{"id":35624,"date":"2021-08-06T18:04:20","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T22:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=35624"},"modified":"2021-08-06T18:04:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T22:04:20","slug":"the-bootleg-files-doom-of-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/06\/the-bootleg-files-doom-of-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Doom of Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 775:<\/strong> \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d (8mm reissue of sections from the 1944 \u201cHouse of Frankenstein\u201d).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> No perceived commercial value.
\n
\nCHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

In the years before video cassette recorders invaded living rooms in the late 1970s and early 1980s, movie lovers who wanted to own copies of their favorite films relied on portable projectors that screened the 35mm or 70mm Hollywood theatrical fare in the much smaller 16mm, 9.5mm, 8mm and Super 8 formats.
\n<\/p>\n

However, these smaller format reels could not accommodate feature-length films. As a result, many of the home viewing prints were heavily edited \u2013 and in the case of films sold on 8mm and Super 8 formats, the reels could only accommodate about 10 minutes of footage. As a result, only certain sequences of a feature film could be packaged and sold. But consumers didn\u2019t seem to care, as this market flourished until the rise of video cassettes \u2013 and even in today\u2019s video age, collectors can still snag these old films on eBay and other sites.<\/p>\n

Castle Films was a key player in this market and one of the films they edited and repackaged for home viewing was Universal Pictures\u2019 1944 \u201cHouse of Frankenstein.\u201d In order to accommodate the truncated parameters of the 8mm format, the film was sliced and diced using the barest of the introductory passage and some (but not all) of the scenes involving Count Dracula. The resulting film was \u201cDoom of Dracula,\u201d which captures a fraction of the cheesy richness of \u201cHouse of Frankenstein.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d opens with a bearded Boris Karloff and an oversized hunchback played by J. Carroll Naish helping to dislodge a horse-drawn wagon from a muddy pothole \u2013 except that it doesn\u2019t explain that Karloff is a mad scientist escaped from a prison and the hunchback is helping him with the promise of being cured of his disfigurement by having his brain transferred into a handsome hunk. (Uh, yeah.)<\/p>\n

The wagon belongs to Professor Lampini, a traveling showman with a house of horrors exhibit that he displays at carnivals around Central Europe. Lampini is played by George Zucco, but he barely makes his presence known before Naish\u2019s character, acting on Karloff\u2019s direction, fatally strangles him.<\/p>\n

Karloff and Naish assume the identities of Lampini and his assistant \u2013 the assistant is not present in \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d and it seems curious that Naish\u2019s deformed body could fit so perfectly into the jacket used by the assistant in his tasks. They set up shop at a carnival where Karloff spies the Burgomaster responsible for his incarceration \u2013 the Burgomaster vaguely recognizes Karloff, but cannot place the face, while a pretty babe (Anne Gwynne) who is the Burgomaster\u2019s granddaughter-in-law is intrigued by Karloff\u2019s eerie spiel.<\/p>\n

Eager to enact revenge, Karloff pulls the wooden stake from a coffin-framed skeleton that is supposedly the remains of Count Dracula. And wouldn\u2019t you know it, but the skeleton immediately transforms into a fully-clothed Dracula (played by John Carradine). Karloff and Dracula have a quick conference \u2013 if the vampire will enact revenge as directed by Karloff, then Karloff will agree to serve him faithfully.<\/p>\n

From here, a none-too-convincing rubber bat transforms via Walter Lantz\u2019s animation in a top-hatted Dracula (don\u2019t ask where the hat came from \u2013 it didn\u2019t materialize in the coffin). That pretty babe from earlier is sleeping on a couch and awakens as her front door magically opens on its own. She joins Dracula in a horse-drawn carriage that he is driving, but her husband chases after them and alerts some constables on horseback to follow.<\/p>\n

Karloff and Naish see the constables galloping from a distance and mistakenly believe they are after them. When they realize they want Dracula and the babe, Naish tosses Dracula\u2019s coffin from their wagon. The fastener securing Dracula\u2019s carriage to his horses comes lose and the carriage crashes. As the police and the babe\u2019s husband locate the miraculously uninjured lady, Dracula climbs up a hill to his coffin but his greeted by the sunrise, which reduces him back to a skeleton.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d is short on logic but heavy on atmosphere, particularly with Carradine\u2019s wonderfully hammy acting \u2013 whether staring with apprehension at the stake removed from his heart or going into the most traumatic death throes ever suffered by a sunbaked vampire, he is the best thing in this presentation. (Bela Lugosi was originally considered to revive his Dracula role, but he had a previous contractual engagement in a theatrical touring company of \u201cArsenic and Old Lace\u201d playing the role that Karloff originated on Broadway.) In contrast, Karloff seems utterly bored by the proceedings and is not the least bit terrifying.<\/p>\n

Yes, \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d is just a sampling of much wider concept, and much of Carradine\u2019s juicier scenes in the wooing of the fair Gwynne were callously scissored away. But for an eight-minute-and-change 8mm distraction, it is a nice piece of no-cal fun.<\/p>\n

A so-so print of \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d can be found on YouTube<\/a>, and the full \u201cHouse of Frankenstein\u201d can be located online and on home entertainment formats. While it always best to see the complete original, \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d offers an amusing consideration of what movie lovers settled for in the days before director\u2019s cut and special edition versions of beloved films.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to the award-winning podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall\u201d<\/a> on SoundCloud. Phil Hall\u2019s new book \u201cJesus Christ Movie Star\u201d<\/a> is now available from BearManor Media. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 775: \u201cDoom of Dracula\u201d (8mm reissue of sections from the 1944 \u201cHouse of Frankenstein\u201d). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived commercial value. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely. In the years before video cassette recorders invaded living rooms in the late 1970s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":35625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[149,2781,2783,299,477,2782,2784,1886],"class_list":["post-35624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-boris-karloff","tag-castle-films","tag-doom-of-dracula","tag-dracula","tag-horror","tag-house-of-frankenstein","tag-john-carradine","tag-universal-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35626,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35624\/revisions\/35626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}