Comedy legends Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made over thirty feature films together, but Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (the title screen neglects to use the “and”) is probably the one that remains the most popular.
However, the comedy actually has a lot of history behind it because it was produced by Universal. The beloved “classic” Universal Monsters series that launched in 1931 with the original magnificent Dracula and Frankenstein had lost some of its sheen with audiences by the mid 1940s after each subsequent lesser quality and lower budget sequel. Efforts to prolong the series with “monster mash” movies like House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945) kept the series going, but Universal decided to more or less retire the three most iconic Universal Monsters — Frankenstein’s Creature, Dracula, and the Wolf Man — with one last monster mash, but this time as a comedy starring the studio’s popular comedic team Abbott and Costello.
In that sense, the movie marks the end of a lot of film history: first, Lon Chaney Jr. makes his final appearance as Lawrence Talbot/The Wolf Man. Like other films in the series Talbot is portrayed as a sympathetic victim of a curse. However, the biggest “farewell” is Bela Lugosi, who returns to his iconic role as Dracula for the second and final time in what would be his last movie he made for a major studio before his death in 1956. The sequels to the original Dracula, 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter and 1943’s Son of Dracula, focused on different vampires, and when the original Count himself returned in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula he was portrayed by John Carradine (father of David Carradine). The film would also feature Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s Creature for the final time (he had previously portrayed the Creature in the two House movies). Though Universal continued to make horror films in the tradition of their original series, including additional Mummy and Invisible Man sequels and the Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, in a lot of ways Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is the fond farewell to the classic era of the franchise.
The story for the film is really just a set-up to get the dimwitted Costello and the straight man Abbott in a haunted castle with the three monsters, where the evil Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert) plans to transplant Costello’s easily-controlled brain into the head of Frankenstein’s Creature. What follows is a series of funny mix-ups pitting Dracula and Dr. Mornay (and the Creature in their control… somewhat) against the Wolf Man and the comedy duo. It’s a particularly great film for kids, who won’t really find it scary but will likely instead laugh hysterically as the monsters’ hijinks and Abbott and Costello’s priceless fearful reactions to the insanity going on around them. Sure, it doesn’t pack the more vulgar punch of a modern horror comedy like Zombieland, but it has plenty of laughs. Frankly, only Pixar movies seem to have this sense of fun these days.
One could argue that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and its box office success established how well horror and comedy can blend, something that has paved the way for dozens of classic horror comedies in the decades since. In fact, Abbott and Costello repeated the horror comedy formula with several other similar films, Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949, co-starring Boris Karloff, the original Frankenstein’s Creature), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953, also co-starring Karloff), and the duo’s penultimate comedy together, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). Though each has their moments, none of them are as good as the original monster mash. Universal’s Monster movies had few moments of comedy previously, and while other studios’ horror films might be unintentionally humorous by today’s standards, most weren’t meant to be funny. It’s likely that movies like Mel Brooks‘ Young Frankenstein (itself a brilliant spoof of Universal Horror) would not have existed without Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
So while it might not be as scary as most of the films in our 31 Days of Horror series, there’s no reason a classic Halloween comedy isn’t worth a look. After all, you might as well check out the horror comedy that practically started it all, right?
Rating: A hilarious tribute to classic monster movies that is appropriate for all ages (8/10).
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