Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Made during A & C's golden era, this was not only the first and best of the "meets" series but arguably their best film.

Everything worked, the routines, the premise, the sets, the chills and the direction. Bud and Lou are a couple of bumbling railroad porters who end up delivering crates containing Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man to a certain gothic edifice. In better physical condition than by the time ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE rolled around in '53, it shows in their timing and delivery - Lou especially is spot on throughout.

Some great lines too. Dracula to Lou, addressing him lovingly, "What we need is young blood.....AND brains!"

Many believe this is the quintessential Bud and Lou film to survive! I'd be inclined to agree.

Perennially snakebit, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) can't even make a dire phone-call to clueless Wilbur Gray (Lou Costello) without that pesky full moon getting in the way. Of course, this opening scene is all just a nice excuse for the new Universal makeup wizard, Bud Westmore, to show off his new, streamlined Wolf Man transformations. It looks good enough, though it seems whatever Lon Chaney may have gained in comfort from Bud's less time-consuming makeup, he had to trade-off any facial mobility as his face looks fixed in the same expression throughout the film.

Bud and Lou's misadventures unloading McDougal's crates is a great mix of laughs & chills where we get to see a variation of the "moving candle" bit, Dracula reviving the monster, and for the first time in any Universal picture the camera doesn't move or cut away as the vampire exits from his coffin. And Glenn Strange, looking rather gruesome in Westmore's best makeup work, seems creakier than ever before as the monster.

I have to mention one of my personal favorite Bud/Lou moments when they make their first trip to the island with Joan Raymond: Lou tells Bud in reference to Joan "she's mine too" then proceeds to dab his mouth with Bud's necktie.

While the mere presence of Abbott and Costello in this picture may turn the stomachs of many "horror purists", it's obvious that great care was taken by the filmmakers not to ridicule the monsters. Without the two comics, you would still have a standard Universal horror film. With them, it remains a movie that shows more skill & thought was put into it than the last "serious" monster film "House of Dracula" and I am personally glad that Universal didn't let the monsters die with that misfire.

There are two schools of thought regarding 'Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein'. The first holds that the movie represents the nadir of the Universal Monsters cycle, with three once-great monsters reduced to playing second-fiddle to a couple of Laurel and Hardy wannabes. The alternative view, which I hold, is that this movie is a classic comedy-horror, perhaps the best example of that hybrid sub-genre until John Landis' 'An American Werewolf In London' emerged in 1981.

'A&CMF' warrants classic status because it is probably the best Universal horror film since 'The Wolf Man' (1941); certainly it has a much stronger narrative thread, not to mention a better reason for the three monsters coming together, than either 'House Of Frankenstein'(1944) or 'House Of Dracula'(1945). The problem with those two movies is that Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and The Wolf Man's coming together seemed purely coincidental, with Dracula not even encountering the other two in 'House Of Frankenstein' (which feels like two short films cobbled together, with only Boris Karloff's Dr. Neimann & J. Carroll Naish's hunchback providing a link between them) and 'House Of Dracula' only featuring a few scenes with more than one monster. 'Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein', by having The Wolf Man pursuing Dracula and the Monster, and also having Dracula plan to put Lou Costello's brain into the Frankenstein Monster (with the help of the duplicitous Dr. Mornay) provides an extremely satisfactory reason for the various characters coming together.

As for the acting, it has often been pointed out that this film works because the monster actors (Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr & Glenn Strange) play it straight, and this is very true, with Chaney's tortured soul act contrasting well with Lou Costello's one-liners (especially the famous 'you and twenty million other guys' joke). Lugosi, playing Dracula for only the second time, is wonderfully grandiose and even Glenn Strange, who is basically only required to lumber about, does what he does well, and he has a lot more to do than in the 'House of' movies. Abbott and Costello are very funny, using fewer verbal routines than normal, but doing some highly entertaining slapstick gags, and the supporting cast do very well, notably Frank Ferguson as the blustering McDougal, barely controlling his exasperation at Lou Costello's incompetence. Lenore Aubert as Dr. Sandra Mornay does well, and it's interesting to see a female mad scientist, particularly taking into account when this film was made. Charles Bradstreet and Jane Randolph have less to do in their parts, but neither of them drags the film down

All in all, 'A&CMF' is a movie that deserves a much greater reputation than it has acquired in some circles, and is probably the high point of the Abbott and Costello filmography

This is the film that really sparked my interest in horror films. IT is a comedy laced with horriffic elements. It is a wonderful blend of the absurd(Abbott and Costello) with the scary(Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and the Wolfman). There is so much good about this film that it is hard to begin. Let's start with the two main characters, A & C. This is probably their best film outing both in their comic timing and their ability to play off each other so convincingly. Lou plays the chubby scared Wilbur and Bud plays the cynical, straight-man Chick. They move about almost effortlessly in their roles and Lou has some of the truly funniest scenes in filmdon. Two come to mind immediately: the scene where Lou reads about the monsters in the wax museum and the coffin lid opens and moves the candle several times is priceless as is the scene where Lou in confronted with the monsters in a hidden panel in a dungeon. Bud is just as good playing the straight role, a necessary but often thankless part. The other members of the cast are just as good, and Bela gives a tour-de force performance as Dracula once again. The film is moody and atmospheric, credit certainly going to Charles Barton the director. Lon Chaney, often overlooked, gives a good performance as the tragic lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot. Partiality aside, this certainly ranks up there as one of the best horror-comedy films ever made. High praise for a sub-genre with so few gems.

Knowing how it worked back in the day, I'm sure Universal had no inkling that they were creating a comedy classic and the best known Abbott and Costello feature besides Buck Privates. Universal's reputation was built on these Gothic horror classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman and their many incarnations. So I'm sure the decision was to give their horror sets some work and combine the genres.

They made a very funny film, but in the process killed the horror genre. Please note that there were very few straight horror sequels done after Abbott and Costello finished with these monsters. By becoming the butt of Bud and Lou's burlesque humor, they somehow lost the power to truly frighten. It took the British Hammer Film Studio to revive the genre in the Fifties with some more up to date special effects.

Bud and Lou are a couple of delivery men, working for what I guess was UPS at the time and they lose a couple of crates consigned to Frank Ferguson's Amusement house of horrors. But they didn't exactly lose them. The crates contained the bodies of the real Dracula and real Frankenstein monster played by Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange. And they walked off on poor Costello and no one will believe him.

Except of course Lon Chaney, Jr. playing Lawrence Talbot, concerned citizen by day and werewolf at night when the moon is full. After that it's a merry chase after these monsters as Dracula decides that Costello has a brain perfect for the Frankenstein monster's body.

Of course it would be another 30 years or so before Mel Brooks realized the full implication of that. I think Costello might have consented to the operation had he realized.

It's reported by Lou Costello's daughter Chris that her dad wasn't totally convinced this film was going to work out for the team. Everyone around him told him he was never funnier, but Costello didn't believe it until Universal started counting the box office receipts.

So a cheaply made comedy, utilizing existing sets makes a mint. Come to think of it, that was what Buck Privates also did.