DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN
US, 1971, 90 minutes, Colour.
J. Carroll Naish, Lon Chaney Jr, Anthony Eisley, Reginald Carroll, Greydon Clark, Zandor Vorkov, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Davis.
Directed by Al Adamson.
Many people consider this a cult movie of the kind that it is so bad it must be very good. It was directed by Al Adamson who made his name in exploitation and trash movies during the 1960s and 70s.
The cast is stronger than the film needs. J. Carroll Naish is quite good as Doctor Duryea, the last of the descendants of Frankenstein, operating in a sideshow attraction of horror on the Los Angeles beaches. He looks much the same as he did thirty years earlier or more in such films as Bulldog Drummond Escapes. Lon Chaney Jr, however, simply mugs in his last film as the Frankenstein assistant. He uses some of the tones that he used, especially with the little dog, in the 1939 Of Mice and Men. Anthony Eisley is a television actor who is the hero. Regina Carroll, busty and with big hair, is the dancer who is searching for her murdered sister. Regina Carroll married the director the year after this film and stayed married to him for twenty years until her death by cancer. Others in the cast include Greydon Clark as the young man, strange, unlikely to have had the career that he did, directing many small-budget films. Guests include Jim Davis, from Dallas, and Russ Tamblyn, the child star from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the adult from West Side Story.
The acting is mixed. Zandor Vorkov as Count Dracula (he made only one film after this) is absolutely terrible. He recites long passages of serious intent with a po-face (made up with heavy white makeup). This is the kind of performance that has a cult following with audiences reciting the lines along with the character.
The film has a small budget, rather poor sets – although there are effects, especially during the credits, for the horrors in a Ghost Train kind of attraction as well as Doctor Duryea’s laboratory. The re-creation of the Frankenstein monster is very weak and laughable indeed.
The film draws on the film traditions of Frankenstein and Dracula – parodying them. The film might be compared, unfavourably, to the films made by Hammer during the 50s and 60s and into the 70s. They even made a Dracula AD1972.
A curiosity item for film history.
