Frankenstein trifft den Wolfsmenschen

MORD39 RATING: ***(of ****)

It's the first Monster Mash teamup movie, a Universal Classic, and curiously panned nowadays.

Lon Chaney gives his most heartfelt performance this time as doomed werewolf Larry Talbot. He seeks the help of the second son of Dr. Frankenstein, but ultimately crosses paths with the Frankenstein Monster instead.

As originally scripted and shot, the monster was to be blind and sick, as the climax of the previous GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN left off. It is actually Ygor's brain that is in the monster's head, and therefore Bela Lugosi was an inspired choice to play the creature. Critics have unfairly lambasted Bela's performance, but in truth it's really brilliant when taken in its original context: the creature blindly stumbles around with out-stretched arms, appearing awkward and searching for strength. Lugosi had much dialogue as first shot, but legend claims that it sounded too funny at test screenings, so all language and references to the monster's violence were edited out! Let's remember that Bela Lugosi was playing the monster in a way that was never attempted before. As intended, this film would have been much more acceptable as Talbot and the monster would discuss their plan to find Frankenstein's diary and use the information to their own ends: Talbot to find a way to die, the monster to gain back his strength.

With great music and nostalgic atmosphere to boot, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN is good, clean fun from the innocent days of Universal Horrors.

A year after The Wolf Man became a huge success, Lon Chaney Jr played the part of Frankenstein in the latest sequel "Ghost of Frankenstein". He was excellent in the role, and from that you can clearly see where the inspiration came from to combine the two strands and have these characters meet each other. Incidentally, Chaney also played a vampire later that year in "Son of Dracula", even though he was completely unsuited to the part, but that makes him the only actor to play all three of Universal's main monsters. Oh, and he also played the Mummy in "The Mummy's Tomb".

Anyway, I digress ... here we have Curt Siodmak, writer of The Wolf Man, returning again as screenwriter. All of the ingredients are there for a great sequel. It opens in Larry Talbot's tomb, with two graverobbers breaking in and disturbing his resting place. The moonlight comes through the window and falls on Larry's corpse, waking him from his slumber as the wolf man. He then gets taken to a hospital where he is deemed insane due to his insistence that he's a werewolf, but promptly escapes in search of the gypsy woman from the original film. She takes him to Frankenstein's town in search of his scientific expertise, and there he encounters Frankenstein's monster encased in ice ... my memory is a little hazy, but wasn't he consumed in fire at the end of the last movie? Ah, well.

It should really have been called "The Wolf Man Meets Frankenstein", because Frankenstein here is only a fairly minor character in the story. Lon Chaney Jr delivers another great performance, at least as good as that in the first film if not better. Of course, he does only have to have one mood to convey here -- desperation. Bela Lugosi, much as I love him, is a terrible Frankenstein. He's the wrong size and shape, and he clearly has no respect for the role. Thank god he doesn't appear for that long. Although having said that, it does kind of make sense that he plays the monster, as the brain of his Igor character was placed in Frankenstein's head at the end of the previous movie. Not that they have much continuity other than that.

The script certainly has it's moments, and the atmosphere of the two worlds of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein blend together fairly well, but on the whole this film just doesn't have enough interesting ideas and far too many dull moments. The set pieces are decent enough, but certainly not as striking as those in the earlier Frankenstein movies. Also, there's a fair bit of decidedly wooden acting from certain cast members, but that's to be expected from most of Universal's horror films.

This sequel is entertaining enough, but it's not half as good as it could have been. It's worth watching if you liked the original.

In Llanwelly village, two grave robbers break in the crypt of Lawrence "Larry" Stewart Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) to steal his possessions. When they open the casket, they find the body covered with wolfbane and they are attacked by a creature. Soon Talbot awakes in Cardiff at the Queen's Hospital recovering from a surgery performed by Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles) and Inspector Owen (Dennis Hoey) is ready to interrogate him about recent murders.

Talbot flees from the hospital and seeks out the gypsy Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), who knows that he is a werewolf, asking her to help him. Talbot wants to die and they travel to find Dr. Frankenstein. Talbot transforms into the werewolf and falls into the frozen catacombs of Dr. Frankenstein's castle. He finds the Monster (Bela Lugosi) frozen and he breaks the ice and release it. Soon Talbot discovers that Dr. Frankenstein is dead and he seeks out the daughter of Dr. Frankenstein, Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey), expecting to borrow his journal that contains the secret of life and death. Meanwhile Dr. Mannering arrives in the village following the blood track left by the werewolf. When Elsa lends the diary of her father, Dr. Mannering prepares the equipment to drain power from Talbot to the Monster. But he becomes insane with the power on his hands and the experiment goes wrong.

"Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" is a movie by Universal with a creepy beginning in the environment of the cemetery and a sensational transformation of Talbot into the werewolf in slow motion. The development of the plot is dramatic and funny, with the encounter of the Wolf Man with the Monster and Talbot wishing to die. Unfortunately the lame conclusion is terrible. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Frankenstein Encontra o Lobisomem" ("Frankenstein Meets the Werewolf")

"Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943) is, in the opinion of this reviewer, the last of the really good Universal monster features. It is definitely not in the same league as the the early James Whale and Todd Browning classics (e.g., "Frankenstein," "The Bride of Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Invisible Man," etc.). Nor is it quite as strong as "The Son of Frankenstein." But it easily rivals "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and far surpasses the two House Of films ("House of Frankenstein" and "House of Dracula"). Lon Chaney Jr. is even better in this film than he is in the original "Wolf Man" (1941). And Lugosi is an impressive Frankenstein's monster, despite the studio's decision to cut references from the film to his blindness (a condition suffered by the monster in "The Ghost of Frankenstein") and his dialogue (again, from acquiring the brain of Ygor in "Ghost"). The film is beautifully photographed, well acted and a unique departure from previous Universal monster fests in the way it teams up two legendary creatures. It's a splendid later entry in the Universal horror cycle. After this, the universal horror films left much to be desired, at least until the magnificent "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948). I still put "Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man" in the DVD player if I'm feeling like watching what in my opinion is the studio's finest wartime horror film.

One must pity the Wolf Man. Marked not only with the pentagram, but marked to never have a sequel that was all his own. A real shame, considering that even the likes of the Mummy got 'four' sequels. Universal begins their monster-mash rallies of the 1940s here, as Wolfie must share his sandbox with the "undying monster" & the two get along well for the most part, but eventually, even the best of friends will have their disputes....

The film begins on a very high note, with one of the most chilling and atmospheric openings in any horror movie. The potential was certainly here for a great 'Wolf Man' sequel that could've surpassed the original. Too bad the monster has to rear his ugly, stitched up head.

Speaking of that monster, "Poor Bela" always get the blame dumped on him for why this film had to be chopped up in post-production, the story always being that the monster with his voice was simply too "Hungarian funny", yet this film was produced by the same Universal that a year earlier made "Ghost of Frankenstein" which featured the monster with Bela's voice. It didn't bother anyone then, so what was the problem now? There has to be more to the story than "it was all Lugosi's fault". Would it be considered out of the realm of possibility to speculate that perhaps the great Curt Siodmak (the screenwriter) wrote some seriously crappy dialogue for the creature to recite that would've produced titters no matter who spoke it?

Also marring the proceedings a bit is some shaky continuity in regards to the monster's portion of the story if you're familiar with the previous 'Ghost' movie. How is it, that there's suddenly a Frankenstein castle in Vasaria (or is it Vi·Saria), when in the previous film, the villagers in the town called "Frankenstein" blew it up. And there are many instances where the screenwriter doesn't seem to know the difference between Ludwig Frankenstein & his father Henry who made the monster, as Talbot, the villagers, even Baroness Frankenstein speak as if Ludwig actually created the monster.

And yet, in spite of its inconsistencies (not to mention the heavy editing done to it), the whole of 'FMTWM' still turns out very good, and the ending clash of the monsters is very entertaining. While Frankenstein fans may be disappointed, this picture definitely works as a great 'Wolf Man' sequel & one of the top Universal romps from the 1940s. After this picture, Dracula and a few other fiends would get invited to the monster party.

8/10