100 House of Dracula ( 1945 )

This  ensemble  picture  following  on  from  House  of  Frankenstein  the  year  before  , pretty  much  marks  the  end  of  the  golden  period  for  Universal's  monsters  before  they  were  relegated  to  supporting  players  for  Abbott  and  Costello. Lon  Chaney  Junior  was  sacked  after  this  one  while  Lionel  Atwill  died  a  few  months  after  filming.

Onslow  Stevens  plays  the  obligatory  mad  Doctor  Edelman  whose  specialty  is  a  little unclear. He  is  assisted  by  two  young  women  Miliza  and  Nina, the  latter  a  hunchback. First  Dracula  (  his  resurrection  unexplained  ) and  then  the  Wolf  Man  ( ditto )  come  looking  for  a  cure  but  the  Count' s  resolve  wavers  when  he  spies  Miliza  setting  off  a  chain  of  events  which  turn  Edelman  evil  and  bring  Frankenstein's  Monster  into  play  somehow. It  doesn't  really  hang  together  at  all  but  the  girls  are  worth  watching.

Martha  O  Driscoll   ( as  Miliza ) 

Sex : No

Death : Survives

This  would  normally  be  the  role  for  Evelyn  Ankers  so  they  found  a  lookalike  in  Martha. She  was  a  teenage  dancer  in  musicals  in  the  thirties  but  graduated  to  acting  roles  in  the  forties  with  reasonable  success.She  retired  to  raise  a  family  in  1947. She  died  in  1998  aged 76.

Jane  Adams  ( as  Nina )

Sex :  A  cured  Nina  in  a  see-through  dress  appears  in  a  vision  of  Dr  Edelman

Death : Strangled  by  Dr  Edelman

Jane  was  originally  Betty  Bierce  from  Texas. She  acquired  the  nickname  "Poni"  during  her  previous  modelling  career. This  was  one  of  her  first  film  roles. Widowed  during  the  war  she  married  a  decorated  general  Thomas  Tunnage  in  1945  who  served  in  Korea  and  later  headed  the  Veterans  Administration.  She  retired  from  acting  in  the  early  fifties  and  died  in  2014  aged  95.