Dracula's Daughter

The first lesbian vampire movie in history, Dracula's Daughter, is the story of Dracula's daughter Countess Zaleska, who is this ravishing undead MILF that undoubtedly goes both ways, at the very least. You wouldn't blame her either, as her personal Renfield, "Sandor" (Irving Pichel), is a dude with his slicked-down hair parted tightly in the middle that looks like the off-brand Colin Clive, just with a heavier build and a more prominent jawline.

Edward Van Sloan is resurrected for the role of Van (here Von) Helsing, and we first see him when two 1936 English bobbies find him in Dracula's crypt after just driving a stake through the old bloodsucker's heart. Renfield (never videoed) is also apparently here and is described as a "madman who eats spiders and flies." Not an exact quote, mind you, but a fair enough description, one supposes.

Next, we find Countess Zaleska (the totally icy, hot, regal, and thoroughly vampiric First Lady of Sapphic Love, Gloria Holden) in a Universal Studios graveyard-cum-soundstage, doing a strange black magic ritual over Dracula's corpse. Invoking both Adonai and Azrael (one would think they are sort of mutually exclusive), she calls on all the "gods of the pit," Satanic Bible style, as she cremates the body with handfuls of something or other that really causes those hell flames to leap high.

Dracula's Daughter (1936) - Burning Dracula's Body Scene | Movieclips

Along comes Sandor, and she confesses to him that her ultimate goal (plot point here) is to be free of the "Curse of the Draculas" and not be a vampirella and skulk around movie backlot cemeteries in 1936 el cheapo supernatural thrillers. Fair enough.

Sandor tells her, "I see death in your eyes, woman! DEATH!" Okay, maybe not an exact quote, but you GET THE EFFIN PICTURE, RIGHT?

Otto Kruger plays a psychiatrist (Dr. Garth), who has a secretary named Janet Blake (Marguerite Mitchell), who is a Thirties spunky spitfire thing with which he has a "playfully antagonistic relationship" (I'm searching my memory for examples of this, but this is one of those films that sort of gets confused and blurred together, scene by scene, in my mind).

Dr. Garth and the vampiress Countess (who has a pulp fiction Captain Midnight magic ring that entrances the unsuspecting victim, rendering them as playful putty in Zaleska's hands) meet at a society soiree where all the men are dressed in tuxedos and tails (I guess they sort of follow one after another) like Fred Astaire or Bing in Singing in the Rain, and it's all really Dirty Thirties cinematic and like chichi and all that cal, so anyway. Zaleska wants him to use his spin wheel hypno device to unvamp her, and maybe cure her of these strange impulses to suck something more than just a little blood (subtext here), but he doesn't know what he can do, ya dig me?

Zaleska vamps a pretty young thing named Lili (Nan Grey), who seems as if she is going to jump off a bridge before Sandor comes along and lures her to the lair of the lovely Countess.

It's right here, and a little later with Janet, too, that we get the implied lesbian subtext and, brother, I find it, hot, hot, hot, lemme tell ya'! I'm digging it deeper than a sanguisuga's final resting spot, and Dracula's Daughter should really have been titled, Dracula's Daughter Goes Down (and maybe subtitled it "...Like a Sunset of Love!"). Ain't I a poet? Ain't I? Ain't I? (Affects Goober Pyle accent.) "Judy, Judy, Judy..."

Garth follows her to Transylvania, which looks like all the other European villages in these old Universal monster movies, except Transylvanians are more colorful dressers, apparently. We're off then to the Borgo Pass. (I just like saying that: the BORGO PASS! Muhahahahahahahahahah! Sounds so, I dunno, creepy and cool, like Dracula in a 1967 rock and roll musical wearing a leather cape and frolicking with half-nekkid vixens with beehive hairdos and go-go boots.)

Some stuff happens and it ends.

It's kind of stiff, artificial, a little dull, but has great sets and lighting. They are, unfortunately, all pretty phony but still present to us that Universal Monsters alternate reality, where the world is a stark, black-and-white, fog-shrouded matte painting backdrop of a gloomy castle amidst a forest of barren trees, perched over a cliff, above a yawning abyss.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fly. (Like a bat?)

Dracula's Daughter Trailer

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