Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Universal Pictures was, for the most part, not considered a major studio when it released its first horror films in the early synchronized sound era. Its line of classic monsters includes The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and others. Horror, seen as a popular (but lesser) genre in American filmmaking at the time, burnished Universal’s reputation through the 1930s and ‘40s. But despite the commercial success of so many of the Universal Monsters movies (not considered a franchise until the 1960s and ‘70s), the studio still did not command the resources of a Paramount or a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Unlike Hollywood’s biggest major studios, Universal did not have as many contracted craftspersons and actors in its ranks. As such, the studio often had to rely on its rivals loaning talent out to them. Universal, more than any other studio, leaned on actors at the time better known for their radio work. Among those radio stalwarts were Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose “Who’s on First?” routine remains widely-referenced.
By the mid-1940s, Universal’s stable of monsters was well-known to the general American moviegoing public. Many of those monsters – Frankenstein’s monster especially – had appeared in various sequels over the years, to decreased budgets and diminishing returns on audience frights. In an attempt to rejuvenate this then-unofficial series of movies, Universal hatched the idea to put their leading comedy duo and many of their monsters in the same film. To some at the time, the very idea of pairing Bela Lugosi’s Dracula with Abbott and Costello was the death knell for Universal’s monsters. Instead, Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, though chaotic in terms of plot, is a first-rate comedy. It is perhaps the best movie made featuring Abbott and Costello. However, the film’s naysayers are partly correct – this is the beginning of the end of Universal’s classic horror movies. And for those who have been able to see each of the original Universal Monsters movies prior to this, this is a hilarious way to cap off a journey into the most iconic horror movies of Golden Age Hollywood.
One evening, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) telephones a train station in La Mirada, Florida, warning of two packages addressed for McDougal’s House of Horrors (a wax museum) that must not reach their destination. But just as Larry is about to complete his thoughts, the moon rises, and he transforms into The Wolf Man. Without that critical information, baggage clerks Chick Young (Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Costello) make the deliveries. As they crack open the crates, they realize that they are delivering Dracula’s (Bela Lugosi; this is not Lugosi’s final role as a vampire, but it is his final go-around as Dracula in a movie) coffin and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange; Boris Karloff refused to appear in this film). With a cast of characters also including Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson), Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), and an undercover insurance investigator named Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), the so-called plot bounces around a number of horror hijinks that center on Dracula attempting to provide Frankenstein’s monster a more intelligent and obedient brain.
The film’s opening credits and its seamless vampire bat transformation sequences were animated by Walter Lantz, best known as the creator of Woody Woodpecker and the original voice actor for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Vincent Price has a voice acting cameo, years before his association with the horror genre.
For almost the entirety of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the film depends on the shtick that defines the titular duo. This is an Abbott and Costello movie first, a Universal Classic Monsters movie second. Where Costello is the prone-to-face-scrunching, excitable, and more easily-frightened of the two, Abbott is the straight man with the composure in the hairiest of situations. And this shtick – which I admit never sounds appealing when reading it, so it is best to view it for yourself – does not overstay its welcome. It is most effective in the scenes immediately after revealing Dracula’s coffin and the monster’s boxes and when our beleaguered baggage clerks (there is an incredible joke about unions that I do not wish to spoil for first-time viewers) meet Larry Talbot, in-person, for the first time. As messy as this movie can be in spurts (it feels as if there were several ideas cross-stitched together in hopes of forming a coherent whole), Abbott and Costello’s brand of humor fits neatly in this film. Their comedic dynamic feels natural in a world where heavily-accented, cape-wearing vampires and reluctant werewolves exist – let alone humans who might want to profit off the actions of these monsters or ride the coattails of Dracula’s machinations.
Of all the other actors not named Abbott and Costello, it is Lugosi who makes the most of his time here, even with material that is not as demanding as he may have wanted. By this time in his career and almost twenty years removed from Dracula, Lugosi was the victim of serial typecasting while contracted to Universal. The Hungarian-American actor, in his listing in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ Players Directory, requested Hollywood’s casting directors not to think of him only for horror movies. And yet, he frequently found himself cast for horror movies – usually second billing behind Englishman Boris Karloff. Once more, for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lugosi was in overly familiar territory – but at least this was a send-up of the horror tropes that he must have been too familiar with by then. But no one, past or present, could ever be as charismatic in a cape and stare, menacingly, at someone’s neck. Lugosi, who was not as fluent in English when he made the original Dracula, has less, but more complex dialogue for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. He nevertheless delivers it with aplomb, including his delightful dramatic pauses he occasionally inserts (“What we need is young blood – and brains.”) Lugosi might have been annoyed in starring in yet another Universal horror movie, but he never shows it here in what was his final “A”-picture (and before his association with low-budget filmmaker Ed Wood).
As a part-horror movie, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein’s favoring of the comedic duo over any of the monsters will likely irritate fans of the Universal Classic Monsters series. But I do not think imbalance of screentime is the problem (which I will elaborate on shortly). Though longtime Abbot and Costello writer John Grant’s (1941’s Buck Privates, 1945’s The Naughty Nineties) screenplay grants considerable authority to Dracula, one cannot say the same for Frankenstein’s monster and The Wolf Man. After the opening scene of the film, Lon Chaney Jr. never again appears as if he is committing himself fully to playing Larry. Glenn Strange’s turn as Frankenstein’s monster, too, feels far too labored a performance (and a performance that is never given enough attention in this film). This monster mash, on paper, should be a graveyard smash. But by film’s end, the screenplay has not done Frankenstein’s monster or The Wolf Man the narrative justice that both characters deserve, given the legacies they have at Universal.
This imbalance is of no fault of the comedic aspects of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, or of Abbott and Costello themselves. Horror and comedy are not oil and water. The two can absolutely mix, as seen in Young Frankenstein (1974) and Tremors (1990) – in these examples (among many others), the comedy does not interfere in the gravity of the horror, and the horror elements do not detract from the audience’s laughter. For director Charles Barton (the principal Abbott and Costello director from 1946 on, 1959’s The Shaggy Dog) and John Grant, the film’s most glaring problem is their unwillingness to use their monsters’ hallmarks and their lack of trust in the monsters’ stage presence until the film’s unexpectedly gruesome finish. As such, despite some fascinating, atmospheric art direction by Hilyard M. Brown (1954’s Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1963’s Cleopatra) and Bernard Herzbrun (1938’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Creature from the Black Lagoon), this film sags in its appeal as a piece of horror. As a comedy, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein might just be the most effective use of the comedic duo in any movie. The film is deserving of its comedic reputation from the first minutes, as we find Bud and Lou at the height of their comedic prowess. But, as a send-off for the horror characters and the actors that portrayed them, there might be a bitter taste for the most ardent fans of Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and The Wolf Man.
During the filming of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, practical jokes ran rampant on the set. On a set with Abbott and Costello, once has to expect daily mischief. And for this production, that meant exploding cigars, pie fights, and frequent ad-libbing to throw off other actors. According to Barton, “Bela [Lugosi] of course would have nothing to do with any of this. He would just glare at those involved with his famous deadly stare and the only emotion he would show physically was one of utter disgust.” Lugosi, by all accounts, never reacted to any of Abbott and Costello’s off-camera tomfoolery, and committed to delivering the best work possible. One of the most iconic figures of Hollywood horror movies was not going to blemish his reputation here.
By 1948, horror movies at Universal Pictures had mostly run their course during the age of the Studio System. Universal would not release another monster horror film until Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Within a few years, Universal would abandon its line of monster horror movies entirely. By then, a plucky studio in London was beginning to make its own monster horror movies, often using the characters that Universal had adapted and codified for audiences in the 1930s and ‘40s. For boasting such an influential run of horror movies, Universal did not truly treasure what incredible talent it fostered until decades after Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. No one in the year of the film’s release might have predicted the cultural cachet that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein eventually found as a horror comedy film. The film was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2001, and remains one of the most highly-regarded comedies in American moviemaking.
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
