Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Dracula's Daughter is a 1936 American vampire horror film produced by Universal Studios, a sequel to the 1931 film Dracula. Directed by Lambert Hillyer from a screenplay by Garrett Fort, the film stars Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden in the title role, Marguerite Churchill and, as the only cast member to return from the original, Edward Van Sloan (though his character's name was altered from Van Helsing to Von Helsing). Dracula's Daughter tells the story of Countess Marya Zaleska, the daughter of Count Dracula and herself a vampire. Following Dracula's death, she believes that by destroying his body she will be free of his influence and can live as a human. When this fails, she turns to psychiatry and Dr. Jeffrey Garth. When his efforts fail, she kidnaps Janet, the woman Jeffrey loves, and flees with her to Transylvania in an attempt to bind Jeffrey to her. She is foiled and destroyed when her jealous manservant shoots her with an arrow.

Ostensibly based on a short story titled "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker, the film bears little or no resemblance to the original source material. David O. Selznick initially purchased the rights to the story for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Selznick, probably knowing he could not legally make the film because of Universal's copyright on the original film, sold the rights to Universal. After first assigning the picture to James Whale, Universal production head Carl Laemmle, Jr. finally put Hillyer in the director's chair.

Dracula's Daughter was not as successful as the original upon its release, although it was generally critically well-reviewed. In the intervening decades, criticism has been deeply divided. Modern critics and scholars have noted the strong lesbian overtones of the film, overtones that Universal acknowledged from the start of filming and which they exploited in some early advertising.

Synopsis

Dracula's Daughter begins a few moments after Dracula ends. Count Dracula has just been destroyed by Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). Von Helsing is taken by police to Scotland Yard, where he explains that he indeed did destroy Count Dracula, but because he had already been dead for over 500 years, it cannot be considered murder. Instead of hiring a lawyer, he enlists the aid of a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), who was once one of his star students.

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