Tag: Lon Chaney

I saw the Svengoolie show 1943 film, “First Cousin Twice Removed of Dracula” last night. Sorry, that’s actually “Son of Dracula.” You can watch it colorized on the Internet Archive.

It starred Lon Chaney as Count Alucard, and that name didn’t fool anybody because it’s just Dracula spelled backward. The goof everybody already knows about occurs early in the show when Dracula transforms from a bat in front of a mirror and his reflection is clearly visible.

You don’t see that much of Count Dracula and you never see his fangs. He’s well-spoken and mostly polite. He didn’t cry out “Bluh, bluh” even once, but then neither did Bela Lugosi.

Maybe I was just overthinking Dracula’s overall plan for taking over America. Was he supposed to suck the blood of hundreds of millions of people one by one or what? Even with the help of Enirehtak, the Southern belle he hypnotized into being his wife, that would be a long-term project even for the immortal vampires.

That approach is probably what killed the movie “Attack of the Vicious, Loathsome, Depraved but Suave Vampire Anteaters with Denture Fangs from Saturn!” The solution to save the planet was to ban Poligrip. Theater staff had to wake up the audience members, but only occasionally.

In spite of what you might think about the flying bat special effects, there were no strings involved—just a decrepit bat.

There were a few elderly gentlemen in the film, Dr. Brewster being one. He had a great idea about how to protect a little boy from another attack by Dracula. He drew little crosses on the kid’s neck where the fang puncture wounds were. See there? You don’t need to carry a crucifix around! Just cross your fingers at vampires.

And Dracula (no spring chicken himself) suffered a mishap while carrying his bride across the threshold after their wedding. He fell and broke his hip. Vampirism doesn’t protect men from osteoporosis. The action shots got a little shorter after that. Using a walker tends to slow chase scenes down.

On the other hand, Dracula was otherwise well preserved for being hundreds of years old. He got a little perturbed when somebody threw out his bottle of Serutan. Remember, that’s Natures spelled backwards.