Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
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| Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein | |
|---|---|
| Image:A&cfrank.jpg Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Theatrical Poster | |
| Directed by | Charles Barton |
| Produced by | Robert Arthur |
| Written by | Robert Lees Frederic I. Rinaldo John Grant |
| Starring | Bud Abbott Lou Costello Lon Chaney Jr. Bela Lugosi Glenn Strange |
| Music by | Frank Skinner |
| Editing by | Frank Gross |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 15, 1948 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $760,000 |
| Preceded by | House of Dracula (1945) The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) The Noose Hangs High (1948) |
| Followed by | Mexican Hayride (1948) Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) |
| IMDb profile | |
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a 1948 comedy/horror film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. This is the first of several films where they meet up with classic characters from Universal's stable. In this film they meet up with Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf Man. Later films have them meet up with the Mummy, the Keystone Kops, and the Invisible Man.
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[edit] Plot
Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) work as baggage clerks in LaMirada, Florida. When they mishandle two crates belonging to MacDougal's House of Horrors museum, Mr. MacDougal (Frank Ferguson) demands that they deliver them in person so that they can be inspected by an insurance agent. MacDougal tells Wilbur's girlfriend, Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert) that they crates contain the inert remains of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange). Wilbur, however, realizes that they are very much alive, although Chick misses every opportunity to see them. Dracula manages to hypnotize Wilbur and spirit the monster out before anyone else can spot them. When MacDougal arrives with the insurance agent they find that the crates are empty and accuses the boys of theft and has them arrested.
Dracula and the monster meet up with Mornay at a castle on a remote island. Sandra is a gifted surgeon who has studied Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks. She has been posing as Wilbur's girlfriend as part of a plot that invoilves her and Dracula replacing the monster's brutish brain with one more pliable—Wilbur's.
The boys are bailed out, and think that Sandra has helped them. However, it turns out that Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), who also shows an attraction towards Wilbur, bailed them out. But Joan is working for the insurance company that is processing Mr. MacDougal's claim. She wants to stay close to Wilbur to find out what the boys know.
Meanwhile, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) has taken the apartment across the hall from Wilbur and Chick. He has tracked Dracula and the monster from Europe, and knows that they're alive. Talbot asks the boys to help him find and destroy the ghouls. Wilbur is a true believer, but Chick thinks both of them are crazy. It doesn't help Talbot's credibility with Chick when he asks the boys to lock him in his room for the night because there will be a full moon.
The following night, Wilbur, Chick and Joan go to Sandra's castle to pick her up for a costume ball. Sandra had told Wilbur to come alone, and Joan's intrusion worries Sandra. Dracula assumes the guise of a Dr. Lejos, and introduces himself to the boys and Joan. Also working at the castle is the naive Dr. Stevens (Charles Bradstreet), who questions some of the specialized equipment that's arrived. Dracula manages to deflect Dr. Stevens' questions by pairing him with Joan. Sandra, however, says she suddenly has a splitting headache and won't be able to go to the costume ball. When Dracula talks with Sandra in private, she reveals that Dr. Stevens' questions and Joan's insurance credentials have made her nervous and wants to pull out. However, Dracula hypnotizes her and bites her neck, putting her in his will.
As the boys are wandering around the castle, they get a phone call from Talbot, who informs them that they're in Dracula's castle. After some reluctance, Wilbur agrees to search around the castle with Chick. Wilbur soon stumbles on an underground passageway, complete with boat and dock. Behind a secret revolving door, Wilbur again comes face to face with Frankenstein's monster, but can't drag Chick behind the wall fast enough. Once again, Dracula manages to get the monster out before Chick can see them.
At the costume party, the boys run into both Larry and Mr. MacDougal. Dracula and Sandra, now under the spell of Dracula, come along also. Dracula takes Joan out for a dance while Sandra lures Wilbur to a quiet spot. Just before she can take a bite out of Wilbur's neck, they're distracted and Wilbur escapes. In the meantime, Larry turns into the Wolf Man and attacks MacDougal. MacDougal, seeing that Chick's costume is a werewolf, concludes that Chick attacked him for revenge. Chick manages to slip away, but witnesses Dracula hypnotizing Wilbur. He too is mesmerized into a faint, while Wilbur and an entranced Joan are brought back to the castle by Sandra and Dracula.
The next morning, Chick is still on the run when he comes across Larry, who tells him that he was responsible. Chick, now finally convinced, agrees to go with Larry to rescue Wilbur and Joan. Wilbur is being held in a pillory. Sandra finally explains her plan to transplant his brain into the monster. She and Dracula leave him to prepare the monster for the operation. Chick and Larry arrive, unlock Wilbur, and head off to save Joan. Wilbur, meanwhile, is lured back to the castle by Dracula, who is able to override his mind and bring him back.
The operation begins. Sandra is about to open Wilbur's skull when Larry storms in and knocks Sandra out. However, just as he's about to untie Wilbur, he once again turns into the Wolfman! Wilbur manages to kick his gurney away. Dracula arrives and has a tug-of-war with the Wolf Man over Wilbur's gurney. Dracula flees, pursued by the Wolf Man. Chick arrives to untie Wilbur just as the semi-restored Monster gets up from his table. Sandra tries to order the monster back, but he picks her up and tosses her out a window. The monster hunts the boys through the castle.
Dr. Stevens, meanwhile, has managed to find Joan and gets her to the boat. Dracula, in an attempt to escape the Wolf Man, turns into a bat. But the Wolf Man snatches Dracula and both fall over a balconey and into the rocks below. This brings Joan out of her spell. The boys, meanwhile, escape the castle and head to the pier, with the monster on their trail. Once again they run into Mr. MacDougal. If he still wants his exhibit, they tell him, it's coming behind them. When the monster appears, Mr. MacDougal and the man who accompanied him jump off the pier. Chick and Wilbur climb into a rowboat and try to get away, but the boat is tied to the pier. The monster throws barrels at them, narrowly missing. Wilbur finally unties the rope, and the boat moves away. Dr. Stevens and Joan arrive and quickly set the pier on fire. The monster turns, staggers towards them, and falls through the wooden pier as it finally succumbs to the flames.
Just as Chick and Wilbur believe everything is over, they hear a third voice (Vincent Price) and see a cigarette floating in the air. The voice tells them, "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm the Invisible Man!" The boys jump off the boat as the Invisible Man lights his cigarette and laughs.
[edit] Trivia
- It was filmed from February 5 through March 20, 1948.
- The final gag of the movie, with the Invisible Man, presaged the boys' 1951 opus, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, though Price did not star.
- There is an error in this movie regarding the Dracula mythos: In the scene where Dracula bites Sandra, his reflection is cleary visible in a mirror. Vampires do not have reflections.
- This was only Lugosi's second appearance on screen as Dracula. Ian Keith was considered for the role. Coincidentally, Keith was also considered to play Dracula in the 1931 original.
- Walter Lantz provided the animation for Dracula's transformations.
- This film is considered the swan song for the "Big Three" Universal horror monsters — Dracula, Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster — although it does not appear to fit within the loose continuity of the earlier films. In this film, The Monster is actually played by two actors. Glenn Strange plays him for most of the film, but he broke his foot during production, so Lon Chaney Jr. (who previously played The Monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein), took over the role for a portion of the laboratory battle sequence.
- Boris Karloff was originally approached to play the Monster once again, but declined. He did however go on to help promote the movie and can be seen in several publicity photos.
- In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- On original movie posters, its full name was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein; however, its on-screen title is Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (without the "and"). This is the official title of the movie according to the Internet Movie Database. In any event, the film's title is inaccurate as at no point in this film do Abbott and Costello actually encounter anyone by the name Frankenstein (therefore this film, like many others, promoted the misnomer that The Monster was named Frankenstein). In the U.K. the film was released under the more generic title Abbott and Costello Meet the Ghosts
- The film was originally to be titled The Brain of Frankenstein.
- At one point in the film, where Wilbur and Chick are going through the revolving panel, Wilbur calls Chick by his real name, Abbott.
- Costello hated the script for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.<ref>Furmanek, Bob and Ron Palumbo (1991). Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. New York: Perigee Books. ISBN 0-399-51605-0</ref>
- During the filming of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Glenn Strange found Costello so funny he would often break up laughing causing many retakes. There were many pie fights during the making of the movie as well, but Abbott and Costello respected the three monsters (Chaney as the Wolfman, Lugosi as Dracula and Strange as the Monster) and made sure no pies were flung at the heavily made up actors.
- The Australian film board required that almost every scene involving a monster should be removed before release. <ref>Furmanek, Bob and Ron Palumbo (1991). Abbott and Costello in Hollywood. New York: Perigee Books. ISBN 0-399-51605-0</ref>
- It was re-released in 1956 with Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff.
- In a 2006 episode of Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel Quentin Tarantino cited the film as his favorite childhood movie because "when it was supposed to be funny it was really funny, and when it was supposed to be scary it was really scary."
[edit] Routines
The Moving Candle routine previously used in Hold That Ghost was utilized again in this film.
[edit] DVD Releases
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[edit] Reference
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[edit] External links
