Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
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Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a classic 1948 comedy/horror film in which characters played by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello deliver large heavy crates to a wax museum only to discover that the contents -- Frankenstein's monster and Dracula -- are neither wax nor dead. Bela Lugosi stars as Dracula; Glenn Strange stars as Frankenstein's monster; and Lon Chaney Jr. makes an appearance as the Wolfman. The film was directed by Charles T. Barton from a screenplay by Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant.
Plot
Chick Young and Wilbur Grey (Abbott and Costello), two baggage clerks, deliver two crates to a house of horrors museum. They think the crates contain the inert remains of Dracula and the Frankenstein monster. Wilbur, however, realizes that they are very much alive, although Chick misses every opportunity to see them. Dracula manages to spirit the monster out before anyone else can spot them. When the museum owner, Mr. MacDougal, arrives and finds that the crates are empty, he accuses the boys of theft and has them arrested.Dracula and the monster meet up with Dr. Sandra Mornay at a castle on a remote island. Sandra is a gifted surgeon who has studied Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks. She is also inexplicably smitten with Wilbur, but only to lead him on. She and Dracula plan to replace the monster's brutish brain with one more pliable--Wilbur's!
The boys are bailed out, and think that Sandra (Lénore Aubert) has helped them. However, it turns out that Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), who also has a strange affection for 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 bites her neck, putting her in his will.
As the boys are wander 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. Sandra, now under the spell of Dracula, comes along also and lures Wilbur to a quiet spot. Just before she can take a bite out of Wilbur's neck, they're distracted and Wilber 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 Wilbur and 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 finally succumbs to the flames. suddenly hear a third voice (that of 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.
Trivia
- The final gag of the movie, with the Invisible Man, presaged the boys' 1951 opus, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.
- 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 a reflection.
- This was only Lugosi's second appearance on screen as Dracula. Ian Keith was considered for the role. Ironically, Keith was also considered to play Dracula in the 1931 original.
- 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 (admittedly 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.
- In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- It was released in the Universal Studio Comedy Legends DVD series, on August 29, 2000, as Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. On May 31, 2005, the film was reissued on DVD as part of the "Best of Abbott and Costello, Volume 3" boxed set with seven other films.
- 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.
External links
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