EDITOR’S NOTE: Dracula’s Daughter was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 26, 1966 at 1:00 a.m. It was on a total of nine times: January 21, 1967; July 12, 1969; December 2, 1972; April 6, 1974; May 17, 1975; December 18, 1976; July 8, 1978 and February 8, 1983.

Directed by Lambert Hillyer and written by Garrett Fort, the only cast member to return from the original film was Edward Van Sloan, now playing Von Helsing instead of Van Helsing. Supposedly based on a deleted chapter from the book, which was published as “Dracula’s Guest,” Dracula’s Daughter is much closer to Carmilla. Certainly early ads exploited the sapphic undertones of this movie with the line “Save the women of London from Dracula’s Daughter!”

David O. Selznick and MGM would get the rights to Bram Stoker’s books if Universal didn’t make this by October 1935, which meant. that it was rushed into filming with a script barely complete.

Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden) is the daughter of Count Dracula and has the same vampiric curse. She believes that if she destroys his body, she will finally be free. That doesn’t work, so she tries psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Kruger). When that also doesn’t take hold, she kidnaps Dr. Garth’s assistant Janet (Marguerite Churchill) and takes her to Transylvania.

How does Van or Von Helsing come in? Well, he’s been arrested for killing Dracula and his defense is that since the man had been dead for half a millennia, it wasn’t murder. Instead of a lawyer, he hires Dr. Garth, one of his former students, to explain his point of view. Obviously, Von Helsing is not dealing with an actual court in our real world.

Doomed love is the theme of this movie, as Zaleska intends to transform Dr. Garth into a vampire to be with him forever. He has had an antagonistic relationship with Janet and now realizes he loves her. As for Sandor (Irving Pichel), the servant of Dracula’s daughter, he is growing angry as she has promised to make him a vampire and now just seems to give it away to the scientist.

There’s also a lot of hypnosis via ring and Lili (Nan Grey), an artist model, being painted by Zaleska before she gives in to her need to kill and drain her.

As for the MGM version that was never made, it was written by the writer of Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein John L. Balderston. He was trying to wrap up some of the plot of the first movie, as Von Helsing would be looking to destroy Dracula’s brides and learn that there was a fourth grave that his daughter used. She would follow him back to London and pose as a countess. The story also implies that Dracula’s daughter enjoys torturing her male victims and they enjoy it as well. They also would show her dungeon filled with whips. The script couldn’t be made as the contract with Stoker’s estate didn’t allow him to use any characters that didn’t appear in the short story, so Van or Von Helsing was out.

This same script was sent to Universal and wasn’t used. There was another script by R. C. Sherriff that went through so many censors and was finally not filmed.

There’s a theory that so much of Sunset Boulevard was influenced by this movie. According to this article on The Last Drive-In, both Countess Zaleska and Norma Desmond have male servants who are obsessed and utterly devoted to them. Hedda Hopper is also in both movies.

It definitely had an impact on the books of Anne Rice. I kind of like how the Bright Lights Film Journal described the villain of this movie: “Gloria Holden in the title role almost singlehandedly redefined the ’20s movie vamp as an impressive Euro-butch dyke bloodsucker.” Holden hated that she was cast in this and her disdain for the role lends itself a coldness that is actually just right for her character.

Speaking of Sunset Boulevard, its male star, William Holden, was named for Gloria Holden. This article in Billboard explains: “William Holden, the lad just signed for the coveted lead in Golden Boy, used to be Bill Beadle. And here is how he obtained his new movie tag. On the Columbia lot is an assistant director and scout named Harold Winston. Not long ago he was divorced from the actress, Gloria Holden, but carried the torch after the marital rift. Winston was one of those who discovered the Golden Boy newcomer and who renamed him — in honor of his former spouse!”

How strange that the lead in Dracula’s Daughter is Gloria Holden and the leads in Sunset Boulevard and Gloria Swanson and William Holden.