But he's no longer the monster. That strange thing is Glenn....Glenn Strange, that is, who unlike Karloff's previous replacements (Lon Chaney Jr. and even Bela Lugosi) gives the monster really no personality. In fact, he's barely on, and when he is, all he does is (to quote Lugosi as played by Martin Landau in "Ed Wood") roar and growl. Karloff is Dr. Niemann, a mad scientist in prison for robbing graves, vowing revenge on the men who put him there and prevented him from his greatest dream: working with the original Dr. Frankenstein. As luck would have it, a bombing unleashes Karloff and his hunchbacked cell mate (J. Carroll Naish) and they take on the disguise of a traveling horror show owner. Among the many treasures of the poor sap they dispatch to take over is the skeleton of Dracula (played here by John Carradine) whom Karloff pledges allegiance to only if he'll help him dispatch his enemies.
This is an episodic programmer, the "Dracula" segment only lasting for the first half, and merging into the return of the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney) and the Frankenstein monster who no longer looks like Lugosi after the previous "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man". There's a sweet romantic triangle involving the hunchback, a gypsy girl, and Chaney's "wolf man" human counterpart, Lawrence Talbot, and it is one of the silliest plot lines in the series. Elena Verdugo teases Naish until he's insane with lust, driven even further into madness by her obvious attraction to Chaney. This will never be considered one of the classic Universal horror films, but it's a pleasant time passer, even if it has no element of reality.
This is an episodic programmer, the "Dracula" segment only lasting for the first half, and merging into the return of the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney) and the Frankenstein monster who no longer looks like Lugosi after the previous "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man". There's a sweet romantic triangle involving the hunchback, a gypsy girl, and Chaney's "wolf man" human counterpart, Lawrence Talbot, and it is one of the silliest plot lines in the series. Elena Verdugo teases Naish until he's insane with lust, driven even further into madness by her obvious attraction to Chaney. This will never be considered one of the classic Universal horror films, but it's a pleasant time passer, even if it has no element of reality.