Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man review.
This cycle’s Full Moon Feature takes us back to 1943’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. The first of several Universal Monster movie crossover events…with a decent werewolf story leading the way.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Directed by Roy William Neill
Screenplay by Curt Siodmak
Starring Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, Ilona Massey, Patrick Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Maria Ouspenskaya and Dennis Hoey
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Review
Our Full Moon Feature this cycle turns its attention to Lon Chaney Jr.’s second appearance as Larry Talbot…AKA The Wolf Man. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has an interesting place in horror history. It is the first “Monster Rally” bringing together two popular characters from Universal’s horror stable. It serves as a direct sequel to The Wolf Man and the fourth Frankenstein movie…The Ghost of Frankenstein. As another adventure for Chaney’s werewolf…it’s pretty good. As another Frankenstein movie…it’s terrible. The biggest issue the movie has is that it wants so badly to be both.
We’re a long way from James Whale’s Frankenstein at this point. After returning in 1935 to top himself with Bride of Frankenstein…Whale left the series behind. Universal didn’t. Boris Karloff returned once again to play the Monster in Son of Frankenstein. Colin Clive had passed away by that film’s 1939 release…instead of recasting his role as Dr. Frankenstein the series passed the story off to previously unseen descendants. As you’d imagine, it became a series of diminishing returns. By the time Ghost of Frankenstein arrived in 1942, Karloff had retired from the role. The Monster was portrayed by…Lon Chaney Jr. Chaney rose to the top of Universal’s stable a year prior with his most famous role. Larry Talbot.
In 1943 the decision was made to resurrect Talbot following his death at the end of The Wolf Man. The Monster would be played by…Bela Lugosi? Lugosi, of course, famously played Count Dracula in 1931’s Dracula. He also played Ygor in The Ghost of Frankenstein. Confused yet? Basically…Universal saw potential in having two of its famous monsters crossover…and having the names Chaney and Lugosi on the poster. If you think this is weird…the follow up to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man would see the return of Karloff…as a totally different character while Glenn Strange played the Monster.
Anyway…Chaney is great as Talbot here. He brings a soul to the character that rises above whatever silliness they set in front of him. His storyline is the one good thing about the crossover. When his grave is disturbed, he awakens very much alive…he becomes desperate to rid himself of his curse. He openly courts a death that his curse refuses to grant him. Maria Ouspenskaya returns from The Wolf Man as Maleva, the Romani sorceress who explained Talbot’s curse to him in the first film. She knows a guy who might be able to help. One Dr. Frankenstein.
This aspect of the story works. It makes sense that a brilliant doctor who deals with otherworldly occurrences of his own may hold a key to Talbot’s salvation. Of course, they aren’t talking about Colin Clive’s character. They aren’t even talking about Son of Frankenstein’s Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (played by Basil Rathbone). They’re talking about Ludwig Frankenstein…who, unfortunately, died at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein. It also brings back the character Elsa Frankenstein from the movie Son of Frankenstein…but it recasts it.
God this is overly complicated.
We aren’t even talking about the original Monster at this point. During Ghost the Monster was given Ygor’s brain…fusing the two together. Oh…and he’s blind now because the blood types didn’t match. That’s a detail that Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man forgets to tell you…but it’s important because Lugosi shambles around blindly…without explanation. The Monster is who Talbot finds when he reaches his destination.
Alright…deep breath.
Lugosi’s Monster is terrible. He’s short and rendered without speech. It’s not his fault that his bumbling around is as brutal as it is…he’s playing the character blind, so it makes sense. You know…if the movie would have ever made that clear. It’s still silly as all hell to watch him do it. We’re a long way from Karloff. Talbot befriends the Monster…so those looking forward to some extended battles will be disappointed. They do battle in the final moments of the movie before both being swept away in a flood after the innkeeper blows up the dam. Yep. That sentence is real.
The highlight of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is easily Talbot’s quest to destroy his monster. The film recreates a famous scene from Whale’s Frankenstein by having a villager carry a dead girl into the town square. This time…she was killed by Talbot’s wolf. The villagers assume that the Monster has returned and take up their torches and pitchforks. It’s the neatest bit of business that Universal pulls out of the crossover.
Of course, the Monster has returned. And a mad scientist emerges to bring him back to full power. It’s utter nonsense at this point with the Frankenstein story. So much talking with very little doing. Even seeing the Monster return to town falls on its face due to Lugosi’s overly silly performance. Basically, everything in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man that involves the Monster or continuing past threads of his story is trash.
But there is a decent werewolf movie here. We get the classic time lapse transformation scenes. The Wolf Man kills a couple of times…leaving Talbot distraught and desperate. People still don’t believe Talbot is cursed…or that he’s even Larry Talbot since he’s supposed to be dead. Had a better direct sequel to The Wolf Man been developed…the storyline is interesting enough to have delivered a good late era Universal Monster movie. Instead, we get a slog with some bright wolf related spots. But we also got the first monster crossover. And that makes Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man a memorable venture. Even if it isn’t a good one.
Scare Value
The werewolf aspects of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man are the easy highlights of an unremarkable film. We dive deeper into the psyche of the doomed Larry Talbot…even if the Monster aspects of the story do their best to distract from it. Chaney is great as always. As Frankenstein’s Monster…well…Lugosi makes a great Dracula. The overall film isn’t all that exciting. It has the historical significance of being the first crossover story in a shared universe…but this is more Age of Ultron than Endgame.
2/5
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Links
Streaming on Peacock
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu and Amazon
