Selected in 2001 to be included in the National Film Registry, Charles Barton’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein is a rare breed of horror comedy: Unlike latter-day movies of the same ilk, the filmmakers pay their due respects in that they abstain from ridiculing the monsters, permitting them to retain their image while issuing the pratfalls to the comedic duo, thus accounting for much of the film’s success. Not that the monsters necessarily had the capacity to frighten after a combined outing of sixteen feature-length films (the Invisible Man included), but by keeping the straight men straight, Barton highlights the lunacy of Lou Costello’s less-than-fortunate dilemma. What results in a fitting farewell to the most famous monsters in horror history.
Baggage clerks Wilber Grey (Lou Costello) and Chick Young (Bud Abbott) receive the packages of Mister McDougal (Frank Ferguson), the proprietor of McDougal’s Shop of Horrors, from Europe, which contain the bodies of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange). After dismissing an apprehensive warning from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) not to deliver and–under no circumstances–open the crates, the clerks do just that. The monsters are thereby awakened and the Count, realizing that Frankenstein’s creation is in a weakened state and must be given a new brain, abducts Wilber as the unwilling volunteer as Chick and Talbot attempt to thwart the Count’s evil plans.
Of course, with Abbott and Costello in tow, the filmmakers’ priority is comedy, the former serving as the set-up guy and the latter being the fall guy. As such, screenwriters Robert Lees, Fredric Rinaldo, and John Grant give Costello’s character of Wilber apt opportunity to sardonically comment upon his supernatural situation. The actor’s trademark quips, punchy one-liners, and linguistic juggling are in high form here as the screenwriters seize every moment to wittily posit several self-referential in-jokes, taking their materials from all of the Universal Monster films as liberally as Mel Brooks lifts from the Frankenstein Series in Young Frankenstein. For example, when all involved come together during a masquerade ball, the following wink-and-a-nod concerning the often debated scenario upon whether or not Talbot is insane or if lycanthropy is more than a psychological disorder ensues:
Talbot: So! We meet again, Count Dracula.
Dracula: Dracula?
Wilber: Yes. That’s who he says you are.
Dracula: Oh. My costume perhaps?
Chick: No. Talbot here thinks you’re the real thing!
Wilber: Uh-huh. Right out of McDougal’s House of Horrors.
Dracula: What an odd hallucination. But, the human mind is often inflamed with strange complexes. I suggest you consult your physician, Mr. Talbot.
The writers do double-time when Doctor Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert), a character reference to Gloria Holden’s role as Countess Marya Zaleska in Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter, stares longingly at Wilber’s pricked finger as he utters that there’s only enough (blood) for one before kissing his wound. One of the more poignant, however predictable, moments in the film is when the Frankenstein monster first sees Wilber and wrenches back in revulsion. Then Erle Kenton’s The Ghost of Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein are sardonically alluded to when the Count ambiguously makes note that the brain to be inserted into the Monster must be a stable mind in order to avoid a potential fiasco (the quip is even funnier considering it was Lugosi’s character of Ygor in the former who was responsible for said historical mishap). However, for all the vocal humor, Costello’s comedy, at least at times, is a bit too imitative of Curly Howard’s signature style.
The other joy of Barton’s work is the vast amounts of allusions and references which are not restricted to the comedic duo’s routines. For example, McDougal’s House of Horrors refers us back to House of Frankenstein and Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors while the opening scene depicting Talbot after a full moon is directly lifted from Roy William Neill’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
However, in some sad respects, Barton’s monster mash is more effective at times in creating tension and presenting antagonism between the creatures than the serious dramatic works which preceded him, as when Wilber, having taken a piece of fruit from Talbot’s room, deliberates upon whether or not to return the purloined article during a night encompassed by a full moon. The clash between the Wolf Man and Dracula appears, in all places–a comedy–whereas it never appeared where it belonged: the aforementioned Universal monster collectives (to say nothing of the fact that in the three films housing the creatures, only once do we have a literal battle between the famed horrors, i.e. Neill’s aforementioned film, thus leaving Kenton’s previously mentioned works paling in miserable comparison.) Even a greater blemish, more to the writers of the Universal dramas, is the fact that in Barton’s production the creatures are given almost equal screen time (Frankenstein’s creation less than his companions), thus producing a more balanced work which successfully, thus to the audience’s belated satisfaction, issues the famed villains in proportionate doses.
After seventeen years of the most iconographic monsters of horror set to the screen, Charles Barton’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein permits us to pay our parting respects to Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. Thankfully, Bela Lugosi was permitted to have the final say in the role which he single-handedly made famous while Lon Chaney Jr. once more gave us his concerted caricature of our favorite lycanthrope. Unfortunately, for fear that the character would be mocked, Boris Karloff turned down the role of Frankenstein’s creation but, after seeing how honorably the director had handled the character, he did publicity for the film. The only regret which may be justifiably voiced is the fact that the studio opted for the time-saving makeup efforts of Bud Westmore, the protégé of the man who made most of the famed villains, Jack Pierce.
Trivia tidbit: As he was slated to do in Roy William Neill’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Lon Chaney Jr. was finally permitted, albeit only briefly, to play the Frankenstein monster onscreen due to Glenn Strange breaking his ankle during filming (apparently there is a stigma to the character considering Karloff did the same in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein). Thus, to his credit, Chaney–at the last moment mind you–was permitted to go down in cinematic history as the only actor to play all three of Universal’s big monsters.
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