Tag Archives: Roland Varno

Horror Film Review: The Return of the Vampire (dir by Lew Landers)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1943’s The Return of the Vampire opens in 1918.

Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) and her colleague, Dr. Walter Saunders (Gilbert Emery), suspect that there might be a vampire active in London.  After reading a book on vampirism that was written by Dr. Armand Tesla, they manage to find the vampire’s coffin.  As the vampire’s servant — a werewolf named Andreas (Matt Willis) — watches, Lady Jane and Dr. Saunders drove a metal stake through the vampire’s heart.  It turns out that the vampire was none other than Armand Tesla himself!  Andreas turns back into a normal person and becomes Lady Jane’s assistant.

Jump forward to the 1940s.  During an attack by the Germans, a bomb explodes over Tesla’s grave and exposes not just his coffin but also the metal pole in the middle of his skeleton.  Two workmen assume that the pole is just bomb debris and they remove it.  Tesla (Bela Lugosi) promptly comes back to life and Andreas turn back into a werewolf.  Tesla sets out to get revenge on Lady Jane and the daughter of Dr. Saunders, Nicki (Nina Foch).

The Return of the Vampire is an interesting film.  Since the film was not made by Universal Pictures, it could not use the name “Dracula” for its vampire but it’s obvious from the start that Armand Tesla is meant to be Dracula.  Tesla wears his Dracula costume, speaks in his Dracula voice, and gives his Dracula performance.  To his credit, Lugosi actually gives a very strong performance in The Return of the Vampire.  His anger towards the people who staked him feels very real and there’s nothing of the intentional campiness that marred some of Lugosi’s later performances.  Lugosi leaves little doubt that Tesla is not only evil but he’s someone who truly enjoys being evil.  He can’t leave England until he gets his revenge on the people who previously defeated him.  For all the talk of stakes, sunlight, and crosses, the vampire’s true weakness is its own vanity and its inability to let go of a grudge.

As a history nerd, I found myself fascinated with how the film worked the then-current Blitz into its story.  The main villain may have been played by Bela Lugosi but the Germans definitely played their role as well, launching the bombing raids that distracted the authorities from the vampire in their midst.  Indeed, it’s probably not coincidence that it was a German pilot who brought Tesla back to life in the first place.  The German pilot is shot down but not before he drops a bomb on Tesla’s crypt.  The film says to be aware of the outside threat but to also be aware that threats can come from the inside as well.  While the Germany terrify the citizens of London, the vampire coolly moves through the night.

Clocking in at a fast-paced 69 minutes, The Return of the Vampire also features a stiff upper lip Scotland Yard inspector (Miles Mander) who, of course, is skeptical of the existence of vampires.  At the end of the film, he asks his subordinates if they believe in vampires.  They reply that they do.  He then looks at the camera and asks us, “And do you, people?”

Well, do you?

Three Faces West (1940, directed by Bernard Vorhaus)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When a small farming community in the Dakotas gets hit by an outbreak of the flu, farmer and community leader John Phillips (John Wayne) invites a Dr. Karl Braun (Charles Coburn) to come and be the town’s doctor.  A refugee from Austria, Dr. Braun arrives with his daughter, Leni (Sigrid Gurie).  At first, Leni is not happy living in the heart of the Dust Bowl but then she falls for John Phillips. However, Leni is still mourning his ex-fiancé (Roland Varno), who Leni and Braun believe sacrificed his life to help them reach America.

Eventually realizing that the town cannot prospers in the heart of the Dust Bowl, John suggests that everyone pack up and move to Oregon.  Almost everyone agrees and the one person who wants to go to California gets his van driven off the side of the road.  But Leni and Dr. Braun still take a detour to San Francisco because it turns out that Leni’s ex is not dead after all.  She and her father meet up with him and discover, to their horror, that he has become a fully committed Nazi.

This is an interesting change-of-pace for John Wayne.  Though the film is a western (and even features its own version of wagon train), it’s set in what was then contemporary times and it deals with issues like the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism in Germany.  The times may be hard but John Wayne isn’t going to let his community fall apart and, even more importantly, he’s not going to give up his beliefs or his ideals.  Even though the movie was made at a time when the United States was still officially neutral, the film is strongly anti-Nazi.  John Wayne, giving a strong performance, stands in for America while those who would collaborate with or make excuses for the Nazis represented by the weaselly Roland Varno.  Leni’s ex-fiancé had no problem selling out his beliefs and embracing Nazism.  Naturally, Leni and her father have no problem telling him off and then rejoining John Wayne in Oregon.  The United States may have officially been neutral but this movie had no problem letting everyone know where it stood.

Film Review: Underground (dir by Vincent Sherman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1941’s Underground tells the story of two brothers on opposite sides in Nazi Germany.

Kurt Franken (Jeffrey Lynn) is a patriotic German who believes that the country got a raw deal at the end of World War I and who is a strong supporter of the Nazis.  He served in the army, fighting on the front.  When he returns home to Berlin, he’s missing an arm.  Whenever his friends and his family say that they’re sorry that he lost his arm, he replies that he was happy to make the sacrifice for his country.  When someone starts to mourn for his son who was killed in the fighting, Kurt accuses the man of being a traitor for doubting the wisdom of the government.  Kurt is a true believer, just the type to be recruited by the SS and tasked with helping to investigate who is behind a series of anti-Nazi radio broadcasts.  Kurt believes that, if the government says it, it must be right.  Laws must be obeyed and orders followed without question.  Kurt, in other words, is a very familiar type.

What Kurt doesn’t realize is that the man behind the broadcasts is his own brother, Eric (Phillip Dorn).  As Kurt investigates, he falls in love with Sylvia (Kaaren Verne) without realizing that she is also a part of the resistance.  While Kurt tries to discover who is behind the underground radio station, Eric and his fellow resistance members attempt to stay one step ahead of the Gestapo.

For a film made in 1941, the film’s doesn’t flinch from showing the brutality of the Gestapo.  Like all authoritarian dictatorships, The Third Reich is determined to quash any and all signs of dissent and they investigate the underground radio station with a ruthlessness that even takes Kurt by surprise.  Witnessing first hand the brutality and sadism of the government for which he gave his arm, Kurt starts to doubt his previous beliefs.  But will Kurt’s doubts come in time to save the lives of Eric and his fellow resistance members?

Made at a time when the United States was still officially neutral in the violent conflict that was sweeping the rest of the world and released just a few months before the U.S. officially declared war on the Axis Powers, Underground is a powerful look at life under a dictatorship.  Shot in a noir style, the film’s black-and-white imagery perfectly captures the harshness of life in Germany while the shadows in the background perfectly capture the paranoia of knowing that saying the wrong word could lead to arrest, torture, and death.  The film’s final minutes involve a guillotine sitting ominously in the background, a reminder that Nazi Germany was not the first authoritarian regime and that it would not be the last.

The film is well-acted, with Jeffrey Lynn epitomizing the otherwise intelligent people who allow themselves to get caught up in the madness of the majority.  His discovery of the truth about Germany was obviously meant to mirror the awakening of the Americans who previously supported a policy of neutrality.  By the end of the film, both Karl Franken and the audience understand that the time for neutrality has passed.