Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

The resurrected Wolf Man, seeking a cure for his malady, enlists the aid of a mad scientist, who claims he will not only rid the Wolf Man of his nocturnal metamorphosis, but also revive the frozen body of Frankenstein's inhuman creation.

Director:

Roy William Neill

Writer:

Curt Siodmak (original screenplay)

Stars:

Lon Chaney Jr., Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	The Wolf Man - Lawrence Talbot (as Lon Chaney)
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

Storyline

Larry Talbot finds himself in an asylum, recovering from an operation performed by the kindly Dr. Mannering. Inspector Owen finds him there, too, wanting to question him about a recent spate of murders. Talbot escapes and finds Maleva, the old gypsy woman who knows his secret: when the moon is full, he changes to a werewolf. She travels with him to locate the one man who can help him to die - Dr. Frankenstein. The brilliant doctor proves to be dead himself, but they do find Frankenstein's daughter. Talbot begs her for her father's papers containing the secrets of life and death. She doesn't have them, so he goes to the ruins of the Frankenstein castle to find them himself. There he finds the Monster, whom he chips out of a block of ice. Dr. Mannering catches up with him only to become tempted to monomania while using Frankenstein's old equipment.

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Plot Keywords:

monster | doctor | crossover | sequel | blindness | 

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Taglines:

2 Mightiest of Human Monsters Clash!

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Approved

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was shot during WWII, amid a notorious anti-German public campaign by the United States government. Screen writer Curt Siodmak, a German Jew himself who had fled his country after hearing anti-Semitic speeches there in 1937, deliberately changed the location of Frankenstein's castle from Germany to the fictional "Vasaria." "Vasaria" translates loosely to "water place" in German, obviously correlating the dam, waterfall and hydroelectric turbine that are integral to the film.

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Goofs

In the long shot of Frankenstein's monster carrying Elsa up the stairs, her long flowing gown hangs down to his feet; to avoid stepping on it, he clearly has to take wide strides up the steps. Then there is a cut to the monster as he reaches the top of the stairs, and here Elsa's gown is completely wrapped around her body.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Freddy Jolly - Graverobber: [reading from a headstone] 'Lawrence Stewart Talbot, who died at the youthful age of thirty one. R.I.P.' That's it. Give me the chisel.
Graverobber: Suppose they didn't bury him with the money on him.
Freddy Jolly - Graverobber: Everybody in the village knows about it - his gold watch and ring and money in his pockets.
Graverobber: It's a sin to bury good money when it could help people.
[both chuckle]

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Crazy Credits

A scientist's hand is shown pouring a chemical into a flask, which bubbles over in vapor that coalesces into the film's title and cast names.

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Alternate Versions

Original preview prints of the film included Lugosi speaking dialog as the Monster. Apparently, preview audiences found Lugosi's Hungarian accent hilarious coming from the Monster's mouth, so Lugosi's voice was deleted.

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Connections

Featured in Wolfman Chronicles: A Cinematic Scrapbook (1991)

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Soundtracks

Faro-La, Faro-Li
(uncredited)
Lyrics by Curt Siodmak
Music by Hans J. Salter
Sung by Adia Kuznetzoff

User Reviews

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.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 March 1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman

Filming Locations:

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

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

74 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1