The Return of the Vampire
| The Return of the Vampire | |
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| Directed by | Lew Landers |
| Produced by | Sam White |
| Written by |
Randall Faye Griffin Jay |
| Starring |
Bela Lugosi Frieda Inescort Nina Foch Miles Mander Roland Varno Matt Willis |
| Music by | Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco |
| Cinematography | L. W. O'Connell |
| Edited by | Paul Borofsky |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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69 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000 |
| Box office | $500,000 (estimated) |
The Return of the Vampire is a horror film released in 1943 by Columbia Pictures. It is in black and white, and describes an Englishwoman's two encounters with a vampire. The first encounter takes place during World War One, and the second during World War Two.
The film stars Bela Lugosi as the vampire Armand Tesla. The Return of the Vampire is not an official sequel to Lugosi's 1931 Universal Studios film Dracula, but the film has been interpreted by many critics and Dracula scholars as an unofficial follow-up with Lugosi's character renamed because the film was not made at Universal.
The film begins with Sir Fredrick Fleet (Miles Mander): The following events are taken from the notes of Professor Walter Saunders of King’s College, Oxford...
The first scene takes place in a mist-shrouded cemetery at night. A werewolf (Matt Willis) enters a tomb and tells his vampire ‘Master’ that it is time for him to awake. A hand reaches out of the coffin and lifts the lid. A shadow appears on the wall, and the voice of Bela Lugosi asks what happened while he was asleep. The werewolf replies that his latest victim has been taken to Dr. Ainsley’s clinic.
Baffled by her patient’s anemic condition, Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) has called in Professor Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery). While they are discussing the patient, two children enter. They are Lady Jane’s son, John, and Professor Saunders’ granddaughter, Nikki. Lady Jane and the professor send the children to bed and return to their patient. The figure, finding that his victim is not alone, attacks Nikki instead. After the patient dies, Professor Saunders sits up the rest of the night, reading a book on vampires written two hundred years ago by Armand Tesla.
The following morning, the professor shows Lady Jane the bite marks on their dead patient’s neck, and tells her that he believes they were caused by a vampire. Lady Jane is skeptical until they discover similar bite marks on Nikki’s neck. Professor Saunders and Lady Jane go to the cemetery and search for the vampire’s coffin. As they are about to drive a stake through its heart, the werewolf returns and tries to stop them; but once the vampire is staked, the werewolf returns to his human form.
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Wikipedia