The Art of Frankenstein : Feg Murray (Part 9)

Cartoonist Feg Murray captured all of the Universal Frankenstein Monsters over the run of his Seein’ Stars newspaper feature. After Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi, the part fell to character actor Glenn Strange whose craggy Mount Rushmore face and six-foot-five frame made him a Monster to reckon with. In short but memorable appearances in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) and HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945), the underused Monster would roll off the slab for a quick, last reel walkabout before meeting his inevitable doom. Murray notes how the apparently destroyed Monster would always “show up for the next horror film”.

Unexpectedly, Strange would get a chance to show his Monster chops front and center in the final film of the original series, the wildly funny and surprisingly influential ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). Both illustrations here are contemporary to the Abbott and Costello comedy.


The full face-on image announcing the film is a direct precursor, and a worthy companion piece to the famous James Bama painting of the Sixties that used the same photo reference. 

Click the thumbnails below to see the full cartoon panels. I have included a third Glenn Strange image, found on eBay, although the quality is poor.

Next up: We wrap up the Feg Murray series!

With thanks to George Chastain!

Related:
The Monster: Glenn Strange

Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein

One of the great curios of the Frankenstein films list is the 1953 Egyptian-made HARAM ALEK, sometimes spelled HRAAM ALEEK and otherwise known as ISMAIL YASSIN MEETS FRANKENSTEIN. The film is notorious as a straight up, nearly scene-for-scene remake of the classic ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948).

The A&C classic was massively influencial — not to mention, box-office gold — inspiring several knock-offs, many of them from Mexico, with local comics stepping in and squaring off with the famous monsters, complete with key gags lifted from the original. The formula had also re-ignited Abbott and Costello’s movie career and spurred them to a series of “Meet the Monsters” films of their own.

Long unseen in the West, copies of HARAM ALEK have popped up on YouTube now and then, mostly as low quality video, sometimes sporting an annoying TV logo. The cleanest, sharpest copy is here, in its original language. Worth a peek, with its devilish, pointy-beard Dracula, a downscale Wolf Man and the curious, Herman Munster-like Frankenstein Monster. It’s required viewing if you’re a serious fan of the Abbott & Costello original.

See HAREM ALAK/HRAAM ALEEK.

Related:

Frankenstein Gets Knocked-Off

Haram Alek Screencaps

The Posters of Frankenstein : Spanish Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Abbott and Costello Meet the Ghosts was the Spanish title — as it was in the UK. In some countries, it was Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters. In France, it was called Two Nitwits vs Frankenstein and in Germany, it was Mein Gott, Frankenstein.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) was the most influencial horror-comedy ever made, revolutionizing a genre occupied by haunted house spoofs and escaped gorilla farces, spawning an industry of local-comics-meet-classic-monsters copycat versions worldwide. The originals, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, went on to Meet Universal’s Invisible Man and the Mummy, plus Boris Karloff playing Jekyll — Hyde was a stuntman — in one film, and a murderous fake swami in another.

The Spanish poster by Fernando Albericio shows the cartooned-up comedy duo pursued by a flying Dracula, the Wolf Man and a Frankenstein’s Monster with Karloff’s face instead of Glenn Strange’s. Albericio was prolific through the Fifties and Sixties, and comfortable in all genres.

A gallery of posters by Fernando Albericio.

Image source: Dr. Macro

Related:
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Knock Offs
The Legacy of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, by Frank Dietz
The Making of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Vincent at 100

The old Inventor presents his patchwork creation, Edward Scissorhands, with a new heart, freshly baked.

Vincent Price would have turned 100 on May 27. Celebrations, ingeniously dubbed The Vincentennial, were held all this week in St. Louis, Price’s birthplace.

Unlike his horror star confreres Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney Jr, Cushing and Lee — he worked with all of them, save Lugosi — Price never made a Frankenstein film. He does utter a line, uncredited and, playing The Invisible Man, unseen, in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), but that doesn’t really count, does it? Otherwise, Price appeared in clearly Frankensteinian films, like Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990), a Frankenstein-like fairy tale, complete with angry villagers storming a castle at the end. Price was the mysterious and whimsical Inventor who creates a boy with scissors for hands and a cookie heart. It was the actor’s last feature film role.

There’s a tenuous Frankenstein connection in Price’s turn as Dr. Goldfoot, star of two unfortunate comedies, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966). This mad scientist created attractive fembots built for seduction, robbery and murder.

A better Frankenstein reference can be found in Price’s Dr. Phibes character, featured in two wildly entertaining films, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), both directed by Robert Fuest. The mad Anton Phibes, horribly mutilated in a car accident, frankensteins himself back together, trading The Monster’s electrodes for an audio jack in his neck, allowing him to speak through a gramophone. Phibes was, in a sense, the mad doctor and his own monster rolled into one.

Price good-naturedly embraced his success and enormous popularity as a movie villain and a horror star. He had fun with his screen image, often appearing as a guest on television comedy and variety programs. In one famous 1968 episode of The Red Skelton Show, Price and Boris Karloff sang The Two of Us and donned laboratory coats for a sketch as mad scientists with designs on Clem Kadiddlehopper’s addled brain.

By a glorious coincidence, Vincent Price shared his birthday, May 27, with his friend Christopher Lee. Sir Christopher, still a busy actor, will turn 89 this year. Another colleague, Peter Cushing, was born May 26. He would have been 98.

Related:
Vincent Price and Christopher Lee

I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It: The Legacy Of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein by Frank Dietz

Along with his wonderful award-winning art, Frank Dietz shares his love for a classic film and discusses its abiding influence with a number of genre luminaries.

In May 1948, Universal Studios released a film that would change the direction of two of their most celebrated franchises. The movie was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and it put Bud and Lou back at the top of their game. And while it rang the death knoll for the classic monsters, it would also secure their longevity in the hearts and minds of audiences for decades to come.

At the age of six, I was introduced to this film by way of a local network airing, broadcast in all its glory across a black-and-white television screen. To my memory, it was the first time I had ever heard of Count Dracula, The Wolf Man or The Frankenstein Monster. My young mind was already craving anything that stimulated the imagination. Like Lou Costello’s Wilbur, I became caught in the hypnotic draw of Bela Lugosi’s beckoning. Here were situations so compelling, alternately frightening and amusing, that each new sequence would draw me closer to that screen. That is until a concerned adult would order me to back away, citing the time-honored admonition of ruining one’s eyesight. By the time The Wolf Man and Dracula plunged to their doom, and the Monster crumpled into the blazing pier, I had a calling in life. I didn’t know how or where this magical thing was made, all I knew was that I wanted to be a part of it.

What followed my enlightenment that morning was a surge of invention, arching like the manic machinery in Dr. Mornay’s laboratory. The Crayola-rendered drawings gushed from my memory and were ceremoniously pinned to the walls of my rickety backyard clubhouse. I would spend what seemed like hours in front of the bathroom mirror, “transforming” into The Wolf Man. My neighborhood chums were cajoled into performing living room reenactments of key scenes from the film, with me as director and star (either as Wilbur or Talbot…or both).

Memory was all I had to go on, for I would not see my creative muse again for several years. Unlike the privileged, instant-access youth of today, airings of movies like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein were events to be wished for from month to month. When I was finally “gifted” by the gods of programming, Glenn Strange’s Monster himself could not have deterred me from taking my place in front of that old Zenith.

Somehow I missed the wonderful animated opening credits the first time around, but that second viewing immediately galvanized my already feverish brain. Watching that cartoon Frankenstein lumber into frame brought a whole new element into play. As the silhouetted Wolf Man and Dracula skulked over the hill, a tiny switch clicked “ON” inside my noggin. It was the first time any kind of animation had triggered such a specific response in me. Woody Woodpecker had been taken for granted, but the Frankenstein Monster brought the respect that the art form deserved. Cartoons suddenly had the potential to be really cool.

So my drawings began to improve, reloaded by this fresh clip of Frankensteinia. Shortly after, I happened upon my first issue of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, and with it the revelation that there were other Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies out there. When the Shock Theater syndication packages began to play on the Saturday night “Creature Feature” movie, I was ready for them. They didn’t always look exactly the same, but they were definitely my monsters.

Through subsequent viewings, I came to appreciate the film for its actual merits. The genuinely funny script, that wisely sidesteps the potholes of Bud and Lou’s vaudeville routines. The atmospheric production design and lighting. Lugosi’s improvement over his own 1931 Dracula performance. Lon Chaney’s Talbot fighting for a noble cause between his moonlight metamorphoses. Glenn Strange’s proof that he could do more than be a prop that sits up from the slab in the final five minutes. The rousing Frank Skinner score, with memorable motifs for each monster. All of these ingredients make for a thoroughly entertaining stew. Sadly, the film was the swan song for the three great movie monsters, and its tremendous success would make Abbott & Costello films the “elephants graveyard” for all the remaining cinema spookies. But perhaps killing off their erstwhile cash cows by way of a multi-demographic comedy was the shrewdest monster move the Universal suits ever made.

Very often I have found Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein to be a common denominator on the inspirational rap sheets of my professional colleagues. Like my experiences, many of my fellow writers, actors, directors and artists can cite the movie as a pivotal step in their own evolutions. We who marveled at these creations in our youth, have grown to become the creators. I asked a few of them about their own A&CMF memories.

“When I was a little youngster (radio carbon dating figures on request) I was packed away to" day "camp in the summertime,” recalls Emmy-winning makeup fx artist John Goodwin, “and I remember the younger kids had to listen to the camp counselor tell stories about trees (!?) while the older kids got to see a movie, "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" in 16mm, whatever that was. Well, I knew liked Abbott and Costello, but I wasn't too sure about monsters yet. I snuck away into the darkened cabin where they were showing the movie - just when Lon Chaney Jr. was changing into The Wolf Man!! Scared me to death! I was back out in tree story land faster than you can crush an acorn. But the seed had been sown…”

Director Tom Holland, who created a formidable horror-comedy of his own with 1985’s Fright Night, explains how A&CMF inspired a key moment in his film. “A & C meet Frankenstein gave me the inspiration for the moment in Fright Night where Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) has killed the vampire's helper, and he and Charley Brewster start up the stairs again...while the monster sits up behind them, rises and starts up the stairs. The moment where Roddy hears the creak of the footsteps behind him and turns to see the monster he just killed coming toward him...is right out of A&CMF, and gets much the same kind of giggle.”

Creator of some of the most recognizable movie posters of all time (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, et al.), award-winning artist Drew Struzan had this to say: “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein? I remember it being the stupidest, tackiest and most disrespectful take on Frankenstein I ever saw. And I enjoyed every moment of it!”

I became an actor, a screenwriter and an animator, all of which can be almost directly traced back to my early exposure to A&CMF. But the real test of the movie’s magic became apparent to me after my older daughter Caitlin watched it, at about the same age I was when I first saw it. She enjoyed it so much, she insisted on watching it again…and again…and again. This was now possible in the instant techno-gratification nineties. Before long she was quoting Wilbur (“SANDRA! Junior? SANDRA! Junior?) and had perfected the Dracula hand gestures to the point that she could bend the will of any second-grader in class. Shortly after, she would begin to inquire about other vintage horror movies. She knew who these characters were now, and was curious to find out more. I took her to a screening of the 1931 Frankenstein at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. She faced the film without fear, and by its fiery climax, expressed pity for Karloff’s monster. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein had vaccinated her against fear of the original films, and the bias against “old” movies that were not in color. It occurred to me at that point that the film has become a kind of “portal,” allowing young people to be introduced to the classic monsters in a gentler, acceptable manner.

Noted horror author David J. Schow suggests one explanation to the appeal. “I don’t have research to bear me out on this, so it’s a suspicion rather than a confirmed fact, but I daresay A&C Meet Frank was a convenient conduit for “first contact” between a lot of kids and a lot of monsters because by the time TV syndication rolled around, A&C were deemed “kid-friendly” matinee fare – no sharp edges, etc. – and therefore the film was broadcast often during the daytime on Saturdays, as opposed to later-night “melodrama” slots containing programming that might scare somebody, as wrongly or rightly determined by affiliate broadcast standards. Since it was thumbnailed as a “comedy,” kids came for A&C and stayed for the monsters, so to speak. A lot of monster magazine cover art – in particular images of Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster – around this time were derived from this film’s images to a degree that almost makes it look biased.”

This is certainly true of the Universal monsters licensing art during the 1960’s Shock Theater boom. The colorful Frankenstein images that appeared on the lunchboxes, wallets and 3-ring school binders were almost always of Glenn Strange. The Dracula image was Lugosi, direct from A&CMF. Since these items were marketed for kids, it makes sense that the imagery be plucked from the film created to appeal directly to them.

David goes on to make an excellent point about the film’s intention from the start. “It’s also important that a fundamental turning point occurs early in the movie, where the Monster is frightened by Lou in the wax museum; it is the big wink to the audience that everything will be safe and okay, and cannot be underestimated as the “doorway” through which every subsequent monster spoof or lampoon followed. That one gag is a big red flag signaling the end of the reign of gothic monsters at Universal.”

Only the monsters and villains perish in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and while the innocents are placed in great peril, not a single one is harmed during the film’s 83 minute running time. Even the obnoxious Mr. MacDougal survives an attack by The Wolf Man. This makes it an easier pill to swallow for those second-grade first-timers. And once they have made it through to see Chick and Wilbur emerge triumphant, most are quick to grab that remote and return to the main menu for another spin through MacDougal’s House Of Horrors.

The beautiful irony is that the film that was meant to be a stake in the heart for the Universal monsters may in fact be the film that keeps them alive forever. It provided inspiration for the filmmakers of today, and continues to serve as the welcome mat for new generations of classic monster fans. A couple of weeks ago, my younger daughter Tabitha, age 7, decided it was time that she watch her father’s favorite movie. She’s watched it six times since, and is now inquiring about a movie called The Bride Of Frankenstein.

The legacy lives on…

Burbank-based Frank Dietz is the creator of the Sketchy Things series of classic monster sketchbooks. Just a week ago, he won his second consecutive Rondo Award as Artist of the Year!

Don’t miss Frank’s enormous, and enormously entertaining website.

If you enjoyed this Guest Post as much as I did, leave a comment and let us know. I’d like to get Frank to contribute again!

Happy 125th, Bela Lugosi

This weekend, October 20 was Bela Lugosi’s 125^th birthday.

In 1931, Bela Lugosi became an instant sensation upon the release of Dracula, the film that ignited the first golden age of horror films. Universal Studios quickly followed up with a plan to shoot Frankenstein, featuring their newly minted star. Lugosi's name appeared on a preview poster for the film. A notorious, now lost screen test was made, and then everything fell apart.

One story goes that Lugosi stubbornly refused to play the part of The Monster because of no dialog and too much makeup. Another version has Universal chief Carl Laemmle laughing at Lugosi’s appearance and shelving the project, at least until James Whale stepped in, retooled the script and shot it with Boris Karloff.

In 1939, Lugosi appeared in the third Frankenstein outing, Son of Frankenstein, as the broken-necked Ygor, and pretty much stole the film right out from under Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone. Returning in 1942’s The Ghost of Frankenstein, this time with Lon Chaney, Jr. as The Monster, Lugosi’s Ygor, in the final scene, had his brains inserted in the Monster’s skull, with catastrophic results: The re-brained Monster was now blind!

In 1943, Lugosi finally accepted the part that had eluded him twelve years earlier when he donned the heavy monster makeup for Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman. It made sense: Ygor’s brains were now inside The Monster’s square head, and Lugosi was able to speak The Monster’s dialog with Ygor’s accent. The part was difficult for the frail actor and he is doubled by stuntmen, often obviously, in several scenes. The final ignominy came when, prior to release, Universal yanked all of The Monster’s speaking scenes. Curiously, Lugosi’s stiff-arm groping, meant to indicate The Monster’s blindness, now unmentioned in the film, became the standard Frankenstein Monster robot walk.

Lugosi played opposite The Monster one more time, as Dracula, commanding Glenn Strange is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, in 1948.

Frankenstein may have been a footnote and an irritant in Lugosi’s career, but Bela made several contributions to the myth, and he made The Monster come alive in many ways.

The cover illustration above was designed and colorized by Joe Schovitz for Jim Clatterbaugh’s superlative Monsters From The Vault magazine. That issue, #22, is still available directly from the publisher.

Frankenstein Memorabilia

Straight From The Son

He was the four-year old son of the Son of Frankenstein (1939). He is the last surviving actor to have played opposite Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster. Donnie Dunagan, now 73 years old, has put his personal collection of memorabilia up for auction. These unique and important items include photos, contracts, letters, pay stubs, scrapbook pages, and a wonderful autographed still of Boris Karloff signed “with love from the giant”.

The auction goes live on October 6.

Info via Tim Lucas' Video WatchBlog. Essential reading!

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein Mask

Also on the Heritage Auction site: Monster masks used as props in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

A vulcanized rubber Frankenstein stunt head, a perfect likeness of Glenn Strange, appears surprisingly well preserved for its age and one suspects it might be a more recent “pull” from the original mold. Nevertheless, it is a stunning piece.

Frankenstein Exhibit

Right in time for Halloween, here’s an exhibit of classic stills from the great Universal Frankensteins. Rutgers Student Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey will be displaying Frankenstein Pictures: A Photographic Tribute to Boris Karloff and The Frankenstein Monster from the collection of Ron MacCloskey, October 14 to the 27th.

Check the Creepy Classics website for all the details.

(Thanks to Stuart Gardner for the info!)

Haram Alek Screencaps

I originally mentioned the fascinating, Egyptian-made Haram Alek (1953), aka Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein, in my Frankenstein Gets Knocked-Off post.

Here are some screencaps of the Monster (actor unknown), referred to in the picture as “The Mummy”. The arched brow, big chin and wide mouth makes him look a bit like Herman Munster, don’t you think?

The scratched face in the bottom picture is the result of a close encounter with The Wolfman.

And here are your bonus pics for today: The Dracula and Wolfman characters from the movie.

Young Frankenstein Lives Again

This post is part of the First Annual 2007 Slapstick Blog-a-thon coordinated by Thom Ryan at Film of the Year. Click and see a list of all the participating bloggers.

Just like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein before it, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein spawned its share of imitators. For one, there was a rather miserable David Niven comedy called Old Dracula, but the kicker must be Sevimli Frankestayn, aka Turkish Young Frankenstein, a spectacularly inept shot for shot remake that plays like a straight horror film. In other words, a knock-off of a classic satire… that misses the joke!

At 81, Mel Brooks is the Elder Statesman of Slapstick. In November, in case you haven’t heard, he’s reviving Young Frankenstein as a big budget Broadway musical. The tryouts in Seattle have been widely publicized on TV and the Net.

Watch Brooks making his pitch on entertainment news shows, available on YouTube here and here. There is some overlap between the two clips, but you get a glimpse of the very elaborate sets that include a rising slab, complete with lightning bolts. Here’s a fine Seattle Times article, and a slideshow (pics by Greg Gilbert) of actor Schuler Hensley — who also played the Monster in the film Van Helsing — being transformed into a very green Frankenstein Monster, and this Playbill feature has good pictures (by Paul Kolnik) of the very energetic cast. The official website for the Young Frankenstein musical is here.

Frankenstein Meets The Mermaid

This weekend, the New York Times carries an article called “Monster, Meet Mermaid”. Turns out the competition for Young Frankenstein won’t be the other Frankenstein Musical opening at the same time, but rather the big new Disney show, The Little Mermaid. Now, how’s this for trivia: This is not the first time that a comedy-based Frankenstein Monster meets a Mermaid. Back in ‘48, at Universal, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was shooting concurrently with the William Powell fantasy, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. Glenn Strange and Anne Blythe, both in costume, posed for a neat publicity shot.

All we need now is for Young Frankenstein’s Schuler Hensley and The Little Mermaid’s Sierra Boggess to get together and close the circle. Do it on January 1st, and it'll be a 60th year reunion!

And that wraps up my contribution to the Slapstick Blog-a-Thon. I had a ball! I was introduced to some great blogs, I read some terrific posts, and I made some new friends. Here’s a pie in the face to Thom Ryan at Film of the Year who made it all happen. Thanks, Thom, and congratulations on a job well done.

Frankenstein Gets Knocked-Off

This post is part of the First Annual 2007 Slapstick Blog-a-thon coordinated by Thom Ryan at Film of the Year. Click and see a list of all the participating bloggers.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was a hit everywhere it played. I love the German title and the Jack Davis-style artwork on the above poster.

I saw French-dubbed version, Deux Nigauds (“Two nincompoops!”) contre Frankenstein, in a theater when I was a kid. No, I’m not THAT old. It was in the early 60s, and the film, incredibly, was still making the rounds in second-run houses a full 15 years after its original release.

Bud and Lou exploited the new formula, going on to “Meet” The Killer (aka The Killer, Boris Karloff), The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Mummy. They even worked the monsters, including the newly minted Creature from the Black Lagoon, into their television routines.

Outside the USA and, presumably, beyond the grasp of Universal’s legal department, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein would spawn countless imitations, some of which amounted to unauthorized, unabashed remakes, which is a polite way of saying “plagiarism”.

An Egyptian-made copy, in 1953, stands out as a jaw-dropping, scene for scene clone of the original. The film, called Haram alek — which somewhat appropriately translates as “Shame On You!” — is also known as Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein.

Mexican movie comics stepped in with a slew of knockoffs, some of them quite accomplished. El Castillo de los monstruos (Castle of Monsters) in 1958, had Clavillazo dealing with a very human-like Frankenstein (the neck bolts gave him away) plus a mummy, a gorilla, an alligator pit, and the lagoon’s Gill-Man. Best of all, the great German Robles cameos as El Vampiro. Here’s a fun YouTube clip from the film where most of the monstruos appear.

The prolific, rubber-faced superstar comic Tin Tan made several excursions into the ghost and monsters genre, notably El Fantasma de la operetta and La casa del terror, both in 1960. La casa drew Lon Chaney, Jr. south of the border to play opposite the pachuco-style comic as a mummy who, once revived, turns into a werewolf. Nice combo, there! The film was notoriously recycled in the States as a straight horror film. Chaney’s footage was edited in with new, cheaply shot scenes and the whole incomprehensible mess was released as Face of the Screaming Werewolf in 1964.

Other Mexican-made variations included Pepito y el monstruos (1957), A Locura del terror (1969), Chabelo y Pepito contra los monstruos (1973), and Capulina vs los monstruos (1964). Most of these are available today on DVD if you care to Google around.

Of all the Mexican facsimiles, the one most faithful to Abbott and Costello’s original concept was Frankestein: El vampiro y compania (Frankestein (sic), the Vampire and Company), made in 1961 as a vehicle for Tin Tan’s brother, Manuel “Loco” Valdez. Here’s a write-up on that one.

Few movies have exercised as deep and wide an influence as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein has. Even fewer were ever copied in such detail. Homage or rip-off, you decide.

In the end, the original is still the best.

Update: Screencaps from the Egyptian-made Haram alek posted here.

Related:
Frankenstein Gets Knocked Off
El Castillo de los Monstruos

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

This post is part of the First Annual 2007 Slapstick Blog-a-thon. Click to see a list of participating bloggers and links to all the Blog-a-thon posts through the weekend.

My contribution, an essay, is a bit of an experiment, a departure from the short post format of this blog. Let me know what you think.

The Brain of Frankenstein

By the mid-40s, Universal’s Monsters were played out. It’s as if the studio was bereft of new ideas for the characters, or perhaps box office projections suggested that Frankenstein, Dracula or The Wolfman couldn’t carry a picture on their own any more. The menacing trio was still being revived, but only as a group. They came bundled together, three for the price of one, in “Monster Rally” films with template titles: House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, in 1944 and ‘45.

It looked like the days of the great Universal Monsters had passed, and the once proud bogeymen would fade away without so much as a whimper.

Then Robert Arthur had an idea.

In late 1946, Arthur, the producer in charge of Abbott and Costello movies, was kicking ideas around and he came up with something about a mad doctor chasing the Boys, determined to stuff Lou Costello’s addled brains into the Frankenstein Monster’s cranium. Studio bosses suggested he throw Dracula and The Wolfman in, use the whole squad, and maybe it would amount to something.

A couple of script treatments were turned out and quickly discarded. One dreadful version had the Monsters defeated after being shrunk down to doll size. It was only when the project was handed over to Robert Lees and Frederic Rinaldo that it gelled.

The two writers loved the concept and attacked it with passion. They crafted a script, called The Brain of Frankenstein, that was unlike anything the Boys had done before. The story was solid and it raced to a genuine climax. It had strong supporting parts, including a female villain. The Monsters stayed in character, genuinely menacing, something to play off of, not play with. The script had new and original sight gags in it, good dialog and new jokes.

Lou hated it.

For all their talent, Bud and Lou were not innovators. The routines they mastered had been honed to perfection years earlier, in Vaudeville. The Boys had come to know what worked for them and they felt no need to experiment. Critics of the time complained about Abbott and Costello serving up “the same old corn” in picture after picture, but the public didn’t seem to mind at all.

It’s almost impossible, today, to grasp the magnitude of Abbott & Costello’s popularity. They had a huge constituency of fans, having been on radio continuously for over a decade. They played personal appearance gigs to packed houses. They made two pictures a year, but with older titles constantly re-issued, you could have 6 or 7 Abbott & Costello comedies in circulation every year. The fans just couldn’t get enough of them. The Boys were box-office gold.

Typically, an Abbott and Costello script started with a basic plot outline over which, through several drafts, gags and routines were added. Bud and Lou barely glanced at their scripts, relying on longtime friend and gagman supreme John Grant to look out for them, and fix or rewrite as needed. When the jokes got stale, the routines repetitious, the Boys could still find a way to wring an extra laugh out of them. Chubby, cheerful Lou Costello ad-libbed recklessly, and if all else failed, he’d fall back on hoots, howls and spectacular pratfalls to sell a gag. The lanky and morose Bud Abbott — the best straight man in the business — knew instinctively how much rope to give out and when to yank Lou back into the routine.

The new script was a challenge, and the Boys, at first, were uncomfortable with it. It came with all the jokes written down, all the gags and situations worked out. Only a couple of stock routines made it in, a “moving candle” gag, and a scene where Lou mistakes the real Wolfman for Bud was a variation on a bit the Boys were familiar with. It speaks to the script’s originality and cleverness that even those old stunts work in context and come off as fresh.

The Monster : Glenn Strange

Bud and Lou often complained, not without reason, of being saddled with uninspired supporting casts composed of clock-punching contract players. This time, they had no cause for worry.

Lon Chaney, Jr. reprised his signature role as the terminally anguished Larry Talbot. He’s a good guy, working with Bud and Lou to prevent Dracula from reviving the dangerous Frankenstein Monster, but he’s also a walking time bomb who can morph into The Wolfman and turn on the Boys at any moment. A nice surprise was seeing Bela Lugosi, in great form, don the Dracula cape again. The part had been essayed most recently by John Carradine, in top hat and fake mustache, while Lugosi had languished as a Poverty Row villain. Here, Lugosi was given a good, substantial role, and he handled himself with Continental aplomb, dignity intact, while the comics whirled around him. It was to be Bela’s last major film.

The cast of principals was rounded out with Jane Randolph as Lou’s sweetheart, Lenore Aubert as the evil and fatale Dr. Mornay, and the part of the Monster was assured, again, by Glenn Strange.

Strange had played the Monster in two previous outings but his screen time had been limited to being strapped on a slab until the final reel when, spurred by some mad scientist and his obligatory hunchbacked assistant, he rose, growled at the torch-carrying mob, and promptly walked into some quicksand, or a wall of fire. The End.

This time, the Monster was used throughout the picture, and he had the best, most fun scenes interacting with Bud and Lou.

Strange played the character as a stoic hulk, moving slowly and deliberately, hands out, like a blind automaton on remote control. His performance is rarely given the credit it deserves, but watch him closely in this film. This isn’t just a stuntman clomping around, it’s a real performance in pantomime. In a couple of scenes, incrementally sitting up at Dracula's command, or mechanically climbing the stairs in the gorgeous island dock set, Strange moves with such clockwork precision that it almost feels like the film has slowed down. His timing, always half a second late in reacting, is robot perfect.

Glenn Strange made a career as a character actor in Westerns. As The Monster, he was eclipsed by Karloff, Chaney and Lugosi who had all played the part in “serious” pictures. Strange was thought of as the fill-in Frankenstein, the one who got the part only after the part was discounted. But it was Glenn Strange who would give the Monster its pop culture profile. When the classic, flat-top makeup was applied to his wide, craggy face, it gave him a big, square, boxlike head, and this look became the Frankenstein trademark, better suited for toys and Halloween masks than Boris Karloff’s sensitive features.

Shooting on The Brain of Frankenstein began on February 5, 1948.

Cult Status

The Boys pulled their usual on-set antics, playing a marathon game of poker in their dressing room and refusing to come out for rehearsals. When they did made it to the stage, shooting would be regularly interrupted by the frenetic Bobby Barber, Lou's personal stooge, hired to create pandemonium and keep the company in good spirits. Universal crewmen reportedly loved working on Abbott and Costello pictures. Veteran director Charles Barton calmly steered the picture through all the chaos.

The only incident of note came when a stunt went wrong and Glenn Strange snapped his ankle. Lon Chaney, a good sport, offered to stand in as The Monster and that’s him throwing Lenore Aubert’s double through the window. Strange returned to the set a few days later, wearing a leg brace. Another incident, much happier, involved a scene where Lou backs into a chair and inadvertently sits in the Monster’s lap. His predicament dawns on him when he realizes that he has too many hands. Take after take, Glenn Strange, who was called upon to keep a straight, stone face, couldn’t help but break up. No amount of editing could salvage the scene and the two men had to be called back later on for retakes.

The film’s shooting title, The Brain of Frankenstein, sounded too much like a straight horror film. When it was released, in August ’48, it was called, simply, Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein. To Universal’s delight, preview audiences whooped as soon as the title appeared onscreen.

In retrospect, it was an early case of product branding. Comedians and monsters had mixed it up before, but these were not your humdrum haunted house ghosts or the escaped cheapsuit gorillas that had stalked everyone from the Ritz Brothers to the Bowery Boys. Abbott and Costello — household names to begin with — were tangling with Frankenstein! The Wolf Man! And Dracula! These were characters established over almost two decades worth of films. Their names had weight and significance.

The film was a runaway hit, the 3rd biggest box office attraction of 1948, and it gave Bud and Lou a whole new formula to exploit. Over the next few years, they would go on to “Meet” all the monsters they could scare up, from The Invisible Man to The Mummy.

Critics of the time were kind to the film, but it would take a few more years for it to be recognized as the comedy classic that it is. When horror films finally came under scholarly scrutiny, A&C Meet Frankenstein was generally regarded as an insult, the final ignominy for monsters whose potency had been slowly eroded through increasingly cheap sequels.

In an article for Sight and Sound (April-June 1952), Curtis Harrington — who had been a friend of James Whale — wrote that Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein was “the final death agony of James Whale’s originally marvelous creation”. Carlos Clarens, in his seminal Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967), lumped the film along with the portmanteau House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, stating that “unconscious parody finally gave way to deliberate spoof” and adding, “By then, Universal was flogging a dead horse”.

Boris Karloff was known to glower whenever the film was mentioned, though he had gamely accepted to pose for publicity pictures, standing in line to see the film in New York, and he had gone on to play in two pictures with the Boys, Abbott and Costello Meet The Killer, and Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Lon Chaney, Jr., who’d had a ball making the film, came to believe its pernicious influence had killed off the old monsters.

But, of course, the monsters not only survived, their reputations grew. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is an intelligent and vastly entertaining film. It was beautifully done. It has wonderful sets and a magnificent score by Frank Skinner. And it is still funny today. In the end, it was as generous, respectful and deeply-felt an homage to the classic Monsters as, say, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein was.

Universal’s Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman did not fade away, they went out with a bang in a fabulous film, a true and glorious Last Hurrah. More importantly, Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, with its reverent use of Universal’s classic monsters, forever cemented their reputation as dominant icons of popular culture.

References:

Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein on DVD.

Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, by Bob Furmanek and Ron Palumbo (Perigee Books, 1991). Out of print. You can still find a copy through Amazon Sellers or AbeBooks.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: Universal Filmscripts Series, by Philip J. Riley (Magicimage Books, 1990).