Movie Review: The Return of Dracula (1958) directed by Paul Landres
It is a known fact that Count Dracula (Francis Lederer) is a real person, a vampire who drains the blood of the living and creates others of his kind. He’s been terrorizing central Europe for decades, evading attempts to permanently destroy him. At the beginning of the movie, a well-trained and disciplined squad of government vampire hunters just misses Dracula as he boards a train towards his next destination. As it happens, also aboard the train is one Bellac Gordal, an artist who has been given permission to emigrate to America. Bellac bears a resemblance to the vampire. Dracula seizes the opportunity to kill and replace Bellac to go to a new country where no one will be prepared for him.
Once in America, “Bellac” comes to Carleton, California, a small town where his cousin Cora Mayberry (Greta Granstedt) lives. Cora moved to America as a child, and is fully Americanized down to her Californian accent. A widow, Cora takes in sewing to supplement her income, and lives with her teenage daughter Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) and preteen son Mickey (Jimmy Baird). Rachel and next door neighbor Tim Hansen (Ray Stricklyn) are sweet on each other, and Tim does chauffeuring of the family members as he has a car. Mickey’s primary interest is playing with his cat Nugget, which has the bad habit of exploring the local dangerous cave. (Looks like an attempt at mining was made there, but no one ever calls it “the mine.”)
Cora barely recognizes her cousin, but it has been decades since she’s seen Bellac and no photographs of him as an adult. He was peculiar even as a child, and between being a foreigner and an artist, his eccentricities are easily shrugged off.
Dracula installs his coffin in the nearby cave, and kills Nugget (offscreen) for trespassing. (See, folks, this is why you shouldn’t have an outdoor cat.) He soon kills and turns lovely but blind local girl Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent) into one of the undead, but his true target is Rachel, who he wants to be his eternal companion. This is played almost as creepy as it sounds.
The vampire doesn’t have it all his own way. John Merriman (John Wengraf), a representative of the European Police Agency and one of the vampire hunters we saw earlier, has figured out that Dracula was one of the immigration group on the train an unidentified corpse was thrown out of, and is working with the American immigration agency to check up on Bellac. Mack Bryant (Charles Tannen) doesn’t seem to catch on that Cora knows more about Bellac’s childhood than he does, but does snap a picture of the immigrant with his concealed camera.
Dracula orders Jennie to murder Bryant in case he has second thoughts, but this just tells Merriman he’s on the right track. Especially when it turns out that Bellac doesn’t show up on film.
The forces of law and the church start closing in on Dracula on Halloween night, but will they be in time to save Rachel?
This is a solid B-movie. Lederer is a sharp presence who knows how to stare creepily–not quite Lugosi level, but well enough. This Dracula has kept up with the times and knows how to not look or act entirely out of place but just enough to be uncanny but explainable. His interest in teenage girls is depicted as predatory rather than romantic. He might speak prettily but that isn’t the behavior of someone who wants an actual partner. A nice touch is that while we never see Dracula painting as part of his cover as an artist, we do eventually see that he has been painting, and why we have not seen it before.
Wengraf is also good and understated as the experienced vampire hunter. He doesn’t make amateur mistakes like trying to confront Dracula while the monster is awake and able to fight back.
The rest of the cast ranges from adequate to okay. Mickey and his juvenile antics are on screen surprisingly little, so he doesn’t overstay his welcome. The teen romance angle is a bit more wearisome, but appropriately awkward and believable. Cora should probably be more suspicious of Bellac than she is, with all the odd hints, but she’s juggling a lot of balls.
The one character I would like to have seen more of was Jennie post-vampirism. She can now “see” after years of blindness and being basically bedridden. What’s she doing with her nights besides being Dracula’s attack dog?
Special effects are kept to a minimum to keep the budget down. No elaborate makeup, dry ice, a couple of camera tricks. There’s one special shock moment, but I won’t spoil it in this paragraph. This works pretty well.
Political: While it’s never directly said, it’s implied that the Central European country Bellac and Cora come from is a Communist one (or became one since Cora left) as there’s a frequent mention of how Bellac wasn’t “free” there. The immigration agent is surprisingly polite and deferential compared to current day portrayals.
Content note: Several deaths, a couple bloody. A cat dies horribly offscreen. That whole thing with Dracula preying on teenage girls. Teenagers on up should be okay, and younger watchers with adult guidance.
Overall: Again, a solid B-movie. The Halloween timing of the story makes it a good choice for a spooky season watch that’s not too graphic or likely to cause nightmares.
