The Return of the Vampire

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly well made with Lugosi in fine form.
Review: This came out the same year as Siodmak's Son of Dracula and is equally as good. Lugosi does well as Armand Tesla, vampire, who is unloosed during the London blitz and seeks revenge on those who previously "did him in" by attacking their grown up son and daughter. Lugosi projects malevolence in a good performance. Solid work, too from old pros Frieda Inescort and Miles Mander.

Rating:
Summary: Dracula Ressurrected?
Review: This is a brilliant, underrated picture, featuring Bela Lugosi playing a real vampire for only the second time in his career. Here, he is aided by a talking werewolf who, although looks a little tatty, has rather more character to him than Lon Chaney's more famous lycanthrope. If you let yourself believe in such concepts, you will probably find this film enjoyable and even a little shocking. Lugosi plays Armand Tesla (basically Dracula under another name), who returns to claim the heroine (played by Nina Foch) after 'marking' her when she was a child. However, the werewolf with a heart eventually turns on him and drags him out into the sunlight, where he melts in spectacular fashion. Original touches, such as the inclusion of the very real (at the time) Second World War, the afore-mentioned werewolf and Miles Mander's final words to the camera, are mixed with traditional fog-bound graveyards, howling wolves and long-caped vampires, and are married together with startling effect. It is well played throughout, especially by Lugosi, who seems to relish the part, and urgently requires reappraisal from horror buffs. It was to have marked the start of a series of Lugosi-vampire films from Columbia, but Universal, worried by the similarities to it and their Dracula films, insisted against it.

Rating:
Summary: GOOD OLD VAMPIRE FUN WITH LUGOSI
Review: Well...here we have Bela Lugosi playing Count Dracula...err...I mean Armand Tesla in Return of the vampire. Look...It's Bela doing Dracula..they just can't call him Dracula.

This beautifully shot B&W 1940s vampire film is loaded with the kind of old fashioned, spooky atmosphere that fans of classic Gothic horror will love. The fogbound sets are deliciously creepy, the graveyard & crypt sets nothing short of fabulous! The spooky music adds a lot as well. Bela Lugosi, about 60 here and well into the undeserved waning days of his career, is damn good. Tall, imposing, and as strong a screen prescence as ever, he raises questions as to why the often heartless and stupid film industry did not make better use of his talents. He shows here that he could certainly still carry a film and command the screen. But the script needed work.

Matt Willis as the talking werewolf is laughable. When he's seen entering the graveyard carrying what looks like a package of Chinese laundry, I howled! I just couldn't see him running shopping errands in his werewolf garb! And no explanation is offered as to why the vampire's slave turns into a werewolf, a state he retains regardless of whether or not the moon is full. He's a wolf even in broad daylight.

This is a down to earth, old time vampire movie which takes place during the WW II years. Enjoy it for what it is and don't take it too seriously. IMHO, the walking, talking, sharp dressing vampire assistant is one of the best parts of the story. Andreas has a real inner conflict while trying to decide whether to help his evil vampire master or to help the heroine rid the earth of this monster.