Classic Films in Focus: DODGE CITY (1939)

Michael Curtiz directs Errol Flynn in Dodge City (1939), the first of the swashbuckling star's forays into Western territory, with frequent costars Olivia de Havilland and Alan Hale along for the action, as well. Briskly paced and packed with excitement, Dodge City forgoes elegaic musings on the closing of the West and instead celebrates its taming as Flynn's cattle driver turned lawman fights to bring civilization to lawless Dodge. Flynn and de Havilland spark against a bright Technicolor backdrop while an excellent supporting cast fills out the archetypes of the genre, including Bruce Cabot as the ruthless villain and Ann Sheridan as his saloon singer girlfriend.

Flynn stars as Wade Hatton, a roving Irishman whose latest American adventure is running cattle from Texas to Dodge City. He meets Abbie (Olivia de Havilland) as a wagon passenger accompanying the drive, but the death of her feckless brother on the trail sours their budding romance. In Dodge Hatton finds an old enemy, Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot), running the town with the help of his murderous lackeys, and Hatton eventually agrees to take up the sheriff's badge in order to beat Surrett and make Dodge safe for frontier families. Surrett, however, will stop at nothing to hang on to his power; numerous innocent people die as a result of his corruption and greed.

Flynn's accent marks him as a recent arrival to the West even if he doesn't sound a bit like an Irishman, but the good looks and vigor that make him so compelling in derring-do serve him just as well in a cattle driver's saddle. His character pursues romance and justice in equal measure, leaving the dirty work of a huge, comic brawl to sidekicks Rusty (Alan Hale) and Tex (Guinn Williams). The heroic Hatton is well-matched by the villainous Surrett, played to cool effect by Bruce Cabot, who always looks at home in a Western setting. The women, sadly, have less to do. Olivia de Havilland's Abbie endures some egregiously sexist chatter from Flynn in a wrong-headed attempt at flirtation, but we still get the sense that she has a durable, pioneer spirit that attracts him just as much as her luminous beauty. Ann Sheridan turns up for a couple of song numbers but seems to be missing the good girl/bad girl subplot that would give her character more development. In Destry Rides Again (1939) and Stagecoach (1939), both released in the same year, Sheridan's type of character shines, but there's just no room left to explore her motivations or even her fate in the bustling pace of Dodge City.

Small roles in the film feature a number of memorable actors turning in fine performances, most notably Victor Jory as Surrett's saturnine henchman, Yancey. The sympathetic characters tend toward tragedy, but adversity gives the performers an opportunity to make their scenes resonate with the audience. Frank McHugh is excellent as the feisty crusading journalist Joe Clemens, whom Surrett hates for daring to expose murder and corruption in the local headlines. Amiable Henry Travers appears as Abbie's uncle, Dr. Irving, a figure of respectability and the kind of man Dodge needs more of instead of the wild ruffians who roam the streets. The tragic Cole family includes John Litel as the father, Bobs Watson as the precocious Harry, and Gloria Holden as the grieving Mrs. Cole. Holden makes the most of her one big scene in the newspaper office, investing her few lines with all the suppressed suffering and resignation we imagine she would feel. Also making the most of a limited role is William Lundigan as Abbie's wastrel brother, Lee, who is too young and stupid to understand the danger of his actions until it's too late.

Santa Fe Trail (1940) reunites director Curtiz with Flynn, de Havilland, and Hale, along with a number of the supporting players, for another Western adventure, but for the best of the Flynn-Curtiz collaborations see Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Sea Hawk (1940). For more of Flynn in Western wear, try Virginia City (1940) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941). Ann Sheridan has bigger roles in Kings Row (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), and Nora Prentiss (1947). Look for Bobs Watson in Boys Town (1938) and Men of Boys Town (1941), and see Bruce Cabot in King Kong (1933) and The Flame of New Orleans (1941). In later years Cabot became a regular in John Wayne Westerns, with supporting roles in The Comancheros (1961), McLintock! (1963), and The War Wagon (1967).

More posts about Errol Flynn:

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

Classic Films in Focus: DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936)

Dracula's Daughter (1936) acts as a direct sequel to the 1931 Dracula, picking up mere moments after the earlier film ends. This time, however, the narrative focuses on Van Helsing (mysteriously altered to Von Helsing) and a new representative of the undead, the Countess Maria Zeleska, played with unearthly poise by Gloria Holden. Although its fame pales in comparison with that of the Lugosi picture, Dracula's Daughter offers an intriguing vision of feminine monstrosity, and it encourages us to pity the tragic fate of a beautiful woman enslaved by uncontrollable desires.

Edward Van Sloan reprises his role as the good doctor, who finds himself charged with murder for the deaths of both Renfield and Count Dracula. Unable to convince Scotland Yard of his sanity and his reasons for killing the Count, Von Helsing enlists the aid of his former student, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger).  Meanwhile, Countess Zeleska arrives in London and begins preying on victims of her own with the help of her servant, Sandor (Irving Pichel). Jeffrey attracts the vampire's attention because she hopes that his skill as a psychiatrist can free her from her bloodthirsty curse, but her interest arouses the jealousy of Jeffrey's assistant, Janet (Marguerite Churchill), and of Sandor, as well.

Von Helsing provides a link between the two stories, and Edward Van Sloan is once again very convincing as the wise vampire hunter, but Dracula's Daughter really concerns itself much more with its title character and other new arrivals on the scene. Because of the earlier film, it takes less time to explain the back story and the habits of the vampire, so the movie is able to pack all of its action into a tight running time of just 71 minutes. Most of that focuses on the Countess' growing obsession with Dr. Garth, who is already engaged in a prickly, contentious courtship with his assistant, but the movie takes time out for a few attack scenes and a poignant funeral pyre for Dracula. We see visual and thematic links to the earlier story, as well, with the Countess rising from her coffin and avoiding mirrors and crosses.

All of the actors acquit themselves well, but the movie really belongs to Gloria Holden, whose exotic beauty commands the screen in frequent closeups lit from beneath to emphasize her unnatural nature. Unlike Dracula, the Countess longs for a normal life and yearns to escape her monstrous urges. She hopes at first that her father's death will liberate her, but a test of her will soon shows that her appetite for human blood remains unabated. She cannot help being what she is, but the darkness inside her is too powerful to resist. The camera registers the subtle struggle of her conflicting urges in shots that often show only the Countess' eyes, in which Sandor claims he can see death. Throughout the picture, she is a complex character, never reduced to mere monstrosity. Like the goddess Kali, she embodies contradictions. The Countess is an artist who creates and a killer who destroys. She is a woman who yearns for love and a predator who must devour. Holden invests her with grace and a sense of tragic grandeur, making us wish it that was not already a century too late to save her from her fate.

Be sure to note Hedda Hopper in a small role as Lady Esme and lovely Nan Grey as Lili. Lambert Hillyer, who directed Dracula's Daughter, was a silent film veteran who also made The Invisible Ray (1936) and dozens of B Westerns. Gloria Holden appears in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), The Corsican Brothers (1941), and The Eddy Duchin Story (1956). Look for Otto Kruger in Treasure Island (1934), Saboteur (1942), and High Noon (1952). Although he's quite menacing as Sandor, Irving Pichel is probably better remembered today as the director of more than 30 pictures, including The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and Destination Moon (1950).

The Kiss that is the Kill: Sex and Death in Three Classic Vampire Movies

The youthful fans of Twilight and True Blood might like to believe that they have cornered the market on the sexy vampire trade, but attractive bloodsuckers have been haunting the silver screen for quite a long time. Long before Edward Cullen and Bill Compton thrilled the hearts of today's Gothic heroines, the undead were making love to and war against humanity in a wide variety of films. Back in the 1980s, we had some great examples of the sexy vampire in The Hunger (1983), The Lost Boys (1987), and Near Dark (1987), but even these movies are relative newcomers to the vampire canon. Here is a sampling of classic movies that highlight that enduring connection between blood and lust.

Nosferatu (1922)

Max Schreck's Count Orlok is definitely not sexy, unless you long to date the fabled Bat Boy of traditional tabloid fodder, but this landmark silent horror film from director F.W. Murnau nonetheless teems with sexual undertones. Ignore nominal hero Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim); the principle struggle takes place between the vampiric count and the ethereally good Ellen (Greta Schroder), who must willingly give herself to the monster in order to save Hutter and, presumably, the world.

The sexuality of Orlok's conflict with Ellen becomes clear in the final attack scene, but watch the way that Ellen, drawn by a psychic connection to her husband, first reacts to Orlok's menace, even from across the far reaches of the ocean. Her goodness is the equal opposite force that stands against Orlok's evil, and thus the two are bound together in a kind of danse macabre, elaborating once more the ages old allure of the figure of Death and the Maiden. Murnau, borrowing liberally from Stoker's novel, is keenly aware of all this deeper imagery, which gives his treatment its unique appeal. From her white gown to her lovely neck and huge, liquid eyes, Ellen is the very embodiment of imperiled femininity, at once the sacrifice and the salvation of men, and toward this flame the Count is drawn as surely as the destructive moth, only to be destroyed in turn.

Nosferatu tops many horror film lists as the greatest horror picture of all time, but don't expect it to be scary by modern standards. Instead, think of it as a prelude for things to come, as an artistic suggestion of that which later films will make explicit, and decide which method possesses the greater aesthetic power. Still, that iconic shadow moving on the wall of Ellen's stairwell strikes its own kind of fear, a delicious thrill that comes when we know that the creatures of the dark are closing in. The girl lies helpless in her nightgown, the bed becomes the grave, and the monster leans close for the kiss that is the kill. What could more sensual than that?


Dracula (1931)

Bela Lugosi's performance as Count Dracula has defined the image of the vampire for generations since, from the widow's peak hairstyle to the infamous cape in which Lugosi insisted on being buried. Is Lugosi's Dracula scary? Not really, and there are certainly places where the film shows its age. However, his hypnotic power over the women who encounter him underscores the essentially sexual appeal of the vampire. That famous stare, and the visible attraction that the women feel toward him, pulse with dangerous seductive energy. Both Lucy and Mina fall prey to that energy and are transformed by it into sexualized monsters of desire. Watch the scene in which the enthralled Mina seduces Harker out on the balcony; her eyes light up, her lips purse, and she leans in close almost quivering with anticipation. One has to wonder if even a restored Mina can be happy with a man like Harker after this interlude of passion.

Even more interesting is the sexualized nature of Dracula's power over Renfield; the attack on Renfield near the beginning of the film plays out very much as a homoerotic rape sequence, in which the female vampires are waved away from the unconscious man so that the Count himself may feed on him. Renfield spends the rest of the film driven mad by desires which cannot be fulfilled; unlike the women, he cannot become wholly united with the Count, and thus he suffers with a terrible and exquisite longing that ought to delight the most ardent sadomasochist. Of all the characters in the film, I think Renfield is the most frightening and the most pitiable; he is the quintessential victim of unrequited desire, with Dracula cruelly stringing him along until his services are no longer required.

Despite the title, the film plays fast and loose with Stoker's novel, using the stage play version instead for much of its material. Director Tod Browning created a more enduringly frightening picture with Freaks (1932), but Dracula still stands as a classic moment in vampire movie history.

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Dracula's Daughter plays out as a direct sequel to the 1931 film, with the first several minutes of the movie catching the audience up on what has gone before. Edward Van Sloan returns to the role of vampire killer Van Helsing, which gives the sequel an added sense of continuity from the first picture, although director Tod Browning has been replaced by Lambert Hillyer this time out.

Despite the return of Van Helsing and the appearance of romantic leads Otto Kruger and Marguerite Churchill, the movie really belongs to the title character. Gloria Holden plays Countess Marya Zaleska, a beautiful woman whose eyes are full of death. The gender reversal of the vampire in this film makes for some very interesting sexual subtexts, especially when the gorgeous monster seduces and attacks other women. A victim tally reveals that the Countess actually goes after equal numbers of men and women, but the scenes with her two female victims are by far the more provocative and the more elaborate. Watch her move in for the kill on the helpless and partially undressed Lili (Nan Grey) early in the picture; Lili is so young, so fresh, so delicious with her smooth cheeks and her full, soft lips. We cannot blame the Countess for wanting to devour her.

In contrast to the cheap, sensationalist title, Dracula's Daughter is a surprisingly elegant film, one that suggests real tragedy in the person of its central character. The Countess longs to be human and live a normal life; she yearns for love and companionship. The man she hopes will help her proves singularly useless, and she succumbs to the monstrous urges that have driven her for over a century already. Despite her bloody appetite, she never looks like a monster, nor even like a traditional vampire. She seems more an angel of death, a marble cemetery statue come to life. Her beauty and misery render her a more complex and sympathetic character than her Transylvanian father, and this portrayal of the vampiric character proves a foretaste of things to come in later films. John Landis' Innocent Blood (1992), for example, clearly has a lot in common with Dracula's Daughter.

If you're still thirsty for more blood-soaked seduction, try The Vampire's Ghost (1945), Horror of Dracula (1958), Blood and Roses (1960), and Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972).

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.