on Carradine’s Dracula

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(Recording this now because I've had the thought in my head for at least a year and a half and probably longer than that and kept telling myself that I'd write something more in depth about it or use it as a follow-up interview question but that probably won't happen so):

John Carradine is my favorite of the Universal Draculas (and the closest to Bram Stoker's original) and I wish he'd had a chance to play the role in better films than HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN / HOUSE OF DRACULA – not that those entries aren't lots of fun, the MCU before Marvel as we know it ever existed – but I'm talking about a DRACULA '31 (though my opinion of that film – with the exception of Dwight Frye's Renfield – and of Lugosi's Dracula degrades with each rewatch; I FAR prefer the Spanish version) or level of import.

John Carradine entrances Martha O'Driscoll in HOUSE OF DRACULA

There's a coldness to Carradine's portrayal matched only by Christopher Lee's first appearances in HORROR OF DRACULA (before he unleashed the feral sex-bomb Hammer Dracula that we all know and love): can't help but wonder what Carradine would have done with the role had he played Alucard / Dracula in Robert Siodmak's SON OF DRACULA instead of the woefully miscast (and clearly aware of it) Lon Jr. – can't think of a film Carradine's incarnation would have been more suited for than the Southern Gothic / noir curiosity that is SON OF – or in the announced-but-never-made follow-up to HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, WOLF MAN VS. DRACULA that was, purportedly, to feature Lon Jr. in both roles before it became a Lugosi return before morphing entirely into its final form as HOUSE OF DRACULA.

Anyhow, thought duly recorded; if nothing else, I got to write the phrase “feral sex-bomb” so I’ve got that going for me.

christopher lee in a/the lighthouse

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From which all boring posts are sourced but: a dream last night (something involving eponymous Christopher Lee, a contract, a well, and a lighthouse vacation, I think) has led to a desire to either a.) cease this endless creative goldilocksing and settle on the thing that I want to settle on, or, b.) accept the creative goldilocksing as the settling itself: fascinating – to me at least – how sometimes dreams that have no clear basis in reality can result in such a clear (for want of a better word) waking decision in something totally removed from the content thereof – though maybe my decades, now, of having Christopher Lee staring at me from the HORROR OF DRACULA poster in The Paintshop has something to do with it. Taxes, check signing, (happy) pill re-upping and more (maybe new toys?): the day awaits.

DRAKULA HALÁLA (1921)

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While working on a PostScript for my umpteenth rewatch (though first on Blu) of Murnau's NOSFERATU (coming later today), I came across this little bit of lost film gold: NOSFERATU wasn't the first on-screen appearance of Dracula (or litigious analogue) but the second. The first was a Hungarian film, now lost, DRAKULA HALÁLA, (DRACULA'S DEATH), directed by Károly Lajthay.

poster for DRAKULA HALÁLA (1921), a lost Hungarian film featuring the first onscreen appearance of Dracula

The plot - which doesn't follow the plot of the novel but sounds fascinating nonetheless:

Apparently only a few images, featuring stars Paul Askonas (Dracula) and Margaret Lix (Mary) from the film survive:

An announcement of its release:

As fascinating as all of this is – and it is, utterly, profoundly, for this Dracula nut who grew up making lists of vampire films with his grandfather – it’s who was, along with Lajthay, credited as a writer that floored me:

Now I really, REALLY want to see this – nevermind CASABLANCA: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is one of my favorites. And thus, my passion for lost films – tragic and without resolution though it may be – continues...