Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

I have never been a fan of bedtime. I always stayed up later than I was supposed to. But in the era before cable or VCRs, there wasn’t a whole lot for a five-year-old to do after hours. There were no networks completely dedicated to animation or old television shows. There was nothing I could tape to watch over and over at my leisure. Instead, I relied on local programming. Those five stations that generally defaulted to talking heads after ten o’clock.

But my favorite channel was the local nothing channel – later to be absorbed into FOX. On Saturday nights, at 10:30, this channel played a different Abbott and Costello movie every week. This is where I became a fan. Later, this same channel would play Abbott and Costello movies every Friday night from 12:30 until 5 in the morning. I would spend the entire week in anticipation of staying up all night watching black & white movies. I still do that regularly.

Abbott and Costello made 36 movies together during their career. And most of them are crap. They relied too much on the same ole routines. Their dynamic rarely changed. Costello mugged for the camera too much and never strayed from his whiny man-child persona. And most of the plots were paper thin and strained any and all logic. Despite this, I watched many of their films over and over, and even came to love a few. It was on one of those Saturday nights when I stumbled upon the movie that inspired me to delve into film history for the first time. Most of these movies were completely forgotten by Sunday morning, but not this one. One Saturday night, I was lucky enough to witness Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

The plot is surprisingly clever. Dracula plans to revive the Frankenstein monster. In order to do this, he has employed a female mad scientist to find him a docile brain for transplant. The brain in question: Lou Costello’s. But Larry Talbott (aka the Wolf Man)  has found out about Dracula’s plot, and employs Abbott and Costello to help stop him. Hence, the holy trinity of Universal Monsters were all engaged in a single plot along with one of Universal’s most bankable comedy teams. And what is most impressive about it: the monsters play it straight – making it work both as a horror film and a comedy film. That last point is debatable, but if one were to exorcise Abbott and Costello from the film, it would play as a straight up horror movie.

From the morbid opening animation to the chaotically choreographed chase through the castle, this movie is great fun. Bela Lugosi plays Dracula (one of only two times he ever played his signature role). Lon Chaney, Jr. plays Larry Talbott. Sadly, Boris Karloff did not reprise his role as the Frankenstein Monster – having retired from the role nine years earlier. Both Lugosi and Chaney are excellent in their most famous roles. They never once back down from the seriousness the story requires. They aren’t suddenly more clumsy or incompetent than they are in other horror films. They don’t crack jokes There are some pathetic moments played for laughs – the Wolf Man’s stalking of Costello in the hotel room is a particularly drawn out and ridiculous (although Costello’s paranoia that Talbott may have counted the apples in his fruit bowl is a comic highlight). But the climactic chase through the castle is a near perfect culmination of plot and character.

Costello is strapped to a rolling gurney. The Frankenstein Monster is strapped down on a gurney nearby. The mad scientist is preparing for the operation when Abbott and Talbott break into the lab. As horror movie timing would have it, Talbott then notices the full moon. He transforms, right there with his hands (now paws) untying Costello’s binds. Just then Dracula returns. The old enemies regard each other and take opposing stances on each side of the gurney. Dracula pushes the gurney aside as he retreats out the door - the Wolf Man hot on his heels - leaving the rolling gurney to spin out of control. The score reaching a fevered pitch of shrieking strings. It is just then that the Frankenstein Monster regains consciousness and breaks his own straps. Abbott unties Costello and they race through the castle – trying to escape the Monster and avoid the warring vampire and werewolf crashing through the halls at the same time. If only every movie ended with such a wild monster mash-up.

Inspired by the movie, I bullied my parents into buying me my first film book (which I happen to still own). This book did an excellent job of breaking down the different kinds of old school horror into different categories. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, atomic age monsters, aliens, and Frankenstein. Upon reading the book, I was surprised to find A&CMF listed in the Frankenstein chapter of the book. It turns out, it’s the eighth movie in the original Frankenstein series – absorbing the Dracula and Wolf Man movies into its story. Instantly, I became intrigued by this. I wanted to see the other movies. How did a story evolve from the original Frankenstein (or if going chronologically, the original Dracula) to A&CMF?

Once I had a VCR, it became my mission to track down all of the Frankenstein movies in order – as well as any ancillary horror films like The Invisible Man - and collect them. I also resorted to scouring the television schedule – hoping to find them. At one point I acquired a VHS-C camcorder and would point the camera at the TV screen in order to get copies of some of these movies. I still have those video tapes of The Invisible Man in which one can hear the phone ring or a door slam. The image quality was terrible, but it was the only way I had to get some of these movies. Sadly, many of the Frankenstein movies did not become available on video at all until I was nearly done with high school. At last, I could see the missing pieces between the Wolf Man and the Frankenstein monster getting entombed in ice, and how Wolf Man and Dracula became mortal enemies fighting over the Frankenstein monster. How did this happen?  It didn’t. By the end of the penultimate entry, Dracula has yet even to know that either the Wolf Man or Frankenstein monster even exists. The Wolf Man is cured. Dracula and the Frankenstein monster have been destroyed (again). The continuity had grown more and more spotty as the franchise progressed, but I didn’t expect events to downright contradict what would come later. What a let down.

Despite my disappointment, the anticipation of seeing how this story tied together remained just on the periphery of my radar for a decade. This anticipation was another factor in my budding love of the serialized story – as incongruous and contradictory as it may be. At least this story built to something. It eventually ended up with many threads crashing together. Granted, some threads were invented specifically for the final movie, and the beginning is stronger than the ending. And the ultimate fate for all monsters involved seems no more final or conclusive than any fate each of the monsters had encountered previously. But this was the order I experienced the movie in, and so everything was foreplay to that final brawl.

In the years since, it is easy to see that A&CMF is not a very good movie, although it remains deeply important to me. Despite how it incorporates three separate movie franchises rather effortlessly, it is a sad shadow of the original films that inspired each series.

Using my first film book, I taught myself a great deal about the history of Universal Horror – and I have become a life-long fan of the black and white horror movie. There are still movies mentioned in that book that I have yet to see. I also went on to purchase Abbott and Costello film books. Thanks to A&CMF and its serialized nature, I became a life long fan of film history. Over the next few years, I taught myself all about black & white horror movies, and continue to seek these gems out. I miss the gothic Teutonic sets and broadly morbid humor that these old horror movies have.

I have remained a fan of both horror and serialized story-telling ever since.

Some favorite movies discovered on the journey inspired by Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein:

• The Bride of Frankenstein. In particular, I love any scene that features Enrest Theisenger’s Dr. Pretotious. The dry, morbid humor. The surreal look. And the famous climax. The technical leaps made between the first movie in 1931, and this movie, made in 1935 are astounding. Everything here is top notch. 
  
• The Wolf Man. My fetish for all things werewolf starts here. The rules are laid out. The stakes are set. The consequences are non-negotiable. And Lon Chaney, Jr. is fantastic. 
  
• The Time of Their Lives. One of the few Abbott and Costello movies where they are not a team. The plotting is clever. The special effects are especially impressive for their time.  And I love the séance scene in which the ghosts must figure out how to communicate with the living. I have yet to see another movie tackle a séance fro this perspective.
  
  
• Hold That Ghost. An absurd Abbott and Costello movie that plays like an extended Scooby Doo episode. There’s a lot of filler and terrible plotting, but it remains one of my childhood favorites. I especially love the dance between Costello and Joan Davis. One of the best choreographed dance numbers in all of film.