The Return of the Vampire

Plot synopsis:
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.
Twenty four years have passed and Professor Saunders has just died, though his account of these events was found among his effects. Sir Fredrick Fleet (Miles Mander) sits in his office at Scotland Yard, reading the professor's manuscript. Sir Frederick tells Lady Jane that he intends to find the body of the man whom she and Professor Saunders staked. If the man really was alive when they staked him, Lady Jane is guilty of murder. Lady Jane tells Sir Frederick that the man she and the professor staked was two hundred years old. He was none other than Armand Tesla, whose lifelong fascination with vampires ended with his becoming one himself.
The scene moves to Lady Jane’s clinic. Her son, John, and Professor Saunders’ granddaughter, Nikki, are now adults and plan to marry. It is World War II, and Nikki (Nina Foch) is in military uniform. John (Roland Varno) is in civilian clothes, having been discharged from the RAF due to a war injury. When she and John are alone, Lady Jane tells him about her meeting with Sir Frederick. John asks if she is worried about being arrested for murder. Lady Jane says that, when Sir Frederick finds Tesla’s body, he will see that it hasn’t decomposed. That will prove Tesla was a vampire. They agree not to tell Nikki about this. They don't want to remind her of her childhood trauma when she was bitten by the vampire. While they are talking, Andréas enters. He used to be Tesla’s werewolf servant. Freed of the vampire’s power, he has become human again, and is Lady Jane’s assistant at the clinic. Andréas is visibly upset when he hears that the vampire's body is going to be dug up.
During an air raid, a bomb falls on the cemetery. Gravediggers are assigned to rebury the disturbed coffins. They find Tesla's body, assume the stake driven through his heart was part of a bomb, and pull it out.
Back at the clinic, Lady Jane tells Andréas that Hugo Bruckner, a famous scientist, has escaped a Nazi concentration camp and is coming to Britain to work with her. She sends Andréas to meet Dr. Bruckner’s boat and bring him back to the clinic.
On his way to meet Bruckner, Andréas fully sees the risen vampire face to face. Fixing Andréas with his hypnotic eyes, the vampire says that he was responsible for Professor Saunders' death. Now he will take his revenge on Lady Jane. Andréas, once again under Tesla’s power, becomes a werewolf. Following the vampire’s orders, he kills Bruckner and Tesla takes his place.
The following morning, Sir Frederick and Lady Jane come to the cemetery to look for Tesla’s grave. When they find there is nothing left of it but a hole where the bomb fell, Sir Frederick declares the case is closed.
That evening, Lady Jane throws a party to celebrate John and Nikki’s engagement. Sir Frederick arrives, with Professor Saunders’ manuscript. He asks Lady Jane whether he should give the manuscript to Nikki, since she is the professor’s granddaughter and only living relative. Lady Jane takes the manuscript and locks it in a drawer because she doesn't want Nikki to be reminded of her childhood trauma.
Tesla arrives, pretending to be Bruckner. He charms everyone except Sir Frederick, who seems suspicious of him. Lady Jane discovers the drawer has been forced open and the professor’s manuscript stolen. She calls in Sir Frederick. He finds some hairs stuck to the drawer, and puts them in his pocket. Upstairs, Nikki finds the manuscript lying beside her bed and begins reading it. Later, she hears Tesla’s voice calling to her. She asks who he is, and he replies that she already knows.
The following morning, John and Lady Jane find Nikki lying unconscious on the floor of her bedroom. John is upset when he sees the bite marks on Nikki’s neck, but Lady Jane assures him that everything will be all right.
Lady Jane returns to the cemetery and speaks with the gravediggers. They tell her that they found a body with a stake in it. They pulled out the stake and reburied the body, but now it's missing. She tells this to Sir Frederick, but he dismisses it because he doesn't believe in vampires. Instead he assigns two plainclothes men to shadow Andréas.
While the two men are following him, Andréas changes into a werewolf. He runs away, dropping the bundle he was carrying. The two men take the bundle to Sir Frederick, who opens it and finds it contains the personal effects of the real Hugo Bruckner. Sir Frederick’s suspicions of Bruckner/Tesla are now confirmed. While Sir Frederick is examining the contents of the bundle, another man comes in. He says that a laboratory analysis of the hairs Sir Frederick found on the drawer show them to be wolf's hairs.
That night, as Nikki sleeps, Tesla calls to her again. He tells her to go to John’s bedroom.
The following morning, Lady Jane finds John lying on the floor of his bedroom with bite marks on his neck. Nikki is convinced that she is becoming a vampire, but Lady Jane tells her that Tesla bit John, hoping to make Nikki believe she did it. Sir Frederick and Lady Jane question Andréas about the bundle. His hands become hairy and claw-like, but before he completes his transformation into a werewolf, he flees.
Sir Frederick assigns the same two plainclothes men to follow Bruckner/Tesla, but the vampire eludes them. Bruckner/Tesla goes to the Ainsley house and stands in the shadows, watching Lady Jane as she plays the organ. He tells her that, now she knows who he really is, he will take his revenge. He will turn Nikki into a vampire, and she will then do the same to John. Lady Jane pushes the sheet music aside, revealing a cross on the organ. The vampire disappears. Again Tesla calls to Nikki. She rises from her bed, leaves her bedroom and walks down the stairs. Downstairs, Sir Frederick and Lady Jane are once again arguing the existence of vampires. When they see Nikki coming down the stairs, they stop arguing and follow her.
Nikki goes to the cemetery, where Tesla and Andréas (who has now completed his transformation into a werewolf) are waiting for her. The air raid siren goes off and bombs start falling. Nikki faints. The werewolf picks her up and is carrying her to safety when Sir Frederick shoots him. The wounded werewolf staggers into the tomb, still carrying the unconscious Nikki. He lays her down and asks Tesla for help. The vampire says that he no longer needs him, and tells Andréas to crawl into a corner and die. The werewolf obediently crawls into a corner, where he finds a crucifix. He picks it up, and returns to his human form. An explosion fills the screen, indicating a bomb has hit the cemetery. When Nikki awakes, she sees Andréas dragging an unconscious Tesla out of the tomb.
It is now dawn, and the vampire begins to decompose in the daylight. After Tesla dies, Andréas also dies of his bullet wound. Sir Frederick and Lady Jane had taken shelter from the bombs, and continued quarreling. They now rush back to the cemetery and find Nikki, who tells them that Andréas saved her. Lady Jane asks Sir Frederick if he now believes in vampires. He says that he is still an unbeliever. He turns to the two plainclothes men and asks them ‘You two fellows don't believe in vampires, do you?’ To his surprise, they both reply that they do. Sir Fredrick then breaks the fourth wall and asks ‘Do you people?’

Tags: good versus evil, paranormal, revenge

Review:
The movie was basically a sequel to Dracula but the vampire played by Bela Lugosi could not use the name Dracula because this was a Columbia picture and Universal Studios had the legal rights to the Dracula character.
Bela Lugosi stars as Armand Tesla vampire, but this is the only movie I've ever seen that had a talking werewolf who carries the vampire's laundry in a package tied up with string.
It's interesting that even though Bela Lugosi enjoys an eternal reputation of playing the most imitated vampire of all (the legendary Count Dracula), the actor really didn't star as a true bloodsucker in that many motion pictures.
But he's nothing less than the real deal here, in an enjoyably misty and moody horror offering which was produced by Columbia Pictures, yet could be easily mistaken for any one of the 1940s classics that Universal Studios was churning out at this time.Though Bela looks and sounds much like Dracula with his trademark flowing cape and piercing eyes, this time he plays a different character called Armand Tesla, a vampire who rises from his grave in ravaged WW II times to seek revenge many years after being destroyed with a metal spike.
Frieda Inescort is a welcome change of pace as a female "Van Helsing" type of protector, and the Lon Chaney-ish Matt Willis is cast as a pitiable servant named Andreas, who becomes corrupted by Tesla and is transformed into a werewolf that TALKS!
After preying on the young niece of the intrepid scientist Walter Saunders, who immediately deduces a vampire is on the loose, Saunders and his colleague Lady Jane Ainsley find the vampire in his lair & drive a spike through his heart.Twenty-five years later, German bombers disturb the cemetery where Tesla lays at rest & two cockney civil-defense workers remove the stake from the vampire's unearthed body.
The vampire sets out to take revenge on those responsible for his quarter-century dirtnap, but like all malevolent beings in these types of horror films, his cruel mistreatment of his servant will eventually come back to bite him..."The Return of the Vampire", while no masterpiece, is chock full of some wonderful atmosphere & images: the fog-bound cemeteries, Lugosi's outstretched cape, the entranced young beauty (Nina Foch) hypnotically walking through the graveyard.
As for his servant, was there any point in subjecting Matt Willis to a werewolf makeup, aside from Columbia feeling the need to jump on the bandwagon in light of that "Wolf Man" character that was making money for Universal Pictures.
This beautifully shot B&W 1940s vampire film is loaded with the kind of old fashioned, spooky atmosphere that fans of classic Gothic horror will love.
Lugosi isn't offered anything new to do here but he is suitably authoritative in his role of Armand Tesla; until he reprised the role of Dracula one last time in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948), this was arguably his best work of the 40s (which I admit isn't saying much).
Matt Willis is not bad as a man enslaved by Lugosi and turned by him into a werewolf(!) and, even though the character's psychological torment is as palpable as that of Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot in the Universal "Wolf Man" saga, the actor is defeated by the shaggy-dog make-up, the fact that he is allowed to speak when transformed(!!) and, well, the very pointlessness of his presence since he never does much at all except serve Lugosi (a task which could easily have been handled by a mere human, who would certainly have aroused a great deal less suspicion than a werewolf)!
In 1918 Lady Jane Amsley (Freida Inescort) helps kill Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi) with a stake through the heart and reform his werewolf helper Andreas (don't ask).
26 years later Tesla's stake is accidentally removed during a Nazi bombing and he decides to take revenge on Lady Amsley--through her son and his bride to be (Nina Foch).I saw this many times on TV as a kid and loved it.
I LOVE the glowing crucifix on the organ (always impressed me as a kid) and the final scene is memorable.This is probably remembered as one of the three times that Lugosi played an actual vampire--the other two were "Dracula" and "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" ("Mark of the Vampire" doesn't count).
In "The Return of the Vampire," Lugosi plays a hickeymeister identical to old Dracky, but because this is a Columbia picture and not a Universal, he is here saddled with the name Armand Tesla.
The picture's setting--1941 London during the Blitz--and the bloodsucker's assistant--another sympathetic werewolf--add some novel touches to the usual vampire fare, and Frieda Inescort makes for a very pretty and no-nonsense adversary for the nocturnal neck nosher.
Columbia Pictures decided to get into the horror film market that Universal had a corner on and did it with one of the stars that gave them that corner, Bela Lugosi.
At that time Universal had the copyright to the Dracula character so Lugosi played Armand Tesla who was every bit as sinister as the Count himself.
Her actions free the soul of Matt Willis as Andreas, Tesla's werewolf sidekick and he becomes Inescourt's assistant.Over 20 years pass and Tesla's grave is blown open by bombs from the visiting Luftwaffe and a couple of gravediggers who take the stake from the well preserved body's heart.
In this movie Bela Lugosi plays a vampire with a talking werewolf assistant who looks more like a puppy than a terrifying wolf.
Underrated Gem. The Return of the Vampire (1944) *** (out of 4) After being destroyed during WWI, the vampire Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi) is brought back to life after someone removes the stake from his heart.
Soon he is stalking a new group of people with the help of his werewolf servant (Matt Willis).Columbia Pictures really weren't into the horror game but after the success Universal was having, it was a no-brainer that they'd try to cash in.
Seeing Nina Foch is never a bad thing either.Yes, there's no doubt that the story itself is a bit jumbled up at times but the atmosphere itself is something unlike any other horror film of this period.
In 1918, a Dracula copycat vampire named Armand Tesla is preying upon young women in London England, but this all stops when Professor Walter Saunders and his colleague, Lady Jane Ainsley drive a metal spike through his heart, destroying him and freeing his werewolf servant Andreas.
Lady Ainsley must save the professor's granddaughter Nicki from being vampirized by Tesla, and Andreas, who has been enslaved by him again, must decide whether to serve good, or evil.To start out, this movie has plot holes.
Bela Lugosi returns as the dreaded vampire Count, here going under the name of Armand Tesla due to Columbia being unable to get the Dracula copyright (owned exclusively at the time by Universal).
Despite this, Lugosi here gives in my opinion his finest Dracula performance - much improved over his halting and stagey efforts in the Universal classic twelve years previously.Dracula / Tesla returns from the grave to wreak vengeance upon the vampire hunters who staked him decades previously, after a Nazi blitz raid unearths his tomb and a comedy Cockernee (played as usual by the reliable Billy Bevan) mistakes the stake through his heart for shrapnel and removes it.
Lugosi gets more top do here than in most of his 1940s horror movies, and rises to the challenge with a great performance.We also get Matt Willis (not the one from Busted!) as Lon Chaney-a-like werewolf Andreas, in thrall to his vampiric master my night, but yearning to destroy him whilst in tormented human form.
This is another great Classic Film because Bela Lugosi put his heart and soul entirely into being a Vampire or Dracula.
This is a very well made picture from Columbia and deals with the period during WW II in London, England where Bela Lugosi (Armand Tesla), seems to come back to life twice and manages to make sure that every one gets a Blood Transfusion young or old!
Lew Landers directed Bela Lugosi as Armand Tesla, an 18th century researcher into occult matters who ended up becoming an evil vampire upon his death.
Do not look upon this film as a horror movie, but as a history lesson.In it you will see the great Bela Lugosi as Dracula.
THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (Columbia, 1944), directed by Lew Landers, was the studios contribution to the horror genre made famous by Universal, acquiring many of its ingredients right down to the services of that studio's very own Bela Lugosi, whose legend began with "Dracula" (1931).
While THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE could very well be a pale imitation of a good horror film or a "Dracula" sequel featuring his twin brother accompanied by a werewolf instead of Mr. Renfield, this new idea of a vampire tale, though not entirely original, is actually a pleasant surprise.
Enter Andreas, (Matt Willis) a werewolf, walking through the Priory Cemetery, entering the crypt of his master, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200 year-old vampire, who rests in his coffin by day, while living off the blood of his victims by night.
Armand Telsa, under the guise of Dr. Hugo Bruckner, stalks once more, returning poor Andreas back into his werewolf slave ("I shall command and YOU shall obey!") and plans for his next mission to terrorize Lady Jane and have Nikki his future bride of the living dead.A neat little thriller that contains many effective scenes to rank this a truly good horror film of its day, from howling sounds of dogs around the cemetery to the vampire's call to his victims through the echoing of his whispers.
His vampire character is accidentally resurrected during the Blitz, and he picks up where he left off, putting the bite on people and re-enslaving his old werewolf servant (Matt Willis as a poor man's Lon Chaney Jr.).
Willis reverts to his human guise as Andreas and becomes the helpmate to Lady Jane Ainsley (FRIEDA INESCOURT) who runs a research lab with Sir Frederick Fleet (MILES MANDER).The thrills begin when the stake is removed from Lugosi's chest by Willis (a big, hulking man who makes a good werewolf), who then sets out to assume a new identity so he can use his vampire powers on lovely young NINA FOCH and others.Lugosi has quite a lot of screen time but it's Frieda Inescourt who really is the mainstay of the story, courageously willing to destroy Lugosi before he takes any more victims.Nicely photographed in appropriately atmospheric B&W settings and building towards a suspenseful climax.
This was Columbia Studios attempt at a horror film in the same vein as those Universal were making around this time ("Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "House of Frankenstein" etc.), as it features both a vampire and a wolf man.Bela Lugosi plays a vampire (this time Armand Tesla) and when he is not busy being evil at night and sleeping all day, he is treating patients as Dr Hugo Bruckner.
It's up to the strong, determined Lady Jane Ainsley (Freda Inescort) to put all the clues together and rid the world of Tesla's evil ways.There are a few atmospheric scenes typical of this type of film and Lugosi is suitably menacing and hypnotic, but the script isn't very good and many of the performances are quite stilted.
For me, it just wasn't much fun unlike most of the Universal monster films of this era which were more satisfying dramatically, and as spectacle.Lugosi would play a vampire once more a few years later in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" alongside other horror icons Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man, whose design looks much better in those superior films..
So many great touches in this movie, from the means by which the Dracula surrogate Tesla is "unearthed" (by means of a German bomb during WW2!) to the inventive use of an articulate werewolf (masterfully portrayed by character actor Matt Willis) as Tesla's Renfield.I'd love to see a "director's cut" of this film because obviously a whole lot of backstory wound up littering the floor.
And indeed, Return of the Vampire does borrow a great deal from the Universal film, not the least being Bela Lugosi himself in a virtual reprisal of his celebrated role.
Lugosi will be remembered forever for Dracula, but his portrayal of this film's vampire--Armand Tesla--arguably surpasses even that.
1918: Ruthless and cunning 200-year-old vampire Armand Tesla (a strong performance of subtle menace by Bela Lugosi) terrorizes the countryside.
This film further benefits from credible acting by a sturdy cast: the lovely and poised Nina Foch makes for a very attractive victim as the fetching Nicki Saunders, Matt Willis contributes a respectable portrayal of Tesla's tormented talking werewolf servant Andreas Obry, and Miles Mander does well as dour skeptic Sir Frederick Fleet.
Although a bit slow and talky, this movie still manages to work thanks to Lugosi's dignified presence, a few amusing novel touches (you gotta love a werewolf that speaks, does his vampire master's laundry, and can transform at any given time of the day), and the supremely spooky'n'misty ooga-booga mood.
There are some funny parts that really are funny, such as when two befuddled Scotland Yard men report to their chief that they were trying to apprehend a suspect, but he got away when...The chief irritably asks what happened next and they report that " He turned into a wolf, Sir." The werewolf in question is the long-suffering Andreas Obry, played by Matt Willis, who in face and manner of dress suggests Lon Chaney, Jr. This movie is worth seeing if for no other reason than the wonderful scenes in which the chatty werewolf discusses their plans with his vampire boss.
He has a werewolf assistant named Andreas(Matt Willis)whose Full Moon Curse is controlled by the vampire.The location is London during WW2 and Tesla's greatest adversary is Lady Jane Ainsley(Frieda Inescort) and, Sir Frederick Fleet(Miles Mander)is one in the making, though he has a hard time believing in vampires despite all the chaos that surrounds him.With his werewolf assistant lending a hand, not to mention his powerful way of hypnotizing the control of young Nicki(Nina Foch), Tesla will be quite a difficult vampire to kill.What could be considered the film's major weakness is that Jane actually put a spike through Tesla's heart, yet this didn't turn his body into dust as so often happens in the vampire pictures.
A Hungarian vampire(Bela Lugosi)poses as Armand Tesla/Dr. Hugo Bruckner and with his werewolf servant Andreas(Matt Willis)brings a reign of terror to WWII London.
Columbia had wanted this to be a sequel to the 1931 Universal "Dracula", but when Universal threatened legal action, they ended up changing the names.Bela is in fine form, playing the doomed Armand Tesla, a vampire expert of centuries ago who became a blood sucker himself.
This picture has all of the creepy atmospherics and moody feel of the original 1931 "Dracula", even if Bela Lugosi is a completely different character wearing the vampire cape.
At this point of B-production shockers of the 1940s, no studio was making vampire pictures that had really anything to do with Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," though, and most of them are a far cry from the classic 1930s Universal monster movies, which began with Lugosi's "Dracula" (1931).
Among them was "Dracula" (1931) with Bela Lugosi in the title role, which forever cemented the image of Bram Stoker's character as an elegant man in a flowing black cape.With the character in the public domain, Columbia Studios apparently wanted to do a sequel of sorts with Lugosi reprising the role but the threat of possible action from Universal led to Columbia shifting their plans somewhat and so the vampire that Lugosi plays in this film is named Armand Tesla.
But make no mistake, he is Count Dracula in all but name.Made relatively cheaply, even for the time, it would be a bit of a stretch to label this film a classic, but nevertheless it stands as an effective, solid and occasionally innovative horror flick of its era.The story commences with a prologue sequence set in 1918 which depicts how the vampire, wreaking his accursed evil in London, is put to rest by scientist Dr Saunders and his assistant Lady Jane Ainsley.
But can Lady Jane and a disbelieving Sir Frederick possibly stop him in time?If Bela Lugosi wearied of playing vampires, he doesn't show it here and produces the same type of commanding performance that originally endeared him to the movie-going public in Dracula.
After thinking they've put an end to the evil, Tesla returns during the next World War after his grave is opened in a bombing and attempts to steal our heroine to be his eternal bride.Bela is really the only thing good about this movie.
***SPOILERS*** Having his secret resting place found out by Dr. Saunders and his young assistant Jane Ainsley,Gilbert Emery & Frieda Inescort, Vampire Armard Tesla, Bela Lugosi, has a spike driven through his evil heart putting him out of action, in sucking peoples blood in order for him to survive, forever.
Awakened, Tesla vows to get revenge on the family that had "killed him" years before.Bela Lugosi once more takes on the cape of a vampire in a Columbia programmer.
"Return of the Vampire" isn't all that bad of a vampire film.**SPOILERS**Dr. Jane Ainsley, (Frieda Inescourt) manages to kill vampire Armand Tesla, (Bela Lugosi) during the first World War. Years later, when her son John, (Roland Varno) and his fiancée Nikki Saunders, (Nina Foch) are about to be married, the German Blitz on London uncovers his grave, allowing his return.
As expected, Bela Lugosi plays the vampire as to the manner born and receives excellent assistance from a first-rate support cast including Nina Foch and Frieda Inescort.