FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN Review

This time around, we've got another in the series of classic monster movies made by Universal Pictures in the '30s and '40s. After the success of the Frankenstein, Dracula, and Wolf Man movies, some genius at the studio decided that if you could make a lot of money with one monster, you could really make a mint with two. And so it came to pass in the year 1943 that FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN was created, with Bela Lugosi as the Frankenstein Monster, and Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man, and co-starring Maria Ouspenskaya and Dwight Frye. It's a highly enjoyable entry in the series, as two of moviedom's most monstrous monsters battle for supremacy in a fight to the death, or at least the next sequel.

It was written by Curt Siodmak, the genius who gave us DONOVAN'S BRAIN, and who also scripted HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, SON OF DRACULA, and THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, and directed by Roy William Neil. If you'll recall, at the end of the previous installment in the series, 1942's THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, Bela Lugosi's Igor character had his brain transplanted into the body of the Frankenstein monster by Frankenstein's grandson. Now Igor was quite insane in the membrane, so when ol' Doc Frankenstein put his brain into the monster's cranium, a sort of devious-minded super-creature was created; but all that backstory got tossed out when preview audiences laughed at Lugosi's Hungarian accent coming out of the Monster's mouth. It had also been established that the monster had gone blind; After the cuts were made, the monster had become mute and the only evidence of his blindess is the way he walks with his arms held out in front of him.

Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner, standing six-foot-seven and weighing two-eighty-five, direct from the hassle at the castle, it's the Frankenstein monster! In the opposite corner, wearing the torn shirt, back from the grave and in bad need of a shave, it's the Wolf Man! Let's get ready to rumble!

And...it's a draw. A bit of an upset, as Vegas had the Frankenstein monster as an 8-to-5 favorite, but my money was on the Wolf Man. Lighter, faster, razor-sharp claws - he coulda been a contender, but he was too self-destructive. But you gotta like the way the big guy held his own against the tenacious and hairy challenger. In case you're wondering how Bela Lugosi, who was pushing 60, had a bad back, and was a total junkie, could do those heavy action scenes, well, I got one word for you: stuntman.

Or is that two words? Anyway, as you may notice, the guy looks nothing like Bela, but he has a great left hook.

Despite its flaws, this is one of the great monster movies, ranking in the top twenty in any case. It was the first sequel to THE WOLF MAN, so Chaney's "Please kill me" schtick had not become as tiresome as it would be by the end of the series. Lugosi does not get to shine as much as might have in the original cut, but mute or not, adds his own spin on the persona of the Frankenstein monster.

Available on DVD as part of Unibersal's THE WOLF MAN - THE LEGACY COLLECTION or as a two-fer with HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.