During WW I, a werewolf (Matt Willis) is the servant to a vampire (Bela Lugosi). When Doctor Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery) is called in by Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) to consult on the case of a young woman who is ill and in a trance-like state he determines that she has been bitten by a vampire. Saunders is convinced that a Romanian scientist named Armand Tesla, who died in 1774, is the vampire in question. Saunders believes that Tesla’s research on vampirism resulted in Tesla himself becoming a vampire.
That night Professor Saunders’ granddaughter Nicki is bitten by the vampire. The professor gives her a transfusion and, with Lady Jane, rushes to Tesla’s grave. He drives a stake into the vampire’s heart. This released the werewolf from the vampire’s spell and returns him to his human form, a man named Andreas Obry. Obry becomes the assistant for Lady Jane.
Twenty-three years later, during WWII, Professor Saunders dies in a plane crash leaving all his notes and journals. Sir Fredrick Fleet (Miles Mander) is the chief commissioner for Scotland Yard. He has found Saunders’ documentation on the killing of the vampire. He tells Lady Jane that he will have to exhume the body of Tesla and see if there is indeed a stake through his heart. If so, it does not bode well for Lady Jane as an accomplice to murder.
By then Saunders’ granddaughter Nicki (Nina Foch) is grown and is engaged to Lady Jane’s son John (Roland Varno). Lady Jane explains to John the situation with Nicki and the vampire.
Before the exhumation can occur an air raid by Nazi bombers hits the cemetery and unearths the body of Tesla. Two cemetery workers find the body and, believing the stake is shrapnel, remove it. Tesla comes back to life and re-enslaves Obry. With Obry’s help Tesla disguises himself as a German scientist, Hugo Bruckner (Bela Lugosi) that had escaped from a German Prison Camp. Now as Hugo Bruckner, Tesla can exact his revenge on both the Saunders family and the Ainsley family.
“Return of the Vampire” was released in 1943 and was directed by Lew Landers. This little nugget almost escaped me. The movie isn’t exact the same quality as the Universal monster series, but by the 1940’s even Universal’s vampires were starting to look a little frayed at the edges. It is, however, a good Lugosi vehicle.
Lugosi’s acting is subdued as the proper vampire should be. He plays the count as regal as he did the original Dracula. By now Lugosi’s star was already beginning to wane and he was well known for playing mad scientists and mad doctors and mad scientist doctors. All slightly if not largely over the top. I can’t complain since I liked some of his performances as those characters. Lugosi knew that vampires are, whenever possible, more dignified than anything labeled mad.
“The Return of the Vampire” is the first film to feature a relationship between a vampire and a werewolf. This dynamic would be used a lot as both a master/servant association as well as an adversarial relationship in many films.
Some believe that Columbia Pictures originally intended for the film to be a sequel to "Dracula” (1931). Even to the point of using some of Universal’s veteran actors like Lugosi. It is also believed that Universal, who made the original “Dracula” movie, threatened a plagiarism suit. Columbia made the movie anyway, but wisely changed the names of the characters to avoid any connection with "Dracula". Columbia also held back its release for two months so as not to compete with Universal’s “Son of Dracula” (1943).
Granted the script isn’t all that great but the combination of Lew Landers and Bela Lugosi make this film something worth seeing. Toss in fog shrouded cemeteries and the Blitz and “The Return of the Vampire” is an entertaining watch.