Doom of Dracula

This approximately 9 minute short was taken from Universal's 1944 "House of Frankenstein" The first half of the film dwells on Count Dracula (john carradine) The second half concentrates on reviving the Frankenstein Monster(Glenn Strange). :Sidenote: Glenn Strange played the Monster in the last 3 Universal Horror Classics;The above mentioned 1944 "House of Frankenstein" 1945 "House of Dracula and the 1948 "Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein" Unlike Karloff's makeup for the 1931 "Original Frankenstein" 1935 "Bride of Frankenstein" and 1939 "Son of Frankenstein" done by legendary Universal Makeup Chief Jack Pierce; Strange's Makeup was done by Bud Westmore of the Famous Westmore Family. Strange was probably more well known in TV's GUNSMOKE as SAM the Bartender of the Longbranch Saloon.

Karloff's last appearance as the Frankenstein Monster was 1939's "Son of Frankenstein" In this Film he plays the evil Dr. Neamaude who has escaped from Prison with the hunchback Daniel(J.Carrol Naish) They end up taking over Lampini's horror show Wagon; eventually bringing both Dracula and the Monster back to Life... Unexpected ending for Karloff in this Universal Classic...Available in Super 8 Magnetic Sound as well as 16mm Optical Sound.It was a popular film among Castle Film Collectors...s.m.

I'm submitting this entry in case somebody out there is wondering about this film, or about how Lionel Atwill and George Zucco could have appeared in it years after their respective deaths. DOOM OF Dracula is the title that Castle films gave to an 8mm one-reel pared-down excerpt from HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN(1944) that they marketed for home viewing in 1966. Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Dracula were all in the original feature, which had a somewhat episodic storyline. Dracula's portion of the film had nothing to do with The Wolf Man or Frankenstein, so Castle released two shorts made up of scenes from the complete movie: DOOM OF Dracula, which featured Dracula's scenes(of course) and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, starring The Wolf Man and Frankenstein. HOUSE OF Dracula, the next feature in the series starred the same three monsters but managed to blend them all into the storyline better than HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN did. I guess it was because of this that HOUSE OF Dracula got Castle's usual single-reel treatment. Of course, both features have been released on VHS in the past and are currently available on DVD, making these old 8mm shorts obsolete but there are still people around who collect these things. I wouldn't mind owning them myself.

Whoops! In the above paragraph I said that HOUSE OF Dracula was condensed into only ONE 8mm reel for collectors. I was wrong! A SECOND reel, entitled THE WOLF MAN'S CURE was also available. Sorry about that.