El Castillo de los monstruos (1958)

In the Mexican cinema of the Fifties and Sixties, monster movies and comedies were good box-office, and combining the two genres was common practice. This week (October 15, to be exact) marked the fiftieth anniversary of the release of El Castillo de los monstruos, one of the more satisfying of the Monster Rally comedies in the Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein mold.

Headlining is Antonio “Clavillazo” Espino, a popular comic decked out in a baggy suit and upturned hat. The plot is straightforward: Clavillazo must rescue his sweetheart from the title’s fog-shrouded Castle of Monsters, occupied by a Who’s Who of classic menaces. There’s a hypnotic Mad Scientist and his scar-faced assistant. There’s a Werewolf, a Beast Man in a cage, a Mummy, and a Black Lagoon creature that turns into a tuna when defeated. The Frankenstein Monster, with stitched forehead and neck bolts, serves as a Lurch-like butler. The standout is the Dracula character, played by the great German Robles, fresh off his two Count Lavud films, El Vampiro (1957) and El Ataúd del Vampiro (1958).

There are no real scares here. These are Halloween Monsters, arms raised in Boo position, shambling along at a leisurely pace. Clavillazo’s forte is the ability to energetically argue himself out of a tight situation, but he’s also comfortable with slapstick, notably in a scene where he tethers dangerously on the edge of an alligator pit, and a nice trick momentarily rattling Robles’ dignified Vampire by making a monster face of his own.

El Castillo de los monstruos is a Monster Kid era Valentine, a kind-hearted comedy where the spirit of the Universal classics echoes in the production values, the shadowy sets, the solemn soundtrack orchestrations and the venerable crew of assembled Bogeymen.

Unseen in North America for nearly half a century, the film is now freely available in its entirety on YouTube, in nine parts.

Check out the opening sequence, in Part One, to get a feel for this one. If you want to get to the monsters, go directly to Part 7.

Related
Frankenstein Gets Knocked Off
Frankenstein 1958

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