The Ghost of Frankenstein
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The Ghost of Frankenstein (often referred to without the article "The" in the title), was an American horror film released in 1942. It was the fourth of in a series of films produced by Universal Studios based upon characters in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. It starred Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, taking over from Boris Karloff, who played the role in the first three films of the series, and Bela Lugosi as the demented Ygor.
Picking up after the events of Son of Frankenstein, Ghost sees the Monster brought back to life with some help from the insane Ygor (again played by Lugosi). Ygor is forced to turn to another of Dr. Henry Frankenstein's sons, Ludwig (Cedric Hardwicke), in order to keep the Monster alive. When the doctor determines to replace the Monster's original criminal brain with that of a benevolent, murdered colleague, Ygor conspires to have his own brain implanted into the Monster instead; however, although the Monster is resurrected with Ygor's mind and can even speak with his voice, a complication in the procedure renders the creature blind, and he is unable in the film's finale to find his way out of the burning Frankenstein mansion.
Ghost of Frankenstein marked the final appearance of the Monster in a solo capacity. Beginning with the next film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (in which Lugosi plays the Monster), and continuing for the rest of the Universal Monsters series, Frankenstein's Monster would be part of an ensemble.
The blinding of the Monster, along with Chaney's stiff performance, resulted in a lasting stereotype of the creature walking with arms outstretched, even though this is the only film in which it is explicitly indicated that he is blind, such references being omitted from Meets and complicating assessment of Lugosi's performance as the Monster. When Glenn Strange took over the role a few years later, the Monster's sight was restored without explanation, though it is clear in the previous film that the re-energized Monster is now able to see. The Monster's ability to speak (now in Ygor's voice) would be dropped after this film (Lugosi's dialogue being excised from Meets), though Strange utters a couple of lines in the later Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Also clouded over in later films is that the removal of the original brain from the Monster results in the end of the Creature as originated by Karloff, and that it presumably carries on with Ygor's brain. (Not that Chaney's Monster before the transplant was at all evocative of Karloff's; critics noted that in many scenes, such as in the court room, Chaney's face remains absolutely immobile, as though he were wearing a mask instead of makeup and was incapable of facial expression, a glaring departure from the Karloff version. The stylized image of the movie poster--at right--is more realistic the artist imagined.)
Continuity and logic, however, were famously lax throughout the series. In this film alone, the deep father-son bond from Son is diminished by the unmentioned existence of another son in the same line of work; a better-kempt Ygor is alive again after a bloody death at the hands of Wolf; lightning, which damaged the Monster in Son, is now restorative to him; burghers who were murdered reappear; and Ygor interacts with what must be Inspector Krogh's twin brother. Resultingly, Ghost's legacy is weakened by a sense of hurried production, and the film, which clocks in at just over an hour, is a stark transition of the series from A- to B-movie sensibility. (The link between Son and Ghost is unfortunate; they are in no way a two-part story, and the films must be considered separately.)
Hardwicke underplays Ludwig in an effective manner that keeps the film from losing all of its predecessor's elegance. Hardwicke's disarmingly mannered delivery, which in lesser hands would appear flat and disinterested, carries the complex undertones that made his style unnerving and distinctive. Frequent Chaney co-star Evelyn Ankers played the leading lady, and Ralph Bellamy plays the dull second-lead that marred many of Universal's horror classics. Lugosi, now billed as a featured player, recreates the menace of Ygor but is lost amid cost-cutting makeup and scenes with unchallenging actors. His scenes with Hardwicke, however, suggest the feast this movie might have been.
The title of the film refers to the fact that Dr. Henry Frankenstein, creator of The Monster in the first Universal Frankenstein film, appears (as Hardwicke) as a ghostly apparition to advise Ludwig (the son whose non-existence in Son is painfully obvious).
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