Horror Classics: Dracula's Daughter (1936)

To say that 1931's Dracula was influential would be an understatement of note. There are still films being made about him and bearing his name in their titles. With that in mind, I thought we'd take a look at the first sequel to the 1931 film - Dracula's Daughter.

The Plot

Picking up where the original film left off, Dr. Van Helsing is arrested by two police officers when he's discovered to have staked Dracula. They send him to the looney bin and he has to convince a psychiatrist and former student that he isn't crazy.

The rest of the story follows the character of Countess Marya Zaleska - played wonderfully by Gloria Holden - as she turns to the aformentioned psychiatrist to find a cure for her vampirism.

Behind the Scenes of Dracula's Daughter

Dracula's Daughter had a...complicated production.

Metro Goldyn Mayor purchased film rights to Dracula's Guest - a short story that was apparently meant to be part of the original Dracula novel - from Bram Stoker's widow Florence for $5000. Universal Studios, the company that released the previous film, purchased the rights from MGM in 1934 with the understanding that production would get underway in the following year.

The 1935 deadline was later extended to February of 1936. If the film wasn't in production by then, MGM would regain the rights to the material. With that in mind, Universal rushed the film into production with only a partial script...oh boy. What little script they did have, was strongly opposed by both UK and US censors at the time with several drafts being rejected until they finally got one approved.

Dracula's Daughter was released on May 11, 1936 and was a smash hit at the box office!

Gloria Holden: the Reluctant Actress

Once they had a script to work with, they went about putting the cast together. Casting was a bit tricky as the actress that they wanted for the role of the countess initially wanted nothing to do with the film.

Gloria Holden was very unimpressed and dismissive of the script and the film overall. Part of this was because she didn't want to be in a horror movie in the first place, but she'd also seen Bela Lugosi struggle to get work after completing Dracula and being typecast.

Still, she eventually relented and took the role giving a very distant performance and portrayal of self-loathing.

What Works?

The performances are on point, all around. Edward van Sloan is fantastic and you believe every word he says. Gloria Holden's portrayal of the aloof, tragic vampire countess is compelling and you genuinely sympathize with her at times.

The costumes are great and the few musical pieces in the film are just as good.

What Doesn't Work?

Okay, so sadly there are quite a few things in this category. For one thing, the performances are a bit...overdone in places. Thankfully, it's not as noticeable here as by this point the actors were starting to get the hang of things.

While Edward van Sloan and Gloria Holden did very well, the characters in the supporting cast are, for the most part, very forgettable. Now, usually I would chalk that up to lousy performances - being that an actor's performance is what makes them memorable. In this case, however, I don't think that's entirely fair.

When looking at this film through a critical lens, it's important to remember that this film was rushed into production. Universal Studios had made a deal with MGM to have the film made by a certain time. Their deadline was approaching, and if they didn't have the film in production at that point, they'd lose the film rights. For that reason, they pushed the film into production in a hurry to avoid losing the film rights and, at the time, they didn't even have a completed script - like I said earlier.

Knowing that they only had a partial script to work with at the start of production, I can't really blame the writing for the forgettability of the supporting characters; the cast didn't really have much to work with.

The Standout Scene

This bit is probably a staple of the series at this point. There's only one major scene that stood out to me this time around though. The scene in question sees countess Zaleska hiring a young woman named Lili (Nan Grey) to model for a portrait - the idea being that she'll confront her vampirism problem head on and cure it by exposure...I think.

Things...don't go well. We, the audience, aren't shown what happens (1930s audiences and censors...) but the implication and Nan Grey's facial expression gives us a pretty good idea.

The Dracula Series doesn't Have a Solo Run

The Universal Dracula series doesn't have a specific solo run. Dracula's Daughter is one of only two direct sequels to the original film. The series ran parallel with Universal's Frankenstein films. As a result, the last few films also feature the Wolf man, and Frankenstein's Monster. With that in mind, we might have to look at those films as well before we move on...this Dracula marathon seems to have been derailed somewhat.

Although, I am also planning a Frankenstein run at some point so maybe not. I hope you guys enjoyed the article, if you've seen the film yourselves, let me know what you think.

The next entry will be 1943's Son of Dracula.