6 October: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein

It’s 6 October, and it’s a little too early in the Cinematic Void’s 31 Days of Voidoween to feel like I am under the gun. I’ve still got nearly a month to go! How am I going to be feeling come the 16th or the 26th?

You and me both, Captain Rhodes.

So, let’s keep today’s entry short and/or sweet. We got “Monsters” to discuss. When you say “Monsters,” I think of that original pantheon of creatures great and small: the Universal Monsters. And when you say “Universal Monsters,” the images of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Wolf-Man trading blows and barbs with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello springs to mind. So, let’s talk 1948’s Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

It was the tail-end of the horror movie cycle that had started with 1931’s Dracula and Frankenstein. The monsters were pretty played out. They’d been sequelized and mashed together so often that by 1948 they just weren’t scary anymore. The only thing left to do was to play them for laughs.

Abbott & Costello, too, were nearing their sell-by date. The comedy duo had been going strong since first teaming up on the stage in 1935. They then brought their talents to radio, first to The Kate Smith Hour, then to their own show which was a summer replacement for Fred Allen in 1940. Soon, Hollywood beckoned, and the team began their string of hits for Universal Studios. By 1948, however, Abbott & Costello’s career, like Frankenstein’s Monster, was in need of a jolt.

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein was just what the mad doctor ordered. It is one of the most successful horror-comedies of all time. It works well because the laughs and the screams come in equal measure. When it is funny, it’s really funny, and when it needs to get spooky, it gets very spooky. The scenes in the underground chambers in the castle are very well shot. The shadows are deep and dark, the moisture on the walls glistens in the torchlight. The battle between Dracula and The Wolf-Man culminates in a terrifying shot of ol’ Wolfie diving off the balcony to grab Drac in bat form. He does so, but the two plummet to their deaths (?) on the rocky shoreline below.

The comedy is spot on, too. There are gags aplenty throughout. Costello does the sliding candle bit that had worked well in earlier movies (1941’s Hold That Ghost). My favorite comedy scenes are the ones where Bud and Lou play with Lon Chaney’s melancholy character Lawrence Talbot. My personal favorite gag plays out at the costume party near the end of the film:

Larry Talbot: I know you'll think I'm crazy, but in a half an hour the moon will rise and I'll turn into a wolf.

Wilbur: You and twenty million other guys.

Larry Talbot: [slamming Wilbur into a locker with Chick going in behind him] Listen! I might tear you limb from limb!

Wilbur: [turning to Chick in the locker] Is that serious?

Chick Young: He'll murder ya!

Wilbur: [turns to Talbot] That's serious.

The success of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein meant that the comedy pair had to meet the other monsters - The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Mummy - in subsequent films. They’re entertaining, but never did they hit the heights this picture did.