Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Director: Charles Barton

Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, yes. Delighted to finally have an excuse to screen it again.

Did I Like It: I may have tipped my hand with the answer to the previous question.

This film is strange. On paper, there is literally no reason why it should work. The Universal Monsters had already run their course, going through the basest, pulpy motions of endless monster mashups. Abbott and Costello were at the beginning of the unravelling of their partnership. It could have been an absolute disaster. 

And yet, it’s one of, if not the best of both the Universal Monster* and Abbott and Costello movies**. For one thing, it works as both a horror movie and comedy of the period. But far more importantly, is that for one final hurrah, it feels like Universal finally started caring about its stable of monsters again. Previously, the films had descended into increasingly lazy monster rallies, but here, even though it reaches the heights of ridiculousness, it’s actually a halfway decent finale for the characters. The Wolf Man (Chaney), the Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange, the record holder for the role) and Dracula (Lugosi) meet a final enough end for which none of the other films in the series could reach.

The only way the film could have been any better was if Karloff had played the Monster, but that was probably too much to hope far. That we got Lugosi back in the role that made him immortal is more than enough to recommend it. Now that I think about it, there really isn’t anything to not recommend the film. If the slightly stupid title puts you off, please, do get over yourself.

*I’m never going to not vote for Bride of Frankenstein (1935) on that front, but the argument could certainly be made. This film is unassailably in the top five.

**Can you really discount The Naughty Nineties (1945), as it contains the archival (for lack of a better term) version of their performance of “Who’s on first?” 

The Wolf Man (1941)

Director: George Waggner

Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Warren William

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Although my strongest memories of the film probably come from a Universal Monsters coloring book I got in the early 90s. I had some really great times with that coloring book. Now I wish I had just gone over it in grey and black and hadn’t used any of the other colors…

Did I Like It: Interesting that Chaney is perhaps the saddest-sack movie star who ever lived (imagine if he had ever played Willy Loman), and somehow Forrest Gump-ed his way into being the Nick Fury of the Universal Monsters, that first shared cinematic universe. 

He’s certainly affecting in that capacity, and managed to do so over the course of five films in the roll, the longest sustained run in the Universal canon, and it still feels like the horror series is a something of a priority for the studio, even if James Whale has since retired from the motion pictures and the peak of the series is now firmly in the past. Yes, the entire affair has a bit of a feel of a TV special (see the opening titles), but the photography is interesting, and the ending where Sir John (Rains) unknowingly killed his son is deeply and tragic, and the film certainly reaches for a “less is more” aesthetic with its werewolf transformation.

And yet, by about minute 56 in the film, I’m bored. That’s not a great sign, considering that the film will be over in just over 10 more minutes. Chaney’s pathos cannot hope to hold up in comparison to that of Karloff, and the atmosphere is largely perfunctory, which leave it in the shadow of even Dracula (1931), which is saying quite a bit.

House of Dracula (1945)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr., Martha O’Driscoll, John Carradine, Lionel Atwill

Have I Seen it Before: As with the rest of the Universal monsters, I viewed everything in that canon just before I set about writing these reviews. This one lives interchangeably in my memory with House of Frankenstein (1944).

Did I Like It: Which doesn’t exactly bode well for a review. 

The charms of the monster mashup on spec exist, but there is something diminished here. Maybe the war had just ended and America was in too good of a mood to create grand horror entertainments just yet. Maybe it’s that Karloff has moved on from the Universal horror canon after the previous film. Just as much as I missed the presence of Karloff in the role of Frankenstein’s Monster in that previous film, I now miss him altogether. Ah, well. There’s always the chance to go back to the James Whale-directed Frankenstein films to relive the glory days of the series.

Ultimately, the films scant runtime ensure that it can’t wear out its welcome, even if it doesn’t quite make a case for its own existence. To say that it is slightIndeed, I’m finding it a challenge to come up with the necessary 300 words to fill an entire review. It is nice to see Dracula (Carradine) even briefly reckon with his own monstrous quality, even it is mostly used as grift for a B Sci-Fi plot. It’s also good that Universal kept making these films, as it will eventually begat the superlative Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), and contribute to the enjoyable The Monster Squad (1987), and create a framework that has allowed Marvel Studios to create largely engaging (if occasionally exhausting) entertainments for the foreseeable future.

House of Frankenstein (1944)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, J. Carroll Naish

Have I Seen it Before: As with nearly the entire canon of Universal Monsters, I marched through an entire box set of the films a number of years ago, just before I started these reviews.

Did I Like It: There’s a pulpy quality to these later Universal horror films whose charms can’t quite be denied. It also gives the pretext for what would one day become Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), one of the great films not just of the series, but of all time. Each of the individual properties in the Universal Horror canon have maybe grown beyond the point where they could sustain their own films, so we engage in big-time meetups. At the time, it was the province of B-movies. Now, it’s one of the governing commercial principles of the movies.

This film is slight, befitting its status, but there are charms beyond just the the idea of a monster mashup which keep this individual film lively. Karloff is here, which is good, but he’s sadly (if understandably) not playing Frankenstein’s Monster. The most ubiquitous version of the monster is not actually from Karloff’s depiction of the character in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), or Son of Frankenstein (1939), but instead Glenn Strange’s portrayal here and throughout the rest of the series. It’s one of those strange bummers of film history—and this film in particular— which I wished I didn’t know.

Oddly enough, the cell-animated bats used for one of Dracula’s (Carradine*) other forms are—while not good—somehow better than the dangling puppets used all-too regularly during Lugosi’s original film.

*We thankfully don’t have to suffer through Chaney’s mumbling attempts at the Count from Son of Dracula (1943) from a year prior. Chaney sticks to The Wolf Man, what he does best.

Son of Dracula (1943)

Director: Robert Siodmak

Cast: Lou Chaney, Jr., Louise Allbritton, Robert Paige, Evelyn Ankers

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, and I have almost no memory of it during my previous march through the classic Universal Monsters canon. 

Did I Like It: In my review of Dracula’s Daughter (1936) I scratched my head, wondering why they didn’t actually use the main character. Even if Lugosi was unavailable for any number of reasons, they could have recast the role, as it wasn’t like they were hesitant about that in the years to come.

Well, forget all of that. I was wrong. 

Chaney is so spectacularly miscast in the part of Dracula. He can’t avoid sounding and looking like he feels real bad about everything he does. That kind of guilt written on his face works for a werewolf, sure, but using it for the visage of Count Dracula never feels right. 

The film proceeds with no continuity to the original story (somehow even less than Dracula’s Daughter) but still has the same, bland qualities of those earlier films. It evaporates from the mind almost immediately after the end credits roll, so much so to the point where I am mildly struggling with enough to say about the film to fill full review. 

So, it’s with a fair amount of irony that the film’s superb forgettability also yields its greatest weakness. Apparently, those charged with the preservation and maintenance of older films didn’t think much of this third Dracula outing, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film presented so poorly on a commercially available DVD. Large stretches of sound effects are so filled with pops and crackles that the entire film sounds like an ancient radio play written onto a wax drum that had been left out in the sun since V-J day. A scene with a large fireplace is borderline unintelligible. I’m not entirely sure why Universal even bothered to re-release this one. I’m not sure if anyone would miss it.