At last - The House of Frankenstein

Finally it's here! Bet you all thought I'd forgotten! Well at last it's here, my little review of the 5th installment of Universal's Frankenstein saga...


Now in an episode of the marvellous Horror Etc podcast, one of the the hosts, the very genial Anthony DP Mann claimed that in his opinion Universal never made a truly bad horror film in this era. And while I wholehearted concur with this, it has to be said that House of Frankenstein is easily the weakest entry in the saga.


In the trailer for this monster rally, Universal promised audiences a whopping five monsters in one flick! Obviously raising the stakes from two to three monsters just wasn't good enough! So here we have the tale of Dr Niemann (Monster #1 - The Mad Scientist) and his quest to continue his experiments and extract revenge on those who have crossed him. Niemann, played with relish by Boris Karloff, is perhaps best described as a Frankenstein wannabe - he even emulates his hero right down to having a deformed assistant (Monster #2 - The Hunchback). And in the course of the movie, he revives not only the Frankenstein monster and the Wolf Man, but Dracula too (Monsters # 3, 4 & 5 natch).


Now that's a whole lotta monsters! Now considering the patchy pairing of Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, it's no real surprise that the script has trouble fitting all these villains into one movie. But in the main, surprisingly, they do manage it! No mean feat, when you consider the concept for the film is more a good hand in a game of Top Trumps than an actual storyline.

Admittedly the Frankenstein monster doesn't get a whole lot to do until thefilm's finale and spends most of its screen time literally lying down on the job. But though the monster doesn't do alot, it is a key element in Niemann's schemes, and so in terms of the storyline, the monster's prescence is well integrated.


The main focus of the movie, though revolves around Niemann, Larry Talbot and the Hunchback Daniel. There is a nice dynamic between the 3 characters, and a neat subplot involving romantic rivalry between Daniel and Larry for the affections of a gypsy girl. Gypsy girl? I hear you cry ... Yes, with the inclusion of a hunchback, sorry make that 'The Hunchback', rather than having Daniel as a stock mad scientist assistant in the vein of Fritz or Igor, Universal decided to go more mythic and echo the classic Quasimodo and Esmeralda relationship.


Dracula's inclusion however is less well executed. The plot device of Niemann reviving the Lord of The Vampires and coercing him into serving his revenge plot is introduced well enough, but then the action wanders away from the main story. So in effect we have a Dracula vignette inserted into the middle of the film, which does rather chop up the flow of the story.


Now, how does this monster rally fare in terms of continuity? Surprisingly fairly well. Better than Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, though in fairness, this film didn't have to content with all of one characters dialogue being cut. However there is one major howler - Dracula is revived from his staked skeleton when we all know that the Count's remains were incinerated by his daughter on a misty moor. Well, all of us who saw Dracula's Daughter do at any rate - a movie that seems to have passed the script writers by. And when Dracula is revived he now looks like John Carradine, who doesn't in the slightest resemble Lugosi. Still I suppose we could claim that this is a relation of the original Dracula (as we do for Son Of Dracula)...


But continuity snarl-ups are par for the course, particularly this late in the series, and House of Frankenstein is actually far better than either of it two immediate predecessors in this regard. However where the script really falls down is in terms of sense! Frankly Niemann's revenge plan is utterly bonkers on every level. It is revealed that when he finally captures two of his enemies, he plans to insert the brain of the Wolf Man into one, and transplant the brain of the other into the monster's body. All of which will result in one undergoing the curse of lycanthropy and the other being trapped in a patchwork body.


Now aside from the basic confusion in the script, that putting Talbot's brain in another body, will simply put Larry in a new body, this plan is still round the twist. Ok, so one of your enemies will now have the power to turn into the Wolf Man and claw you into kibble faster than you can say 'Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf'. And the other will suffer the living hell of being trapped in an inhumanly strong and virtually indestructible body. Great work Niemann - a revenge that will effectively gives your victims super powers! Genius! As Zaphod Beeblebrox would say - "Ten out of ten for style, minus several million for good thinking".


Then again Niemann is the Mad Scientist in this movie, so you could argue that as a wannabe Frankenstein he has got the wrong end of the stick and taken the 'mad' bit of his job description literally. Which would explain why his plan to play muscial brains is so totally tonto...


But enough of this filling in of clincially insane plot holes! I'll start sounding as barking as Niemann himself if I'm not careful. So onto performances. Chaney is dependable as ever as poor doomed Larry Talbot and Karloff really seems to be enjoying playing the scientist rather than the monster for once. J. Carrol Naish is also excellent as Daniel, giving the character a nice sense of pathos and playing of Karloff and Chaney very well. Carradine though seems a little unsure in his portrayal of the Count, and in fairness the script isn't doing him any favours. (However in the next movie in this series, he really - obligatory bad pun alert! - gets his teeth in to the role). Glen Strange is fine as the monster in the little he has to do, but it is pleasing to see the character being played by an actor with the correct height and build once again.


Now despite the problems in the script, this is still an entertaining movie. However when the script does work, such as the scenes playing out the love triangle between Talbot, Daniel and Illonka, the movie really hits the quality mark. Harking back to 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' was a very inspired touch. Indeed I can't help feeling that there's a truly great little movie in here trying to get out - and with another couple of drafts done on the screenplay it could have made it.

In general, the cast really try to make it work, and there still some very nice set pieces and cinematography despite the reduced budget. Yes, it is the weakest entry in the series but it's not a bad movie by any means. It's not a great movie either, but it is really good fun. Watch it with your tongue firmly in your cheek and you'll probably have a blast with this.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

At last we get return to the realms of Frankenstein! Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man holds a special place in my heart, as it was the very first horror movie I ever saw... Previously I'd seen a fair few sci-fi flicks and monster movies, some of which contained a good dose of fear. Like many genre fans out there I'd been terrified by the Morlocks in George Pal's The Time Machine, thrilled by the mutant in This Island Earth, and utterly dazzled by the original King Kong.

Plus Doctor Who at the time (mid 70s) had been providing a weekly dose of terror with serials featuring giant maggots, body snatching spiders, creatures from the deep and all manner of ugly and villainous aliens - and if all that wasn't enough the early Tom Baker stories featured homages to The Quatermass Experiment (The Seeds of Death), Frankenstein and Donovan's Brain (Brain of Morbius), mummy movies (Pyramids of Mars), and The Phantom of the Opera (Talons of Weng Chiang). And the latter threw in the most sinister murderous ventriloquist's dummy of all time Mr Sin.

All great stuff for the budding horror fan. But I'd not yet seen a proper horror film. At that time in the UK, horror films - even the ancient Universals were only ever shown late at night and so apart from the stuf fmentioned above, the closest I'd got to seeing a pure horror movie was a couple of clips on a TV show about movie history and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (which was deemed suitable for an earlier viewing slot).

However in 1977 that was about to change at a rainy Cub Scout camp. In the usual range of activities, it was announced there was to be a film showing. Now we trooped into the hall expecting something from the Children's Film Foundation stable, as was usually the case in these situations. So imagine my surprise and delight when the lights dimmed and the title Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man hit the screen. Needless to say the movie went down a storm with us Cubs. Partly as this showing had the alluring whiff of contraband about it (remember this was the kind of thing that normally screened way past bedtime and years before the advent of video), but mainly because this movie is just so much fun. And for the rest of the weekend, several hundred small boys were either snarling around trees or lurching about with arms outstretched... I don't know who decided on that choice of movie, but they have my everlasting thanks!

So how does this film hold up now? Well it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's still an awful lot of fun and is hands down my favourite of the last four movies in the series. Though it has it's problems. For a start the first half which focuses on Larry Talbot is far superior to the second - it's well constructed and intriguing but when we discover the Frankenstein monster the script lapses slightly.

Watching the series in order, the first question is how on earth did the Monster end up in an ice cave beneath Castle Frankenstein when at the close of Ghost of Frankenstein he was burning up in miles away in Ludwig's manor? Considering the smooth continuity from The Wolf Man this does jar. Admittedly the studio bosses did monkey about with the film. As you may remember the previous film ended with Igor's brain being transplanted into the Monster's body and discovering he was going blind. Hence for this movie Lugosi logically got the role of the Monster, and the script originally had the monster speaking. However test audiences laughed too much at Lugosi's speechs and so Universal ordered the monster's dialogue to be snipped. So one wonders whether there was a Lugosi speech which told how the Monster came to be frozen. Considering the care Curt Siodmak pays to other aspects of the continuity, I find it hard to imagine he would omit bridging the gap in the story from the previous Frankenstein outing, especially as it was written to be Igor in the Monster's body.

No doubtedly these cuts also damage the movie's plot in other ways. For example, we have Lugosi shambling about with arms outstretched but there is no reference made to the monster being blind. But one also wonders what else was lost; I can't imagine Igor not having another evil scheme up his sleeve. One can only hope that someday the lost footage turns up, as I imagine it will produce a second half that lives up to the first.

However despite the above problems, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man is still far superior to its predecessor or its two sequels. Creighton Chaney's impassioned performance really holds the film together and the cinematography has a truly epic gothic vision. It's packed with wonderful set pieces - the atmospheric opening with grave robbers breaking into the Talbot mausoleum, the lavish mittel-European village revels, the climatic final battle of the monsters - to name but three. It may not scale the heights set by the first three Frankenstein movies, or The Wolf Man for that matter, but it does satisfy, delivering creepy thrills and spills and manages to contruct a tale which integrates the Wolf Man and the Monster.

And finally, it must be noted that Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man is an increasingly important film in cinema history as it is the granddaddy of the the crossover film. Without it we would have no King Kong Vs Godzilla, no Freddy Vs Jason, and no Aliens Vs Predator movies... (though in the latter case that some of you out there may well be thinking that's a blessing). However with Marvel finally getting their characters to crossover on the big screen, we can be sure that movie icons will be going head to head a whole lot more in the future...

Here Comes The Bride!

As far back as 1933 Universal were looking to develop a sequel to Frankenstein. Several scripts were produced over the next 2 years which ranged from a scifi-style tale of Frankenstein developing a death ray to a bizarre saga with Henry and Elizabeth running away to join the circus and posing as puppeteers. However none of these found favor with the studio heads or James Whale who they were keen to get back for directing duties.

However despite the lack of a decent treatment for the proposed film, then titled 'The Return of Frankenstein', Universal managed to secure Whale's services. His first action was to junk all the previously developed concepts and comission John L. Balderston to dream up a completely new plot...

Bearing in mind our conclusions on the original, it is somewhat ironic that the fresh finished script created by Balderston and William Hurlburt (and no doubt polished by Whale himself) actually draws more heavily from Shelley's original work. We now get a monster who speaks (though admittedly not as verbose as in the book); scenes detailing his education and of course the whole plot of the monster blackmailing Frankenstein into creating a mate for him. It even flags up it's credentials with a nifty prologue featuring Lord Bryon and Shelley asking Mary about the monster's fate. Naturally these elements are more reworked than accurately recreated but we still have a film that is nearer to the novel than the original.

However the script's great strength is that it is a smooth continuation of the first film. This is no lazy rehash of the first outing, it picks up directly from the close of Frankenstein and then carries on with logical progressing both the story and it's themes. Actually this is so deftly done, one who think that a second film had been planned alongside the original. Furthermore with adding more of Shelley's elements it feels like the second half novel filtered onto the screen. And if you consider the movies as two halves of one film, the result would be arguably the closest adaption of the novel ever filmed.

Of course there are a few niggles with sitting down and watching both films back to back. Firstly Elizabeth is recast. Valerie Hobson replaces Mae Clark - but in all fairness she gives a far better performance. Secondly the Frankenstein home is now gloomy and gothic than pleasantly summery as in the first film.

Finally though, the third niggle is the extra added humour. Don't panic, Bride of Frankenstein doesn't go all out into out and out horror comedy territory (it would be a good few more years before this happens at the hands of Abbott & Costello). In the main it's a case of the black humour present in the 1931 film has been polished and sharpened. Ernest Thesiger's arch Doctor Pretorius has a great many witty lines but none which undercut his villainy or the atmosphere of horror.

However, in all fairness there are two scenes where the comedy arguably oversteps this mark. One is the scene where Pretorius unveils his creations, who turn out to be little hommunculi in belljars which have been dressed in satirical costumes. But what tips this scene is not so much the antics of the King who escapes from his jar, but the high pitched squeaking voices of Pretorius' creations - it's hard for the modern viewer to watch this without being reminded of Alvin & the chipmonks/the Smurfs/Pinky & Perky/insert suitable helium-voiced pop culture reference.

Similiarly it's hard not to keep a straight face when the monster starts drinking and puffing on cigars with the blind hermit. When I rewatched this, all Karloff's shouts of 'Smoke!" and "Drink good!" made me wonder if this performance was an inspiration for Father Jack in Father Ted.
And there's further comedy in that due to the lighting the cigar the monster happily smokes looks very like a monstrous reefer! (Presumably this is unintentional, but with Whale's flamboyant private life one never knows).

However neither of these broadly humorous vignettes harm either the atmosphere or the film overall in my opinion. Pretorius' hommunculi ultimately underline the madness and perversity of his character, and the monster enjoying the hospitality of the blind hermit, though amusing are at the same time quite touching. They also form a key point in the plot in that the subsequent shattering of this idyll propells the monster into further villainy.

Niggles aside and whether you watch it as a sequel or a 'Part 2', this film is a classic in every sense equal to it's predecessor. Clive and Karloff turn in accomplished performances, Dwight Frye returns as an unscrupulous graverobber from the Burke & Hare school, and Ernest Thesiger excels as the corrupting Pretorius. Whale's actually manages to out-direct himself, creating a film filled with iconic shots and resonant images. He also manages to subvert the audiences' expectations at every turn - the crowning example of this being the actual Bride herself.

After her animation in a scene that tops the original in both tension and Ken Strickfaden-created sparking apparatus, the reveal of the monster's mate was a surprise in itself. Rather slowly peeling away the bandages, Whale opts for a dissolve to the Bride dressed in suitably nuptial robes and after some hair dressing. Instead of a hulking female Karloff clone, we have a rather glamourous if not attractive girl.

Now when I first saw the Bride in a still reproduced in Alan Frank's fabled Horror Movies back in my much younger days, I must admit I was somewhat disappointed that Jack Pierce hadn't delivered a squared headed, scar festooned harpy. But it was a very different matter when I got to see the movie. The first impression still jars the expectations, but then she moves. Firstly Elsa Lanchester gives the Bride a sinister doll-like body language, moving in almost clockwork actions which given the character a truly uncanny nature. But the real kicker is when she turns and we see the intersecting stitching where they attached her head. Whereas Karloff's sutures had a patchwork feel, the Bride's scars have horrible fresh out of car wreck surgery feel to them.

Pierce apparently spent a great deal of time on creating the stitching, much to Elsa Lanchester's displeasure. However the time and care did really pay off; the Bride's perfect porcelain complexion is truly corrupted by the bristling threads. The design in itself is inspired - the stitching is all the more horrid for the way the two lines form a 'V' shape, hinting at a very messy assembly job and leaving the audience wondering how well Henry and Pretorius have put her together - that gown she's wearing probably has long sleeves and hemline for a very good reasons...

Bride of Frankenstein is often claimed to be that rarest of beasts - a sequel that actually improves upon the original. Whether you concur with this, I suspect will largely come to down to how you react to the touchs of humour, black or otherwise. Certainly it at least equals the first film and deserves it's status as a classic in it's own right.

Bride of Frankenstein definitely can be held up as the perfect example of how to contruct as a sequel. Of course this begs the question, would Universal follow it's lead when they came to Son of Frankenstein?