James Whale's Dracula's Daughter: An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters
Author: Philip J. Riley; R. C. Sherriff
Date: 2009-11-15 12:49:57+00:00
Description: "Just when you thought you knew everything about our beloved classic monsters - Philip Riley pulls another bat out of the hat with this new remarkable book series. " - Stan Winston "Philip J Riley continues to discover lost film lore - last was the amazing reconstruction of Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera and now a treasure trove of scripts that no one knew existed. " - Ray Bradbury WHAT IF... Boris Karloff portrayed the Wolfman and The Invisible Man and Cagliostro, King of the Dead? What if Lon Chaney portrayed Count Dracula, or Lon Chaney Jr. appeared in what was to be the first Techni
Publisher: BearManor Media

Books by Philip J Riley

CLASSIC HORROR FILMS
Frankenstein, the original 1931 shooting script Bride of Frankenstein, the original 1935 shooting script Son of Frankenstein, the original 1939 shooting script Ghost of Frankenstein, the original 1942 shooting script Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, the original 1943 shooting script House of Frankenstein, the original 1944 shooting script The Mummy, the original 1932 shooting script The Mummy’s Curse the original 1944 shooting script (as Editor in Chief) The Wolfman, the original 1941 shooting script Dracula, the original 1931 shooting script
House of Dracula, the original 1945 shooting script

CLASSIC COMEDY FILMS
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the original 1948 shooting script

CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION
This Island Earth, the original 1955 shooting script The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the original 1953 shooting script (editor-in-chief)

THE ACKERMAN ARCHIVES SERIES - LOST FILMS The Reconstruction of London After Midnight, the original 1927 shooting script The Reconstruction of A Blind Bargain, the original 1922 shooting script The Reconstruction of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the original 1923 shooting script

CLASSIC SILENT FILMS
The Reconstruction of The Phantom of the Opera, the original 1925 shooting script
AS EDITOR

Countess Dracula by Carroll Borland
My Hollywood, when both of us were young by Patsy Ruth Miller Mr. Technicolor - Herbert Kalmus
Famous Monster of Filmland #2 by Forrest J Ackerman

FILM DOCUMENTARIES
A Thousand Faces - as contributor (Photoplay Productions) Universal Horrors - as contributor (Photoplay Productions)

Mr. Riley has also contributed to 12 film related books by various authors as well as numerous magazine articles and received the Count Dracula Society Award and was inducted into Universal’s Horror Hall of Fame

JAMES WHALE’S DRACULA’S DAUGHTER

An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters
by Philip J. Riley

Hollywood Publishing Archives

Published by:
BearManor Media
P O Box 71426
Albany, GA 31708
Phone: 760-709-9696 Fax: 814-690-1559
books@benohmart.com

©2009 Philip J Riley
For Copyright purposes
Philip J Riley is the author in the form of this book

Bela Lugosi name and likeness are trademarks of Lugosi Enterprises

Script attributed to R.C. Sherriff by permission of the R.C.Sherriff Trust, England John Balderston’s treatments by permission by John L Balderston III

Cover Art - ©2009 By Philip J Riley - Since none of the scripts in this series were thought to exist and were never produced, we have created mock-up posters in the vintage style of the period.
All photographs are from the Author’s collection

The Author would like to thank the following individuals who contributed and helped make this series possible. Carl Laemmle Jr., R.C.Sherriff, Stanley Bergerman, Gloria Holden, Jane Wyatt, Otto Kruger, Marcel Delgado, Robert Florey, Paul Ivano (Cinematographer), Paul Malvern (producer), Elsa Lanchester, Merion C Cooper, Patric Leroux, Bette Davis, Bela G. Lugosi, Technicolor Corporation, John Balderston III, Douglas Norwine, Loeb and Loeb Attorneys, David Stanley Horsley ASC, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathy Penny, Composer Ron Blustein, Thomas Larson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Kami, Arturo Herraras, Chuck Johnson, Michael Anaya, Vivian Soto, Lucy Gomez, John Teehan and Ivan Munoz

Author’s Note: I interviewed the producers, directors, stars, cast and crew in the early to late 1970s. They were recalling events that happened 35-45 years previous and sometimes memory fades or events are recalled from their perspective point of view.

First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The purpose of this series is the preservation of the art of writing for the screen. Rare books have long been a source of enjoyment and an investment for the serious collector, and even in limited editions there are thousands printed. Scripts, however, numbered only 50 at the most. In the history of American Literature, the screenwriter was being lost in time. It is my hope that my efforts bring about a renewed history and preservation of a great American Literary form, The Screenplay, by preserving them for study by future generations.

Recommended reading: Hollywood Gothic by David Skal, 1990, WW Norton & Company; James Whale a new world of Gods and Monsters University of Minnesota Press 1998 edition by James Curtis; City of Dreams by Bernard F. Dick, 1997 University of Kentucky: James Whale A Biography or The Would-be Gentleman by Mark Gatiss, Cassell Wellingon House 1995; Excerpts from R. C. Sherriff’s No Leading Ladies (London: Golancz 1968) reproduced with permission of R.C. Sherriff.
This book is dedicated to the real life Dracula’s Daughters

Jessi and Cady and Dracula’s granddaughter Lily

And
To my mentor & dear departed friend Forrest J Ackerman
1916-2008

Carl Laemmle Junior (center in light topcoat) surrounded by his crew of writers, producers and family members - Press photo to celebrate Junior’s promotion to Producer in Charge of Productions

Memories of Carl Laemmle Jr.

Carl Laemmle Jr. (Julius) was the driving force that kept Universal Pictures afloat during the transition years from silents to talkies and through the Stock Market Crash of 1929. When Junior was given production command on his 21st birthday he immediately devoted his professional life to his new job. He had said “Anything to get out of going to Princeton. Do you know my father even tried to con Albert Einstein, when he visited Universal City, into putting in a good word for me.”

My father never forgave IrvingThalberg’s desertion’ to MGM in 1923, plus his refusal to marry my sister Rosebelle, made him furious. To top things off Lon Chaney, who would only sign for one picture at a time with Universal; also left for MGM after he finished The Phantom of the Opera for us in 1924. By 1928 my father had gone through so many production managers that he gave up and gave me a chance. Even before I finally had some say in the production our motion pictures, I used to travel to New York City and see as many Broadway plays as possible.

I’m not sure if I saw Bela Lugosi in the play of Dracula or not but I was most excited about Showboat. I might have been in charge of production by that time, but my father resisted any type of change. He didn’t want to make talking pictures, he didn’t want to make costly pictures such as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. All that he wanted was to make his westerns and slapstick comedies. He was stubborn when it came to movies based on books or plays. The Man Who Laughshad orchestra disc’s and some sound effects, but he already owned the film rights, which he had bought for a Chaney vehicle; and he could use the same sets as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), so he saved money there and allowed the film to be released with a sound track on RCA discs (The Man who Laughs-ed.) In order to bring Universal into the talkie era, I had to con William Fox into letting us use one of his “ Sound Trucks”, a converted Bakery truck. I told him that I wanted to convince my father to use his Fox Movietone system rather than the RCA discs system where the sound was on records made back in New Jersey. As soon as the Fox crew left we had Walter Pidgeon and Mildred Harris, the stars - as well as Archie Health, who was the director standing bye and started non stop shooting right away. We called the picture Melody of Love (1928-ed.) and it did a good box-office so I finally won over my father. But we stuck with the RCA system all the way up to the early 30s. I think The Mummy (1932-ed.) was the last before we went sound on film.

I reminded my father about DraculaandShowboatbut he told me no to Showboat but he would buy the rights to Dracula if I could get Lon Chaney to play the lead. I remember him saying, ‘ It’s about time he came home. Here he made masterpieces, vat is it he does at MGM - the same film over and over. De old man loves the young chickie, he gets deformed, tinks the girl will vant him and da da young hero gets the girl, Chaney gets bubkis.’

But my dream of signing Chaney never came true. He died in 1930 about the time we almost had the script ready for him.

After I won my Academy Award TM All Quiet on the Western Front we went on to success with the monster films Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy I wanted to make sequels to all of them. I wanted James Whale to direct them both and in 1933 we announced The Return of Frankenstein and Dracula’s Daughter as well as Boris Karloff in The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man. That one [The Wolfman-ed.] was suppose to be directed by Robert Florey and he had already written the story.

I liked the work of John Balderston. He not only wrote the treatments for the big titles but he also wrote

Carl Laemmle Jr., looking all the more a movie mogul with Ida Lupino a play on Frankenstein. So I started him on the treatments for both pictures. The Frankenstein sequel and the Dracula sequel. But Jimmy didn’t want to do either one. We shared our circle of friends and even off time I couldn’t convince him. He finally agreed, while all the time I was having scripts prepared. We didn’t want any trouble with the writer of Dracula’s widow, but found out that David O. Selznick had already bought a short story published after Bram Stoker had died called “Dracula’s Guest”. Selznick called the title ‘Tarantula . We bought it from him but I never read either the story or Selznick’s treatment for MGM, but had R.C. Sherriff lined up since he did such a great job with The Invisible Man for Jimmy (Whale) that same year (1933-ed.)

James finally gave in on The Return of Frankenstein which after all the scripts turned in he changed the name to Bride of Frankenstein and as far as I was concerned we were going to start the Dracula sequel immediately after the Frankenstein picture. Jimmy wouldn’t do it. He stalled, made outrageous demands and almost ruined our friendship. So I gave in and let him do his romances and Showboat. A year went by and Lugosi left the lot to make pictures elsewhere, and in 1936 my father lost on a gamble and our studio was sold out from under us. I went to MGM for a short time but it just didn’t work out. When Universal Pictures Corporation finally made the film - it was nothing like I had envisioned - different script - different cast and different executives.

Carl Laemmle Jr -1971

Dust Jacket for the original 1914 Routledge 1st edition

Dracula’s Guest was published by Bram stoker’s Widow Florence, 2 years after Stoker had died. It has not been made clear if it was an excised chapter or the original first chapter of Dracula. We present it now with the original punctuation of the first edition of 1914.

When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer. Just as we were about to depart, Herr Delbrück (the maitre d’hôtel of the Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down, bareheaded, to the carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door:

“ Remember you are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright but there is a shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But I am sure you will not be late.” Here he smiled, and added, “ for you know what night it is.”

Johann answered with an emphatic, “ Ja, mein Herr,” and, touching his hat, drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said, after signalling to him to stop:

“ Tell me, Johann, what is to-night?”
He crossed himself, as he answered laconically: “ Walpurgis nacht.” Then he took out his watch,
a great, old-fashioned German silver thing as big as a turnip. and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders, I realized that it was his way of respectfully protesting against the unnecessary delay, and sank back in the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed. He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost time. Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up their heads and sniffed the air suspiciously. On such occasions I often looked round in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of high, wind-swept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that looked but little used, and which seemed to dip through a little winding valley. It looked so inviting that even the risk of offending him, I called Johann to stop — and when he had pulled up, I told him I would like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of excuses, and frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly, and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest. Finally I said:

“ Well, Johann, I want to go down this road. I shall not ask you to come unless you like: but tell me why you do not like to go, that is all I ask.”

For answer he seemed to throw himself off the box, so quickly did he reach the ground. Then he stretched out his hands appealing to me, and implored me not to go. There was just enough of English mixed with the German for me to understand the drift of his talk. He seemed always just about to tell me something— the very idea of which evidently frightened him; but each time he pulled himself up, saying, as he crossed himself:

“ Walpurgis-Nacht!”

I tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to argue with a man when I did not know his language. The advantage certainly rested with him, for although he began to speak in English, a very crude and broken kind, he always got excited and broke into his native tongue— and every time he did so , he looked at his watch. Then the horses became restless and sniffed the air. At this he grew very pale, and, looking around in a frightened way, he suddenly jumped forward, took them by the bridles and led them on some twenty feet. I followed, and asked why he had done this. For answer he crossed himself, pointed to the spot we had left and drew his carriage in the direction of the other road, indicating a cross, and said, first in German, then in English:

“ Buried him— him what killed themselves.”

I remembered the old custom of burying suicides at cross-roads: “Ah ! I see, a suicide. How interesting!” But for the life of me I could not make out why the horses were frightened.

Whilst we were talking, we heard a sort of sound between a yelp and a bark. It was far away; but the horses got very restless, and it took Johann all his time to quiet them. He was pale, and said: “It sounds like a wolf—but yet there are no wolves here now.”

“ No? ” I said, questioning him ; “Isn’t it long since the wolves were so near the city? ”
“ Long, long, ” he answered, “ in the spring and summer; but with the snow the wolves have been here not so long.”
Whilst he was petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark clouds drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind seemed to drift past us. It was only a breath, however, and more in the nature of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly again. Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and said:
“ The storm of now, he comes before long time.” Then he looked at his watch again, and, straightway holding his reins firmly— for the horses were still pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their heads— he climbed to his box as though the time had come for proceeding on our journey.
I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.
“ Tell me,” I said, “ about this place where the road leads,” and pointed down.
Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer, before he answered: “ It is unholy.”
“ What is unholy? ” I enquired.
“ The village”
“ Then there is a village?”
“ No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years.”
My curiosity was piqued: “But you said there was a village.”
“ There was.”
“ Where is it now?”
Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said, but roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in their graves; and sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy with life, and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls!— and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other places where the living lived, and the dead were dead and not— not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear—whitefaced, perspiring, trembling and looking round him, as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain. Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried :
“ Walpurgis nacht! ” and pointed to the carriage for me to get in. All my English blood rose at this, and, standing back, I said:
“ You are afraid, Johann— you are afraid. Go home ; I shall return alone ; the walk will do me good.” The carriage door was open. I took from the seat my oak walking-stick— which I always carry on my holiday excursions—and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said, “Go home, Johann— Walpurgis-nacht doesn’t concern Englishmen.”
The horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying to hold them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so foolish. I pitied the poor fellow, he was so deeply in earnest; but all the same I could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In his anxiety he had forgotten that his only means of making me understand was to talk my language, so he jabbered away in his native German. It began to be a little tedious. After giving the direction, “ Home!” I turned to go down the cross-road into the valley.
With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards Munich. I leaned on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly along the road for a while : then there came over the crest of the hill a man tall and thin. I could see so much in the distance. When he drew near the horses they began to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror. Johann could not hold them in ; they bolted down the road, running away madly. I watched them out of sight, then looked for the stranger, but I found that he, too, was gone.
With a light heart I turned down the side road through the deepening valley to which Johann had objected. There was not the slightest reason, that I could see, for his objection ; and I daresay I tramped for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance, and certainly without seeing a person or a house. So far as the place was concerned, it was desolation itself. But I did not notice this particularly till on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a scattered fringe of wood ; then I recognized that I had been impressed unconsciously by the desolation of the region through which I had passed.
I sat down to rest myself, and began to look around. It struck me that it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my walk— a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me, with now and then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed that great thick clouds were drifting rapidly across the sky from North to South at a great height. There were signs of coming storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and, thinking that it was the sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed my journey.
The ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There were no striking objects that the eye might single out ; but in all there was a charm of beauty. I took little heed of time and it was only when the deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began to think of how I should find my way home. The brightness of the day had gone. The air was cold, and the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked. They were accompanied by a sort of far-away rushing sound, through which seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I would see the deserted village, so on I went, and presently came on a wide stretch of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were covered with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting, in clumps, the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed with my eye the winding of the road, and saw that it curved close to one of the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it.
As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow began to fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed, and then hurried on to seek the shelter of the wood in front. Darker and darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell the snow, til the earth before and around me was a glistening white carpet the further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude, and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked, as when it passed through the cuttings ; and in a little while I found that I must have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and blew with ever increasing force, til I was fain to run before it. The air became icy-cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The snow was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I could see ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress all heavily coated with snow.
I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative silence, I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away: it now only came in fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.
Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a straggling ray of moonlight, which lit up the expanse, and showed me that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As the snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began to investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many old foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing a house in which, through in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall encircled it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked ; but there was hope of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on.
I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had passed ; and, perhaps in sympathy with nature’s silence, my heart seemed to cease to beat. But this was only momentarily ; for suddenly the moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that I was in a graveyard, and that the square object before me was a great massive tomb of marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it. With the moonlight there came a fierce sigh of the storm, which appeared to resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs or wolves. I was awed and shocked, and felt the cold perceptibly grow upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then while the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave further evidence of renewing, as though it was returning on its track. Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German—

COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH 1801
On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through
the solid marble— for the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone— was a great iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great Russian letters:

“The dead travel fast.”

There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the first time, that I had taken Johann’s advice. Here a thought struck me which came under almost mysterious circumstances and with a terrible shock. This was Walpurgis Night!

Walpurgis Night, when according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad— when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned. This was the depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay ; and this was the place where I was alone—unmanned, shivering with cold in a shroud of snow with a wild storm gathering again upon me! It took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught, all my courage, not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright.

And now a perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as though thousands of horses thundered across it ; and this time the storm bore on its icy wings, not snow, but great hailstones which drove with such violence that they might have come from the thongs of Balearic slingers—hailstones that beat down leaf and branch and made the shelter of the cypresses of no more avail than though their stems were standing-corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree ; but I was soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot that seemed to afford refuge, the deep Doric doorway of the marble tomb. There, crouching against the massive bronze-door, I gained a certain amount of protection from the beating of the hail-stones, for now they only drove against me as they ricochetted from the ground and the side of the marble.

As I leaned against the door, it moved slightly and opened inwards. The shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest, and I was about to enter it when there came a flash of forked-lightning that lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a living man, I saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier. As the thunder broke overhead, I was grasped as by the hand of a giant and hurled out into the storm. The whole thing was so sudden that, before I could realize the shock, moral as well as physical, I found the hailstones beating me down. At the same time I had a strange, dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb. Just then there came another blinding flash, which seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted the tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and crumbling the marble, as in a burst of flame. The dead woman rose for a moment of agony, while she was lapped in the flame, and her bitter scream of pain was drowned in the thundercrash. The last thing I heard was the mingling of dreadful sound, as again I was seized in the giant-grasp and dragged away, while the hailstones beat on me, and the air around seemed reverberant with the howling of wolves. The last sight that I remembered was a vague, white, moving mass, as if all the graves around me had sent out the phantoms of their sheeted-dead, and that they were closing in on me through the white cloudiness of driving hail.

* * * * *

Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness ; then a sense of weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered nothing ; but slowly my senses returned. They seemed positively racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck and all down my spine, and my ears, like my feet, were dead, yet in torment ; but there was in my breast a sense of warmth which was, by comparison, delicious. It was as a nightmare— a physical nightmare, if one may use such an expression; for some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult for me to breathe.

This period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as it faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing, like the first stage of seasickness, and a wild desire to be free from something—I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or dead—only broken by the low panting as of some animal close to me. I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some great animal was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared to stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still ; but the brute seemed to realize that there was now some change in me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel its hot breath fierce and acrid upon me.

For another spell of time I remembered no more. Then I became conscious of a low growl, followed by a yelp, renewed again and again. Then, seemingly very far away, I heard a “ Holloa! holloa! ” as of many voices calling in unison. Cautiously I raised my head and looked in the direction whence the sound came; but the cemetery blocked my view. The wolf still continued to yelp in a strange way, and a red glare began to move round the grove of cypresses, as though following the sound. As the voices drew closer, the wolf yelped faster and louder., I feared to make either sound or motion. Nearer came the red glow, over the white pall which stretched into the darkness around me. Then all at once from beyond the trees there came at a trot a troop of horsemen bearing torches. The wolf rose from my breast and made for the cemetery. I saw one of the horsemen (soldiers by their caps and their long military cloaks) raise his car bine and take aim. A companion knocked up his arm, and I heard the ball whizz over my head.
He had evidently taken my body for that of the wolf.

Another sighted the animal as it slunk away, and a shot followed. Then, at a gallop, the troop rode forward— some towards me, others following the wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow-clad cypresses.

As they drew nearer I tried to move, but was powerless, although I could see and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the soldiers jumped from the horses and knelt beside me. One of them raised my head, and placed his hand over my heart.

“ Good news, comrades!” he cried. “His heart still beats!”
Then some brandy was poured down my throat ; it put vigour into me, and I was able to open my eyes fully and look around. Lights and shadows were moving among the trees, and I heard men call to one another. They drew together, uttering frightened exclamations; and the lights flashed as the others came pouring out of the cemetery pell-mell, like men possessed. When the further ones came close to us, those who were around me asked them eagerly:
“ Well, have you found him?”
The reply rang out hurriedly:
“ No ! no ! Come away quick— quick! This is no place to stay, and on this of all nights! ”
“ What was it? ” was the question, asked in all manner of keys. The answer came variously and all indefinitely as though the men were moved by some common impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some common fear from giving their thoughts.
“ It— it— indeed! ” gibbered one, whose wits had plainly given out for the moment.
“A wolf— and yet not a wolf! ” another put in shudderingly.
“ No use trying for him without the sacred bullet,” a third remarked in a more ordinary manner.
“ Serve us right for coming out on this night! Truly we have earned our thousand marks! ” were the ejaculations of a fourth.
“ There was blood on the broken marble, ” another said after a pause—“ the lightning never brought that there. And for him— is he safe? Look at his throat! See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and keeping his blood warm.”
The officer looked at my throat and replied:
“ He is all right ; the skin is not pierced. What does it all mean? We should never have found him but for the yelping of the wolf.”
“ What became of it? ” asked the man who was holding up my head, and who seemed the least panic-stricken of the party, for his hands were steady and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty officer.
“ It went to its home,” answered the man, whose long face was pallid, and who actually shook with terror as he glanced around him fearfully. “ There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come, comrades—come quickly! Let us leave this cursed spot. ”
The officer raised me to a sitting posture, as he uttered a word of command; then several men placed me upon a horse. He sprang to the saddle behind me, took me in his arms, gave the word to advance ; and, turning our faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift, military order.
As yet my tongue refused its office, and I was perforce silent. I must have fallen asleep ; for the next thing I remembered was finding myself standing up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It was almost broad daylight, and to the north a red streak of sunlight was reflected, like a path of blood, over the waste of snow. The officer was telling the men to say nothing of what they had seen, except that they found an English stranger, guarded by a large dog.
“ Dog! that was no dog, ” cut in the man who had exhibited such fear. “ I think I know a wolf when I see one.”
The young officer answered calmly : “ I said a dog.”
“ Dog !” reiterated the other ironically. It was evident that his courage was rising with the sun ; and, pointing to me, he said, “ Look at his throat. Is that the work of a dog, master? ”
Instinctively I raised my hand to my throat , and as I touched it I cried out in pain. The men crowded round to look, some stooping down from their saddles ; and again there came the calm voice of the young officer:
“A dog as I said. If aught else were said we should only be laughed at.”
I was then mounted behind a trooper, and we rode on into the suburbs of Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage, into which I was lifted, and it was driven off to Quatre Saisons — the young officer accompanying me, whilst a trooper followed with his horse, and the others rode off to their barracks.
When we arrived Herr Delbrück rushed so quickly down the steps to meet me, that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me by both hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and was turning to withdraw, when I recognized his purpose, and insisted that he should come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked him and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he was more than glad, Herr Delbrück, had taken the first steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which ambiguous utterance the maitre d’hotel smiled, while the officer pleaded duty and withdrew
. “ But Herr Delbrück,” I enquired, “ how and why was it that the soldiers searched for me ?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed, as he replied :
I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the commander of the regiment in which I served, to ask for volunteers.”
“ But how did you know I was lost?” I asked.
“ The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had been upset when the horses ran away.”
“ But surely you would not send a search-party of soldiers merely on this account?”
“ Oh No! he answered ; “ but even before the coachman arrived, I had this telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are,” and he took from his pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:
BISTRITZ.
“ Be careful of my guest- his safety is most precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with my fortune.— Dracula.”

As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me; if the attentive maitre d’hotel had not caught me, I think I should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine that there grew on me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces — the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyze me. I was certainly under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.

THE END

Bram Stoker, Author of Dracula & Dracula’s Guest

Florence Stoker

Next the project went on to the treatment or synopsis form, necessary for a guideline for the writer(s) of the first draft shooting script. It is not known if the following treatment by John L. Balderston was written for David O’ Selznick who had bought the rights of “Dracula’s Guest” from Florence Stoker, (Bram’s widow) or for Carl Laemmle Jr. after he purchased it from Selznick. At MGM only a one page document exists.

John L. Balderston

John L Balderston was born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania on October 22, 1889. He began his career as a journalist in 1912 as a correspondent forThe Philadelphia Record while still a student at Columbia University.

From 1914-1918 he became a European war correspondent during World War 1 for the McClure Newspaper Syndicate. After the War he stayed in England as director of information for The U.S. Committee on Public Information. After the war he became the Editor for Outlook magazine, while continuing his free-lance work for the New York World as head of their London bureau.

In 1922, he was present at the discovery of the tomb of Tutankamun in the Valley of the Kings. With his success as a reporter for the London Press he settled in London and tried his hand as a playwright.

In 1926 he had his first success as a playwright with Berkeley Square, which he wrote with Jack Squire, the editor of The London Mercury.

The plot of this play involved a young, creative man who is transported back in time where he meets and falls in love with one of his ancestors. The bizarre twists of the play attracted the attention of Horace Liveright.

In 1927 Liveright hired him to adapt the play for the American audiences. It turned into a massive rewrite of the flowery and over-theatrical dialog of Hamilton Deane’s original play. The play’s scenes remained the same but the dialog modernized to make it more believable for the American audiences.

“ Dracula” , starring Bela Lugosi was an immediate hit with the Broadway audiences. Lugosi would be replaced by Raymond Huntley (Who also played the part in the touring company around the U.S.A.).

Balderston’s next hit was the American version of “Berkeley” Square in 1929.
He was quickly hired by Universal Pictures Corporation who bought the rights to his play version of “Dracula”.
Made at the beginning of the depression, the final film resembles more the stage production than the original novel which was felt by Laemmle Jr. as too expensive to produce. But in the transition from Balderston’s play to screen Garrett Fort was given final screen credit.
His next project for Universal was to write a play version of “Frankenstein”.
Peggy Webling had written the London Hamilton Deane 1927 production based on the book by Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” published in 1818. This time Laemmle Jr. thought his treatment made the film” too modern”. (Frankenstein got his electric power by tapping into the local electric lines).
After a change of directors and several scripts being written (including one by John Huston) Garrett Fort again got screen credit for the work he and Robert Florey did on the first draft screenplay.
His next assignment was another Karloff vehicle called Cagliostro, based on the 18th Century Italian alchemist.
Again Laemmle Jr felt the treatments were too modern; more science fiction than horror, so the project was turned over to Nina Wilcox Putnum and became “The Mummy” released in 1932.
Next Balderston worked on the Motion Picture version of Berkeley Square, which starred a young Leslie Howard as Peter Standish the time traveller. This was followed very closely with treatments by Balderston for sequels to both his hits Dracula and Frankenstein; both to be directed by James Whale in 1934. Bride of Frankenstein 1935 was released with great financial and commercial success but Dracula’s Daughter was shelved when Lugosi left Universal. Although other writers received screen credit for the Golden Age Monster films, Balderston was the heart of each production.
His writing earned him several Academy nominations and he finally won his Academy AwardTMfor George Cukor’s chilling Gaslight in 1944.
Balderston died in Los Angeles on March 8, 1954 but left behind a great legacy with films of all genres.
Filmscripts by John Balderston: Dracula Frankenstein (1931); The Mummy (1932); Berkeley Square (1933); Mad Love, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Lives of the Bengal Lancers, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935); Beloved Enemy, The Last of the Mohicans, The Man Who Lived Again (1936); The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) Little old New York, Victory (1940) Scotland Yard, Smilin’ Through (1941); Stand By for Action, Tennessee Johnson (1942); Gaslight (1944); Red Planet Mars, I’ll Never Forget

Buda Pest and London January 1934
DRACULA’S DAUGHTER”
Treatment by John L. Balderston
_____
The action divides naturally into three main parts: I. Castle Dracula, in the wilds of Transylvania II. The Female Monster in and about London III. Her flight and pursuit. Castle Dracula again.

NOTE: This picture is conceived as a sequel to “DRACULA”. The plot and action follow naturally and plausibly from the close of the film “DRACULA”, where the male Vampire was destroyed in the cellar of an English suburban house. Many of the characters are the same.

We must at the same time build a picture whose plot is crystal clear to those who did not see the original film. In the following sketched treatment the necessary exposition to make everything clear is provided for, although to keep this present treatment brief and simple I confine it only to essentials.

____

Dracula lived for centuries, dead in his coffin by day, a prowling horror by night, who drank the blood of women by biting their throats. Those whose bodies he thus drained of blood became like him after death, unclean things of darkness. With Dracula destroyed in the original film, our present film deals with the female vampire left in and around Castle Dracula, still active, and, in particular, with DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, who after her father’s destruction becomes the head of the vampire world, whose exploits and final fate form the subject of this sequel.

My arbitrary division of this new film into three parts is intended to call attention to the fact that in Part Three, if this picture is to top the original DRACULA, the tempo must grow faster, the excitement and tension increase.

In the three horror pictures with which I was associated as original playwright, or scenarist - DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN and THE MUMMY, the last one third of each dropped badly. Frankenstein not so much, Dracula and The Mummy terribly. In the case of DRACULA this was due to being behind schedule and financial pressure, I am told. I divide this into three parts merely to stress the vital importance of Part Three. Part One is introductory, sets the horror theme, raises goose-flesh, makes the audience believe in the Female Monster in London, Part Two carries us along and keeps up the interest, but Part Three must top everything or this whole scheme breaks down, as the film DRACULA narrowly escaped doing at the end.
THE MAIN IDEA

The use of a female Vampire instead of male gives us the chance to play up SEX and CRUELTY legitimately. In DRACULA these had to be almost eliminated, because too horrible and unpleasant if added to the blood-sucking of women by a malemonster.

While using the same general vampire formula as in the book, play, and film of DRACULA, we profit by making DRACULA’S DAUGHTER amorous of her victims. . . . . . .the seduction of young men will be tolerated whereas we had to eliminate seduction of girls from the original as obviously censorable.

Moreover, and I stress this point because it’s unusual and I think very good, why should Cecil de Mille have a monopoly of the great box office value of torture and cruelty in pictures of ancient Rome, etc.? I want, especially in Part Two, to establish the fact that Dracula’s Daughter enjoys torturing her male victims. . . and that these men under her spell rather like it. The censors will stand this provided it is done by suggestion and it gives us a big box office value that we lacked before. It is in character for her . . . She must have their blood, but she can get it in other ways than merely biting their necks. . . I want to see for instance her loathsome deaf mute servants carry into her boudoir in Part Two savage looking whips, chains, straps, etc., and hear the cries of the tortured victims without ever seeing exactly what happens. We had none of this sort of thing in the original DRACULA. I feel sure that so long as it is a woman torturing men the thing is not too unendurable, as it would have been had the man Dracula so treated his female victims, and I stress the fact that to put this film over we must rack the nerves of our audiences more than in previous horror films.

The suggestion too that in her horrible ways our female monster is really in love with our hero is a new twist, as is his passion for her, overcome in the end through the holy and beautiful love of his virginal fiancee who triumphs at the final fadeout.
MAIN CHARACTERS

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, the female vampire, who masquerades in London as the Transylvanian Countess Szekeley.
LORD EDWARD WADHURST, “Ned”, the hero, handsome and rich young Englishman who becomes the victim of the Countess.

HELEN SWAYTHLING, Wadhurst’s beautiful and immaculate fiancee, who sticks to him throughout, and fights the powers of darkness that have control of her lover.

MINA HARKER and JOHN HARKER, now married. These two were the hero and heroine of DRACULA. Mina is the girl who was rescued from Dracula in that film, and these join in the attempt to stamp out the female vampires when they find out that Dracula’s wives and daughter still continue to prey on living victims after Dracula’s death.

PROFESSOR VAN HELSING, the Dutch savant, whose occult knowledge and courage led to Dracula’s destruction, and who in this film continues his crusade to stamp out the vampire, DRACULA kind. His friend and co-worker DR. SEWARD, another character, who joins with the Harkers and van Helsing in their terrible task.

CHESTER MORRIS, a young American, friend and shooting companion of Wadhurst, who links up with the others in their crusade against Dracula’s Daughter

***** PART ONE
Mainly in and about Castle Dracula in Transylvania
___

We open with the last shot of the film Dracula, in the cellars of Carfax Abbey near London. The dead lunatic Renfield lies on the floor, John Harker is hammering the stake into the coffin in which lies the sleeping vampire Dracula. We hear his death scream. Mina embraces her lover John, the curse is removed and a happy ending seems reached. We only want a few feet of this.

The next scene is between Professor van Helsing and Dr. Seward, in Seward’s office. In this we get the necessary exposition for those who don’t know or have forgotten DRACULA, and set the stage for our dissolve in Transylvania. Seward is happy. Mina and John are to be married the next day. He and
van Helsing are going to the wedding. In a few words he recalls the horrors they have been through, Dracula’s murders of Lucy and Renfield, his attacks on Mina, their triumph over him. But what’s the matter? he asks the grim and silent van Helsing. Our task has only begun, says van Helsing. Have you forgotten how Dracula talked of his “wives” in his ruined castle Dracula in the wilds of Transylvania? They are vampires too. They will continue to rise from their tomb at night to drink the blood of the living and make more victims who will join the vampire kind after death . . . . and so van Helsing convinces Seward that it is their duty to go to Castle Dracula, find the tombs of the female vampires and end their existence as Dracula’s was ended, by driving stakes through their bodies and performing holy rites. But Mina and John are not to know. They have suffered enough; let them marry and be happy in their love. Seward agrees.

Dissolve to a wild rustic scene, a path in Transylvania, by day. Two peasants are looking off, obviously terribly afraid; they cross themselves, mumble a prayer and turn away as we cut to what they are watching - a long shot of the ruined Castle Dracula on its inaccessible mountain peak. This long shot can be taken from the film DRACULA. We dissolve to an Inn in the village nearest to Dracula’s mountain. A griefstricken mother is telling that her baby has been stolen, a wife complains that her young husband has disappeared. There is a gendarme, and terrorized peasants. They all murmur of vanpires and Castle Dracula. There is no proof, however; the gendarme says the castle was searched after previous complaints and found uninhabited for centuries. Now from the smoke-filled background of the low-ceilinged Inn van Helsing and Seward emerge. The others draw away from these foreigners, but van Helsing promises the bereaved wife, and the mother of the missing baby. that while he can do nothing for them, these horrors shall cease in future.

Another establishing shot of Castle Dracula, by moonlight. . . We go inside, the shapes of three women gradually take form, then a fourth woman enters, indistinctly seen, and tosses contemptuously to the other three a bag containing something that squirms. The suggestion in that this contains the missing baby, through this is not said. Now in silvery, metallic voices, the words barely heard, the first three women protest. . . ”We want love as well as drink - love, give us love - you keep that for yourself, men young men . . . “ The fourth figure is furious and lashes with a long whip at the first three, who draw back with squeals of terror, while the fourth woman (she is DRACULA’S DAUGHTER) says she is their mistress while the master is away in England, they are only his paramours, she is his daughter, and they’ll take what she brings them and be thankful. “ What right have my father’s women to talk of love? You are to be faithful to him “ They know she’s going to join her father in England, she laughs, then they do what they like. They fall on their knees and start horibly fighting over the bag.

Dissolve into small room in castle, still moonlight. A frantic handsome strapping young peasant, husband of the woman who complained in the Inn that he was missing, is prisoner there; he rattles the locked door, screams for release, then sinks in despair by the barred window.

Door opens, Dracula’s Daughter enters. We still haven’t seen her clearly. She laughs, low and melodiously. The peasant is horrified. On his knees, shrinking back against the wall, he mumbles prayers. “Come to me, my lover,” she murmurs, and now she turns savage and strikes him two or three times with the same long whip. He crawls towards her on his knees. Now we see her face in the moonlight and she sinks to the floor.

Unearthly, satanic beauty. He is conquered, he crawls to her feet to embrace her, murmuring only - “Don’t take my blood more blood”, and she smiles as she murmurs - “Blood is the life.”

Dissolve to van Helsing and Seward approaching Castle Dracula by daylight. Seward is in a funk, van Helsing explains there’s no danger by day, for vampires must sleep in their graves from sunrise to sunset. Their task is to find them while they are helpless and destroy them. Show as much as wanted of the two men searching the ruined Castle. They break in a locked door. There is the young peasant, dead. Van Helsing examines him. He is drained of blood. They go on searching and find the Chapel of the Castle where are the ruined tombs of the long dead Draculas, including the tomb of Dracula himself, which of course is empty. They begin opening coffins. The first two contain only dust and bones, but now they find a coffin containing a beautiful woman, apparently asleep. They drive a stake through her heart, she screams and dissolves to dust. They find the coffins of the other two Dracula’s brides and repeat the process. “Did you notice the look of peace on their faces just before they dissolved into dust?” Seward asks. The two men think they have finished their job,. They only know of the three brides whom Dracula mentioned - they don’t realize. . . as the audience doesn’t. . .that another more dangerous female vampire, Dracula’s daughter, remains undiscovered, and they think they can return to England happy having cleansed Castle Dracula and ended its horrors

**** PART TWO

The dance floor of a fashionable London hotel. Handsome young man and beautiful girl stop dancing, go to alcove table in the corner. Short Idyllic love scene; they have eyes only for each other. He tells her how lovely she is and we gather they are soon to be married. We cut to Dracula’s Daughter, who comes in with three young men. All eyes are on her, there is a general whisper of gossip, and coming back to our two lovers, the boy tells the girl that the woman is the Countess Szekeley from Hungary. Men are crazy about her, and there are queer stories . . . she’s a mystery, only comes out at night, never seen in daytime. The girl says the young men with her look like dope fiends. Such white faces. ”That’s odd,” says the boy, “for I know two of them. . .sportsmen, ride to hounds, can’t think what’s the matter with them.”

We cut to the Countess, who has her eye on the boy and girl. Who are they? Her escorts tell her they are the young Lord Wadhurst and his fiancee Helen Swaythling, engaged, madly in love. She wants to meet Wadhurst. ”Bring him over.” the Countess orders, “bring them both over.” The parties join. Wadhurst is from the first strangely fascinated. He dances with the Countess. Helen watches them with troubled eyes.

We dissolve to the interior of the female vampire’s London establishment where she satisfies her strange lusts and saps the blood of her victims. Her servants are all deaf mutes, Arabs or gypsies. We get hints of the horrors that go on rather that actually see them. They will thus seem more horrible and at the same time be more difficult to censor. In this scene she is playing cat and mouse fashion with a pallid young man, a wreck of his former manly self. He is her abject slave and crawls at her feet while she laughs at him. She sends him to her boudoir; perhaps we seen an evil-looking deaf mute carrying whips and straps in after him, when Lord Wadhurst is announced. The vampire Countess drops whatever her schemes were for amusing herself with the other young man and orders Wadhurst admitted.

He enters, fascinated but afraid and ashamed, and they play a strange scene in which she tempts him and he yields. She half promises him strange delights such as can only come to men through her - unknown and mysterious, and we see him weaken as his pure love for Helen is driven out of mind by this friend.

The cage of a ferocious timber wolf at the Zoo, as soon after sunset. we plant what a dangerous animal it is, if possible it bares its fangs at some ordinary visitors, them when there’s nobody near the cage Dracula’s Daughter strolls up. The wolf seems to know her and obey her. It crouches obediently before her. She speaks to it in low voice and strange language. It listens. (Note: We shall, of course, have already planted two old Dracula props, that a vampire during the hours of darkness can inhabit the form of a wolf or bat.)
We dissolve to the broken cage, next day, and guards discussing how the animal got out organizing a search for it.

Dissolve to Dr., Seward’s study. Harker and his wife, Mina, are there. Seward is telling them that he sent from them to meet van Helsing who is due on the night train from Holland, at any moment. Seward wired for van Helsing. Seward is almost in collapse. They are all upset, for he is telling them he has examined the body of one young man who recently died of “anaemia” and found the fatal teeth marks, as well as mysterious scars that look like whips and torture - and that he is having the body of another youth who also died of “anaemia” exhumed because they were both lovers of the now notorious Countess Szekeley. If as he excepts the same wounds are found, this woman is a vampire, and he has learned she comes from Transylvania, where Dracula came from.

While he is talking, we dissolve outside his house. Van Helsing is just coming up to the garden gate from the train; when his taxi pulls away, he is upset by the escaped wolf. We next see him being helped in to the house, uninjured except for shock. He carries always his old weapons against Dracula, he explains - wolfbane, the herb which vampires cannot stand, and the crucifix, which they also fear. Clearly this woman is a vampire, van Helsing agrees, she goes after men as Dracula went after women, and moreover this attack looks as though she had some connection with Dracula and was trying to avenge his death on the man responsible.

An American, Chester Morris, comes in. Seward has sent for him because Seward has learned that he is an intimate friend of Lord Edward Wadhust, known to be a lover of the Countess. They say nothing of vampires at first. Morris is furious at Wadhurst because of the suffering he is inflicting on young fiancee Helen Swaythling, whom it is evident Morris also loves. Van Helsing tells Morris Wadhurst can’t help himself, and hints that Morris is in the clutches of the powers of dark, which Morris pooh-poohs. However, he promises to help, to do anything if it will help poor Helen, who is broken-hearted.

We dissolve to a day scene of the same group van Helsing, Seward, the Harkers, and Morris. They have a newspaper which tells how the escaped wolf tore a man’s throat out in the street, ad then strangely returned meekly to it’s cage in the Zoo. We gather Morris had discovered that the “Countess” has closed her London place and disappeared and van Helsing has sent for Lord Wadhurst as the one hope of finding where she is. Helen Swaythling has been sent for also, though Morris doesn’t understand why, and the two lovers are now in another room, for Helen has asked to see her fiance alone.

We play a scene between Lord Ned and Helen. “Why are you so pale?” she asks him, and we see the operation of the vampire have already drained his blood. He is brokenhearted, he is on his knees before her, he says the woman is a devil, he can’t explain what she does to him, but he’s unclean and un worthy of a pure girl like Helen. . . But she shows him she stills loves him and we see that with his normal mind and soul he loves her. He promises never to see the Countess again if Helen will forgive him.

Van Helsing now appears and tells them that Ned is in the hands of a vampire, he will die like those other men if she keeps hold of him, and lose his soul as well as his life, for after death he will be joined to her and be a vampire himself. Helen cries out in horror and unbelief at this - but Ned knows from experiences he has had with the Countess that it is true. He swears to help them seek out the Countess and destroy her, and even van Helsing says he must be used as bait, otherwise they can’t find her. “She will call you to herself,” van Helsing says.

There is a struggle in the next few scenes between Ned’s love for Helen and hatred for the vampire, and the unclean hold the thing has over him and which she exercises by telepathy. Van Helsing sees that the vampire really loves in her own foul way this boy, otherwise she would drop him and seek other victims, for she knows wherever she is that he is in cooperation with the same group that killed her father, Dracula, and that there is danger for her.

By an overpowering impulse Ned is led to an old country house, the Countess’ hideout, the others coming with him; half the time he is eagerly cooperating with them, the other half, under the vampire’s influence, he gives them the slip. They watch him, unknown to him.

We play touching scene with his fiancee in which she tries to shield him from evil that has him in its grip by placing a crucifix on his brow and the sacred emblem nears a scar on his forehead that he wears until his redemption at the end of the picture. He is half a vampire already and van

Helsing guards Helen against this, fearing he may try to drink her blood when the vampire influence is in him.

At length, van Helsing discovers what he has been seeking, where the Countess goes during the hours of daylight when she must become a corpse again and rest in a coffin in consecrated ground. She is using a coffin in an old-fashioned vault in an English country churchyard and plans are laid to go there during the day and drive a stake through her heart. These plans are kept from Ned because van Helsing and Seward know he would warn the vampire, but he listens at a door and finds out, and sneaks to the churchyard just before sunrise when he knows she will return to her coffin. She returns a white wraith gliding through the yews and they meet at the door of the vault. They play a strange and terrible love scene here: she tells him he is the only victim of hers she ever really loved, she will join her to him after his death and make him king of the undead as her father was - they will have centuries of life together. . . but dawn is approaching. The others are heard coming, she says she will find a safe resting place for that one day and then disappear and sleep for fifty years . . in a safe place where they can’t find her . . by drinking his blood she has made him like herself, and after his death, he’ll come to her, when van Helsing and those who know too much are dead too . . she flees away through the trees after a last kiss as the others come up, as the day starts to break. He looks at them in horror and realizing his treachery and his own doom, falls in a faint at the door of the vault.

We next show van Helsing in a war council . . some time later . . No trace has been found, he thinks she’s left the country, there’s only one chance left to destroy her and save Ned’s soul. Ned is brought in, full of remorse, with Helen who still loves him and whom he still loves with his normal soul, Van Helsing tells Ned his soul and the vampire’s are linked so by the mystic blood bond between them that possibly under hypnosis he can reach her and tell them under questions while hypnotized enough to give some hint as to where she is. Ned is eager to try, for except when with the vampire he is anxious for her destruction. The experiment is tried, and from his answers van Helsing and Seward recognize Castle Dracula and from the fully realize they must got there and seek their prey. When he recovers and learns what he had told them, Ned wants to go too. Helen cries out against this and the others think also it un wise for fear he will betray them again, but van Helsing says he must come because no one else can guide them to her resting place. Its not in the chapel of the Castle, for he and Seward searched that thoroughly when they destroyed the three vampire brides of Dracula.

***** Part Three
The Wilds of Transylvania Again

All our party are gathered at the Inn in the Transylvanian village a few miles from Castle Dracula. The peasants fear and avoid them and make signs against the evil eye, for they know they have been up around the Castle where all the Natives fear to go.

Nothing has been found. Hypnosis is no more good on poor Lord Ned. He doesn’t respond, and he’s clearly turning into a vampire himself. He sleeps all day and keeps lively and awake at night, and is guarded to prevent his escape if he should come under Dracula’s Daughter’s telepathic influence again.

We can find nothing by day - we must search at night says van Helsing. But at night, the others protest - vampires can come abroad, become wolves, and bats, destroy us in these wild mountains. Van Helsing says he has taken precaution against that, he doesn’t say what. He wants to go up near the Castle by night because he hopes the vampire’s hate may be greater than her fear - she may try to destroy her enemies and so expose herself.

Dissolve to wild mountain country, just before sunset. They have gone up by mountain trails, with two horses, and are pitching camp. The sun is setting. We see it set, and now the things of night have power . . but we see van Helsing marking a circle around the little camp where they are to sleep. What is it? He crosses himself. “I have a dispensation from the Cardinal.” Thus we gather , without mentioning it directly, that van Helsing is protecting them with the sacred wafer, the Host. (IMPORTANT NOTE: No use of the Host was made in the film DRACULA, probably because somebody was afraid it would offend Catholics. I used it in the play. It was the most effective thing we did, the play has been done thousands of times in the past seven years, in America and the British Empire, and I assure you no Catholic over protested. On the contrary they like it. The Cardinal of Chicago sat in a box and applauded. They like it because it proves the power of the Host over evil and is thus good Church propaganda.)

A moonlight shot shows Castle Dracula on its height. Bats come, seen in the firelight. Wolves howl. Their eyes are seen in a circle outside the sacred circle that they cannot cross. The horses whinny in terror. Van Helsing has brought handcuffs and at Lord Ned’s request he chains Ned to himself for fear the vampire in fluence should draw Ned outside the circle where they couldn’t help him. But the strain gets too much for poor Morris. He’s a huntsman, he has his rifle, he blazes away - - is answered by a howl from the wolves as they draw back, all but one big fellow. . . . . Morris steps forward to fire again; unseeing he steps across the sacred circle and as he fires and van Helsing with a cry jumps out to drag him back, the wolf has him down. . . They pull him in, his throat torn.
Next day, we see the sad company, Morris’ body covered with a sheet. The horses lie outside the sacred circle, dead from terror. Shall we go back? “No” shouts van Helsing, “our friend gave his life to end this horror. . .would he have us quit now?” Helen strongly seconds this. Van Helsing has an idea. We don’t get what it is, but he watches the weather closely, and speaks of a coming change. . . .Winter comes on early in the Carpathians. “I think it will snow before long.”

We dissolve to a night sheet, the party around the fire as before. They dispose themselves to sleep. “ What good is this,” Seward mutters,” since we can’t go out of the circle?” When the others are asleep, we see in a close shot, van Helsing very quietly, without Ned noticing it, unfasten the handcuff that chains Ned to him. Then van Helsing pretends to sleep. They are all asleep but Ned, who starts up as a bat flies just outside the circle. He gazes eagerly as the wolves howl softly, as though in greeting to a leader; and we see the big wolf that killed Morris sitting quietly just outside the circle, peering at Ned. Ned softly steps across the sleeping Helen and crosses the circle into the outer darkness.

We Lap Dissolve to show lapse of time, as we see him sneak back and lie down. It is snowing softly. We Disolve to daylight, van Helsing rises and gives a cry of triumph. Light snow has fallen during the night, and as he crouches down, we see Ned’s footsteps in the snow. Ned remembers nothing, but he has been with his vampire mistress, and where will his footsteps lead them. The party start out in daylight, Ned, half asleep, dragged along by Harker and Seward, van Helsing following the trail of footsteps like a hound.

The trail ends outside a lump of bushes under the battlements of the Castle. There seems to be nothing there, but the men brush aside the bushes and there is the door of a grave vault, built in the side of the hill. “This has recently been opened,” says Harker. Van Helsing orders Harker to keep Mina outside, and turns to tell Helen to stay outside, too. “No,” she cries . . . . she will go in with Ned. So Ned, now fully awake and conscious of the horrible moment that has arrived, enters with Helen, van Helsing and Seward. There is a single coffin. Silently van Helsing and Seward pry it open as van Helsing produces a stake and hammer which he hands to Ned. It is for him to do the deed and redeem himself and his own soul, he tells the horrified lover of the vampire to proceed. At the last moment the vampire’s eyes open, Ned gathers all his strength and pounds the stake into her heart. They all rejoice that the scar on Ned’s head has disappeared

THE END

Universal’s star director James Whale (left) discusses a script with R.C. (Robert Cedric) Sherriff screenwriter

The script you are about to read is uncredited. It was however, written and given to me by R.C. Sherriff in the early 1970s.

Sherriff and James Whale seemed to get along splendidly, although when Whale camped it up in his own subtle style, it made Sherriff very uncomfortable. During their time together they developed a perfect system for the reclusive writer, who rarely went out to Hollywood functions and spent most of his time living with his mother in their rented residence.

He preferred to work alone and when given a shabby little office and the constant phone calls from executives he was certain that he’d never write in that environment;

“The back window looked out on to a sort of sandpit where they were apparently going to shoot some scenes of a crashed aeroplane. Lorries kept going by, loaded up with the prefabricated parts, and a gang of workmen were building up the aeroplane with its nose buried in the far side of the sandpit and its tail high in the air. They had ladders and cranes; there was an incessant hammering; and a foreman with a big plan in his hands, was shouting orders. It was interesting to watch but far too distracting to allow for any work, and when they began shooting the scenes it would be much worse. . . . I rather gathered, from the things that Laemmle Junior and the story editor had said, that I was expected to clock in each morning and write steadily all day in this bare little room . . . Thus Whale had him check in early in the morning, give his secretary something to do and then invited him to watch him shooting The Old dark House. This worked perfectly for Sherriff while he was writing The Invisible Man and this process continue throughout his long association with Whale at Universal Pictures except for the times Sherriff returned to England to write.

Jane Wyatt, in 1934, was the original choice for Dracula’s Daughter. Miss Wyatt remembered the film but had no recollections of the circumstances.

In the Universal Exhibitor’s (1933-4)Yearbook both the sequel to Dracula - called Dracula’s Daughter and Return of Frankenstein were announced with Whale as director of both. After agreeing to the Return of Frankenstein, just to get Laemmle Jr. off his back, he expected his next picture to be Showboat. Laemmle would not back down. He wanted the Dracula sequel.

Sherriff did his homework and brought with him material on the real life Dracula, thinking that in this sequel he would explain how Dracula became a vampire. Also it would give Lugosi the center of the first third of the picture.

It was started by Sheriff at his home but it would be finished at the new home Whale and his lover David Lewis resided in Amalfi Drive on the Pacific Palisades.

Whale and some of his friends took the basic script and added into it scenes with gay and lesbian overtones, sado-masocistic action in some of the scene backgrounds, whips and chains, mutilations and amputations and worded it to look as if the main characters would be two male lovers traveling with each other’s sisters for a cover.

Without consulting Laemmle Jr. or Sheriff, Whale anonymously turned the script to the Breen Censors and just waited while he continued preparing for Showboat.

The plot worked. Breen’s office was incensed! As far

Bela Lugosi in his stage makeup for Dracula. Although his part was completely written out he was paid for the use of his likeness used in the actual1936 version in the form of a wax dummy; in a coffin seen only in the opening sequence
as they were concerned the film would never be made. Laemmle, who had no clue to what was going on, asked to see the script, which now was in it’s third rewrite, but still contained elements the censors would not allow. With financial pressures mounting, Junior set aside Dracula’s Daughter and let Whale direct his musicals and romantic comedies, while Sherriff began work on Whale’s The Road Back Remarque’s sequel to the Academy AwardTM winning. All Quiet on the Western Front.

Jane Wyatt went back to her job as radio singer until 2 years later when she began her dazzling career in Gold Diggers of 1937, My Man Godfrey, and King of Burlesque.

Bela Lugosi was now making pictures off the Universal lot although he did co-star with Boris Karloff in the cult classics,The Black Cat,The Ravenand theInvisible Ray.

In 1936, the project was completely revamped. Even with a new cast, crew and script, a small part of James Whale’s dark humor still prevailed andDracula’s Daughter is still well known today as a lesbian cult film.

The image of Dracula’s Daughter from this advertisement is said to have inspired the artist who created the color poster for the original play of The Rocky Horror Show, which opened at the Roxy Theater on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1974 and the following Broadway Production in B&W

James Whale’s DRACULA’S DAUGHTER

A discarded first draft script by R.C.Sherriff September 1935

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER

SEQUENCE “A” FADE IN:

A dusky, storm-wreaked sunset over the Transylvanian mountains. In the foreground a broad, furrowed field, dotted with working peasants, stretches away to the distant crags: the little black figures are silhouetted against the fading light.

The CAMERA takes up a fair young peasant girl, working alone, bending over her hoe and murmuring to herself an outlandish little fold song of her country.

The CAMERA moves to a dark clump of trees against the nearby road: first is seen a waiting, riderless horse, then a sinister figure is revealed watching the peasant girl from the cover of the trees. It is a man dressed in the tattered livery of the 14th century: his hair is long and ill kept: there is an ugly smile on his face and a short length of stout rope in his hands, He seems to be awaiting a signal - for he takes his eyes from the girl and looks up at a dark, ominous Castle upon a distant precipice.

CUT TO:

Another girl - dark and attractive - kneeling beside a stream, washing some linen in the fast running water. She, too , is signing softly to herself in the fading light.

The CAMERA moves to a mass of great boulders nearby: another man, as shabby and as sinister as the man amongst the trees, stands watching the girl by the stream. There is the same ugly leer on his face: the same sense of waiting for a signal - for he, too , takes his eyes from the girl and glances up at the distant Castle. His waiting horse is
tethered behind the rocks.

CUT TO:

A third girl, working upon a weaving frame beside the door of a small peasant’s hut: she rocks a small cot beside her and croons a song.

(CONTINUED) The CAMERA moves to a stack of wood nearby: to a third waiting riderless horse - to a third evillooking soldier lying watching the girl from the cover of the woodstack. He, too, is waiting for a signal: he, too, glances up at the Castle on the precipice - black and sinister in the sunset.

This time the Castle is held by the CAMERA as the picture DISSOLVES TO a CLOSE-UP of the ramparts. A group of men are staring across the valley that lies far beneath them in the duck. The fading sun lights up their faces - hard and cruel - soft and bloated: a dozen men, ugly and repellent despite their richly embroidered clothes. They are obviously men of position: noblemen of the period.

One man stands out from the rest: he is in the centre of the group and is clad entirely in black. Even amongst his sinister companions his features stand out supreme in their gloating devilry. He is host of the party: Count Dracula. His arms rest lightly upon the parapet of the ramparts: his eyes rove to and fro across the valley as if seeking to penetrate its secrets. A fat, bloated man glances at Dracula with a gesture of impatience.

FAT GUEST

You’re playing with us, Count Dracula. You promised us a special entertainment tonight, and all you do is to keep us standing up here in this blasted cold!

DRACULA

We’re all artists here tonight, Baron. Artists
mustn’t be afraid of the cold.
(he pauses)
I invited you to leave your wives at home and come to a quiet little Bachelors’ party.

There is a laugh from some of the guests.

Revision-Reinforcing Dracula’s vampirism. Two guests on the Ramparts:

FAT GUEST
Count Dracula is making fools of us - keeping us standing out here in the cold.

THIN GUEST
I wonder what sort of entertainment our host is preparing for us this evening.

CUT TO:
A VERY ELEGANT GUEST.

Then it will be. Count Dracula is a most unusual man.
THIN GUEST
Yes...You’ve noticed that we never see him, except at night. I wonder where he spends the daylight hours...
FAT GUEST
Don’t ask that!
A-12 FULL SHOT..A LARGE VAULT.

A-13 CLOSE.. A COFFIN SHAPED BOX ON THE FLOOR

DRACULA (CONTINUED)
It’s a little weakness of mine to dramatize the novelties I introduced at my parties; to throw them into harmony with these great valleys and mountains. Take your eyes out of the valley and match the sun, my friends. As the sun sets your entertainment will begin.

(He sighs)

The sun - almost hidden behind the distant mountains ranges - Dracula’s voice comes over the picture . .

DRACULA
The burial of the sun shall be the signal for our eve - ning’s merriment to begin.

The sun dips below the first the world is suddenly darker

CUT BACK TO For and instant, there is no movement, then, slowly the lid rises a few inches, a hind appears in the opening, grasps the edge of the lid and pushes it up. As the lid rises, Count Dracula slowly mechanically, comes to a sitting posture in the coffin. The lid, falling wide open, crashes on the stone floor at the other side of the coffin. Dracula’s eyes open staring.

Dracula then is seen approaching the two men on the rampart.

The ramparts: the straining excited faces of the guests The light from the sun gradually falls from them. Dracula turns and raises his hand in signal towards a small turret behind him. Immediately a beacon of flame darts up from the tower and tow great bells ring out. The guests turn in surprise as the picture.

CUT QUICKLY TO:
The inferno that breaks loose in the peaceful valley.

1. The soldier waiting
amongst the trees sees the distant beacon and hears the great bells from the Castle. He springs forward and throws himself upon the peasant girl in the field. The rope is around her and pulled tight: she screams out in pain and fear: the peasants dotted in the distance rush to help her but the soldier has flung the girl across his horse and is galloping down the road.

2. The girl by the stream is struggling with her captor. There are quick flashes of other girls and boys being captured in
the same way.
3. The girl who was working by the cottage is fighting fiercely as the soldier drags her to his horse. A young man, a sturdy young peasant, comes into view, stares in amazement and dashes forward to save his wife. The soldier is too quick: the girl is across the horse and he is away. The young peasant flings himself at the galloping horse and grips hold of its saddle. His bounding body is dragged away into the dusk.

There are QUICK SHOTS of galloping horsemen - alone at first - then converging together into a group - each with their struggling captive lashed behind them.

CUT TO:

The ramparts of Castle Dracula.
Count Dracula stands with his arms folded upon the parapet; gazing
down into the valley: the medleyed cries come faintly up from the darkness: the Bell, that has been
distantly heard throughout the
previous scenes crashes out from the Watch Tower: the beacon flares fiercely: the guests look down in wonderment - unable as yet to understand what their host is preparing as their entertainment for the evening.

CUT TO:

The straggling main street of the town:
Dracula’s horsemen sweep madly by: a group of a dozen now: they lash out with their whips
at the frenzied peasants who try to intercept them and some are crushed underfoot. The young peasant who gripped the saddle of one of the horsemen is still seen clinging desperately to the horse although the raider lashes at him with his whip.

CUT TO:

The interior of an Inn: three men, apparently travellers, rise in astonishment from a table at which they are taking a refreshment. They look out of the window at the flying horsemen. A tall man,
apparently the leader of the three, turns to his companions. .

TRAVELLER
What devilry’s going on out there?

The Innkeeper staggers in from the street: his hands cover his face: he is groaning from a fierce lash of a whip. He collapses on the floor as the three travellers cross to him, glance down and rush outside.

The dark street is strewn with groaning men who have ridden down by the horses: the horsemen themselves are disappearing up the mountain road that leads to the Castle. The tall traveller stoops to a man who is lying by the roadside.

TRAVELLER
For the love of God - what’s happened?

MAN (Muttering as if in delirium)
Dracula . . . the black devil. .

CUT TO: The zig-zagging mountain road the horsemen galloping up towards the Castle - the great moon is rising behind the mountain.

DISSOLVE TO:

The horsemen, thundering across a wooden bridge that spans the deep moat of the Castle: they fly
through a great open doorway as the picture

CUT TO:

The ramparts. Count Dracula is smiling down towards the gateway: his gaping guests surround him.

CUT BACK TO:

The last of the horsemen clattering through the gateway: the great oak doors crash to behind them as the

CAMERA CUTS BACK TO:

Dracula and his guests. As the crash of the closing gates echoes up to them Dracula turns with a polite smile. .

DRACULA
And now, my friends. I think we might go down and join the ladies. . .

FADE OUT .
END OF SEQUENCE “A”
DRACULA’S DAUGHTER SEQUENCE “B”
FADE IN:

The same night, a little later. The interior of the Inn. Lamps flicker over the crowded room, for besides the Innkeeper, who lies back in a chair with an ugly wound across his face, there are the three travellers, standing besides him, and a dozen dazed, helpless peasants, standing by the walls.

INNKEEPER
(looking up at the travellers with a gesture of despair)

You’re strangers - travellers you’ll never understand!
TALL TRAVELER (CURTLY)

We shall never understand so long as you keep groaning about “the black devil” and tell us nothing more. What is it, man! collect your wits!

The Innkeeper tries to control himself.

INNKEEPER
In years gone by no country in the world was happier and more peaceful than ours: our king was strong: he ruled his great Barons with an iron hand, and they obeyed him and kept the law. Then the Turks swept over our lands: they murmured and burnt and tortured; they killed our King and the best of his great men: they swept to the West and left us to our ruins.
Count Dracula was always cruel: he comes of a race of man who never knew the meaning of humanity - but he obeyed the King and kept the law until the
King and the law were destroyed
by the Turks. He fought bravely
against the Turks. but the
horrors he must have seen turned his brain. He came back and shut himself in his Castle with a devilish crowd of men:

(CONTINUED)

There is a roar of excitement from the peasants: they wake to life and swarm out of the Inn

(CONTINUED)

the worst and cruelest villains in the land. He’s a law to himself: he does what his black spirit commands

The following dialog appears in the 2nd draft revisions -(Editor)

INNKEEPER
You’re a stranger to this part of the world. You don’t understand.

TALL TRAVELLER TRAVELLER
And you sit there and allow him to

What don’t I understand? I understand well enough that you let this man subject you to unheard of horrors.

INNKEEPER (FIERCELY)
Allow him! - What in God’s name can we do! - That Castle once stood a siege of the thousand men! - What can a few hundreds of us do - unarmed - without a leader

A PEASANT
He’s robbed us of our cattle he’s taken the best of our harvest - and now . . . .

INNKEEPER
Count Dracula is not a man ..
TALL TRAVELLER
Not a man? ...What is he, then?
INNKEEPER

A foul creature of the night...A dead man that has not died ...a vampire!

INNKEEPER

T RAVELLER
And now you stand here and let him seize your wives and
children for his foul amusement! Have the Turks taken your courage as well as your King?

It is true stranger. From dawn to dusk, he lies in his coffin - dead. But at sundown he rises. Sometimes he is in human shape
- sometimes he takes the form of a huge bat. . . and flies out over the valley to drink his fill of human blood...He takes it from the throats of those who lie peacefully asleep.

INNKEEPER
The door of Castle Dracula are built of oak and barred with iron: we’d need an army - and a man to lead

T RAVELLER
We’ll have an army before the night’s out, and I’ll lead it for you - don’t stand there gaping! - collect every man and every weapon you have and we’ll dig that rat out his hole by sunrise!

TALL TRAVELLER
And you believe this old wives’ tale.

Innkeeper
I’ve seen the thing myself!

Despite the warning the Tall Traveller begins to gather an army of the peasants to storm the castle.
- (Editor)

There are QUICK SHOTS of the men taking arms pitchforks, axes, bloodthirsty pikes.

The town street is filling
men come with torches; the traveller and his two companions stand waiting at the door of the Inn. The rough army is swelling as the scene

DISSOLVES TO:
The Great Hall of Castle Dracula. A frightened
little party of minstrels are playing in the gallery serving men pass to and fro with jugs of wine and dishes of food - a few giant bloodhounds lie in the floor, gnawing the bones thrown to them by the intoxicated guests.

The guests are seated along the High Table, and Count Dracula alone of them
appears to have drunk within reason. The remainder loll to and fro - singing hilariously and toasting one another.

Dracula rises and holds up his hand for silence. The effect id magical: the musicians stop dead, their instruments poised as if the very act of lowering them might cause a sound; the serving men stop as if turned to stone; the guests, despite their condition, lapse into silence and stare, bleary-eyed, at their host.

Dracula smiles round and addresses his guests in a calm, silky voice. .

DRACULA
You have eaten my food,
dear friends - you have
drunk my wine and honoured a lonely man in his lonely Castle with your innocent gaiety and delicate jokes.

There is a snigger of laughter from some of the guests.

DRACULA
In return I’ve prepared for each of you a little dish to round off your repast: a little dish gathered freshly from the fields this very evening.

The guests laugh in eager excitement.

DRACULA
Each dish, my friends, is a little different from the other: it’s my earnest wish that each of you shall select the flavour you desire. . . .

The CAMERA runs down the table as Dracula speaks taking up each guest in turn - a dozen drinkinflamed, lustful faces.

The guests reach forward and take the dice that lie before them.

DRACULA But we must be fair: an unseemly scramble might take place if we’re not careful: more that one of you may relish the same dish and I wouldn’t like to see
these delicate morsels damaged before they are eaten. I have taken the precaution to provide dice for you to throw.

DRACULA You shall choose in order of your luck, and I trust that even the lowest thrower will not be entirely disappointed.

Dracula turns and makes a sign towards a small door where a servant is anxiously on guard.

The servant throws the door open, revealing the little group of pitiable, terrified peasant girls. They are driven into the room and huddle together, wild-eyed and dumb with terror.

CUT TO:
The seated row of guests, straining eagerly forward noting their choice if the dice be kind to them.
CUT TO:
The mountain road: the peasant army is surging up towards the Castle with the traveller and his two companions at their head. Half a dozen sturdy men stagger under the weight of a tree trunk for bettering down the Castle doors.

CUT BACK TO:

The great Hall of the Castle: the guests are standing with dice in hand, waiting to throw upon the word of their host. Dracula gives the
signal with a graceful wave of the hand.

DRACULA
Very well, my friends

The guests throw their dice and eagerly lean forward to scan them as they lie upon the table.

FIRST GUEST
Seven!
SECOND GUEST
Nine!
THIRD GUEST (VERY EXCITED) Double sixes! - twelve!

There is a shout of laughter as the lucky thrower - a fat, hooknosed man, throws out his arms in triumph, Dracula smilingly indictates the waiting girls.

DRACULA
Count Heverstein - at your service!

The lucky guest staggers uncertainly round the
table and sways across to the terrified little group of captives. He stands in front of them - inspects them: scratches his head and rubs his chin. He
finds it difficult to make up his mind. He goes to
take one girl, then suddenly decides upon another. He picks her up and bears her away to the accompaniments of cheers and laughter from the other guests. The
pitiful cries of the girl recedes as the CAMERA moves back to the guests, throwing the dice once more. A tall man with a face like a hawk cries out. .

GUEST

A little rat-like guest is furtively seen turning his dice to double sixes - he begins shouting “Double . . . .!” but the guest beside him has seen him cheating and gives him a fierce blow in the face that sends him reeling back in his chair. The
attacker turns and shouts in anger. .

Five and six: eleven! - Can anyone call higher?

GUEST
The little rat was cheating! I thought you only invited upright, honourable men to your table, Count Dracula?

DRACULA (SMILING)
I must apologize for my friend. He was no doubt carried away by his enthusiasm - and hunger.

Dracula bows towards the highest bidder.

DRACULA
Baron Kelina: the choice awaits you

BARON
What about our distinguished host? Are we to be so discourteous as to leave him the dregs?

There are cries of “No!”. Count Dracula makes a deprecating gesture.

DRACULA
My luck with the dice is proverbial, my friends - provariably bad:

BARON
I say that our host come next!

There is a general murmur of approval.

DRACULA Very well: if it’s your wish. (he turns to a waiting
steward)
I understand a young man was foolish enough to join our little party without invitation tonight. He’s so devoted to one of our little friends here that he forced his company upon us. Ask him honour us.

The steward disappears and returns with the young man who clung so fiercely to him over with a lazy smile.

DRACULA
A determined young man: brave and strong: passionately in love to risk his life so recklessly.

YOUNG MAN
. . . .you blackguard! . . . .
DRACULA (RAISING HIS HAND)

The young man scents a trap: he raises his hands as if to warn his young wife and cries out. .

Such inspiring love must be properly rewarded, my young friend. Which of these
girls . . . .?

YOUNG MAN No! . . .

But is it too late.
Dracula’s quick eye has seen the girl strain forward in helpless despair. He crosses and stands before her with a slow, approving nod.

DRACULA
So you are the little girl with the brave young lover? No wonder he risked his life!

He looks from one to the other- at the stricken, tortured faces of the young man and his wife.

DRACULA
I shall reward you: I shall honour you, my dear - I shall bestow upon you the company of the great Count Dracula himself!

YOUNG MAN
You devil! - if you dare touch . . . .!

The steward covers the young man’s mouth and drags him away. Dracula speaks secretly to the steward as he passes.

DRACULA
You understand my orders?
STEWARD
I understand, my lord

Dracula takes the girl in his powerful arms and carries her away: she struggles in desperation and becomes unconscious.

DRACULA (TO THE GUESTS, AS HE GOES) Your turn, my dear Baron: I trust my guests to throw the dice fairly: to conduct themselves like perfect gentlemen . . .

DISSOLVE TO:
A great curtained chamber Count Dracula’s private apartment. The girl lies upon a couch; she has recovered her senses but is too terrified to move.
She stares helplessly in front of her. Dracula
himself sits at the head of the couch; he lays his arm caressingly upon the girl’s shoulder; she
shudders away, and Dracula gives a little laugh.

DRACULA
Why so afraid? A little peasant girl should be honoured to visit the Castle of her overlord.

GIRL
Let me go! - I beg you!

DRACULA
So soon? You’re far too
beautiful to go back to the common people in the valley: I would marry you if that brave young man had not . . . .

He is interrupted by a long, terrifying cry of agony - muffled by the stone walls of the
Castle. The girl leaps up in horror.

GIRL
Michael! - Michael!

DRACULA (PRESSING THE GIRL BACK ONTO THE COUCH)
Michael, is it? - a fine
brave name - Michael means “the likeness of God” - did you know that?

GIRL
Where is he?- don’t torture him, I implore you . . .

DRACULA
There’s no need for my little girl to be afraid. Your lover will come to you, and you will be together again; he will come to you dressed in a princely gown to replace his torn, mudstained clothes. The wounds on his face will be dressed so that they will not hurt those lovely (CONTINUED
(CONTINUED)
innocent eyes. He will come to you and place his strong arm round you and comfort you; you will be together again, my dear: husband and wife - and I shall adopt you as a daughter.
Doesn’t it thrill that fluttering little heart? Dracula’s daughter!

He laughs softly to himself and fondles her hair. Then he
rises and crosses to the door.
He pauses for a moment, and his voice taken on a note of ominous warning.

DRACULA

He smiles mysteriously, and leaves the room.
The CAMERA focuses upon the girl’s pails, straining face as she gazes
yearningly at the closed door. After a moment the door softly re-opens, and a white figure appears. The face is shrouded,
and the long rich gown reaches almost to the feet. The figure moves forward in the dim light. The girl starts up and cries in a low, trembling voice. . But you must obey me in everything, my dear. When your lover comes, you must remain where you are upon that couch. You must leave him to approach you otherwise he may not reach you after all.

GIRL
Michael - my love! She seems about to rise
but the shrouded figure
raises a stiff warning
arm and slowly approaches
her from the shadows. It
sits beside her upon the
head of the couch and
gently places an arm
around her trembling
shoulders. The girl takes
the hand and sees a ring
upon the finger that she
recognizes with joy.
GIRL

Suddenly she looks up
in amazement: the shrouded figure has drawn away from her and stands under a pool of light - the hood drops from the face, revealing the evil, smiling features
of Count Dracula. The girl, as if fighting a terrible nightmare, gazes round. Her lover’s severed arm still hangs over her shoulder - it drops down between her back and the cushion of the couch when she moves - and the
hand sticks up like a
drowning sailor’s from the sea.

Oh, Michael - I’m so glad you’re safe. I heard a cry just now

(she presses her lover’s hand and looks at it in puzzled fear)

Are you hurt, Michael? - your hand’s so limp - and cold
CUT QUICKLY TO Count Dracula.

DRACULA The strong arm of your lover has come to comfort you . . . poor little widowed daughter of Dracula . . .

An agonizing moan comes from the girl as the picture

CUTS TO:

The ramparts of the castle. A sentry is gazing down at the road beneath: the
peasant army is there - he looks in wonder at the swaying torches and listens to the angry murmur below. Then he turns and hastens away to raise the alarm.

CUT TO: The tall traveler - the leader of the party. He is standing on the far side of the bridge that leads across the moat to the great doors of the Castle. He stares intently up at the ramparts and speaks to one of his companions. .

LEADER
They’re probably all drunk by now - but we can’t afford to take chances - divide those men into parties of twelve and take it in turn with that battering ram.

The man hurries off,
and the CAMERA MOVES to a dozen peasants
coming forward with
the great tree trunk. The leader’s attention is attracted by some
glimmering lights that appear upon the ramparts.

LEADER They’re awake up there - now then! - all your strength!

The peasants rush forward across the bridge with their battering ram; it crashes and rebounds from the doors without breaking them, and they prepare to attack again.

CUT TO:

The ramparts. Dracula
stands watching the
attackers; behind him
great braziers are glowing - and soldiers stripped to their waists are tending red hot caldrons. Nearby some other soldiers are straining under the weight of huge rounded stones which they are laying in place upon some gulleys that jut out from the ramparts directly above the bridge.
Dracula crosses to the soldiers; the thudding crash of the battering ram floats up to them through the night.

DRACULA (TO THE MEN) And now let Castle Dracula lay a few of its little eggs

The soldiers take the order and release half a dozen of the huge
rounded boulders that roll along the gulley and hurtle down amongst the attackers.

The resounding crash of them echoes over the
valley - shrieks and groans come up from the bridge as the picture

CUTS TO:

The carnage below. Men lie crushing beneath the great stones, and the battering ram lies on the bridge. The leader of the attackers waves his arm to the men
waiting to take the ram. He runs to it himself and assists them to raise it once more.

LEADER
Quickly there; - it taken them time to load;

(he calls back)
Shout a warning when you see them loading;

(to the men with the ram) Take cover under the door when you hear the shout!

CUT BACK TO:

The ramparts - another crash of the battering ram is heard. Dracula looks down in surprise.

DRACULA
They’re obstinate little creatures; - Is the medicine warm enough yet?

The men below. A man on the far side of the bridge shouts a warning: the men drop the ram and rush for shelter beneath the door; the boulders crash down - timbers of the bridge smash like matchwood and fly into the air; one or two men are caught and crushed by the boulders; they hurtle over the bridge into the moat.
The leader takes a desperate chance; the survivors rush back to the ram while another party run across the bridge to help; the bridge is
swarming with men as the picture

SOLDIER (TURNING FROM A BRAZIER) It’s ready, my lord.

DRACULA One more little brood of eggs. Then a refreshing draught of molten lead to quench their thirst

Once more a volley of stone boulders hurtle over the parapet.

CUT QUICKLY TO:
CUTS TO:

The ramparts. The sweating soldiers are carrying the huge caldrons to the gulleys; Dracula gives a sign, and the molten lead hisses down and lights up the night. The luminous arc buries itself amongst the crowd upon the bridge: the bridge flames up
amidst the struggling, tortured men as some of the molten lead runs off and boils the water beneath.
CUT TO:
An old grizzled soldier, staring over the parapet. He speaks to a companion with a resentful toss of his head towards Count Dracula.

SOLDIER
You wait and see! He’ll tell us to go down and clean that mess up before breakfast!

(he pauses and spits over the parapet)
Ever tried getting bodies out of cold lead?

FADE OUT.
END OF SEQUENCE “B”
“DRACULA’S DAUGHTER”
SEQUENCE “C”
FADE IN:

A sheltered place upon the mountainside. In the background the sky glows above the burning bridge.
R. C. Sheriff - We got the name Talifer from a book that James had just read - “Talifer” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, a lyric poem published by Macmillan in 1933. One of us referenced him to a wizard who lived around King Arthur’s time but I’m not sure of the connection.

The tall traveller; his clothes tattered, his face blistered and burned, is holding council with a few survivors of the attack. Behind, in the darkness, stand the teaming peasants, exhausted and demoralized. The leader turns wearily to the keeper of the Inn.

TRAVELER
You were right, my friend. Ten thousand of us could die against those walls . . .

A PEASANT
We must starve him out:

ANOTHER PEASANT
Starve him: - starve our children: Leave him to torture them - and . . . .

TRAVELLER (CARRYING ON HIS THOUGHTS)
. . . ten thousand men might beat themselves to pulp without disturbing a stone of that vile place - and yet one single man might save those children . . . if he can be called a man.

INNKEEPER
You mean the devil? The devil’s fighting for Dracula:

TRAVELLER I mean the man you call the devil’s disciple - Talifer commands the powers of darkness: if Talifer would help you . . .

A sudden panic-stricken murmur comes from the peasants. Several look upwards and cross themselves.

Talifer is cut from the 2nd draft of the script for Dracula is a vampire from the start. As if it were a prequel to Dracula. He is also known as the leader who led them to victory over the Turks.

He rises and goes to his horse. He leaps on and gallops away into the night. The peasants look after him in bewilderment and horror.

INNKEEPER
Talifer: - God forbid we ever call that Wizard of Satan to help us!

PEASANT
To speak his very name means death

TRAVELLER
You would rather leave your wives and children to that agony up there?

INNKEEPER
Talifer would bring worse evil upon us: his curse would lie upon us for all time.

TRAVELLER I tell you that Talifer alone can save those children from the devil in that Castle. You wonder who I am: I’m
a stranger to you; that’s because I come from a foreign country to seek the help of talifer against the Turks who are destroying my country as they destroyed yours. To ask Talifer to
crush Count Dracula is to ask a giant to crush a maggot with his little finger.

PEASANT He’s going to Talifer? - God preserve his soul!

The peasants cross themselves as the scene

DISSOLVES TO: The traveller galloping down a wild mountain path- down
wards, always downwards as if he were on a journey to the very gates of the underworld. Wolves howl- dark creatures wriggle away into the still darker
undergrowth beside the rockstrewn path.

At last he reins horse beside the black jaws of a cavern. A huge lizard sits upon a ledge beside the opening, like a
fantastic gatekeeper.

The traveller lights a torch and enters the passage that
leads still further down towards his tortuous way. He passes hideous carvings out upon the rock walls: treasure chests with
broken lids: relics of a past nation forgotten and decayed. The passage opens out into a
vast cavern, and far off
under a dim light at the extreme end, can be seen a tiny, shrivelled figure, seated at a large table piled with books and strange instruments of the wizard’s craft. The traveller approaches and bows before the weird creature at his table.

Talifer is bent and gnarled - incredibly old: his straggling white beard hangs from the face of a mummy. He sits as if carved from stone, staring at the stranger without a flicker of life.

TRAVELLER
Great man: I bring a message from the Kings of Hungary and Austria: they beg your help to save their people.

TALIFER (AFTER A SILENCE) He’s a bold man who comes to Talifer: to speak his name means death. Didn’t I hear a peasant in the mountains speak this words a little while ago?
His aged face wrinkles into a grotesque distortion and a crackle of laughter trickles through the grizzled beard.

TRAVELLER
The peasants are superstitious
TALIFER (NODDING)
Their brains grope in the twilight: their minds are built up from the juice of turnips.
(he pauses)
So you’re not afraid of me?

TRAVELLER
No man of honour need fear Talifer. My masters offer all the gold in their countries if you will save their people . . .

TALIFER
I must reflect: I need time.

(he glances at the
traveller’s torn clothes
and blackened hands) You seem to have come through the fires of hell to reach me. TRAVELLER
I have - and I beg your help . . . upon a smaller matter . . . a trivial thing, but . . .

TALIFER (CUTTING HIM SHORT) I know. You want me to save those silly peasants from the big bogey man.

(he laughs)
TRAVELLER Yes.

The Wizard turns to a great globe of fire-glass beside him an peers into its depths.

TALIFER
Yes. The fool seems rather to have overstepped himself tonight.
The CAMERA follows the old
man’s eyes into the fire ball.
In its depths can be seen
Count Dracula, in his chamber,
crushing the limp figure of the
girl, in his arms - then comes
the Great Hall of the Castle
the guests revelling at the
table, each with the girl of
his choice struggling to free
themselves from their loathsome
companions. The man looks up
at the traveller and speaks reflectively.

TALIFER
Yes. Count Dracula has overstepped himself.

(he pauses)
I enjoy the lighter side of my power sometimes. I enjoy a little harmless fun. Do you think I might practice an honest little joke upon our friend?

TRAVELLER
A joke? - that devil deserves a great deal more than . . .

His words trail away: the old man had risen: there is an elfish smile on his face: he rubs his hands together in pleasant anticipation and dissolves into thin air with a satisfied little chuckle. The traveller looks in astonishment at the emptiness as the picture

DISSOLVES TO:
Talifer - wraith-like and

(Continued) transparent, walking up the path towards the Castle. He passes the group of dis
spirited, helpless peasants one of them sees the bent old figure and points a trembling finger.

PEASANT
Look! - look there!

The peasants stare in awestruck terror , sink upon their knees and mutter prayers. The ghostly figure passes by, and disappears into the smoke and dying flames that still eddy round the charred bridge to the Castle gates.

CUT TO:

The courtyard of the Castle Two soldiers are lazily on guard beneath the archway. The figure of Talifer passes through the huge closed gates and makes its unconcerned way across the courtyard. The sentries turn and stare in bewilderment. They rub their eyes - then hasten forward to intercept the uncanny figure.

SOLDIER
Hi, there; - where you going?

The figure pays no attention and walks on. The soldiers run forward to take hold of it but as their hands fall upon the shadowy form there is a hiss of flame and two blackened bodies lie upon the cobbles hideously burned - charred stumps where limbs have been. DRACULA
WELL? - SPEAK OUT!

SERVANT
In the Great Hall, my lord! A stranger commands you to go to him.

DRACULA
Commands me! When jokes are to be played it’s for me to play them and not my guests: You understand?

SERVANT (IN A LOW VOICE)
My lord- the stranger who commands is not your guest

The servant’s ghastly eyes are upon Count Dracula without expression: Dracula stares back, and is suddenly afraid. Some unseen force impels a dread upon him. He braces himself and goes unsteadly from the room.

CUT TO:

The Great Hall of t he Castle. Talifer the Wizard stands alone in the centre of the great room. The girls have gone: the guests sit in their place at the table, bum, sobered and terrified. The servants have stolen away.

There is a dead silence in the Hall as Dracula enters. He stands in the doorway and calls in a loud voice . .

DRACULA
Who are you? What do you want?

TALIFER
Who is there in this world with the power to join your little party uninvited? Who can step over your walls and across the moat? Have you never heard of the black magic of Talifer?

Dracula starts back in terror: would have been if an unfortunate accident had not given you the bodies of men?

He walks slowly to one end of
the table and stands in front
of a very fat, bloated man
with a great double chin who
sits blinking in terror at the
ghostlike apparition before him.

TALIFER

The CAMERA focuses the
terrified Baron - his bulbous eyes shrink up - his nose broadens - his fat arms shrink within their sleeves - and sitting at the table - ridiculous in the rich robes of the Baron Heydendorf, sits a great grunting hog that struggles and squeals in terror.
What, for instance, would
our friend Baron Heydendorf have been? He was never
made to insult the body of
a man. (he raises his voice a little) I summon the powers of my
great craft to give you the
body that your soul de
serves!

Talifer’s level voice flows over the picture . .

TALIFER Behold Baron Heydendorf in his rightful metier! An everlasting, eternal hog that I condemn to guzzle through the centuries with his snout in the putrid flesh of the dead rats that lie in the vaults of this pleasant Castle!

The CAMERA moves to the man who sits next to the Baron. A shrunken little man with quick moving, beady eyes and a sharp, crafty little face. He is staring in horror at the hog beside him and jerks his head round, fascinated, as Talifer speaks to him . . would have been if an unfortunate accident had not given you the bodies of men?

He walks slowly to one end of
the table and stands in front
of a very fat, bloated man
with a great double chin who
sits blinking in terror at the
ghostlike apparition before him.

TALIFER

The CAMERA focuses the
terrified Baron - his bulbous eyes shrink up - his nose broadens - his fat arms shrink within their sleeves - and sitting at the table - ridiculous in the rich robes of the Baron Heydendorf, sits a great grunting hog that struggles and squeals in terror.
What, for instance, would
our friend Baron Heydendorf have been? He was never
made to insult the body of
a man. (he raises his voice a little) I summon the powers of my
great craft to give you the
body that your soul de
serves!

Talifer’s level voice flows over the picture . .

TALIFER Behold Baron Heydendorf in his rightful metier! An everlasting, eternal hog that I condemn to guzzle through the centuries with his snout in the putrid flesh of the dead rats that lie in the vaults of this pleasant Castle!

The CAMERA moves to the man who sits next to the Baron. A shrunken little man with quick moving, beady eyes and a sharp, crafty little face. He is staring in horror at the hog beside him and jerks his head round, fascinated, as Talifer speaks to him . . Count Peralo has never in his whole life risen above the instincts of a rat . . .

The poor little terrified, shrivelled Count shrinks up with a scream of agony: he slips down in his seat until only his head appears over the table and a bloated rat hangs with its forelegs to the edge.

The CAMERA moves from him to a tall, long necked man beside him. Talifer moves on and stands before him.

TALIFER

There is a scream from the Prince as his place is filled by a great writhing snake that slides off the table onto the floor amidst the shrieks of the remaining guests. Prince Michael should have been a giraffe if he possessed the virtues of one. But the giraffe is a noble creature and the Prince, I’m afraid , is far, far from noble. We shall leave the Prince to crawl through the slime of generations upon his stomach . . .

Talifer appears to tire of his amusement, for he walks more rapidly down the table, passing only the motionless form of Count Dracula in the centre. At first he pauses momentarily as he condemns each guest - but the last three are converted into their fantastic forms by the casual nod of Talifer’s head.

TALIFER
I think my lord of Morovin would make a charming wolf . . . Baron Averill, I suggest , a toad . . . You , my friend, a vulture . . Count Festis would be in his element as a gibbering baboon . . . The (CONTINUED)
The table is now an unholy sight. Some of the horrid creatures are lurching forward over the table as if in a
frantic endeavour to cling to a fragment of their humanity. Others are writhing away across the floor, seeking dark places of refuge. Talifer slowly
makes his way back to the
centre of the table where the solitary human being remains. Count Dracula sits back in his chair: his fixed, staring eyes upon the old magician. Archduke Robert, a skunk, and the great Lord Barnavie has never been more at heart than a man-eating spider . .

TALIFER
And now Count Dracula.

(he pauses)
I’m afraid my little joke has failed to amuse our charming host. I’m sorry. I hoped to brighten your last moments as a living man with my little parlour tricks. I may have been hard upon these poor creatures, for foul and bestial though they were, not one of them compares in his foulness with you. For the beastliness of your life I shall make you an everlasting horror - a bestial creature of the
night - neither living nor dead. By night you shall be a vampire: a vampire that gluts itself upon human blood and gives to every victim the foulness of its own spirit. You shall live
through the ages as a ghastly lesson to those who would-

TALIFER
follow in your path. By day your human body will lie in the vaults of this Castle - only at sunset shall that body
rise to wallow in its basilisk hatred of humanity

In the revised script for Lugosi the Tall Stranger makes his way to him during the battle. Dracula just laughs as he brandishes a sword. Dracula throws back his head and laughs

DRACULA

Count Dracula has risen to his feet: he is gasping the table: he suddenly gives a hysterical cry of laughter.

DRACULA
Alone, you say! - not for long! - my little daughter shall join me - my little . . .

You think to defeat me. I who has lived for centuries - conquered the full force of the Turks and others who have tried to capture me. Bah

DRACULA as he throws up his cape, jumps to the window and goes out.
ANOTHER ANGLE OUTSIDE THE WINDOW as Dracula turns into a bat and flies away into the full moonlit night. (This gives us a plausible time track to which Dracula meets Mr. Renfield and makes his way to London where he is destroyed - thus giving Dracula’s Daughter time to establish her reign) END OF SCENE

The moon takes on the features of Dracula and we fade to a small Transylvanian Inn - 1935.

His words die away as the old man quietly says. .
TALIFER

Count Dracula’s ashen face becomes distorted. Hard and evil though it has been in life, it has always held the proud, handsome lines of the aristocrat. But now the ghastly distortion brings to it a leer of satanic horrorthe eyes smoulder into a dead blackness - the lips curl away as the canine teeth creep down upon them - the eyebrows grow away slantingly and the nose sharpens into a hideous beak . . .
You shall be a foul vampire of the night

TALIFER

The CAMERA sweeps down the long table. A moment
previously it has been
lavishly set with dishes of food - fine decorations and magnificent ornaments - but as the CAMERA moves over it, everything crumbles to hideous decay. Great dust-hung cobwebs link the dishes - the fruit crumbles to black dirt . . . a vampire that needs graves and death and decay to wallow in. I give you a hiding place by throwing a thousand years upon this Castle - even though a thousand years will never blot out its evil fame . . .
a boar’s head falls to a whitened skull: through the cobwebs creeps the giant Spider, and upon a tattered napkin sits the great impassive toad.

The CAMERA moves swiftly as the Great Hall disintegrates and falls to ruins: we see the magnificent tapestries crumble and the stately curtains that cover the windows drip into rags. The walls themselves crumble and the roof falls with a sudden crash.

The picture DISSOLVES TO:

A dark place upon the mountainside - to the little group of peasants with their rescued children clinging to them. Their eyes are fixed upon the Castle above them: the air is filled with a dull, angry murmur that comes from the great crumbling walls: The sky
above is luminous with the coming dawn.

DISSOLVE TO:
The private room of Count
Dracula: deep in the dust
and ruins that have fallen upon the rest of the Castle. The
girl who Dracula had selected and taken there still lies upon the tattered couch, a roof beam near her body, and fallen, decayed wall draperies around her. The CAMERA moves to the gaunt ruined doorway upon which the door hangs by one rusted hinge: the floor is piled high with dust and wreckage - and slowly,
through the door, there creeps a huge, bloated vampire bat. It lurches unsteadily forward towards the motionless girl it reaches her feet and slowly crawls up the body - its evil little eyes fixed upon the face above. It reaches the chest and draws itself forward to the girl’s throat- it lowers its head and buries its fangs into that white flesh and remains motionless.

And out of the silence comes a burst of hearty, healthy laughter: light hearted laughter of girls and young men mingled together.

The scene FADES, but the laughter continues throughout the darkened picture.

END OF SEQUENCE “C”. DRACULA’S DAUGHTER
SEQUENCE “D”
FADE IN

Upon a large up-to-date touring car, with a pile of bags strapped on the carrier. The laughter still continues and the moving CAMERA reveals the cause of it. Four young tourists are sitting outside a country inn - at a table with drinks before them.

John Martin and David Hartly are typical young Americans: cheerful and vigorous.

Joan Martin and Helen Hartly, their respective sisters are delightful girls, and all four are laughing at the old Innkeeper who stands before them. They are laughing more at the serious intensity with which the old man has told his story that at the story itself - for he is shaking his head and seems shocked at their amusement.

JOHN
That’s the best fairy tale I’ve heard since I was a baby!

HELEN
What happened to the poor old man who got turned into a pig?

DAVID
Well, you see, the toad ate the spider - the pig ate the toad and the snake swallowed the pig and poor old Prince Michael had two Counts and a Baron inside him:

INNKEEPER
Ah: - you may laugh, my friends: you call it a fairy story

JOHN
Well, what do you call it?

INNKEEPER
You come from a young country where everything you cannot understand is fairy story. To (CONTINUED)
us in this village it is different: my family have held this Inn for twenty generations: my own kinsman, Otto Dragenheim went with the peasants that night: he saw the black magician pass with his own eyes: he saw the Castle crumble to ruins in the dawn.

DAVID
And you still believe this fantastic stuff - in 1935?

INNKEEPER
We believe that we know. By daywhile the sun is in the sky, the Castle sleeps in its ruins - but by night those poor cursed spirits crawl and cry for deliverance Count Dracula himself creeps from his window: he crawls down the walls like a great swollen spider and. . .

The young tourists laugh.
INNKEEPER (SHAKING HIS HEAD) . . .and the poor beautiful girl they call his daughter . . .

JOHN
Do they come sucking your blood in their spare time?

INNKEEPER
We sleep with our windows closedwith garlic herbs on our pillowsfor garlic is something these evil spirits cannot stand.

DAVID
I can’t stand garlic, either.

JOHN
You must have been bitten by a vampire.

INNKEEPER
You like your joke - you are fortunate to live in a country so far away. You can walk there without fear when the sun has set.

JOHN
Does anybody ever go up there nowa days?

INNKEEPER
No man has entered that place in living memory - they say that once a shepherd went there in search for his dog. The dog was found next day on the mountainside with its throat torn open. The shepherd never returned.

JOHN
There things always happened outside living memory

INNKEEPER
In my own life strange things have happened . . .

DAVID (TO HIS FELLOW TRAVELLERS)

What do you say to staying a night here? (to the Innkeeper)
Is there a performance every
evening?

JOHN
Matinees Wednesday and Saturdays
DAVID

No. Seriously. It’s four o’clock and forty miles to the next town. Can you give us beds?

INNKEEPER
My beds are the softest and warmest in all Transylvania.

DAVID Good enough. Those in favour?
- Carried!

(he throws his arm round Joan You can lie in bed with your little bit of garlic and watch Count Dracula tapping at the window

DISSOLVES TO:

David, backing the car into a narrow gateway. John is standing by, guiding him in.

JOHN
Steady! - that’s all right! straight back!
John begins unstrapping the luggage - servants of the Inn carry it away.

CUT TO:
The two girls in their bedroom tidying themselves after the journey. Joan is standing by the window, combing her hair: she is looking up at the gaunt ruin of Castle Dracula. An angry sunset lies behind it and the stark ruins stand black and ragged against the fading light.

JOAN
I know it’s all moonshine, but. . there was something uncanny in the way the old man talked . . . he was so serious and sincere . .

HELEN
Naturally. He believes it.
JOAN
Do you?
(she pauses) I believe you do.

Helen does not answer: the two girls glance at one another, questioningly, as the picture

DISSOLVES TO:

John and David, in their room. John is changing his shoes: David had his head in a basin of water.

DAVID (TAKING UP A TOWEL) I wouldn’t, John. I know it’s a a lot of twaddle - but you’ll only upset the girls

JOHN
I don’t suggest taking them.

DAVID
I know - but they’ll get worried naturally.
JOHN (POINTING AT DAVID WITH MOCK

ACCUSATION)
Yellow!
David throws his towel at him.

JOHN Who’s afraid of the big bad vampire?

DISSOLVES TO:

The living room of the Inn. It is a cozy place: the lamps are lit and a big log fire crackles. The little party are at a dinner: The two young men are in high spirits but the girls, although they try to be cheerful, are clearly a little ill at ease.

JOHN
After all, Joan. . . what’s the good of shooting all over Europe if you don’t get an adventure here and there to take back? We shall only be half an hour

JOAN
It’ll take you at least that to climb up there

JOHN (LIGHTLY)
Half an hour there - half an hour back. Think of the stories we’ll take back home: we can always decorate what we don’t see.

HELEN
I’m not worrying about the . . . the . . .

JOHN
The bogies?

HELEN
yes - the bogies. I’m thinking about other things. You get wolves in these parts. JOHN (WITH A LAUGH)

You know quite well the wolves never come near the villages except when the snow drives the in. If a wolf comes along I do that with one hand

(he produces a powerful
torch) and that with the other

(he pulls out a revolver
and points it into the torch’s ray)

Don’t you worry, darling. There’s a full moon and David’s a cautious old thing. He’ll keep me out of mischief.

(they all rise)

You just snuggle down by the fire and read your guide books for half an hour.

CUT TO:

John and David in the passage of the Inn. John is whistling softly but happily as he puts a muffler round his neck and drops his torch into his pocket. Although David does not appear quite so light-hearted as his companion he appears eager for the adventure now that is has been decided upon. An old wall clock is striking nine as they make their way down the passage to the door, but as they approach it the old Innkeeper emerges from his room and stares at the two young men in astonishment.

INNKEEPER
You’re not going out?

JOHN (CASUALLY)
Just a stroll to look at the mountain in the moonlight.

INNKEEPER
It’s not wise, my young friends. I beg you to wait until the morning. The mornings are beautiful in this valley. The nights are evil.

JOHN (LIGHTLY)
You can stay indoors and live in the middle ages if you want to: we’re going out for a walk in 1935

INNKEEPER (IN A LOW VOICE) You will not to go near the Castle?
JOHN
We may just look in.
INNKEEPER
I forbid you:

JOHN
How can you? It’s not your Castle!

INNKEEPER But you are my guests and a man has a duty to his guests.

The Innkeeper places himself politely but firmly between the doors and his two guests.

INNKEEPER
Promise me you will remain in the valley.

John grows a little irritated.
JOHN

The old man stares at the boys in mute appeal but has to make way. He does not attempt to help them as they unbar and unlock the cumbrous door, but as they pass out
into the moonlight he crosses
himself and murmurs in a low voice. . Look here, old boy. Your fairy
stories are good fun to while
away the time, but when it comes to . . . (he gently elbows past the
old man) . . .lot’s get by.
INNKEEPER

God protect you

He stares after them for a moment and closes the door. As he returns to his room he glances, unseen, into the big living room, at the two girls sitting quietly by the blazing log fire with their books. He sadly shakes his head and shuffles away.

CUT TO:

The outside of the Inn. The valley is deserted: a great silver moon rides above the distant ruined Castle and the road twists like a glistening silver ribbon up the mountain side. David shivers and turns up his collar.

DAVID
My goodness, it’s cold.

JOHN
We shall be warm enough by the time we’ve climbed up there:

The two boys set off upon
their solitary adventure.
There are some QUICK DISSOLVES,
revealing how the road narrows
and roughens - how the country
grows more forlorn and deserted
as they approach the ominous,
silent ruin ahead of them.
At one point they pause and
look down upon the little
village beneath them:
huddled as though in terror of the
brooding giant above. Lights
glimmer here and there, but
most of it is in darkness.
Out of the silence comes a long drawn, distant howl. The two boys exchange glances and John grins.

JOHN
Dogs turn into wolves and barnyard fowls make first rate vultures in the moonlight.

They turn and make their way onward and upwards. Soon the great decayed walls rise black above their heads: they reach the moat and walk along its side.

JOHN
I suppose we can get across the bridge? I never thought of that.

DAVID
There it is!

He points through the darkness at what remains of the old bridge that leads to the main doors of the Castle. They
examine it with their torches. Very little timber remains the centre has rotted out, but it looks as if a few sound timbers still hold to the stout iron framework at the sides.

DAVID
Careful how you go. We ought to have a rope.

JOHN
- and life belts

Cautiously they edge along the side, holding onto the framework. Beneath them the stagnant water throws black diamonds to the moonlight. Safely on the opposite side, David kneels and examines the remnants of woodwork with his torch.

DAVID
Look!
JOHN (KNEELING BESIDE HIM) What is it?

DAVID
Here - this lump - it’s lead and this wood’s been burned

(instinctively he glances up at the black ramparts) Sounds as if that part of the
old boy’s story is O.K.

JOHN
They always poured molten lead on people they didn’t like in those days: tax collectors and travellers in carpet sweepers . . .

(they walk on and pause beneath the huge ruined gateway)

Looks deserted enough.
DAVID

The moon throws its full silver light across the sad, desolated courtyard: ahead stands the gaunt ruined Hall in all its pitiful grandeur. You didn’t except to find a milk bottle outside, did you?

The footsteps of the two young men echo out as they cross the cobbles and ascend the broad steps that lead to the Great Hall. The studded oak door still hangs precariously by one rusted hinge and David glances at John.
DAVID

Got your torch?
John nods.
CUT TO:

The interior of the Great
Hall, towards the door as
the two young men come in
slowly and timidly, despite
their outward courage. The
moonlight floods part of the
lofty room through a gaping
hole in the roof - other
patches of moonlight fall
through the tall, trellised
windows still richly decorated with armourial bearings. but for the most part the Hall is
in deep shadow. AS the
adventurers make their way forward David’s eyes fall upon the
long dining table that spans the far wall. They approach
it and stare in wide-eyed
amazement - for before them,
encrusted in the cobwebs and dust of centuries, still lie
the remnants of the banquet.
The gold drinking vessels
glisten in the moonlight
the skull of the boar’s head
looks out at them from a mass of spider webs - tattered
napkins lie mouldering before each high backed chair and the broad dishes are filled with
the dust and bones that once
was delicate food.

John and David glance at one another, but their smiles have given place to puzzled uneasiness.

DAVID
How’d you explain this, John?

John pulls himself together and speaks with light
confidence . .
JOHN

David looks at John in quick surprise and follows the direction of his eyes. The CAMERA moves slowly towards the same direction and there upon a heap of decaying tapestries crouches a huge rat - its evil, baleful little eyes gleaming in the moonlight. John picks up a plate from the table and throws it at the rat it disappears with a snarl and a flash of bared teeth.
That’s easy enough: it explains the old boy’s story. Years ago a banquet was going on and something disturbed it - an attack from outside, possibly a fire. Everybody gets up and runs out and they never come back. Then one day a fellow drifts in and sees all this and works up the big story - that’s all.

(he glances away into the darkness, laughs, and calls out in a louder voice)
Good evening, Baron Peralo!
JOHN
Exit Baron - snarling with rage!

(to David)
It was poor old Baron Peralo who got turned into a rat, wasn’t it?

DAVID (IN A VOICE THAT HE FINDS HARD TO CONTROL)
I don’t know. I forget
He glances nervously over his shoulder and John laughs.
JOHN
Looking for Prince Michael, the giraffe? or did he change gear into a dromedary
He laughs more loudly and claps David on the shoulder.
JOHN

Come on! - let’s see where this goes He points to a low doorway that still has its door swinging crazily on its hinges. He pauses for a moment as he is about to go through.

JOHN
Look out! - these boards have gone. This one looks sound enough. One at a time!

He walks carefully across the one sound board and David Follows him into the room beyond.

The audience will recognize it as the private room of Count Dracula, for the couch still stands where the girl had lain upon it.

DAVID
SSSSSSSSSS I’m glad we didn’t bring the girls. They’re plucky enough, but . . .

JOHN
I must say it’s a bit uncanny. What stories we’ll take back to Chicago, my bonny lad!

(he puts on the manner of a guide) And here we have the room where the bad Count Dracula did the dirty on the little peasant girl!

David has crossed to the couch: he is looking at the floor and suddenly starts back with an exclamation of astonishment and fear. He looks across
at John without a word. John looks at David in surprise and crosses to him. Together they glance down upon the floor as the CAMERA moves with their eyes. There against the couch, gleaming white in the moonlight, lies a human, skeletened arm.

This time there is no attempt in either young man to play makebelief. They stare questioningly at each other. David voices the feelings of both when he says in a low voice. .
DAVID

It’s time we got out of here.

They turn away from the gruesome relic when a strange, unearthly sound comes to them. Until now the Castle has been wrapped in deathly silence, but suddenly, from far away, comes what sounds like a number of people talking and laughing gaily at dinner. It is too
indistinct to catch any word, but the very casualness and gaiety in such surroundings adds an unearthly terror to it. Then suddenly there arises from it one long peal of diabolical laughter that rings and echoes through the deserted Castle. It ceases, and with it the
other voices cease and once again the ruins are swallowed in their tomblike stillness. The two boys are frozen to
their feet by the horrid soundsbut when silence comes they grope with one accord, un
steadily towards the door.
On their way they have to go by a deep alcove window from which can be seen a long stretch of the Castle walls - and as they pass, something catches David’s eye that forces him to stop.

DAVID
John. Look there! It’s a man!

John is by his friend’s side and together the two boys stare out of the window at the silvered, moonlit wall. It is pitted here and there with little windows that form indistinct black holes, and at one of these windows gleams the white face of a man.

THE CAMERA moves past John and David: it comes full against the window they are staring through so that a closer view is taken of the window at which the man is standing.
It is the face of Count
Dracula: deadly pale horribly evil. Long
tapering white fingers hang over the window frame as he grips the stonework. He is shrouded in a black cloak that heightens the corpselike pallor of his face and hands.

He seems to be listening:
from out of the night comes the long drawn howl of a wolf. He strains a little forward as if he would go to it. Slowly he
draws himself up until his whole body sways outward through the window - slowly his head-first into the abyss beneath him - and then the whole body creeps through the window as the white tapering hands grip the crevices of the stones beneath it.

The horrid thing is out of the
window now - gripping the walls
with its fingers and toes - and
then it runs head downwards along the wall - quickly and slantingly like a huge spider. It zig-zags
stops - runs quickly inwards again and finally disappears and seems to close up its limbs into a big crevice of the wall.

The long low cry of the wolf echoes up from the valley.
The CAMERA draws back to the two boys at the lattice window.
David is nearly fainting - he runs his hand across his wet brow and sways. John tremblingly puts out his hand and guides David towards the door.

JOHN (HOARSELY)
Hang on, old boy - careful how you go!

He watches David as he goes unsteadily across the decayed board and through the doorway. He is about to follow when suddenly, without warning, the great door crashes to and leaves him alone in the room.

CUT TO: The other side of the door to David, his strength returned, hammering and kicking at the huge, fast closed door. He cries out in a hysterical burst. .

DAVID
John! - John! - are you there, John?

There is no response: everything beyond the door is
deadly quiet. He redoubles his efforts, wrenching at the great oaken door without avail.

DAVID
John! - John!
CUT BACK TO:

The room. David’s cries are
distantly heard, muffled by the huge bulk of the door and walls - but John is standing, apparently unaware and unconcerned at his friend’s agony of mind. His face is without expression: his lips are slightly parted: he is staring fixedly into a dark corner of the room. The CAMERA moves in the direction of his eyes. It moves past the old crumbling couch and the skeletened arm, over to a small arched doorway in the further wall. The moonlight from the recessed window paints the walls a misty grey, but the doorway forms a black opening, and in it stands the pale form of a girl.

The figure does not move. It gazes at the boy by the window with great dark sad eyes. A
white gown reaches at her feet and in the face and form can be seen the peasant girl who waited in this room for her lover in the ages past. But the simple beauty of the peasant girl has refined itself to a radiant loveliness - a queenly dignity
and exquisite beauty that has gripped the boy in its over
whelming power.
The dark eyes
seem to hypnotise him, for after
a moment he raises his arms as
though compelled by a super-natural power, and takes an unsteady step towards the arched doorway. As he moves forward the picture.

CUT TO:

David, upon the far side of the door: he is beating the panels in a frenzy of fear and calling out in a hysterical voice. .

DAVID
John! For God’s sake answer! answer me, John!

But an answer comes from
behind him, in a low gurgling horrid chuckle of laughter: he swings round and utters a a strangled cry - for there, upon a high backed chair within a few yards of him sits a giant toad with pulsing throat and huge tuberous eyes. The moonlight shines upon its horrid blotched skin and another ghastly gurgle of laughter comes. The frantic boy turns to the door again and shouts for his friend to answer him.

DAVID
John! - John!

Once more the answer comes
from the shadows of the Great
Hall behind him - this time a
sharp hissing laugh that comes and goes in unison with quick laboured breathing. David
swings round - and in the
shadows within a foot of his
face there sways the great
head of a snake with unearthly grin. The boy’s nerve breaks: he puts his hand to his head, shrieks out and rushes across the Hall. He stumbles and falls against

(CONTINUED) the great worm eaten furniture he shrieks and moans in stark
madness and a chorus of laughter pursues him. His cries die away in the darkness, the laughter grows fainter and the great room is once more wrapped in its ageless silence as the picture

CUT TO:

John, in the room behind the closed door. He is standing as we left him: his hands slightly raised: his lips parted: his eyes fixed ahead of him in a hypnotic stare.

The figure of the girls is motionless, but as the boy draws nearer it seems to recede from him: he quickens his pace, and as he reaches the little arched doorway the figure recedes to the end of the flagged passage beyond. He stumbles blindly forward, swaying slightly as he goes, but when he reaches the end of the passage a bare wall confronts him and the girl has gone.

But a panel of bright moonlight floods in from a chamber to his right: he turns stiffly and stares in. The figure of the girl is silhouetted against a tall lattice window: she stands by a low couch and slowly beckons to the boy with a smile. The moonlight falls straight upon his pale, drawn face as he slowly approaches her. She sinks down upon the couch. It stands upon the raised window dais, forming a throne for her.

The boy kneels on the dais - the girl stretches forward a pale delicate hand and strokes his hair. Her voice has a dreamlike softness when she speaks to him. At last . . . a friend. I need a friend.

The boy’s voice is hoarse and unreal as he replies. .
JOHN
Who are you?
She shakes her head with a weary little smile. GIRL
I’ve waited patiently.

JOHN
But you’re . . . you’re young and . . . and very beautiful . . . how can you live in. . . in this

The girl breaks in with a little laugh.

GIRL
Don’t speak too hardly of my home.

(she seems to draw life from a touch of his hand) But how wonderful this is: it
will be my home no longer - now that you’ve come to take me away.

(she looks steadfastly in his face)
You’re young, too. Young and
strong . . .
JOHN

At this word the girl recoils with a fierce hiss of anger: the boy looks up too late to see the diabolical spasm of evil that flashes in her face, for when he stares up in surprise he sees only the hypnotic beauty of the dark luminous eyes. She puts out her hand and strokes his hair again.
Won’t you explain to me? I want to understand . . . but my head’s - bursting - I can’t collect my thoughts there’s something so . . .

(he gropes for words, they suddenly bursts out in passion)

You’re so heavenly!
For a moment the power of the girl seems to wane - for with a struggle the boy wins back his will. He looks up and speaks firmly. .
I’ve waited through this
eternity of loneliness, my
darling - always I know you would come. For I need the
strong hand of a man to help me leave this place: to help me go out into the world of
living people. We shall
make our plans tonight, my
dear: you and I - we shall go to the great cities and taste the joys I’ve longed for
and I shall repay you, John for I have wealth and power beyond anything the old
worn out world can offer,
strange delights you know nothing of as yet - exquisite things undreamt of in your little worksday life . . .

JOHN

But the girl’s eyes are upon him again - in all their luminous power and terrible beauty. The helpless boy tries to keep his eyes away from hers, for instinctively he knows that only by that means can he retain his will. He calls out defiantly. .
I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I’ll help you if I can - but I must go my own way: I’ve planned my life

(he suddenly grows afraid and struggles to regain his foot)

I must go back to it now! - I’ll send people to help you . . .
JOHN
I must go now!

But he cannot rise: his eyes are in the girl’s power once more: he remains upon his knees, panting for breath in a torment of agony.
Slowly the girl lowers her hand and takes up a cruel, heavy whip that lies concealed behind her. With a cold deliberation she raises it, poises it above her head and deals the boy a terrible lash across the face. He does not flinch: he kneels rigidly before her awaiting a second blow. The terrible lash comes again - blood flows from his wounded face and gently she throws the whip aside.

Her eyes are upon him - beating into his brain. A stifled sob comes from the poor, abject boy: he shuffles towards her on his knees and buries his quivering head in the girl’s lap. . She fondles him - gently strokes his hair and speaks to him in a soft, caressing voice. .

GIRL

The vampire slowly raises its white, tapering hand: upon its fingers the dark blood from the boy’s wounded cheek. The beauty of the face hardens to a horrible mask as its blazing eyes gloat upon the horrid clot upon its hand: the lips part in a devilish leer of triumph - the two long canine tooth glisten in the moonlight as the picture SLOWLY FADES upon the strangled sobbing of the broken boy.
I have power - but I need a living man to plan my journey - for I must travel in strange dark ways. I long for the world, John dear your love and devotion will open the gates of life to me at last. Great cities: their lights and gaiety - their surging people strong young people . . . filled with pulsing blood . . .

(her voice drops to a trembling whisper)

. . . blood . . .
The dawn is flowing up from behind the dark crags - and Castle Dracula, upon its dark precipice, looks down upon the cold, barren mountainside.

A little group of men come
slowly searching through the
undergrowth - one, a little
apart from the others, suddenly
kneels and calls to his com
panions.
He is kneeling beside the body
of David Hartly. The boy is
sprawled upon his face - he is
cut and bruised - his clothes
are torn and mudstained. Gently
they turn the boy over: after a
moment he opens his eyes and looks at them. They are wild, staring eyes, desti
tute of sanity. Presently he gives
a little chuckle and speaks to the
men around him. .

DAVID

The men look at each other and shake their heads. One apparently the leader, speaks to them. . Toads: the whole lot of you: chuckling, gurgling, cackling toads.

(his voice rises)
Lizards and snakes! - Pigs and porcupines! That’s all you are!

LEADER
This is one of them. Where’s the other?

They stare round in the gathering down.

LEADER You men have a look for him. Leave this one to us.

Three men gently raise the insane boy and carry him away, while the others move on along the mountainside.
The boy’s laughter beats harshly against the stillness of the dawn. As they carry him limply away he throws back his head and calls out. .

DAVID
Look out! John! - the door’s closing! - John! - John!

FADES OUT. SECOND HALF
These Sequences follow directly
upon the visit of John and David
to Castle Dracula - upon John’s
meeting with Dracula’s Daughter
and the discovery of David upon
the mountainside
---o0o--SEQUENCE “E”
FADE IN

A bedroom at the Inn. Most
of its old fashioned furniture
has given place to the needs
closed, and his thin, wasted
face is deadly pale. A doctor

NURSE
Professor van Helsing is here, sir.

DOCTOR (NODDING)

The nurse takes her place by David’s bedside and the CAMERA FOLLOWS the doctor down the steep dark stairs of the Inn. He enters the big living room and Professor van Helsing rises to meet him. They shake hands.

I’ll come.
(he crosses to the door, and speaks to the nurse with a motion towards the
boy in the bed)
Stay here and make a careful note of anything he says.

DOCTOR
I’ve brought you a long way, Professor.

VAN HELSING
The contents of your letter would have brought me across the world. How is the boy now?

DOCTOR
He was conscious for half an hour this morning and his mind was clear.

VAN HELSING Good.

DOCTOR
I wrote to you because of the wonderful work you carried out ten years ago in the strange case of Count Dracula. If there is one man in the world who can understand this terrible business- it’s Professor van Helsing.

VAN HELSING
(with a gesture of im
patience)

Reserve your compliments for a better time, Doctor. What have you done since writing to me?

DOCTOR
The villagers refused every bribe we offered them to search the Castle, so we called for a dozen soldiers from Buchrest. Even they refused to stay in the Castle after sunset, but we searched the whole ruin and found no sign of John Martin’s body. When I first saw the rescued boy, his mind was completely gone: for a month he hovered upon the borderline of madness, but know I think he will recover. In all his ravings he continually repeated the legend the Innkeeper told him an hour before he went with his companion to the Castle. It occurred to me that this companion might have met his death by a fall and that the shock had obsessed the mind of this rescued boy with the Innkeeper’s story - that the strange words of his delirium came from his fevered imagination . . . . .

VAN HELSING
And do you still believe that he imagined these strange things?

DOCTOR
Until yesterday I thought it Possible- but yesterday a man came to me and told a story that makes me more than ever grateful that you have come. I’ve brought him here to see you.
The Doctor goes to the
door- signs to someone outside and returns with a rough, bearded Roumanian, who shuffles in with his hat in his hand.

DOCTOR (TO THE ROUMANIAN) I want you to repeat to this gentlemen the story you told me yesterday.

The man clears his throat and begins in a horse voice:

ROUMANIAN
I’m a carrier by trade, your honour. I carry goods from the village to the river for shipment to Belgrade. Three days after we found that poor young boy on the mountainside I received a letter telling me to go to Castle Dracula and collect two boxes that would be lying outside the big doorway. I was to take them to the river and put them on a steamer specially chartered. The letter said that the boxes contained earth from the Castle that a scientist needed for research work. You will understand my feelings, your honour: no one from hereabouts has any dealings with that devil-stricken ruin. . .

VAN HELSING
I know. Go on.

ROUMANIAN
But the boxes were to be outside the Castle- and I was to collect at midday. And the letter offered me a price for my services that would take me to two years to earn. . .a thousand crowns, your honour!. . . .a thousand crowns to be paid to me on delivering the boxes to the ship.

VAN HELSING
Yes?
ROUMANIAN
I went next day with my two sons. The boxes were there: just opposite the old bridge. We crossed ourselves and put them on the wagon: they were like big coffins, your honour heavy as lead. We took them to the boat and a young man met us and paid us the thousand crowns.
VAN HELSING
How long ago is this?

ROUMANIAN
A month today, your honour.

VAN HELSING
and why did you not tell me this before?

ROUMANIAN
Because I was sworn to secrecybut as the days went by I began to wonder if the boxes had some strange connection with the trouble at the Castle. It weighed so heavily upon my mind that I went to the Priest. He gave me absolution, your honour, and I am free.

The doctor takes a small photograph from his pocket book and hands it to the Roumanian.

DOCTOR
Is that the young man who met you on the boat and paid you the thousand crowns?

ROUMANIAN (SLOWLY NODDING)
It was a ghost of that boy, sir. I recognized his nose and chin but his eyes were like a dead man’s and his cheeks shrunken to a corpse.

VAN HELSING
Did he speak to you?

ROUMANIAN
No, your honour. He just watched us put the boxes in the hold as if he was in a dream. Then he paid me and the steamer went.

VAN HELSING

The peasant bows and withdraws. The two men stand in silence, then the Doctor crosses to the door and assures himself that it is closed. (with a nod of dismissal)

Thank you.
DOCTOR
Will you see those two poor girls?

VAN HELSING
(with a fierce shake of his head) Not yet.

(he sits in deep thought for awhile, then suddenly raises his head to the Doctor)

I swear that I destroyed the vampire soul of Dracula ten years ago. If his spirit still haunts that Castle it’s power has gone. We are facing a new and more terrible danger because we know less than we did before

DOCTOR
You know the legend of these peasants?

VAN HELSING
Of Dracula’s Daughter? Yes.

(rises)
My work begins all over again. By now that poor boy will be her slave: his blood will be tainted with her foulness- if he should die now he will become a vampire , too, a vampire that will work through the darkness with his ghastly mistress tainting hundreds - thousands - in a few generations the whole world will be filled with these bestial creatures and the human race will die. . .We’ve lost precious weeks of time! We must trace this boat to its destination! -trace these boxes! Our
only hope lies there! - The vampire’s body must lie in earth from Castle Dracula while it is powerless during the day - the earth is in those boxesand we must find them.

DOCTOR
Two boxes. . . .

VAN HELSING
(WITH A GRIM NOD)
Two boxes: one in which the vampire lies- one for that boy, if he should die before we can save him!

DISSOLVES TO: van Helsing, sitting beside David’s bed. The doctor stands near. David is conscious, although so weak that he can scarcely turn his head.

VAN HELSING
You’ve been through a bad time, my boy. The fevers of these valley are treacherous, but you’ve a strong body and you’ve beaten them. Very soon you will be well.

DAVID (IN A WHISPER) May I see John?

VAN HELSING Your friend had to go away: he’s gone back to America. . . you’ll see him. . .when he returns. . .Your illness will bring bad dreams to you sometimes. Remember that when they come, and fight them and forget them

He presses the boy’s hand with an encouraging smile and leaves the room with the Doctor

CUT TO:
Van Helsing and the Doctor, descending the stairs and crossing the passage to the door of a small room that overlooks the mountains.

Joan and Helen rise as the Doctor introduces them to the old Professor.

Both girls are mutually pale and worried by their terrible experiences but they try their utmost to put a brave face upon their troubles.

DOCTOR
This is Professor van Helsing, who has come to help us. (Shaking hand with Helen)

It is due to the skill of the Doctor that I can bring good news. Your brother is out of danger: he is making a splendid recovery. In a little while you will be able to take him
away.

HELEN
I’m so glad. My brother and my friend here are to be married.

VAN HELSING (TO JOAN)
Then the news is very good for both young ladies- and I ask you both to help us bring David back to perfect health. His mind is a blank concerning what happened at the Castle and you must do all in your power to prevent him trying to remember. He believes only that he has been very ill: that his friend John has had to go away. He must know nothing else until his mind is strong again. Take him away to London: give him entertainment and pleasure -happy things to fill his mind and drive away the dangers of memory

JOAN

Helen can no longer remain calm. The poor tormented girl breaks down and cries. van Helsing places a kind hand upon her shoulder. But surely he might remember something to help us find my brother?

(she takes Helen by the hand) He is more than my brother, Professor - for he and Helen. . .

VAN HELSING (FIRMLY)
That boy upstairs must remain in ignorance until he is strong enough to know the truth

JOAN (QUIETLY)
Then you think. . .there’s. . .no hope. Helen raises a pleading, tearstained face to the old man beside her.

HELEN
I can’t believe he’s dead, Professor Isn’t it possible that somethingsome terrible shock might have robbed him of his memory?- that he’s wandering somewhere- unable to explain? I’m certain that he’s alive! I dreamt of him last night - I dreamt that he’s alive but in terrible danger! - he seemed to stretch out his arms, and cry out to me in torment.

van Helsing gently takes her
hand.

VAN HELSING
I shall begin working now. I shall not rest until every power on this earth has been called to help us in our search. I, too, feel that . . . . .

HELEN (EAGERLY)
Yes?
VAN HELSING
. . .that there is still hope . . .
DISSOLVE TO:

A small Baltic Shipping office. An untidy looking clerk is at the telephone van Helsing is standing; impatiently by.

CLERK

Yes? - Yes - on the 18th. Right. Thank you.
(he puts up the receiver and turns to the Professor)

That’s right. Two boxes were un
shipped at Viekov on the 18th and taken straight on board a tramp steamer “Petersberg”.
Where was the “Petersberg” bound for?

CLERK (SHAKING HIS HEAD)
That I can’t say: doesn’t belong to our Company. Better enquire at Viekov.
van Helsing hurriedly leaves the office
DISSOLVE TO:

A large Shipping office. van Helsing is standing by an official who is leisurely consulting a ledger.

SLOW DISSOLVE TO: The vestibule of a fashionable London hotel: the big glass entrance doors are busily revolving to the stream of smartly dressed people arriving for the Dance.
OFFICIAL

The ‘Petersberg” left here on the 26th of last month - bound for England. It was reported as arriving at the Port of London two days ago.

A band is playing: the whole
place is filled with happiness and gaiety, with eager young people
hurrying in for their evening’s pleasure.

Presently a large black saloon car draws up outside: a girl and a young man step out and come
through the doors. Even in this beautifully dressed throng the girl stands apart in her superb loveliness. The crowd instinc
tively makes way for her as she passes through the vestibule:
people pause in their conversation and stare in undisguised admiration. It is the girl of the Castle -
Dracula’s Daughter. If anything her beauty is more wonderful amidst these lights and gaiety, for her eyes are shining - her lips are red and full - her dress is glorious. No one bothers to look at the young man who walks reverently behind her. It is John Martin, but so shockingly changed as to be almost unrecognisable. When first we saw him he was a boisterous young American with unruly hair, full, healthy cheeks an a buff, hearty manner. This evening his wiry, wavy hair is plastered down and parted in the middle in a continental way: little side whiskers give him an aesthetic, unhealthy appearance - his cheeks have shrunk and a deadly pallor lies beneath them. Dark rings of sleeplessness are round his eyes and the eyes themselves are lustrosless and staring.

Upon a casual glance he would pass as one of the dope-taking night club hangers-on of every great city in Europe.

As the girl passes the hotel bureau an attendant whispers in an awed voice to the doorkeeper.

ATTENDANT

By gum - she’s a nice
birthday packet! Who is it, Tom?

The pompous, uniformed doorkeeper glances down at the attendant with a supercilious face.

DOORKEEPER
That’s the Countess Szelenski - and don’t you forget it!
ATTENDANT
Where’s she come from?
DOORKEEPER

Austria - or somewhere. Doesn’t matter where she comes from. She’s got stacks of money and doesn’t mind spending it.

ATTENDANT
Who’s the bloke with her?
DOORKEEPER

Baron Darenstein - so he says. If you ask me he’s just one of the little gigolos after what he can get.

ATTENDANT
(eyeing John with a contempt)

You’re right there. You wouldn’t get nothing but water if you pricked ‘im. Stagnant water.

CUT TO:

The dancing room. The music is now fully heard: many couples are dancing - others are having supper at tables in alcoves and around the walls. The Countess Szelenski makes her way to a reserved table in a privileged corner that overlooks the whole of the big room. John stands by as she seats herself - and then sits beside her with adoring trance-like eyes. She smiles at him, but no word is said. Then she glances round the room as if in search of someone . . .

CUT TO:

A corner in which a young man is sitting. He is tall, and once must have been handsome - but now his face is pale and emaciated, and his eyes have the same lustreless stare as those of John Martin. He is straining forward, with a pitiful yearning and eagerness. Then as if in answer to an unseen command, he rises and makes his way stiffly and mechanically across the room to the alcove where the Countess is waiting.

CUT TO:

Another corner where a solitary young man is sitting. He, too, has colourless, wasted cheeks and the same dull, hypnotised eyes. He, too, rises and makes his way mechanically across the room.

CUT TO:

A table at which a pleasant
normal young couple are dining. The girl’s eyes are staring in admiration at the corner where the Countess is seated, surrounded by her pallid retinue.

GIRL
She’s wonderful. MAN

The Countess Szelenski: turned up here a month ago. Goes everywhere and spends money like water.

GIRL
I didn’t know anyone could be so - so wonderful.
MAN
Bit too wonderful, if you ask me.
GIRL
No one can be that . . . MAN

Well - you saw those two fellows who just went over to her? One’s Jack Turner, the polo player, the other’s Bobby Mackintosh: two of the finest chaps you could meet - until . . . GIRL

Until what?

MAN Until they got mixed up with her. Look at ‘em now - like a couple of anaemic rabbits -

CUT TO:

The vestibule of the hotel. A car draws up, and Joan Martin, Helen Hartly and David come in.

David looks perfectly restored to health trying bravely to be happy. Both girls are happy and laughing.

David looks round in awed anticipation.

DAVID
Well, the beats all the swell joints John used to bring me too. If I want a last dose to cure me - this is it!

HELEN
(laughing)

Well, you can’t dance in your hat and coat - go and hand them over like a good boy!

CUT TO:

This alcove where the Countess is seated with her three young admirers. One speaks in a low, hushed voice that is filled with reverence. . .

BOBBY
Can we never tempt the Countess? It hurts me to see you pass the evening without food or even a little wine.

COUNTESS
I’ve told you, my dear. I eat at home and I never drink . . .wine.

BOBBY
Just a sandwich? - a small glass of champagne?

COUNTESS
(with a flash of anger) I’ve given you my answer.

The boy bows his head in weak submission and the girl’s eyes soften: she strokes his hands and looks into his eyes with a bewitching smile.

COUNTESS

But you must eat, my dear. You must have good food. Take your friend, while Baron Darenstein takes his dance with me. Then we shall meet again - we shall dance - and then you shall come home with me. Now go and have food - and strong red wine . . .

The two boys rise and move weakly away. She turns to John - they rise and join the waltz

CUT TO:

A table at which David, with his sister and Joan, are about to take their places. A
breezy young man comes up and greets them.

JOAN
Hulla, Tom! You’re late -
TOM
I’ve been waiting outside.
JOAN

Tom Morris - my
English cousin. He should brighten up your evening. The two young men exchange greetings.

JOAN
Now we’re a comfortable, square number for the dance.
DAVID
(with the dinner menu)

. . .and a comfortable square meal. I’ve got an appetite that’ll disgrace me in a place like this. (he looks at Tom)

TOM
I’ll share the disgrace with you - DAVID
Now then - what about you girls - beef steak? Suet pudding?

He begins to order the meal as the SCENE MOVES to John and the Countess, dancing. She waltzes superbly and John is a worthy partner although his movements seem to come through a dream: their eyes are upon each other’s - John’s in adoration, the girl’s with a slight smile that has something of contempt in it.

CUT BACK TO

David’s table. The two young men have their heads buried in the menu while the girls look around the room.

DAVID
How’s this lobster done?
WAITER

The Homade Ambassadeur, monsieur? Why, monsieur - it is fried in the manner of Gascony - wid a leedle parmesan cheese: a coupcon of butter and endive - then cut up and served in zee shell wid mushrooms sauce - very delicious, monsieur
Joan and Helen have seen the Countess and their eyes are upon her in admiration.

JOAN
What an exquisite creature -
HELEN
What an exquisite dancer -

DAVID
(looking up from the menu) What’s all this exquisite business?

JOAN,
Why - that woman in
light grey - over there . . .
DAVID

The woman in light grey
is nothing compared with Homade Ambassadeur - what about it?
- cooked in the Gascony manner
with . . .

(he looks up at the waiter for
guidance)

WAITER
(taking his cue)
. . .wid a leedle parmisan cheese - soupcon of butter and endive . . . then . . .

JOAN
That’ll do splendidly

DAVID
Right - now let’s have a look at the wine list.
The CAMERA moves from him to
Helen who is still watching
the Countess, fascinated by
her magnificent dancing. The
couple glide round the room
to the rhythm of the waltz:
presently they draw near to
the table where the party is
sitting - and for a moment
John’s face is turned fully
towards Helen. Until now she
has not glanced at the Countess’
partner, but an instant she
is looking over the Countess”
shoulder full into her brother’s
missing friend’s eyes. There is no
sign of recognition in John’s pitiful shrunken face, but for a moment
there is a shadow of curiosity -
as if Helen’s eyes kindle a far off
memory - impossible to place or understand. Then the dancers have swung round and Helen is staring at John’s back. Then once more his face is towards
her - once more the puzzled,
stricken eyes meet hers - and
then the dancers are swallowed
in the crowd. The other three
are talking over the wine list
and have not noticed what has
passed. Upon Helen’s face is
a look of horror - of an agonized
uncertainty - for even to her
his fiancee her brother’s friend-
John is too terribly changed to
allow of any certainty - With
difficulty she turns her head
as David speaks to her hoping
he had not seen the same
scene. .

DAVID
Helen! for heaven’s sake leave that confounded woman in grey alone and attend to business! We’ve ordered Homade Ambassadeur - grilled chicken and salad and a bottle of Cordon Rouge 1921.

HELEN
(with an effort to be gay) Splendid!

DAVID
Now let’s leave it to the chef and have a dance! Joan?
Tom turns to Helen who seems frantic as David takes Joan by the hand and they join the dance.

TOM May I?
Instead of rising, Helen draws Tom down beside her.
HELEN Just a minute, Tom.

Her eyes are following the Countess and her partner round the room. Tom looks at her in surprise.

TOM What is it, Helen?

HELEN
(after a pause)
Tom. Did you know John - well?

TOM (embarrassed)
John? - I - Well, once or twice we - I can’t say I - I knew him well.

HELEN

Tom looks anxiously at Helen as if he is afraid for her sanity.

TOM Would you recognize him - if you saw him?

But, Helen - dear . . .

HELEN
I want you to look at the man dancing with the woman in light grey. Tom stares once more at Helenthen follows her eyes to the Countess and her partner as they draw near once more. He stares hard at John’s face when it is towards him: once more the weary, pitiful eyes are upon Helen in puzzled bewilderment. When they have gone, Tom turns to Helen with a gentle but decisive shake of his head.

TOM No, dear - it’s - it’s impossible. John was a beau, good looking and . . . quite different . . .

HELEN
(clutching at his hand)
It’s ghastly . . . I feel so . . . so sure . . .and yet . . .
TOM How could it be?
HELEN

Tom nods - but he is clearly bewildered. For to him, and to everyone else, John Martin must have died three months ago in the wilds of Transylvania. The dance has stopped, there is applause and the partners return to their tables.
Will you help me, Tom? - will you make some reason to get near to him? John’s
right wrist . . .it’s got a long scar . . . just here . . .

CUT TO:

The Countess, standing with John in the corner of the room. John’s hands are quivering and the girl’s contemptuous eyes are piercing his.
(she indicates a place upon
her own wrist)

COUNTESS
You are trembling, my dear. You are weak, and tired: you, too, must have red wine -

JOHN
No - I’ll - I’ll stay with you -
COUNTESS

The CAMERA falls back upon Tom and Helen. They are watching the Countess and her partner. They see the man escort the Countess to her table, bow to her and go wearily towards the door. Tom rises quickly and follows him. David and Joan return in high spirits to their table. Go and drink, my dear - I am not afraid of loneliness -

DAVID
Hullo! Where’s Tom?
HELEN
He’s just gone to have a word with a friend -
CUT TO:

Tom, elbowing his way through the crowd in the bar: ahead of him goes John - moving with mechanical weariness. John reaches the bar and orders in a tired voice. .

JOHN
Brandy . . .
WAITER
Large or small?
JOHN
(in a dull voice)

. . .brandy . . . The waiter shrugs his shoulders, pours out a double brandy and hands it across the bar.

WAITER
six shillings.

John pays with a quivering hand and raises the glass to his lips. Tom is standing beside him - his eager eyes upon the trembling, waisted wrist. Clear and red - as Helen had described, runs the long scar.

Tom stares in astonishment until he finds the dull, lifeless eyes upon him - then he turns and disappears into the crowd.

CUT BACK TO:

David’s table: the food has arrived and the party is settling down to dinner. As Tom returns, David looks over his shoulder and calls out. .

DAVID
Come on, you old stiff: What d’you mean by chasing off?
TOM
Sorry!

His eyes meet Helen’s across the table and he gravely nods. Helen makes a brave effort to eat but suddenly lays her fork down and speaks in apology.

HELEN

David: Joan: I’ve got a confession to make - I’ve had a dreadful headache all day and Tom’s going to take me home.

DAVID
(astonished)
But, my dear! . . .

JOAN
Poor darling! - why didn’t you tell us!
DAVID
We’ll all come!

HELEN
No! - no - please. It really isn’t serious - but I shall just be a wet blanket if I stay. Do you mind, Tom?

The party rises. David
vigorously expresses his determination that they shall all see Helen home but she firmly presses him back to his seat and leaves the room with Tom.

DAVID
(as Helen leaves)
Poor old Helen . . .
CUT TO:

The vestibule. Helen, despite her agony of mind, is thinking swiftly and clearly. She takes Tom’s hand and speaks very earnestly.

HELEN

Tom, dear. I want you to help so terribly. It’s so awful that I can scarcely think - but I must think. I want to save David . . . and Joan from this ghastly shock until we’ve been able to do something to - soften it and prepare the way. I pray to God they don’t recognize him in there! There was something terrible - and - unearthly in his face - and in that woman’s face. We mustn’t let him out of our sight and yet we must go to a friend at once.

TOM
I’ll find out all I can. Who’s this friend?
HELEN

An old Professor who understands strange
things. He helped to cure David: he
promised him he would never rest until he had found John. A month ago he came
to London. I didn’t understand why -
but he must have known John was here -
and kept the secret to himself. I must
speak to him now.

She draws a little notebook from her bag and looks for a telephone number. She goes into a telephone box.

TOM
Won’t you let me?
HELEN
No. Wait for me - please!

Tom stands perplexed for a moment - then an idea comes, and he crosses the vestibule to the pompous doorkeeper.

TOM
Would you like five pounds?
DOORKEEPER
(taken aback)
. . . pounds, sir? (nodding)
Five.

DOORKEEPER
(sensing a trap)
Would you explain, sir?

TOM
Do you know the dark lady - in light grey?

DOORKEEPER
(with a wink and a relieved smile)

Ah! - the Countess Szelenski!
TOM (nodding)

The Countess Szelenski. I happen to . . . (he hesitates)
well, you understand . . . you’re a man of the world . . .

DOORKEEPER
(with an artful nod)
Ah! But I’m not upon such terms as to afford an introduction -

TOM

I don’t want that. All I want is her address. You can get it from her chauffeur, can’t you?

DOORKEEPER
(shaking his head)
Her chauffeur is deaf and dumb.

TOM
Five pounds.
DOORKEEPER

I doubt if the time at my disposal would be sufficient to penetrate
the chauffeur’s unfortunate affliction but
Yes?

DOORKEEPER
I might secure the address from the office. The Countess frequently dines here and her bills are paid by cheque. it’s risky, sir: very risky for a man in my position . . .

TOM taking out his notecase)
I’ll wait here.

The doorkeeper disappears into the office as David and Joan come into the vestibule.

DAVID

Look here, Tom. We really can’t stay here guzzling and dancing while poor old Helen and you . . .

TOM (sternly)
Go back and dance! DAVID
I’m sorry, old boy. We couldn’t enjoy it if we stayed.
JOAN

She stops short as Helen hurries forward from the telephone box and halts in dismay at the sight of her friends. It’s so unlike Helen to feel like this. I must . . .

HELEN
Why aren’t you dancing? JOAN

We’re coming with you, dear. We don’t want to dance. It’s all settled, so don’t argue.

Helen looks at them
irresolutely, and makes up her mind.

HELEN

Perhaps it’s best after all. We’re not going home, Joan: we’re going to see Professor van Helsing - now! He’s waiting for us!

JOAN
(in surprise)
van Helsing? - but my dear . . .?
HELEN

We’ve no time to spare. I’ll tell you everything on our way. (to Tom)
Have you . . .?

TOM (with a nod)
I think so.

The doorkeeper has reappeared from the office and is hovering guiltily in the background. Tom goes over to him, and a look of satisfaction comes to his face as the doorkeeper whispers confidentially in his ear.

TOM
What’s the name of the man who came with her?
DOORKEEPER

Baron Darenstein (he sniffs)
A note changes hands and the doorkeeper stares after Tom in perplexity as he hurries out with the two girls and David.

CUT BACK TO:

The dancing room. To the alcove where John is sitting with one of the Countess’ other victims. The two
young men exchange no word: they seem scarcely aware of each other’s presence: they sit with chins resting upon thin. twitching hands, their eyes following the Countess in her dance with Bobby Mackintosh. The dance ends: the Countess returns to her table and smiles down upon her strange retinue.

COUNTESS

The men look up in surprise but make no sign either of pleasure or displeasure. You have eaten and drunk? - You are strong? - Then we will go

COUNTESS

John gently and reverently places the Countess’ cloak around her shoulders and the three young men follow her from the room. People turn and stare after them.
I’m weary of dancing. I, too, feel tired. We shall spend a happy evening - by ourselves -

CUT TO:
The young man and girl who first spoke of the Countess when she entered. The young man slowly shakes his head,

YOUNG MAN
There’s something very queer there . . . DISSOLVE TO:

A room in the Countess
Szelenski’s London home.
It is large and beautifully
furnished in a strange,
sombre style. The Countess
enters with the three young
men, who stand by with list
less bodies but burning,
fascinated eyes that never
leave the Countess as she
moves silently round the
room. She pulls the curtains closer and turns out a lamp
that stands on a small table near the door. The room is
plunged into a soft twilight through which the sunken, ashen faces of the men glimmer like ghosts. A small hunched dwarf, with hideous features made the more horrible by the ornate
livery he is wearing, appears and silently places a silver
tray upon the table. It contains three long stemmed glasses and a tall flagon of deep red wine. The Countess sinks down upon a couch and motions to the three men to take their seats around her. There is something uncanny in the way the men move- they grope as if blind - for their eyes never leave the face of their hostess

COUNTESS

Her pale, tapering fingers curl round the neck of the wine flagon. She pours out two glasses of wine and hands them to the two young men who joined her at the dance: John, too, stretches out his hand with trembling eagerness, but the Countess smiles and shakes her head.
I love your city. . I think I shall stay here always. I would like to watch it change with the generations - I would like to watch its children dance and play - to watch them grow old: to see the sad smiles of memory come into their faces: to watch them steal away and die. COUNTESS

No John. Dawn comes early on these English summer nights - and I’ve something I must say to you before I go . . . (she watches the two men sip their wine with ravenous, fear stricken eyes) Drink the wine of my country - feel how it kisses the blood and sends it racing away to delicious dreams. Feel how gently it leads you to the exquisite hours that none but I can give you(she turns to John)
You will go to your room, my dear - until I am ready

She takes his hand and gently leads him to the door. He
takes one terrified glance back before he goes - at the two young men who are already in deep unconsciousness - who loll back in the chairs with a flickering smile upon their bloodless lips. The Countess softly closes the door. She crosses and stands before one of the young men, she sinks down beside him with the sinuous grace of a wild animal. She strokes his hair: very slowly her lips draw near his throat. In the dim light of the room they can just be seen to part and touch his skin as the scene

FADES TO:

A room in van Helsing’s London apartment. The old Professor stands by the windows. He wears a dressing gown over his evening clothes. He looks down upon
London with its lights and its droning murmur. David, with Helen and Joan, are seated nearby - all three with stricken, bewildered faces. David looks up and speaks in a low, halting voice.

DAVID

You mean that everything the old man told us at the Inn - is true?
van Helsing turns from the
windows and gravely nods
his head.
VAN HELSING

It is best that you should know everything, David. And I thank God that you are strong enough to bear the truth. I need you with all my heart, my boy. I need you to help me to save your - John -
(to Joan)
-your brother
(to Helen)

- your friend. For so long as that poor boy lives, his soul remains his own, even if his will power is destroyedand in his soul, he loves you.

Helen covers her face and can no longer hold back the agony of her mind. van Helsing gently lays his hand upon her quivering shoulder.

VAN HELSING

I tell you my dear, that so long as he lives, our hope can live - and you must be brave. You three young
people alone can help me - for you alone know that the vampire is no mere legend. The rest of the world could believe me mad: they would lock me up and then our hope would truly end -

DAVID
(desperate)

For heaven’s sake let’s do something! I’ve got the . . . the woman’s address. Let’s go there now!

VAN HELSING
(sternly shaking his head)

To go there by night would still more surely be the end of all our hopes - for at night the vampire’s power is terrible - far beyond our human understanding. If the vampire were to know that we were working too save John from her - she would kill him and make him her slave for eternity. Even now he is helplessly within here power - but she needs him as a living man to help herand that is our hope.
We must work by day when her power is weak: we must find where her body lies during the hours between sunrise and sunset: we must drive a stake through her heart: cut away the head and give the soul of Dracula’s daughter everlasting peace.
Remember that even if we were to seize John by force the vampire would pursue us to the end of the earth - for it
has the power to pass through closed doors and solid walls: it can transform itself from human shape to that of a wolf - a serpent - a vampire bat. Those are the ancient legends that have proved themselves true.
But we know also the vampire’s
limitations. It cannot pass across running water and that is why
John was needed to bring the body
to England. By day it must
lie upon consecrated ground -
and somewhere, within some
old chapel or graveyard, it has
its secret lair. One man
alone knows where that is -
and that is John. We must
find him by day - when he is
safe - by some means we must
make him lead us to the
vampire’s hiding place -

DAVID
What about this address? 32 Brussel Place - they tell me she lives there.
VAN HELSING
(with a slight smile)

32 Brussel Place is not likely to be consecrated ground. By night she may use it - by day her body must lie elsewhere
DAVID

But John must live somewhere! - and sleep somewhere that’s . . .human!

VAN HELSING
Yes. John must . . . and John may live at this address. We’ll go there, David, and see what we can see, but I warn you: We must not hope to enter until daylight comes.
(to the girls)
Stay here for a little while - until we return.
CUT TO:

The street outside van Helsing’s rooms. van Helsing and David leave the house and walk away as the scene

DISSOLVES TO:

A dark London Square. David furtively examines a number upon one of the houses.

DAVID

No. 28
(he counts down the street to the fourth house beyond them) That would be 32.

VAN HELSING
Walk by without a sign.

The two men cross the road and walk down upon the
opposite side. They glance furtively from the corners of their eyes at the tall
gloomy house that is No. 32. It is shrouded in darkness. But just as they are almost past, van Helsing, with
lightning movement, draws David into a recess and stares through the dusk at the house opposite.

DAVID
(in a whisper)
What is it?
VAN HELSING (pointing)
Watch: the side gate from the basement steps

The CAMERA peers into the darkness that surrounds the silent house. At first there seems no sign nor movement: then something is seen stirring - a white, trembling hand sways up from the area and grips the rails of the steps - slowly and painfully, with unutterable weariness - a young man draws himself up the steps and out through the side gate. He gasps for breath, then gropes away in the opposite direction from the porch under which van Helsing and David are waiting: he sways - rests against the railing and goes on. van Helsing motions to David to follow.

VAN HELSING
Careful. Make no sign that you’re seen . . .

The shambling figure turns a corner and the two men hurry after him to keep him in view. They are just in time to see the pitiful figure stumble and clutch at the railing - it falls to its knees, crawls a little way along the pavement and collapses upon its face van Helsing and David hasten forward and kneel beside the stricken man. They turn him over. It is Bobby Mackintosh his thin, chalk-white face drained of every drop of blood. He is unconscious, and breathes in short, choking sighs. van Helsing looks up at David. VAN HELSING

Is this John?

DAVID
No. It’s a man who was with them at the dances.

VAN HELSING (pointing to the unconscious
man’s throat)
You see his throat? . . . the wounds of the vampire. He’ll not live to see the day -

DISSOLVE TO:

The room in the Countess Szelenski’s house. She is alone upon the couch - she is leaning back in voluptuous satisfaction: she is holding a handkerchief to her lips and there are flecks of blood upon it. The liveried dwarf enters and stands mutely by the door. The Countess raises her head.

COUNTESS
Tell baron Darenstein to come to me. The dwarf leaves the room.
Presently John enters and
walks with silent, hypnotised
eyes towards the couch. The
girl motions to him to sit
beside here and she takes his
hand in hers.

COUNTESS
You have helped me, John: you’ve been brave and faithful to me: you’ve shown me the gaiety of a great city - and soon I shall give you your reward. (she smiles and caresses his hair) You are angry that I should have brought others here and given them the wine and the joys that at first were yours alone. It is because I must always have men of this world beside me to do certain worldly things beyond my power. (CONTINUED)
(CONTINUED)
I have only brought them here to preparethem to take your place, my dear - for I love neither of them: all my love is for the boy who came to me in my Castleand brought me to the joys of this great
living city. By tomorrow night you will drink this wine for the last time, dear John. You will never again wake with weary limbs and trembling hands to wait through the long empty day for my
return - for you will die and become
like me - for ever. By day you will
sleep beside me in my resting place
by night you will be free, like me, to
drink the strength of the pulsing
world . . .

The dawn is coming: the vampire stares out at the first pale streaks that are rising beyond the trees in the Square.

COUNTESS

The dawn stands in our way for the last time, my love - tomorrow night you shall return with me- we shall lie together in our resting place - and the days will never again bring loneliness

She holds out her arms to him and he gathers her fiercely
to his body. For a moment
they are motionless, in
passionate embrace, and then slowly the form of the girl
FADES in his arms and he is
alone. As if by custom he
turns and goes to the windowshe stares out into the dawn
at a great vampire bat that flaps slowly away above the dark trees in the Square
The PICTURE FADES to the bat, circling above a ruined chapel in the midst of a wild, forsaken burial ground. It slowly
descends, and from the place
where it disappears behind a slump of trees there emerges the pale, wraith-like figure of a girl. The figure passes amongst the decaying tombstones until it
comes to the steps of an old
crumbling vault. It passes down the steps and through the closed door.
The CAMERA follows - into the dim light of the vault. The girls stands between two great earth-filled coffins. She lays her hand gently and caressingly upon one of them and says very softly . . .

VAMPIRE
Tomorrow night, my love - I shall no longer be alone . . .

The girl’s form melts away as she stands there - and her body is seen lying peacefully in the box next to that which is to be her lover’s
FADE OUT:

END OF SEQUENCE “E” DRACULA’S DAUGHTER
SEQUENCE “F”
FADE IN:

A pleasant apartment which David, Joan and Helen are sharing in London, It is morning: the two girls are at breakfast as David comes in with the paper. He hands it across to them and indicates a large headline:

“MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF FAMOUS YOUNG SPORTSMAN”
DAVID
Here’s the whole story
The camera takes up the paragraph:

“Robert Mackintosh, the famous young rider and polo player, was found dead early this morning under remarkable circumstances which the police are rigorously investigating. . .”

DAVID
Lucky we cleared off when we saw the policemen coming. We don’t want to be pulled into a public enquiry.

The telephone rings; Joan answers.

JOAN
Yes? Oh yes, please. Tell him to come straight up. (She puts the receiver up) Professor van Helsing’s here.

DAVID
good.

HELEN
he mustn’t know that I’m going to see John this morning. She breaks off abruptly as the Professor enters. He looks tired and anxious - and carries a small, curiously shaped bag.

DAVID (DESPERATELY)
Helen! - you can’t! - it’s a job we must do together! Whatever happens, you’re not going into that house alone.

HELEN (FIERCELY)
I tell you it’s the only way!. . .

VAN HELSING
(abruptly)
You have seen the papers?

DAVID
yes.
VAN HELSING
nothing can be done about that. It was certain to be published. I’m only thankful that we escaped from the body in time. It means that we must set aside my careful plans and take desperate measures. The
vampire will know of this - When she learns of his death and the public outcry she may seek to escape. We found her by chance - by a miracle - and miracles never happen twice - this time she may go where none of us can find her.

DAVID (with an impatient cry) Then for heaven’s sake. . .!
Van Helsing impatiently stops him.

VAN HELSING
Listen! We must work swiftly - but a false move might bring disaster. Today, by means which I shall explain to you, we must see John -

HELEN (QUIETLY)
I must see John.

VAN HELSING
(nodding with surprising calmness) Yes, my dear. You must see
him.

DAVID
(incredulously) She can’t go alone!

VAN HELSING
(firmly)
She must go alone.

DAVID
but. . . . . .

VAN HELSING
(taking Helen’s hand)
Alone - because this girl’s brave heart and his love for her will be our only hope. (he pauses)
Remember that John lies completely within this evil power - but the power over him is not so strong by day - and the power of this girl’s love may prove greater. If we were to go together she would suspect a trap - this poor tortured mind would call to the vampire for
protection and he would fight against us. If Helen goes alone he will suspect nothing. She must persuade him to join us here: his memory will be restored and before sunset we must urge him to guide us to the secret place where the vampire sleeps. Only by that means can we destroy it.

He opens a bag and
produces several
curious packets. He unties them and glances up with a grim smile.

VAN HELSING
In happier times we would laugh at these barbarous protections against evil - but we’ve no longer any
right to laugh at superstition. These little
necklaces are made of Wolfbane a herb that gives safety to those who face the vampire. (he hands one to each)

Wear these and never allow them to leave you until our work is finished. And now we must go: with twelve hours of
safety before darkness comes again. . . .

CUT TO:

A drab, untidy office upon the wharfside at Tilbury. Thru the dirty window can be seen the jumble of masts and funnels of the Port of London. A man in shirtsleeves is at the telephone.

MAN

CUT TO:
John, in the Countess
Selenski’s house. He
is speaking on the telephone in a dull, monotonous voice as if the words are being dictated to him. yes sir. What’s the address? (he jots it down with a pen)
Disused churchyard? Torresby Abbery - near Rainsham, - yes. sorI know Rainsham

JOHN

It is vitally urgent. You will send two men - for the boxes contain earth and are heavy - two men and a strong motor vehicle. Is there a boat sailing for the Black Sea during the next few days

CUT TO
the shipping agent.

CUT BACK TO: The man in the shipping office - his face grows more and more astonished.
MAN

There’s one sailing at dawn tomorrow morning, sir - “The City of Belgrade” - tramp steamer carrying racing pedal cycles and sewing machines.

MAN

Yes, sir - well, sir - we charge the usual freightage - what’s that? - a hundred? - secrecy? - naturally, sir - I’ll certainly. . .are you there? . . . The ‘phone is silent. The man hangs up the receiver and stares at the nearby clerk.

MAN

Who said there wasn’t no romance left in shipping? D’you hear that, Horace? We collect two boxes of dirt out of a decayed churchyard - pit ‘em on the sweaty old “City of Belgrade” and get a hundred pounds if we don’t say a word to nobody about it! That’s money for dirt all right! -

CUT BACK TO:

John, sitting in hopeless weariness at the table beside the telephone. He rises and goes stiffly to the door, he stands on the threshold and glances in.
Upon a bed, in crumpled evening dress, lies the body of Jack turner, the vampire’s second victim. John crosses to it and looks down with no sign of emotion: he raises his head and speaks as if to an invisible figure by the window. .

JOHN

You should have taken more care, my dear - you took no account of the frailness of these poor human bodies of ours. You destroyed those who would have helped us.
(he pauses, and seems to listen to a silent voice)
Yes, my dearest - I shall be there . . . at dawn ‘’’we shall go together . . . until dawn, my love . . .
(he seems to bid goodbye with
a weary smile upon his lips)

CUT TO;

The dim interior. The old jangling bell rings through the silent house. There is a QUICK FLASH TO John, raising a terrified face from the desk at which he is working, a
QUICK FLASH to the horrid liveried dwarf raising his head in surprise from his work in the dark basement kitchen. He creeps to the door - the
bell rings out again and he stealthily ascends the stairs to the great gaunt entrance
hall. John stands framed in the doorway of the room in which he has been working. The
dwarf stares at him but makes no sign: It is as if both are creatures from whom all initiative has been sapped. The dwarf
unbars the door and slowly
draws it open. Helen stands there in the sunlight. She
masters her revulsion at the sight of the hideous little
creature and smiles at him as though he were a normal
respectable servant in an old London house.

HELEN
I’ve come to see Baron Darenstain, please.

DWARF
(in a halting, guttural voice)
What do you know of Baron Darenstein?
HELEN
The Baron’s a friend of mine.
DWARF
The Baron has no friends
HELEN

It’s very important. The dwarf stands squarely in
the doorway and makes no sign of
letting her pass. Helen
summons all her courage and
says in a commanding voice. .

HELEN

I come by command of the Countess Szelenski!
The effect upon the grotesque creature is instantaneous. He cringes back, bows, and motions to here to enter. The girls stands waiting in the darkened hall as he replaces the bolts and bars. The door of the room at which John has been standing is now closed and John has disappeared. The dwarf motions her to follow him. He leads her across the passage and throws open the door.

CUT TO:

A LONG SHOT
of the room, over
the girl’s shoulder, from her place by the door.
John is seated upon the couch; his head sunk low between his shoulders - his mouth open - his limp hands dangling palms outward at his sides. He stares at the girl without a shadow of recognition; blank misery in his
pitiful, bloodless face. Although Helen is prepared by her sight of him at the hotel on the previous night, she cannot hold back a gasp of horror at his terrible appearance.
Suddenly his voice crackles outhigh pitched and trembling

JOHN
Who are you? - what is it you want?

Helen comes quietly forward. As she advances, his sunken, smouldering eyes never leave her face: they search, and search - as if desperately striving to penetrate dark clouds of memory.

She sits beside him on the couch and tries gently to take his hand, but he draws back with a quick, nervewracked spasm and sits in the corner far removed from her, in stone--like stillness. (with a smile)
You know me, John. It’s Helen

JOHN

(in a low voice)
You’ve stolen those eyes from someone. Who’s eyes are they?

HELEN

While Helen is speaking, in a soothing, joking, casual voice, the boy never takes his eyes from her face, but gradually it seems as if the shadows pass from his mind: his hardness begin to soften - his lips tremble - his white face seems to grope for something and weakly grasp for it.
When he replies there is a tiny hint of the old John in his voice. .
Try and remember, dear. You’ve been asleep - we’re on a motoring tour with David and John - we’ve been staying at little outlandish villages in Transylvania - you put the car into an old cow shed and the cow got angry and tried to kick you - then you came in and we had supper in a big old room with a fire that smelt of pine needlesand a clock that kept striking like a musical box- and you and David went for a walk in the moonlight - up the mountain path - and you came in and fell asleep here - and you’ve had a nightmare - because you’ve called out in your sleep.

JOHN
What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in bed?

HELEN

She reaches for his hand and this time he allows her to take it. He passes his other hand across his eyes and stares round the room. Joan and David are in bed - you looked so tired - I wanted you to wake naturally, my darling -

JOHN
But where are we? This isn’t . . . ? The Innkeeper let us use this room while you and David were out. (with a laugh)
It’s very grand, isn’t it?

Suspiciously his eyes begin
to turn towards the windows, where
the gaunt houses opposite would
have told him the truth, but
she quickly takes his tired,
sulken cheeks in her hands.
She kisses him and looks him
earnestly in the eyes.

HELEN Listen, my darling - I haven’t told you the truth - but now that you understand -now that you remember me- I must tell you.

He begins to draw away with a dawning suspicion, but she holds him to her and speaks with all the strength and calmness she can summon. .

HELEN

The boy stares dumbly at herthen suddenly he burst into tears and buries his head in her arms. His whole body quivers in an outburst of weak, helpless sobbing - now and then he murmurs in a strangled, broken voice. .

JOHN
Thank god! . . .Oh Helen . . .thank God! . . .
HELEN
(Softly)
Poor John . . .
He raises his dull, stream
ing eyes to hers and begins
to talk in a rambling, in
coherent stream of words. .
John, dear: you’ve been very ill. Out on those mountains that night you caught a fever - you could remember nothing for days and days, and you had terrible dreams that are over now for ever. We brought you away from
Transylvania - you are in London now: you’ve been staying in this house where doctors have nursed you back to health again. They told me I could come for you today - David and Joan are waiting for you in a house close by. We shall all be together again: we shall go home - and forget the terrible time you’ve been through.
Helen raises his withered, trembling hand and holds it to her lips. He seems to draw strength from her and speaks more calmly. . I’ve been drugged through the torments of hell, my darling - nightmares - ghastly nightmares - foul, unending nightmares! . . .
(he holds her tightly to him) Don’t leave me, my darling . . .say you’ll never let me sleep again . . . until we are married - until I can sleep without fear with the dear hand in mine. . .

JOHN

My dreams have been haunted, Helen . . .
haunted by a horrible, ghastly creature . . . dead, but bloated with foul, bestial
blood that she had sucked from living
men - I dreamed that I was helplessly
horribly in her power - that out of this
wallowing filth I drew an exquisite
delight . . .

HELEN
It’s over now, John dear. You’ll never dream those things again. You must come away with me now, for David and Joan are waiting. We shall have splendid happy times again. . .

JOHN . . . it was so terribly - horribly vivid: I can picture every ghastly incident . . . I can still see that face with its unearthly fascination - Its loathsome . . .magnificent eyes . . .

Suddenly he stiffens: he sits bolt upright on the couch - his body seems gotten - he seems to be listening - and then in a strange, unreal voice he answers
I’m coming, my dear - (silence)
I shall be faithful . . .

DISSOLVE SLOWLY TO:

The tomb in the forsaken
churchyard where the vampire lies. THE CAMERA is upon
the face in the great earthfilled coffin. The vampire lies in its white draperies and upon the beautiful face there is a smile; the full blooded lips move very slightly as if sending a command . .

SLOWLY THE PICTURE FADES
but the head remains - the PICTURE FADES BACK to the room where John and Helen are sitting, and now the wraithlike head is
lightly resting upon John’s
knees - he tenderly strokes
its cheeks and hair as he gently murmurs . .

JOHN
I shall keep faith my dear. At dawn. Everything is ready

As if in echo a guttural voice speaks from the door. It is the liveried dwarf. He is holding John’s hat and coat in his hands.

DWARF
Everything is ready

The head of the vampire FADES and John stiffly rises to his feet: he stares at the dwarf and walks mechanically towards him. Helen leaps up with a cry and clings to John’s arm but he brushes her aside as if she were some importunate beggar.
HELEN

He stares down at her with dull, expressionless eyes and mouths the words that were the first he spoke to her - and he mutters them in the first tone that he used . .
John! - David’s waiting for you - and Joan! John, dear . . .

JOHN
Who are you? - what is it you want?
HELEN
You know, me dear - it’s Helen

For answer he shakes his head with a dull, lifeless, stare at her - takes his hat and
coat from the dwarf and drags himself from the room. Helen struggles to follow him, but with a vicious thrust the dwarf flings her away and slams the door. The terrified girl rises and throws herself against it, but it is locked.

CUT TO:

The street outside. The car in which David and the others are waiting is drawn up some fifty yards away. A large black saloon car swings into view and draws up by the house as John steps out and walks to it as if in a dream.
CUT TO:

David’s car. He is driving doubtfully and uncertainly upon the outskirts of London. He draws in to the curb with a gesture of helplessness.

DAVID

There is no reply from the back of the car: the CAMERA moves to van Helsing and Helen, sitting side by side. He holds in his hands the crumpled paper the Helen has picked up from the telephone table. It’s no good. We’re just chasing our own front wheels.

VAN HELSING
Is this John’s writing?

HELEN I’m certain of it: it’s not as firm as John used to write - but I know that queer cross to the T -
van Helsing quickly raises his head and calls to David. .
VAN HELSING Do you see this?

(he reads)
“TILBURY. THE CITY OF BELGRADE. DARK.” That can only mean one thing. They’re going to escape from London. Drive to the docks David!

David hurriedly begins turning the car as the picture

DISSOLVES TO

The black saloon, as it draws up in the shelter of a tree covered lane in the depths of the country, John opens the door and furtively glances round, The place is deserted. He
walks a few yards up the lane to an old rusted wrought iron gate that opens into a high gloomy wall.
The CAMERA follows him into a wild, deserted churchyard which has been disused for generations. Coarse brambles have spread themselves over stones and tombs - gnarled hawthorns and unclipped cypress and yew trees have thrust slabs aside in the greed for the sun and air.
In the centre of this forlorn
place stands a ruined chapel
which John enters after another furtive glance around. In one corner, deep in rank, summer
weeds stands an old, worn sepulchre, with a thorn tree growing between the railings and the tomb.
The boy steals down the dank
steps and softly opens the
creaking door.

The CAMERA CUTS TO the interior John goes to the great earthfilled coffin in which the vampire lies. He stoops and kisses the deep red lips: he kneels beside the beautiful body for a moment then with a great physical effort he lifts the heavy lid and places it in position, He picks up a hammer and begins nailing down the box as the picture

CUTS TO:
The decaying front gates of the churchyard, opposite to the wall through which John made his entrance. A large lorry is drawing up with two men sitting in front. As it stops the men peer distastefully into the wild undergrowth.

1ST MAN
This’ll be the place. He said half a mile down from the main road. Come on Arthur.

2ND MAN
They said there’d be a bloke waiting to show us.

1ST MAN

He’ll be around somewhere. The two men climb down and unfasten the back of the van in readiness for loading up.

CUT TO:

John, hammering the last nail into the vampire’s resting
place. He sits back, panting for breath, wand wipes the sweat from his brow. His eyes rove slowly to the other fastened box beside him and he give a little shudder. He runs his fingers shyly over the box that is reserved for his own body - then rises to his feet.

CUT TO:

The two men, lighting pipes lounging at the entrance to the chapel.

1ST MAN
He said three o’clock. It’s gone that.
2ND MAN

Oh well, I recon if we wait long enough you’ll find a corpse’ll pop out o’ one o’ them tombs and . . .cor love a duck!

The man’s pipes shoots out of his mouth in astonishment for there, within ten paces of him it seems as if his prediction has come true. John is slowly mounting the steps from the tomb, and his ghastly, cadaverous face has very little likeness to a living man.

1ST MAN

Crikey! They stand motionless as John approaches them. He turns his arm stiffly and points to the half open door of the scpulchre.

JOHN
The boxes are in there.

The first man recovers his wits an begins in the
aggrieved, argumentative tone of the British workman.

1ST MAN

Look ‘ere Guv’ner. We was told to collect two boxes in a churchyard. There wasn’t no instructions about pinching bodies out of their proper and lawful resting places.

JOHN
The boxes contain no bodies. They contain consecrated earth.

(He holds up and envelope)
Here is the payment due to your master - and here
(He holds out a note to each)

- and here is additional payment for your services.

The two men stare at the 5 pound notes that crinkle in their hands - they stuff them into their pockets, set aside their scruples and walk towards the tomb as the picture

CUTS TO:

The London Docks. van Helsing and David are in impatient conversation with a stolid manhalf sailor - half official - who lounges against a wall and eyes them with suspicion.

OFFICIAL
Never heard of it, Gov’ner. Can’t be a boat of any importance or I should know. DAVID

But there is a boat of that name! Somebody must know! Where can we enquire?

OFFICIAL

Well - there’s an office along there - half a mile up on the right - some sort o’ registration office. They might tell you something

David and van Helsing hurry back to the waiting car, in which Helen and Joan are seated.

CUT TO:

van Helsing and David in another office. A clerk is examining a ledger with maddening slowness, turning casually now and then to talk to a colleague nearby.

CLERK
(to colleague)

No - I can’t manage tonight, old boy - I’ve promised to take Susie along to the pictures.

COLLEAGUE
Bring Susie along with us - party o’ six -

CLERK
(shaking his head
Susie ain’t no good on roller skates -

VAN HELSING’S IMPATIENCE
BOILS OVER: HE SHOUTS IN
A BOOMING VOICE. .

VAN HELSING
This matter’s urgent, sir!
The clerk looks up in surprised resentment,
CLERK
Well - I tell you - this isn’t really anything to do with our business. VAN HELSING
Can you or can you not assist us!
CLERK

What was the name of the boat? VAN HELSING
(as if speaking to an imbecile)

The - City - of - Belgrade!!
CLERK
(flicking over some pages)
Sorry I thought you said “Queen of Belgium”

(he is silent for a moment) Yes - here we are - “The City of Belgrade” Why, it’s only a rusty old tramp boat.

VAN HELSING
Never mind what kind of boat it is!
CLERK
Steady on Guv’ner - give me a chance! -

(he slowly reads the records) That’s right. Sails at dawn - goes out with the tide round about four tomorrow morning.

VAN HELSING
Who owns the boat? Where can we find someone in authority?

CLERK

Why - it belongs to Robinson’s & Fisher - (to his colleague)
Where’s Robinson’s & Fisher’s offices?

The other clerk thoughtfully scratches his head.

2ND CLERK
I did use to know . . .let’s see . . .no - it’s slipped me.

1ST CLERK

Turn up the telephone book. The telephone book is procured as David and van Helsing stand by, boiling over with impatience

2ND CLERK

Here we are - 14 Dockside, Tilbury. That’s about two miles down the river - you’ll have to go up into Limehouse to . . .

(but van Helsing and David
have disappeared)
DISSOLVE TO:

The official with whom John spoke on the telephone to arrange the conveyance of the boxes.

van Helsing and David - in a torment of anxiety, are struggling to keep calm in the face of maddening difficulties. The official is sitting back - very puzzled - he evidently connects his visitors in some vague way with the strange boxes - but his mind does not work quickly enough to cope with it.

OFFICIAL

He pulls himself up in recollection of his vow to secrecy and glances guiltily out of the dusty window. Against the dock lies a
battered old tramp boat: evening is falling over the mist studded river and in the fading light a lorry can be seen beside the boat. I tell you it’s not possible, Guv’ner. “The City of Belgrade” can’t take passengers: there’s no room! Our cargo’s bicycles and sewing machines and now on top of that we’ve got . . .

There is a DISSOLVES TO:

A closer view of the dockside - of a crane lifting the two great boxes from the wagon and slowly lowering them into the hold.
DISSOLVE BACK TO:

The office, to the official hastily correcting himself

OFFICIAL
. . . I say we’re full up with pedal cycles and sewing machines.

van Helsing leans over the desk and speaks with fierce intensity.

VAN HELSING

Listen, my friend. I am Professor van Helsing - Scientist from Antwerp. It is vitally that I and my friends shall sail for Varna this evening.

OFFICIAL
Why not take the Orient Express - or fly?
VAN HELSING

Because my young friend here is unable on account of his nerves to face trains and aeroplanes! We are upon a scientific expedition that demands our departure tonight!

OFFICIAL

We - I’m sorry, Guv’ner. The Captain and ‘is crew are crowded as it is. Let alone four more.

VAN HELSING
I will pay 400 pounds for passes on “The City of Belgrade”: We ask nothing but a corner to sleep in and a little food!

The picture DISSOLVES FROM the official’s astonished
face to a small unsavory
cabin in “The City of Belgrade”It is the Captain’s cabin: the official is sitting on the bunk, the Captain stands puffing at his pipe by the table.
OFFICIAL

The fewer questions asked the better, Captain. You aint doing nothing wrong nor am I.

CAPTAIN

Maybe I’m not but I don’t want my ship cluttered up with a crowd of bally passengers.

OFFICIAL

The won’t be no trouble. The old man says he’s on a scientific orgy of some sort and when them scientists get their blood up you can’t stop ‘m. You get the crew to muck in together and leave the two forward quarters free. We can afford ten pounds to each man for his trouble and a nice little bonus of 50 for yourself.

CAPTAIN

What about that white faced stiff who’s coming to look after them boxes of holy dirt?

OFFICIAL

He wants the storekeeper’s cabin down in the hold - says he’ll have food down there and he’s not to be disturbed.

(he rises)
That’s all fixed then. Young corpse face comes abort at midnight. The others wait until the last moment and I told ‘em to be here at dawn.

The Captain shrugs his shoulders as the
SCENE FADES
END OF SEQUENCE “F” DRACULA’S DAUGHTER
SEQUENCE “G”
FADE IN:

A big sonorous clock begins to strike the hour of midnight: it continues, slowly to strike throughout the following short scene.

The river is in darkness: a few lights twinkle on the untidy wharfsides and the flood tide laps lazily round. “The City of Belgrade” as she lies against the quay.

A dark figure, wrapped in a coat up to the chin, emerges from the shadows, approaches the rusty old boat and walks up the gangway. The ship’s mate, who has been lounging against the gunwhale, removes his pipe and gives a slow, reluctant salute.

MATE Baron Darenstein?

JOHN
(with a brief nod) Yes.

The mate turns, and conducts
the boy across the untidy
deck to the hatchway. He
picks up a storm lantern and
guides John down the dark
steep steps to the cabin deck.
From there he takes him down
another, steeper ladder into
the evil smelling hold. The
two men walk down a narrow passage
between stacks of bicycles and
sewing machines. John sees
in a dark corner, the two great
boxes that he has come to guard.
The mate nods toward them.
MATE

There’s you stuff. Safe and sound. Nothing eatable in them boxes?
John shakes his head. MATE

He shows the boy into a small but fairly comfortable little room with a bed and swinging lantern. The Mate looks round apologetically. The rats’d have them corners gnawed off in no time if there was a bit o’ dinner inside ‘m.

MATE

Can’t say it’s much cop in here - but you get a bit of air down that hole there - and a bit of light through that porthole when the sea ain’t rough.

JOHN
Thank you. I shall have my food in here.
MATE
The Captain’ll be pleased for you to have meals in his saloon, sir.
JOHN
(shortly)
I shall remain down here. DISSOLVE TO;

The London apartment of van Helsing. The Professor, David and the two girls are sitting round eating a
sandwich supper. All are dressed in heavy coats for a journey and their bags are on the floor nearby.

DAVID

(glancing at his watch
We’re cutting it a bit fine. That sort of boat isn’t going to hang about. I’ve made additional arrangements by telephone. We shall not go onto the boat while it lies against the quay. We shall wait until it has left the land and stands out in the river. We shall go on board by dinghy.

(he sees David’s look of surprise) We must take no chances, David. I have told you that we must obey the traditions concerning the vampire’s power. It is said that the vampire cannot cross water: once the boat has left land the vampire is powerless to return. If it were to know of our design it might escape, even as we crossed the gangway.

DAVID
It’s past two o’clock: we’re an hour’s journey.

VAN HELSING
(rising)
Then we must go.

(He looks at the two girls with a sad smile)
I pray to God that I am right in
letting you come. We’re facing a
terrible task . . . and I’m responsible
for your safety.

JOAN
That’s not true. You mustn’t think of us: we must protect ourselves.

The is a SLOW DISSOLVE.
Dawn is rising over the river: a stormy, ominous dawn that sharply silhouettes the thick forest of masts and funnels that rise from the sluggish Thames. A few boats with
pale lights upon them are al - ready moving away upon the tide towards the open sea. There is activity upon “The City of Belgrade”: the great weedy ropes are being hauled in - a black surge of smoke rises from its solitary funnel; and the harsh, staccato bell rings its signal for departure.
The propeller throbs and the old tramp boat backs away into the open river.
The CAMERA moves to a ramshackle store shed nearby. A little group, muffled in coats, stands waiting under cover of the door- way. They move silently forward upon the signal of a blue jerseyed sailor.

SAILOR
Come on. You’ll have to move clippy. The old boat ain’t much good at backing water. If she’s caught in the tide she’ll be gone before you can wink and eye.

The CAMERA follows the party as they move swiftly to some steps that lead down to the waterside. They climb into a waiting dinghy: the sailor takes up the oars and pushes off.

The CAMERA follows the boat across the misty, dawnlit
water until it draws into the shadows of the ship’s weatherbeaten side. Silently the party is hauled on board by the shop’s hands. They are taken across the deck and down the steps to the cabin quarters. And old sailor shows them into a small, dingy cabin from which another and smaller one leads off,

SAILOR
We din’t have no string orchestra playing at dinner.

VAN HELSING
We prefer a ship when we travel by sea; if we require a hotel we stay on land.

SAILOR
Tha’t what I say. Gimme a good old rattling tub every time. I was on one o’ them cruising boats once. Gives you the pip good and proper. Nothing but lobster salad and bloody deck tennis. Captain couldn’t get onto ‘is bridge for sun bathers -
Are we the only passengers?

SAILOR
Well- there’s a young bloke down in the hold looking after a couple of . . .

The old sailor is putting down the luggage and a jolt in the back stops him from saying anything more. The Mate is standing behind him and has given him a sharp warning to keep silent.

MATE
All right, Joe: you get along back on the deck.

The old sailor makes a disgruntled departure but van Helsing seizes the opportunity to gain information.

There is a slow dissolve to denote a lapse of time. “The City of Belgrade” is far out at sea: the light suggests a grey, misty afternoon. van Helsing is standing against the rails in a secluded part of the aft deck as David comes up and stands beside him. They talk in quiet
with occasional glances over their shoulders to see that no seaman is standing near. VAN HELSING

Looking after a couple of what?
MATE

Sorry sir. Not allowed to discuss our cargo. Cony’s orders. We’re not
occasioned to passengers but we’ve done what we can t’ make you comfortable. The two ladies might prefer the cabin in here. I expect you’ll all like some sleep - even though the daylight’s coming.

VAN HELSING
Yes: I think we would all like to sleep - now that daylights coming . . .
DAVID
I’ve been down in the hold.
VAN HELSING
Yes?
DAVID

The door is locked. Locked from the inside. Apparently John’s got a key.

VAN HELSING
But he must have food!
DAVID

His food is taken down to him. A
steward came down the stairs while I was there. I pretended I was exploring and he
waiting by the door until I cleared off.

VAN HELSING
Had he a key with him?
DAVID
Yes.
VAN HELSING
We must find means of getting it.
DAVID

Why not tell the Captain the whole story? Get the key - destroy the vampires’s body while it’s still day

VAN HELSING
(shaking his head)
The Captain is not a man to believe, how many would believe, David? One in ten thousand. This Captain would take us for madmen and lock us up: he’s suspicious already . . .

DAVID

No wonder. No David, we must steal that key while the steward’s sleeping.

DAVID

He sleeps in a cabin with four other men - if we bribe him he might tell the Captain.

VAN HELSING

Yes. We must get it without raising suspicion - we must wait our chance - but I dread this waiting, David. Two nights have passed - and the vampire needs food -

David shutters VAN HELSING
She will need food - but she will spare John -
DAVID
How do we know!
VAN HELSING
Because she will need him to convey her body to Castle Dracula

(he looks into the sky) Night’s coming. David We must go and protect those dear girls from harm.

CUT TO:

The cabin occupied by Helen and Joan. van Helsing is preparing the cabin against danger.

VAN HELSING

Sleep with the wolfbane at your throats; when I close this door, smear the cracks with garlic herbs - keep that window closed and smear that, too.- and then sleep without fear.

JOAN

Professor! - this waiting is turning into torture! can’t we do anything! - Anything clumsily done would mean - terrible things . . . you must have patience, my dear: and I swear to you that John will be unharmed -

DISSOLVE TO:

The storekeeper’s room
where John is hiding. He rises stealthily from his bed and peers out of the rusty porthole that is
almost level with the sea. A full moon is rising - it flecks the dark wilderness of water with a path of diamonds. He turns and creeps stealthily into the great dark hold with a storm lantern in his hand. He goes into the far corner where the two boxes lie and kneels beside on of them. He unfastens it and raises the lid.

The vampire lies motionless ion her pale liveliness: a flicker of a smile plays round the lips as John reverently bends his head and kisses them. Then he speaks in a low
caressing voice. .

JOHN

Three nights have passed, my darling - you are pale - and weak - you must drink tonight . . .

As if an answer the lips curl
into a fiendish grin - the great eyes open - blazing and
lustful. John sits back upon
his knees - terrified - -fascinated, as the lovely form

FADES AWAY. CUT TO:
The steep ladder-like steps
outside the hold. A storm
lantern swings gently to and fro, throwing its eerie shadows up and down the foul, dark
passage. In the creeping shadows a creeping creature appears and waddles grotesquely up the
steps. A hideous, bloated
bat with evil little eyes.
Up and up it goes until it
disappears into the darkness as the picture

DISSOLVES UPON:
The dark deck of the old shop. It is a beautiful, peaceful moonlit night, and “The City of Belgrade” wallows placidly upon its journey. The steer - man at the wheel is the only living soul in sight. He is singing lazily to himself as he swings the wheel and glances at his compass.

His ears are attracted by a
strange sound overhead: a
great black shadow is circling there and concentrates over
the sailor’s head. The sailor
lowers his head in surprise and growing fear. He glances round as if for help when the hideous creature, with a quick swoop
fastens itself upon its victim’s throat. A terrified cry shatters the quietness as the sailor struggles with his awful assailant - he
staggers away from the wheel - clutching at his throat. But
the black creature holds him in a vice - it pulsates and swells. With a dreadful cry the man flings himself over the side of the shop. He struggles in the water and it seems as if the creature holds him by the throat above the sea - for all that can be seen is a ghastly face half covered by the black swollen horror. There are cries of alarm and running feet on deck as the picture

FADES TO: Morning. David, pale and
haggard, is talking with the steward who is quite immoveable.

STEWARD
I tell you my orders are to keep that door locked.
DAVID
but surely there’s no harm in my seeing all over the ship: I’m interested in boats and . . .

STEWARD

If you want permission, ask the Captain - but I know what he’ll say. I heard
the owner telling him to keep that
door locked and that’s the answer you’ll get.

CUT TO:
David, speaking to van Helsing.
DAVID
It’s hopeless. He won’t listen.
VAN HELSING

Then we must tell the Captain everything. What happened last night will happen again tonight - again and again

He turns as the picture
DISSOLVES TO:

The captain’s cabin. van Helsing is seated at the table, his hands clasped in
front of him. He is pleading with all his power, but the Captain is not only
suspicious but in an ugly temper.

VAN HELSING
Upon my honour, Captain - every word I have told you is true!
CAPTAIN

And upon mine, I tell you I shall lock you up as a lunatic! I didn’t like this business from the first - this business of sneaking onto the ship after she had set off - the whole business of coming on a boat like at all -
and now this cock and bull story that insults the wits of a three year old baby!

VAN HELSING
I warn you that more tragedies will happen if you ignore what I have said!

The Captain faces the Professor with a furious swing of his head.

CAPTAIN

I don’t doubt more tragedies will happen - and I’ll tell you why! You attacked that man yourself! I had had a maniac on board once before and I know how to treat ‘em!

(he goes to the door and shouts:) Here! Robertson!

VAN HELSING
(desperately)
Give me the key! let me destroy the creature before it brings disaster to you and everyone on board!

The Mate enters and looks in surprise at the two angry men.

CAPTAIN

I want you to see that this man - and the rest of his party are kept confined to the cabins till we reach port!

VAN HELSING
Captain! - I implore you!
CAPTAIN

Put a double guard on the doors - night and day: and keep the cabins locked. You are murdering your men! Every life that’ s lost on this voyage will be upon your head!

CAPTAIN
Go on! take him away!
The Mate drags the struggling Professor from the cabin.
DISSOLVE TO:

The cabin occupied by van Helsing and David: the
old Professor is seated on the bed, his head in his hands a picture of despair.

VAN HELSING
I was a fool! I should have known!
DAVID

Helen has been standing by the porthole: she has been glancing round the cabin and suddenly a thought comes to her.
You did the only possible thing, Professor: it was the only chance and it failed.

HELEN
Isn’t there another way? -another chance?

(She taps with her heel gently upon the floor)
I don’t know much about ships - but surely the hold lies under here?

David glances at the Professor; and the old man rises with a new hope. Trust a woman to think calmly when the wise old scientist despairs! You are right, Helen! The hold must lie underneath these boards!

HELEN
It’s easily thought of, but . . .
DAVID

The’re as tough as iron - and inches thick. If we could make a hole we might prize the boards up.

VAN HELSING (leading they way into the inner cabin where the girls are quartered)
We might work in here undisturbed. Keep watch upon the door, Joan!

They swiftly roll up the tattered oilcloth that covers the boards. David produces a large jack knife and begins stealthily to cut into the timber as the picture

DISSOLVES TO:

A LONG SHOT of the old vessel, rolling gently in its way towards the sunset: It grows darker and the scene

DISSOLVES TO:

The hold. John is opening the great box in which the vampire lies: the lantern flickers beside him: he breathes
heavily as he lifts the lid and gazes down at the pale face beneath him.

JOHN (in a whisper)
Stay with me tonight, my darling - you drank deeply last night: you are strong . . .
But even as he stares at the beautiful face it begins to FADE from him. He cries out in frantic urgency. .

JOHN
Stay with me! my darling -

But the vampire has gone: the boy covers his face - then raises his eyes towards the closed door.

CUT TO:

The stairs that lead up from the hold. In the swaying light of the lantern an immense black snake is creep
in upwards - up the
gangway stairs that lead to
the open deck.

CUT TO:
A sailor, seated in the look-out turret in the masthead. It is a brilliant moonlit night -he leans forward and scans the horizon with his night glasses

The CAMERA moves down the mast to the deck. The great black
snake lies there: its head
poised upwards - its fangs quivering in the moonlight.
Slowly it rears itself and begins to climb the mast - its great
glistening body rippling from neck to tail. Presently its head rises above the turret where the lookout man is seated. The man gives a
strangled cry as the reptile strikes and coils it’s powerful body round him. He shrieks in agony as the snake, with its
victim in its grip, falls from the dizzy height with a dull thud upon the deck.
For a moment it writhes
around the man: again, as
on the previous night, men
come running up the steps -
but the snake has disappeared into the moonlit air and nothing but the mangled body of the man remains in a dark pool of blood. SLOW DISSOLVE TO:

The Captain’s cabin: the
Captain, haggard and hollow eyed, is listening to the Mate holding forth, upon the borders of hysteria.

MATE

I tell you the men’ll mutiny - if some
thing isn’t done before another night
comes down! They’ve all got it in
their heads that the old man’s at the
bottom of it: it’s their lives or his.
Put him in a boat with his friends and
cast him adrift with a week’s provisions!
They’ll run into a trade route and they’ll be picked up.

CAPTAIN

The men on guard swear the old man never left his cabin. D’you know what I’m thinking. The old fellow told the truth yesterday - the devil’s down in the hold - in one of them boxes with that man

MATE
The door was locked all night
CAPTAIN

Bring the professor up here: I’m going to open the hold and see what’s in those boxes: the old man says he can end the trouble if we let him. if we prove he’s a liar and the boxes are harmless, the off he goes in the small boar and we’ve settle both chances! Bring him up!

The Mate turns to go as the scene
CUTS TO:

The small cabin in which the party is at work. A large section of the board is nearly cut through - but the key rasps in the lock of the outer cabin. The springs back in alarm, cover the work with the linoleum and turn to meet the Mate.
MATE

(to the professor)

Captain wants you (to David)
You better come, too.

CUT TO:
The Captain’s cabin. van Helsing and David enter.
CAPTAIN (abruptly)
Did you hear what happened last night?
VAN HELSING I can guess
CAPTAIN
I didn’t believe that story of yours yesterday.
VAN HELSING

I don’t blame you, Captain. No man would believe it until he has had ample proof.

CAPTAIN

I’m going to give you the opportunity of proving yourself. I’m going down to the hold and I’m going to open those boxes.

VAN HELSING
Thank God!
CAPTAIN
Come on!
van Helsing holds up his hand in alarm.
VAN HELSING

Wait! You cannot go unprepared: we must all be protected: terrible danger lies there if we take no care.
(he produces a small circlet
of wolf band)
Wear this next to your throat, Captain . . .

The Captain takes it and contemptuously tosses it aside.

CAPTAIN
I don’t want your damned necklace. I can protect myself all right.

He pulls a revolver out of a drawer and the leads the way. The Mate, more cautious than the Captain, picks up the circlet of wolfbane, furtively slips it over his head and follows.

The CAMERA follows the party -
the Captain leading, then van Helsing and David, backed up by
the Mate. They pass through
the dim passage and climb down
the ladder to the hold. On
their way the Captain meets the steward with a plate and mug.

CAPTAIN
Have you been in the hold?
STEWARD
Yes sir.
CAPTAIN
Is the man there!
STEWARD
Yes sir. I’ve just taken his break fast and brought this stuff away.
CAPTAIN
Give me the key

The steward hands over the key in surprise. The Captain passes him and goes to the door of the hold.

He tries to insert the key, but the keyhole is blocked. The steward glances back from the stairs and says. .

STEWARD
He’s got the duplicate key, sir - He keeps it locked from the inside.
The Captain angrily rattles the door and calls out
CAPTAIN
Hi! there! - open this door!
There is no reply. He hammers on it angrily.

CUT TO: John. He is seated in the
little storekeeper’s cabin in the far corner of the hold:
he rises in terror from the food he is eating. He steals softly out, across the dark
hold, and goes to the door.
He stands there listening.
The Captain’s heavy fist is
crashing against the far side. The terrified boy turns away he crosses to the great box
where the vampire sleeps -
sinks down beside it and throws his arms around it as though to give it his grail protection. He lies there with his eyes turned fearfully toward the door. And then it seems as if a command is given him: he sits straight upright with his head on one side his eyes upon the vampire’s coffin. Suddenly he seizes the heavy lid and heaves it open. He looks into the coffin and staggers back with a cry. His glazed eyes and ghastly face are riveted at the sight before him.
Every trace of beauty in the vampire’s features has gone. Lying before him is a hideous

CAPTAIN
It’s the Captain here! Open this door!

face, distorted and convulsed with a diabolic rage. The great eyes which have always been closed when the vampire has lain in its coffin, are now wide open and staring - blazing with fury. The lips are drawn apart and the sharp white canine teeth are flecked with a blood-tinted foam.

Never before has the white form in the coffin shown any movement- but now the arms are raised from the elbows and the tapering fingers seem to hold invisible strings that control the elements. For even as the fingers slowly squirm a
deafening storm of wind strikes the ship and quivers it from stem to stern. A fork of vivid lightening flashes across the porthole and a crash of thunder follows.

The thudding at the door
abruptly stops and as the storm gathers fury the vampires movement slowly cease: the creature lies motionless with a grin of triumph on its face.

CUT TO:
The open deck of the struggling ship: the pale sun is fitfully hidden by ragged, racing clouds: the wind howls through the rigging and the storm crashes overhead: two or three of the crew stagger blindly towards the bridge as a giant wave weeps over the ship and carries them away.

CUT TO:
The Captain, struggling through the shambles and climbing onto the bridge. The Mate is clinging to the wheel as the Captain bellows in his ear.

CAPTAIN
She’ll never stand up to this! - Rockets! Quickly - and get the men to the boats! mate we’ll have ‘em swamped: it’s hopeless!

CAPTAIN

Rockets! - d’you hear! - and stand by the rockets!
The mate staggers onto the forecastle as the picture CUTS TO:

The passage outside the locked door of the hold. The ship lurches so steeply that the Professor and David are thrown helplessly to and fro against the walls.

VAN HELSING (shouting at the top of his voice) We must smash the door - there’s an axe on the wall in the gangway!

The two men stagger awaythere are quick, medleyed cuts to:

1. David, dragging a heavy ship’s axe from the gangway wall.

2. The open deck - rockets hissing erratically into the sky and bursting out a shower of fire.

3. van Helsing, groping into the cabin. The terrified girls are clinging to their beds.

VAN HELSING
The stake! And the mallet!

He picks up a heavy, pointed stake and a big mallet, and stumbles away, calling back to the girls. .

VAN HELSING
Stay here! - until we come:
CUT TO:

David, lashing at the storeroom door with the axe. The roar of the wind and sea almost deafens the crash of the heavy blade and the splintering wood. van Helsing staggers into view with his gruesome implements as the scene
CUTS TO:

John, crouching by the vampire’s resting place - his tortured eyes fixed upon the splintering door.

A QUICK CUT TO:

A few remaining seamen, struggling to launch the boat under hideous conditions: another splutter of rockets bursts overhead.

CUT TO:

The passage outside the hold. .
With a final desperate stroke
David shatters the door. A
gush of water filled with struggling, maddened rats pours into the passage as the Professor and David struggle into the great gloomy cavern with its swinging storm lantern. The pause on the threshold and swiftly take in the weird scene. John is still crouched over the vampire’s resting place - his hands are now in the box around the foul creature that he is seeking to protect. But
at the sight of the intruders he springs to his feet with a snarl of rage and flings himself upon David. David, far stronger than his wasted opponent grips him with all his power as the Professor
staggers to the coffin through the swiftly rising water.
He steadies himself, places
the stake over the vampire’s
heart and strikes with all
his power with the mallet. A
shriek of agony rises and
mingles with the howling storm - the tortured body writhes and
squirms as again and again the old man drives the stake deep
into its heart.

John has ceased to struggle, With the first death cry of the vampire a spasm of agony has swept into his face as if he, too, is sharing the pain of his ghastly mistress. But then, as the cries die away, his face takes on an expression of childlike wonder, He ceases to struggle, and David supports

(CONTINUED) (CONTINUED)
him as both turn their heads and look down at the body in the coffin,

The old Professor has dropped the mallet and stands beside the boys - watching the miracle beneath them The basilisk fury in the creature’s distorted face begins to fade away - slowly the whole face seems to purify - for a moment the proud dark beauty of the Countess
Szelenski lingers in it and then that, too, passes, leaving only the pure loveliness of the peasant girl who lived and died so long ago,
van Helsing bends reverently over the beautiful face and says in a low voice.

VAN HELSING
God rest you -
Only for a moment does the lovely girl lie there: even as the Professor speaks the face darkens and crumbles away.

van Helsing turns to John and takes his hand.

There is a staggering and bumping outside and the Captain comes blundering into the hold. He looks in astonishment at the three men standing almost knee deep in the surging water.

CAPTAIN

What the blazes are you doing! - If you want to drown stay here - if you don’t - get a move on as quick as you know how?

Even in this peril the Captain’s curiosity makes him peer down at the open box. He snorts in disgust.

CAPTAIN
I told you it was only a box of xxxx earth. Go on! Clear out!
(he stares at John, who lies limply in David’s arms)
CAPTAIN
What’s up with him?
DAVID
He’s fainted.
CAPTAIN
Anybody’d faint who’d lived down here six days!
DAVID
Where are the girls?
CAPTAIN
In the boat - where you ought to be!
They wade through the rising water as the picture
CURS TO:

The deck. The sea is still
raging but already the storm is passing: the seamen are
struggling with the boat that swings perilously away from the listing steamer. Joan and
Helen are standing by and cry out in joy as they see their friends stumbling toward them.

There is a SLOW DISSOLVE:

The sun is setting. The storm has passed and the life boat rises and falls upon the sluggish swell. The seamen are at the oars and the little group of survivors is huddled in the stern.

Some way distant “The City of Belgrade” is fighting and losing its last battle with the sea. Slowly the bows rise - and gently, almost gracefully, the old boat sinks to its last rest.

MATE
She was a good old boat - out of date but well insured . . .
The Captain turns to surviving seamen. CAPTAIN

All right boys - pull away.
(he turns to van Helsing)
And as for you, Professor, you’re a
blasted old fraud. What ever did
damage wasn’t in that damned box after
all!

VAN HELSING (with a grim smile)
Whatever did the damage will never return.

The Captain stands up and waves to a steamer that has responded to the signals and is waiting to pick them up. As the small boat passes by, the little group in the stern is clearly seen. John has his lover in his arms: incredulous happiness in his face.

FADE OUT THE END.

Reprise

The script you just read was quietly submitted to the Breen office on October 25, 1935 by James Whale, before the Universal offices were aware of its existence. His purpose, as stated earlier, was to make the story so outlandish that it would be burnt at the stake by the censor, Joseph Breen and stalling production so that he wouldn’t have to make the film. It certainly worked. A COFFIN SHAPED BOX ON THE FLOOR.

For an instant, there is no movement, them, slowly the lid rises a few inches, a hand appears in the opening grasps, the edge of the lid and pushes it up. As the lid rises, Count Dracula slowly, mechanically, comes to a sitting posture in the coffin. The lid, falling wide open, crashes on the stone floor at the other side of the coffin. Dracula’s eyes open, staring.

Here are the some changes made my F. P. Dunn Jr. in the first revision script an attempt to pacify everyone.
In SEQUENCE A, it is established that Dracula is already a vampire. Thus eliminating the Socerer Talifer as well as the transformation scenes, keeping the script more in line with the Universal Monster genre. However the earlier screenplay shows that somebody did their homework long before Dr. McNally and Radu Florescu wrote their classic book on the real life Dracula, In search of Dracula in 1975, Published by the New York Graphic Society.

2nd Draft after censors revisions Submitted 10/25/35 by John Balderston and J.P.. Dunn, Jr.

(Unknown to all the guests, Count Dracula is a vampire.
This eliminated all scenes with Talifer cursing Dracula and turning him into a vampire- Editor)

Two guests are talking.
THIN GUEST
I wonder what sort of entertainment our host is
preparing for us this evening.
TALL GUEST
He aid it would be most unusual.
A VERY ELEGANT GUEST
Then it will be. Count Dracula is a most unusual man.
(The scene continues much in the same direction as the first draft -editor)
FULL SHOT... THE HALL

Dracula stands to one side with folded arms, watching as the guest, with loud laughter, stumble to the group of girls, grab partners and swing them, unwillingly out on the floor. The big dogs bark at their heels. (NOTE: This is a scene of wild confusion and hilarity, but not of a sexual nature. The captives are all girls and there are no men dancing with men as in the first draft screenplay. The music is loud and fast not seductive, and the result bears a closer resemblance to a street riot than to an orgy.

The script you just read is a reconstruction - almost a true facsimile with the punctuation exactly as it was on the original manuscripts.

After Whale won his delay a real shooting script was turned in and approved by Carl Laemmle Jr. But the financial situation that plagued the studio was partly due to Carl Laemmle Sr.’s attempts to sell the studio, and his gambling habits. This left no time to waste. So Whale got to work on Showboat and The Road Back. Dracula’s Daughter was dropped but it was revived one year later with a completely new script, cast, crew and director. That film was the last of Universal’s Classic Monster film produced by the Carl Laemmle Junior.

Philip J Riley - June 6, 2009
THE THIN GUEST
Yes... You’ve noticed that we never see him except at night. I wonder where he spends the daylight hours..
FULL SHOT DARK VAULT In the cellars of Castle Dracula. The CAMERA TRUCKS FORWARD TO:

Appendix

Carl Laemmle Jr. was born in Chicago on April 28, 1908, just 4 years before his father merged several smaller motion picture companies into the Universal Film Manufacturing Company and 7 years before the opening of Universal City in California.

Carl, whose real name was Julius after his grandfather, attended private schools until his graduation in 1925.

1925 was a tough year on General Managers, due mainly to first the strain of cutting and recutting The Phantom of the Opera to make it presentable to the eagerly awaiting audiences, and second the high quality set by Irving Thalberg, who had left Universal for MGM the year before. No less than 3 general managers either quit under the strain or were replaced by Sr.

Carl Sr. wanted him to attend Princeton University in New Jersey, but he hounded his father to join the family business. Carl Laemmle Sr. finally relented and assigned him to write and produceThe Collegians, a series of two reelers that managed to last until 1929, and also to supervise various promotional stunts for the exhibitors.

He was acknowledged on screen for The Collegians but he didn’t receive a producer’s credit until Melody of Love (1928) Universal’s first “All Talking Picture” which was followed by Paul Leni’s, The Last Warning (1928). His screen credit read “produced under the personal supervision of Carl Laemmle Jr.”

Around this time he finally convinced his father to close down the minor production companies such as Bison, Imp and Bluebird making everything a Universal Picture. Yet he still did receive producer’s credit, only as the supervisor again on films likeLonesomeandBroadway, both directed by Paul Fejos.

All through his childhood and school years, Jr. loved literature and the theater. He turned to his books and picked a winner. When he got his chance to produce and given proper credit he vindicated himself with the Academy Award winning All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

In 1929 he asked his father if he could produce a picture version of the popular play “Dracula”. Permission was given provided that he could get Lon Chaney, then an MGM star, to portray Count Dracula. Carl Jr. started pre-production even before Chaney signed the contract which would have been for his first talking picture. Immediately a script was prepared but before the final contracts could be signed Chaney died unexpectedly.

The film was eventually produced two years later with Broadway star Bela Lugosi in the lead role.
It’s success far exceeded anyone’s expectations and it launched Universal into its Golden Age of Classic Monster Films. Jr. again turned to the books he loved and Frankenstein (1931) followed Dracula in unexpected high box office receipts. The Mummy (1932) was next; thenMurders in the Rue Morgue(1932),The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Werewolf of London (1935), The Raven (1935 ), The Black Cat (1935) which were followed by the sequels to Dracula and Frankenstein, all Junior’s ideas but he was not producer of all of them.
Romantic comedies, drama and mysteries along with his monster films gave him a well rounded resume, but in 1935 the movie world knew that Universal was up for sale by his father.
Junior believed in his choices. He would give free reign to his directors and crew members. He formed close friendships with his directors, such as James Whale which lasted until the death of Whale in 1959.
Rushing to complete the films currently in production, and all over budget, Showboat and Sutter’s Mill could not prevent Universal from covering its loses due to other producers rather than the Laemmle Jr. films
On March 15, 1936 Carl Laemmle Sr. was forced to sell Universal to The Standard Capital Company from New York. Laemmle Sr. retired to his Benidict Canyon home and continued his favorite pass-times, poker and all forms of gambling. He died on September 24, 1939.
Laemmle Jr. remained a Universal a short time, enough to enjoy the success of his last film Show Boat and then he turned in his resignation.
He moved to MGM where his own production company was planned. Soon it became apparent that his style of moving making did not fit into the factory atmosphere of MGM and he asked to be let out of his contract.
For the next few year he continued dating and throwing expensive parties but in all respect he was retired from motion pictures.
When World War II broke out Carl served in the Army Signal Corps for about a year and then he was given a medical discharge.
From 1944 until his death he remained a recluse in the house his father built. His health, made worse with the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, finally confined him to a wheel chair and the help of a male nurse to move around.
He died on September 24 1979, the same day that his father had died 40 years earlier.

Other films by Carl Laemmle Jr., Irresistible Lover (1927); We Americans, (1928); College Love, The Last Performance (1929); The King of Jazz, A Lady Surrenders, The Boudoir Diplomat (1930); Only Yesterday (1933); Imitation of Life (1934); The Good Fairy, The Bride of Frankenstein, (1935) and Show Boat (1936)

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