Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein

Bela Lugosi was TCM's Star of the Month in October 2024, which makes sense since that's the month with Halloween and Lugosi is generally remembered for his horror films. I recorded several films that aired as part of the salute, but I don't know that I got around to watching them all before they expired from the DVR. One that I did watch was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Now, as you might guess, Lugosi isn't one of the title characters since Lugosi was better knwon for playing Dracula. Indeed, here Lugosi reprises his role as Dracula, although we're getting ahead of ourselves. Frankenstein's Monster is played here by Glenn Strange, but even before that we meet Abbott and Costello. The two of them, as Chick Young and Wilbur Gray respectively, are clerks at a middle-of-nowhere train station. A Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) is expecting a couple of crates with statues for his wax museum. Before McDougal can pick them up, the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) phones the station to tell Wilbur that the crates actually have real live monsters in them, not statues.

Of course, Wilbur doesn't believe any of this stuff, but when they open the crate to deliver what's inside, they find Dracula's coffin. Dracula is even able to open the coffin from inside, which is a pretty neat trick. Dracula has the power of hypnosis if you're stupid enough to look into his eyes, and believe me, Wilbur is that stupid. With this, Dracula is able to abscond with Frankenstein's Monster to an island lair owned by Dr. Mornay (Lenore Aubert). Their plan is to perform an operation on the Monster that will give him a much more obedient brain. Of course, they actually need a suitable brain, and Mornay has decided that Wilbur is just the person for the job.

The plan is to invite Wilbur to a costume ball from where Mornay can leave with him to take him back to the island for the eventual drugging and surgery. However, Wilbur actually has a girlfriend already in the form of Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), and Wilbur was already planning on going to the party with Joan. Ah, at least there are now two women, which means that Chick has someone to go with, too. But this also means that there will be more help nearby when Dracula and Mornay try to carry out their nefarious scheme. This especially once the Wolf Man, in his human guise of Lawrence Talbot, shows up at the party. Remember, he's the one who knows of the danger of Dracula.

The characters all wind up back on Mornay's island for the comic finale, although you know that because of the Production Code, Mornay and Dracula aren't going to succeed in their plan of putting Wilbur's brain into the body of Frankenstein's monster.

Despite the presence of some of Universal's great horror monsters, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is comedy first and horror second. As a comedy, however, I think it works well precisely because of the monsters and the fact that the two sets of characters are radically different. The movie is a pleasant little light comedy with a bunch of horror movie tropes, but nothing that anybody can seriously think of as frightening. Sit back and allow yourself to be entertained for 80 minutes.