Films: 1930s
(1936) Dracula's Daughter
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Dracula's Daughter
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Release: 1936
A strange and subtle sequel to Todd Browning's 1931 "Dracula," "Dracula's Daughter" picks up directly where Browning's film left off, in the crypts of Carfax Abbey.
Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan, again) has driven a stake through the heart of the count, but his troubles are just about to begin. London police arrest him and prepare to try him for murder.
Meanwhile, a Hungarian countess has arrived in London. Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden) and her manservant Sandor (Irving Pichel) have taken a flat. Zaleska has made a modest splash in London's social scene thanks to her paintings and somewhat exotic manner. What her evening circle does not know, however, is that Zaleska is in England for entirely supernatural purposes.
Her first order of business is a ritual disposal of Dracula's body, which she steals from the police (two semi-comedic performances by Halliwell Hobbes and Billy Bevan). Despite this action, Zaleska is at a loss. She seeks freedom from Dracula's power, but even his cremation fails to release her.
What follows is a dance toward the center, as Zaleska discovers a possible way out through London psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), who also happens to be Van Helsing's colleague. He balances two unstable cases, one (Van Helsing) who tells him of vampires and a trail of death left by the pursuit of Dracula, the other (Zaleska) who claims to be held in thrall by a power from beyond. Ultimately, Van Helsing and Zaleska meet, clash, and the countess seeks to escape London and lure Garth with her by capturing his nominal romantic interest Janet Blake (Marguerite Churchill). The chase ends at Castle Dracula, to which the villagers are sure evil has returned and at which the final drama between Zaleska and her web of followers and quarry unfolds.
Lineage and ownership is one interesting element of Hillyer and screenwriter (accompanied by several uncredited helpers) Garrett Fort's story. Whether Zaleska is a biological or supernatural "daughter" is part of that dynamic. In both cases, the outward feminine strength of Holden's performance is transformed.
As a character, Zaleska is at once beautiful and powerful, but her power is fed by ownership. At no time is she a confident and self-possessed woman, but rather a desperate, blood-addicted female without the choice of how to live her life. Even in death, the male father/husband figure of Dracula dictates her diet, her activities day and night (whether she may go out, whether she must stay in). The vampire construct becomes that of a battered woman, one which starts with a revenge plan - the destruction of her abuser in fire, and continues with the unending psychological bondage the life Dracula made for Zaleska.
One result, "Dracula's Daughter" posits, is an alternative sexual identity. Zaleska employs men in her life as servants and conduits.
Sandor is prototypically queenish in "Dracula's Daughter," a pout-lipped male in makeup and finery. He is kept safely in her employ, and reacts in a jealously, and in self defense, to her attempts to end the lifestyle which he requires to remain in this protective milieu. Ultimately, he would rather see Zaleska die than become a resident of the normal world. Garth on the other hand, is clearly attracted to Zaleska, and she employs his attraction as leverage for his psychiatric assistance.
Zaleska interacts with two victims in "Dracula's Daughter," and her male-female relations are brought into clearer focus by these episodes. When she feeds on the male of the pair, she takes him from the street and with little ceremony, other than a shared sulfur match. When she takes Lili, she brings the young woman to her flat and entices her to model for a painting. The coming together of victim and prey is about vulnerability and seduction. Only at the end of the seduction, when Lili is partially disrobed, does she scream.
Of particular note is that Zaleska's freedom does not rest with the disintegration of Dracula's body. As Garth points out, the way out of her nocturnal (and alternative) lifestyle is through. Garth recommends she face her behavior and fight her compulsion to feed (or take women in the night, perhaps). Zaleska's lifestyle, according to Garth, is part-choice, part re-learnable behavior. But she fails, and she reverts to an extreme version of the woman she fights against, physically stealing Janet and fleeing to the psychological ground zero - her origin point as a vampire.
There, the final solution to her behavior is decided by the marginalized and envious partner with which she travels.
Sandor fires an arrow into Zaleska's breast, preventing her from completing a union with Janet. Order is returned to the societally normal couple. A judgment is passed. The question, as Hillyer leaves it, is whether the judgment is that of the director or a commentary by the director upon the society depicted in "Dracula's Daughter."
James O'Brien
Cinescare Staff
Dracula's Daughter, 1936
Zaleska interacts with two victims in "Dracula's Daughter," and her male-female relations are brought into clearer focus by these episodes. When she feeds on the male of the pair, she takes him from the street and with little ceremony, other than a shared sulfur match. When she takes Lili, she brings the young woman to her flat and entices her to model for a painting. The coming together of victim and prey is about vulnerability and seduction. Only at the end of the seduction, when Lili is partially disrobed, does she scream.
