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Date Posted: 07:29:38 06/19/01 Tue
Author: Griff
Subject: Apparently Bela Lugosi turned down the role of the creature in the original film because he had hardly any dialogue. So he must have needed the cash to do this one...


FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN


Never a studio to let a good horror franchise go to waste, Universal tightens the old purse strings and gets two sequels for the price of one with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the first of their legendary genre team-ups and hopefully not the best. A tedious clash between a movie that wasn’t that interesting in the first place (The Wolf Man) and an overrated series continuing its downward slide (Frankenstein), the only thing really to be said in its favour is that we’re still a couple of movies away from Abbott and Costello.

The movie opens with a couple of grave robbers digging up... a dead horse, which they proceed to flog for the next hour or so. With a mercifully short running time and a couple of good bits along the way this passes by painlessly enough but offers absolutely nothing we haven’t seen before. The emphasis is on Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man, who suddenly isn’t dead after all! That’s lucky! He’s in search of Frankenstein’s notes on life and death in order to find a way to kill himself once and for all and be rid of his curse. Along the way he bumps into the creature – now played by a miscast Bela Lugosi – and the expected chaos ensues.

Writer Curt Siodmak includes all the now wearisome conventions of both series – not a minute has passed before that poem so tiresomely repeated in The Wolf Man (“Even a man who is pure of heart...” Zzzzzz...) is wheeled out again with a couple of references to wolfbane. From the Frankenstein side of the family we get broken down castles, grave robbers and the village mob springing into action when a local girl is killed. Yawn!! - as the angry crowd of villagers storm the Frankenstein castle carrying torches! Sleep!! - as the Wolf Man struggles with his guilt! Snore!! - as the story supposedly comes to an end but will actually grind on until the characters have run out of every last smidgeon of steam!

This is a lightweight romp, never scary, pretty dull. With a plot that goes nowhere you don’t expect it to – or goes nowhere, full stop – and the unmistakable sound of ker-chinging as dollar signs spring up in the eyes of greedy Universal honchos, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man can either be seen as a missed opportunity (if you like the original films) or more of the same stuffy, boring cobblers (if you don’t). There’s a funny bit when the mayor tells the mob how stupid they are and that they need to have a plan rather than descend into the usual mindless rioting. Siodmak seems to be having a sly dig here, and it hints that the whole thing might have been better if it were a bit more subversive and played for laughs.



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