By 1945, Universal's cycle of monster movies, which began in 1931 with FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, was winding down. THE WOLFMAN (1941) and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942) begat the combined sequel, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN (1943), followed by HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944), which added Dracula into the mix and featured the great Boris Karloff as the requisite mad doctor. But each sequel had become more ludicrous than its predecessor. The Frankenstein Monster had evolved from a sympathetic figure of tragedy into a cartoon character. Blow him up, set him on fire, and he would still return in the next film, none the worse for wear. Dracula? Just pull the stake out of his heart and he can live again. And Lawrence Talbot (the artist sometimes know as The Wolfman) would simply show up at the beginning of a movie even if he kicked the bucket in the previous one. Polite European Society being what it was, nobody ever asked, "Blimey, ain't you dead, Guv'ner?"
HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945) promised the thrills and chills of The Frankenstein Monster, Count Dracula and The Wolfman all in one film, but neglected to allow any two monsters to appear on screen at the same time until the movie was almost over. The filmmakers apparently assumed that 1945 audiences, who had just lived through Hitler, Mussolini, and World War II (now there was a sequel!) would somehow not be able to deal with more than one monster on screen at a time.
The film begins with the dubious premise that Count Dracula and Lawrence Talbot would both show up separately at the house of a famous doctor on the same day, both looking for a cure to their monsterism. I know all about the magic of movies but still... it seems unlikely. Dracula is played by John Carradine, who does wonderfully well in the role. He had a similar sinister presence as Bela Lugosi, but he was a far better actor, and it is a shame he never got to play the famous Count in a worthy film. Talbot is played, as always, by Lon Chaney, Jr., who would be the only actor at Universal to the Monster, The Wolfman, The Mummy and Count Alucard (spell it backwards).
Dracula and The Wolfman are both patients of the same doctor at the same time, and yet they somehow never cross paths. This film could have used a waiting room scene, where the two poor souls trade notes. "At least you can watch ALL MY CHILDREN during the day. I've missed all my stories since I came down with vampirism."
