Sandor is having none of it.