Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Stupid? Yes. Corny? Yes. Hokey? Yes. Entertaining? Definitely. Lots of good laughs? You said it!

To be honest, I am not a big fan of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello but this is a funny movie, considered their best by most critics and, for once, I agree with them. I mean, where else can you see The Wolf Man, Frankenstein and Dracula all together in the same film? Not only that, we get two of the original actors who actually played those roles: Lon Chaney (wolf man) and Bela Lugosi (Dracula).

The special-effects are terrible but, hey, the film is close to 60 years old. If you are going to see only one A-C film, this is the one you want to get.

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.

I have to agree with Nathan L.Erdel of Muncie,IN, on his user comments, this is indeed a comedy classic. The comedy duo of Abbott and Costello were at the height of their popularity during the late thirties and the forties and their particular style of verbal and slapstick comedy do not wear well with the passage of time and the sophistication of the modern day audiences. However, this film is the exception, from beginning to end it is almost flawless and provides a constant stream of laughs and thrills that even the viewers of today would be sure to enjoy. The writers and director and all the cast deserve congratulation for a brilliant effort produced on a low Universal budget. The film harnesses the particular comedy talents of Bud and Lou perfectly for the first and only time. Although the success of the film led the duo to try to replicate the style by having them meet more outlandish characters, never again were they able to repeat the heights and they gradually went into decline. But at least this film is left for us to enjoy and savour. From first to last the action, the thrills and the laughs combine flawlessly. Bud is the perfect foil to Lou's slapstick,as always. Lon Chaney,Bela Lugosi and Glen Strange all reprise their roles as The Wolfman,Dracula and Frankenstein to wonderful effect to provide the thrills as they chase the duo endlessly trying to get Lou's brain transferred into Frankenstein. Abbott and Costello provided some fine verbal comedy scenes in other early films and these also stand the test of time, but Meet Frankenstein was the only instance when their particular brand of comedy was successfully spread over an entire film.

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