Director: Charles Barton
Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, yes. Delighted to finally have an excuse to screen it again.
Did I Like It: I may have tipped my hand with the answer to the previous question.
This film is strange. On paper, there is literally no reason why it should work. The Universal Monsters had already run their course, going through the basest, pulpy motions of endless monster mashups. Abbott and Costello were at the beginning of the unravelling of their partnership. It could have been an absolute disaster.
And yet, it’s one of, if not the best of both the Universal Monster* and Abbott and Costello movies**. For one thing, it works as both a horror movie and comedy of the period. But far more importantly, is that for one final hurrah, it feels like Universal finally started caring about its stable of monsters again. Previously, the films had descended into increasingly lazy monster rallies, but here, even though it reaches the heights of ridiculousness, it’s actually a halfway decent finale for the characters. The Wolf Man (Chaney), the Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange, the record holder for the role) and Dracula (Lugosi) meet a final enough end for which none of the other films in the series could reach.
The only way the film could have been any better was if Karloff had played the Monster, but that was probably too much to hope far. That we got Lugosi back in the role that made him immortal is more than enough to recommend it. Now that I think about it, there really isn’t anything to not recommend the film. If the slightly stupid title puts you off, please, do get over yourself.
*I’m never going to not vote for Bride of Frankenstein (1935) on that front, but the argument could certainly be made. This film is unassailably in the top five.
**Can you really discount The Naughty Nineties (1945), as it contains the archival (for lack of a better term) version of their performance of “Who’s on first?”