Cast notes:
- Lon Chaney Jr. had played the Wolf Man in all three of Universal's previous films about the character, and Glenn Strange had played the Monster once before, in House of Frankenstein.
- House of Dracula was Lon Chaney's last film under contract to Universal, which released him from his contract afterwards, although he returned to play the Wolf Man again in the 1948 comedy Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
- Jane Adams's character, Nina, is a hunchback and was billed as one of the monsters in the film, but in fact, her character is portrayed sympathetically, and the use of an attractive actress to play an otherwise misshapen individual is notable for the time.
- Lionel Atwill, familiar to horror movie fans from his performances in 1932's Doctor X, The Vampire Bat, and Mystery of the Wax Museum (both 1933) and many others, was ill during filming of House of Dracula, and died of cancer less than five months after the release of the film.
Production
The working titles for the film were
Dracula vs. the Wolf Man or
The Wolf Man vs. Dracula.
Although Glenn Strange appears as the Monster in most of the film, footage of Chaney as the Monster from
The Ghost of Frankenstein and
Boris Karloff from
Bride of Frankenstein was recycled; Karloff appears in a dream sequence, while Chaney, as well as his double Eddie Parker, are seen in footage in a fire scene.
Strange recounts that a scene with the Monster stuck in
quicksand was particularly arduous for him.
On top of three hours of getting into makeup, Strange spent the rest of the day buried in cold sand, including during the lunch break, and was so cold by midafternoon that he could barely feel his legs.
Lon Chaney Jr. attempted to help Strange keep warm by passing him a bottle of scotch, with the result that Strange was so drunk that after getting out of costume and makeup, he had difficulty dressing himself in his street clothes.
Chaney's drinking contributed to his reputation as being difficult to work with, and probably was the reason Universal let him go after the film was completed
