In a recent biography of Bela Lugosi one of the things I learned was that it was for lack of a decent property that Lugosi never repeated his Count Dracula role. And there was money involved. But Universal which had spawned at least one successful Frankenstein sequel at this point caved into public demand, sort of for a Dracula sequel.
I guess the Laemmle family figured that no one could where Lugosi's cape with authority so it was decided that Dracula would have a daughter. Cast as said daughter in her second feature film is British actress Gloria Holden.
Holden does her best and she will really creep you out as the sanguinary daughter of the legendary Transylvanian Count. But the whole story is rather clumsily connected with the first film. A couple of London Bobbies find Edward Van Sloan with a pair of dead bodies, Renfield with a broken neck and the Count himself with a stake in his heart. Van Sloan as Van Helsing and the only one to repeat his role from the first film, matter of factly confesses he did the deed at least to Dracula's corpse. The Bobbies take him in of course, but instead of asking for an attorney, Van Sloan consults psychiatrist Otto Kruger.
At the same time Gloria Holden claims the Count's body and has him cremated so that his influence might be broken. But she's gotten the sanguinary habit and it's hard to break even with consulting Dr. Kruger.
At some point Holden and her Renfield Irving Pichel decide to go with the flow and accept her undead state. But she kind of likes Kruger and to insure he cooperates she takes his girlfriend Marguerite Chapman as an undead hostage so to speak.
It all ends where the first film began in Count Dracula's Transylvanian castle. How it ends? All I'll say is that Irving Pichel gets some payback from the Dracula clan for poor Renfield in the first film.
The clumsy connection and the lack of Lugosi renders Dracula's Daughter an inferior product to the real deal.
I guess the Laemmle family figured that no one could where Lugosi's cape with authority so it was decided that Dracula would have a daughter. Cast as said daughter in her second feature film is British actress Gloria Holden.
Holden does her best and she will really creep you out as the sanguinary daughter of the legendary Transylvanian Count. But the whole story is rather clumsily connected with the first film. A couple of London Bobbies find Edward Van Sloan with a pair of dead bodies, Renfield with a broken neck and the Count himself with a stake in his heart. Van Sloan as Van Helsing and the only one to repeat his role from the first film, matter of factly confesses he did the deed at least to Dracula's corpse. The Bobbies take him in of course, but instead of asking for an attorney, Van Sloan consults psychiatrist Otto Kruger.
At the same time Gloria Holden claims the Count's body and has him cremated so that his influence might be broken. But she's gotten the sanguinary habit and it's hard to break even with consulting Dr. Kruger.
At some point Holden and her Renfield Irving Pichel decide to go with the flow and accept her undead state. But she kind of likes Kruger and to insure he cooperates she takes his girlfriend Marguerite Chapman as an undead hostage so to speak.
It all ends where the first film began in Count Dracula's Transylvanian castle. How it ends? All I'll say is that Irving Pichel gets some payback from the Dracula clan for poor Renfield in the first film.
The clumsy connection and the lack of Lugosi renders Dracula's Daughter an inferior product to the real deal.