Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Director:

Roy William Neill

Writer:

Curt Siodmak (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Horror

Tagline:

A Death Fight . . . Between Two Beasts !

Plot:

Larry Talbot chips Frankenstein's monster out of a block of ice. When Talbot changes to the Wolf Man, the two creatures do battle.

Plot Keywords:

Monster | Inspector | Werewolf | Doctor | Gypsy

Cast

Ilona Massey	...	Baroness Elsa Frankenstein
Patric Knowles	...	Dr. Frank Mannering
Lionel Atwill	...	Mayor
Bela Lugosi	...	Monster
Maria Ouspenskaya	...	Maleva
Dennis Hoey	...	Inspector Owen
Don Barclay	...	Franzec
Rex Evans	...	Vazec
Dwight Frye	...	Rudi
Harry Stubbs	...	Guno
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Lawrence Stewart Talbot / The Wolf Man (as Lon Chaney)

Also Known As:

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (USA) (video box title)

Runtime:

74 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-11 (2004) | Spain:13 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Australia:M | UK:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #9024) | Sweden:15 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

When The Monster's dialogue was deleted (see Alternate Versions), also removed were any references to The Monster being blind - a side-effect of Ygor's brain being implanted into The Monster at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). As a result, Lugosi's sleepwalker-like lumbering gait with arms outstretched is not explained and became the subject of ridicule. It also established the Frankenstein Monster-walk stereotype.

Goofs:

Plot holes: After Lawerence Talbot and Maleva are told to leave Vasaria, Maleva is arrested when the townspeople are hunting for the wolf that killed the innkeeper's daughter. A few scenes later, Talbot is back in town at a public celebration socializing with the mayor and others. The townspeople do not seem to take much notice that the strange man from earlier is back and make no attempt to arrest him. Also, somewhere between his encounter with the monster and this point, Talbot acquires a suit. It is never explained where or how he got this suit.

Quotes:

Vazec: There, that's his burial place. A fire destroyed him and all his misdeeds.
Maleva: He is dead?
Lawrence Talbot: Oh but he can't be!
Vazec: He didn't die any too soon for us; we all wished he'd never been born!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Serenity (2005)

Soundtrack:

Faro-La, Faro-Li

Not a classic, but a decent sequel.

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.