Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill
Directed by: Roy William Neil
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
1943

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is awakened from his slumber of death. Resurrected, he seeks a way to die. His searching leads him to the castle of Dr. Frankenstein.

Review:
Tim: I am generally a fan of mash-up films. I really like the idea of taking two characters established in their own films, and bringing them together. In this case, we have Frankenstein's monster, who appears here in his fifth Univeral film, and Lawrence Talbot (the Wolf Man) appearing in his second. I am immediately intrigued by this idea, and want to see what happens when these two characters appear on screen. The film as a whole is fairly decent, but I wouldn't consider this an especially good movie.

Here's what impressed me the most about the film- the story was actually fairly well put together. The idea of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster coming together is a bit far-fetched. Why would this happen? The events of the film actually make this somewhat believable. Lawrence Talbot is resurrected (and to be honest, this was a bit hard to believe, as he died at the end of The Wolf Man), but he wants to go back to being dead. This, I could understand, as the werewolf curse doesn't seem very enjoyable. However, he is basically immortal for some reason (this confused me, as he clearly died in the last film). To find a way to end his life for good, he searches for the infamous Dr. Frankenstein. Unfortunately, the good doctor is dead, and he stumbles upon his monster. I was actually tracking with this story. While the whole thing requires a suspension of disbelief, the story flows and is believable enough to make the events of the film credible. I really liked that.

The cast is decent, but not particularly strong. I have to say that Bela Lugosi was not very good as Frankenstein's monster. Boris Karloff was signficantly better in the role. Plus, this movie made no reference to the Monster being blinded in his last film, so there was no explanation for why he walked around in such a stumbling fashion. It was a really weird thing, but it hurts the movie. I didn't really like Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man in his first film, and I didn't love him here. I will say that his performance was better in this movie than his first turn as Larry Talbot. Still, he did not give a particularly strong performance. Ilona Massey was fine as Baroness Frankenstein. Overall, the cast was fine, but nothing special.

While this movie has some definite strengths, there's quite a lot of flaws, too. Lugosi's sleepwalking Frankenstein performance was fairly weak. I also thought it was weird that Talbot wakes up the Monster, and they easily decide to be friends, just like that. Plus, there's the whole Talbot back from the dead thing, and the Monster surviving in a block of ice, that really require a lot of disbelief to be suspended.

While this movie is undoubtedly flawed, it's still an influential, fairly enjoyable film. Any time you combine two famous characters from two different franchises, it's worth checking out. I like the idea of this film, and for the most part, I was entertained. The flaws prevent this from being a very good movie, but it's worth seeing.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Bride of Frankenstein