Director: Lew Landers
Writers: Griffin Jay, Kurt Neumann
Stars: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch
Run Time: 1 Hour, 9 Minutes
Link: https://amzn.to/2ZL3ADh
Synopsis
We flash back to 1918, during the Great War. Andreas the werewolf enters the cemetery and goes into a crypt. The werewolf speaks to his master, “It is time for you to awaken, master. It’s time for you to go out.” The vampire rises from the coffin, and a dog howls. Andreas brings him up to speed on the day’s events: the girl is still ill, and they have called in a professor to help with her mysterious ailment. It sounds suspiciously similar to the plot of “Dracula.”
Meanwhile, Professor Saunders is treating Ms. Norcutt, the girl in question, but she definitely doesn’t have anemia. Ms. Norcutt gets really frightened about a dream and then dies. Saunders reads about the vampire, Armand Tesla. Norcutt’s symptoms sound a lot like what is described in his book.
Meanwhile, Tesla comes in the door to the children’s room and has dinner. The next morning, they can’t wake little Nicki, and she has bite marks on her neck. Saunders and his nurse, Jane, go to the closest cemetery in the morning, looking for the vampire’s coffin. They follow footsteps in the mud straight to Tesla’s lair open the coffin, and find that it’s occupied. They use a mirror to test that he’s really a vampire.
The werewolf servant approaches, just as they drive the stake through Teslas’s heart. The werewolf dies as well, turning into a human, but he’s not dead. He’s cured?
Years later, during the second World War, Saunders is killed in a plane crash, and Jane forwards his journals into the hands of Sir Frederick, the head of Scotland Yard. Tesla was a scientist who studied vampirism, but it got him upon his death. Andreas was completely cured and now works for Mrs. Saunders. Jane may be facing murder charges, the detective says, if they find a body with a stake in it when they open the grave.
Just then, the Germans attack, dropping bombs all over London, including the old cemetery. Tesla’s coffin has been blown open, and two men find the body with a spike stuck in it. They pull the stake out, and you know what’s going to happen.
Jane and Andreas work together to help a German Defector, Dr. Hugo Bruckner, get set up in London. That evening, Andreas is walking alone, and he hears the call of the vampire; Tesla is back! Andreas is still under the vampire’s control, and he changes into a werewolf for the first time in twenty-three years. The werewolf is happy and eager to help, although Andreas wants to run away. Tesla plans his revenge, Tesla finds a coffin-worthy building not far off; there are lots of bombed-out buildings.
The plan is for Tesla to take the place of Dr. Bruckner, who the werewolf has just murdered. Jane throws a party that night, where Inspector Frederick drops the charges against Jane, since there’s nothing but a hole in the ground where Tesla was buried. Dr. Bruckner comes to the party, and he looks a lot like an older Bela Lugosi. He’s particularly interested in the now grown-up Nicki.
“Bruckner” returns to his hotel room and explains curtly that he sleeps during the day and is not to be disturbed. Nicki wakes up in the middle of the night, hearing voices. She follows the voices and is hypnotized by Tesla.
June questions the men from the cemetery and goes to Commissioner Fredericks, who doesn’t believe a bit of it. He does, however, get two of his men to follow Andreas, who wolfs out when they try to grab him. He gets away. Now the commissioner believes. Nicki bites John, her fiancée. Jane calls Dr. Bruckner for help, and he knows all about vampires, since he actually is Tesla. Fredericks and Jane figure out that Bruckner isn’t the real deal, but a disguised Tesla.
Tesla confronts Jane, and he says he plans to take Nicki away with him back to his country. She pulls out a cross, and he changes into small and escapes. He calls Nicki again, and Jane and the Commissioner follow Nicky to find the vampire.
They all converge on the cemetery, and Fredericks shots Andreas. The Germans attack, dropping bombs on the cemetery again. In the confusion, the baddies grab Nicki and get away.
Tesla orders Andreas to go sit in the corner and die, since he’s finished with him. Andreas picks up a little cross from the ground and turns human as he fights off the control. He gets up and goes after Tesla. Another bomb drops, knocking them both out. Andreas wakes up first and drags Tesla outside into the sunlight and drives a stake through his heart. Tesla then melts in the sunlights.
Commentary
This was written as a direct sequel to “Dracula,” but legal problems from Universal put an end to that plan. Names were changed, but that’s about all. There’s an unnecessarily huge quantity of exposition in the first fifteen minutes. Somehow, the vampire can make Andreas turn into a werewolf. This is never explained. Having a werewolf as an assistant opens up many doors that a human servant couldn’t with.
Bela Lugosi doesn’t appear until the 23-minute mark, after the vampire returns in 1943; we never see his face in the happenings of the past. Lugosi is 22 years older than he was in Dracula, and he seems a lot more relaxed and less “alien” here.
This one moves pretty fast, and they fit a lot into a short run time. The 20 minutes in the past is nearly forgotten once the “modern” portion of the film starts. The fog, werewolf, and other powers were really entertaining additions to the “Dracula” character.