31 Days of Dracula- Day 12: Dracula, The Crestwood House Monsters Series

Ah, here's a bittersweet memory from childhood. I loved these books. LOVED them.
Dracula, Frankenstein.  Everyone had a book.
Orange spines from Crestwood House.

They even had a fascinating series on paranormal events- Atlantis, reincarnation, ESP, that sort of thing.

Then one day that came screeching to a halt.  One of my teachers, a math/science teacher, had contacted my mother because she was concerned for me, for my soul.  Because Satan.  These books were a gateway to Hell.

My mother tried to talk to me about it, but she was upset, and it upset me, because I thought I must have done something wrong.  I can't remember exactly how things were settled out, but I sort of stepped back from the monsters for a while.

Because in the real world, a real monster had won.  As an adult, I sort of understand where that poor, horrible woman was coming from.  Outside of school, I later learned, her son had... problems.  So she exercised control the only place she could: on a bunch of children.  She'd regularly interrupt science movies to explain why Evolution wasn't real, but dammit, there was no fucking reason for a bunch of ten year olds to know who Madeline Murray O'Hare was and why she was a threat to Democracy. (Short answer: atheist).

All I know when I think about her is she made my mother cry.  And I will never forgive her for that.

But I have moved on.  I've got a small collection of the Crestwood books.  And she's dead.

That said: These books rock.  The first part of the book, the first twenty or so pages, tells the story of the Universal film with lots of black and white photos.
Then an examination of the novel and the history of Vlad Tepes and vampires, including Elizabeth Bathory.  Next, a history of vampire movies, including a still from London After Midnight, an introduction to Christopher Lee's Hammer movies, seventies films like Blackula and Count Yorga, Vampire, as well as a look at vampires on television like The Night Stalker and Dan Curtis's Dracula.

Re-reading this, I'm amazed at how off the hook this really is:  they came out in 1977, so I would have been seven or eight... getting recommendations for movies like Yorga or Blackula, which... perhaps may not have been appropriate for the under ten crowd.

The Dracula I have has fading to the cover, like the Frankenstein on the right. I'm still looking for a sharper image with a deeper orange cover Dracula like the image on the left.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 11: Dracula is a Pain in the Neck

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I had a three day series of pieces I'd planned on doing and it was going to be HUGE.  Best set of posts EVER.  You'd never seen such amazing posts... and there was a hiccup on the internet and I lost half the first post so I said screw it and I'm doing my second kid-friendly Dracula post instead.  I'll pick up on my original series in a few days.

Dracula is a Pain in the Neck is a kids book about Sam and his little brother Robert.  Robert's best friend is his Dracula doll, who he insists on taking with him to summer camp.  Robert has a special pillow for Dracula to sleep on. Robert takes Dracula VERY seriously:

"Dracula is not a doll...He's the king of all vampires, half man, half bat. He lives at night and he drinks people's blood."

Once they get to camp, there are mysterious goings on, things that seem to indicate that Dracula is real and alive and in the woods with the campers.  It's up to Robert to uncover the truth.

This is another "I would have loved this when I was a kid" thing.  It's a proper follow up after a early childhood viewing of the Bela Lugosi movie.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 10: The Puzzle

Ok, I'm not sure how licensing works.  But Golden Books, the "Little Golden Book" people, those books that nearly everyone had at least one of when they were a kid, actually did a a line of Universal Monster stuff, including this jigsaw puzzle.  I don't know why this baffles me, but it does.  I'll be looking at some of their other items in the next couple of weeks, but imagine giving this treat to your favorite five year old. 
Actually, I know I would have loved this.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 9: House of Dracula

I have a problem with House of Dracula.  See the poster-->
You've got Frankenstein's Monster.
And Dracula.
And the Wolf Man.
And the Mad Doctor.
And the... nurse?

Oh, wait, she's billed as the Hunchback! because she does have one, yes.  But unlike the sympathetic but less than articulate Quasimodo, or the unsympathetic and won't shut up Daniel of House of Dracula or the cruel Fritz of the original Frankenstein... Nurse Nina just happens to be a hunchback; in fact, she's probably the most likeable character in the whole film.

That said, this isn't 31 Days of Nina the Hunchback Nurse.

John Carridine is back as Dracula, this time tortured by his existence, asking a scientist, Doctor Edelmann for assistance in curing his vampirism.  At the same time Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, is in town, looking for a similar cure. 

Coincidentally, Edelman discovers Frankenstein's Monster.  Hilarity ensues.  (Oh, wait, that's the next film Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein).

Of course, Dracula can't help himself and he just has to seduce Edelmann's other nurse, the one without the hunchback.  Because Dracula.

Edelmann betrays Dracula, because Mad Scientist.

It's a workable enough Saturday Matinee movie, but not one I'll likely watch unless I'm binge watching the Universal Monsters movies again.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 8: The House of Frankenstein

Yeah, after this... I'm going to do a couple of other mediums because, well... It was disappointing.

A Dracula always adds a little something to a movie, and that's what you get in The House of Frankenstein, a little something and not really much more.

It is the first time John Carridine played the role of Dracula, brought back to life by Boris Karloff, not playing  Frankenstein's Monster, but a mad scientist, Dr Niemann, determined to gain vengeance on those who imprisoned him. 

In a continuity be damned move, it seems the Count wasn't killed in London, but Transylvania, and his body wasn't dispatched by his daughter.  Instead, the staked skeleton ended up in the possession of George Zucco's traveling Chamber of Horrors.

Zucco is killed by Niemann,  who then takes over the Chamber of Horrors. 

And because pulling the stake out of the skeleton of a vampire is what you do when you have one, that's EXACTLY what Niemann does.  He and Dracula come to an understanding and he sends the Count after one of his targets.

Dracula kills a Burgermeister that helped convict Niemann, but being Count Dracula, he can't help himself and he tries to seduce the Burgermeister's grand-daughter-in-law.

This doesn't quite work out for the Count, who's thrown under the bus first chance Niemann has. 

He's back in House of Dracula though, so as usual in these movies, death isn't really the end.

My main complaint is that HoF really seems like two movies, one with Niemann and Dracula, then one with Niemann and Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman, and that the Dracula half is rushed. 

House of Dracula will be tomorrow night's movie.  Should be fun to see what they do with that.  Then it'll be non-fiction for a few days as a palate cleaner.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 7: CBS Radio Mystery Theater

I'm going to take a break from the movies for a couple of days and look at Dracula in other mediums. Today it's radio.

The May 2, 1974 episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater, like usual started off with the creaking door, then EG Marshall introduced Geogre Lowther's adaptation of Dracula, directed by Himon Brown.

This adaptation had a contemporary twist: it updated the story to Connecticut.  Mercedes McCambridge plays Mina Harker, come to visit her friend Lucy, who has fallen ill- secretly the victim of the new guy in the neighborhood. 

For a die-hard horror fan, it's kind of odd, hearing the actress who voiced the demon in The Exorcist also be woman in peril, but McCambridge had the range, being nominated twice for the Academy Award in one season for best supporting actress for two different movies, and winning for one of them.

The ending kind of falls flat, rushed to resolution in the less than an hour they had to work with; Marshall provides an ending, but there's just something about the way it works that makes me think the author had planned on perhaps continuing the story and this was merely the first chapter.

31 Days of Dracula- Day 6: Son of Dracula

Well, after the weird melodrama of Dracula's Daughter, the Count's other offpring showed up in Son of Dracula.
Lon Chaney Jr. was Count Alucard, road tripping it to Lousiana, invited there by Katherine Caldwell, a morbidly inclined young lady who encountered Alucard on a trip to Europe.
Alucard kills Katherine's father and she inherits the family estate, Dark Oaks.

She marries Alucard to become a vampire, but she's playing a long game, hoping her fiancée can destroy Alucard and join her in vampirism, so they could live together, forever.

These things never work out, though, do they?

Of the six Universal Dracula films, this one actually seems more in line with contemporary Gothic sensiblilites, it's almost bingo.  New Orleans.  Vampire. Swamps. "Dark Oaks".  Gypsies.

Considering the director Robert Sidomark's noir filmography, Katherine is practically a goth noir femme fatale, playing her boyfriend against her husband, treachery and betrayal all part of her plans.

When talking with friends, Son of Dracula doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves, not the classic of the original, or as "controversial" as Daughter.... Son seems to be best know for the Alucard anagram rather for the story.