on Carradine’s Dracula

in

(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.