Before all the other long running franchises like “Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Friday the 13th,” Universal’s Frankenstein series was King.
Frankenstein needs no introduction, but despite how ingrained in the popular culture how many have actually watched all the films? Other question, how many do you think there are? 8, (although one could argue which ones count and which don’t I’ll have my own criteria but before I start to ramble)… 8 Frankenstein films at a time when Hollywood was rarely certain of the viability of sequels. As with of these kinds of articles I’m going to list them off from best to worst and hopefully help you decide which films are worth your time. However, despite my own feelings on these films I feel like you should watch them all so I’ll skip my advice portion this time.
Minor Spoilers ahead.
5.) Son of Frankenstein
I mentioned this film in my article about Bela Lugosi’s best performances so I’ll try not to repeat myself. This is my favorite of the Frankenstein films. Whereas I feel many of the others are dull or shallow this film was like an answer to all of my problems with the other films. If you’ve seen “Young Frankenstein” then you’ll probably be shocked to see they’re quite close story wise. Wolf Frankenstein, the son of Henry returns to the old town to restore the family name. Instead, he finds angry and mistrustful townspeople. Eventually also a blacksmith named Ygor who takes him to the Monster’s body. He convinces him to restore the monster and then people start dying. It turns out Ygor has many scores to settle using the Monster and is not going to let Wolf get in the way. While this has many great scenes like the other films like when the Monster first meets Wolf, when the Monster discovers his friend is dead, basically any scene with Ygor, it stays exciting in between. Most of the film is a cat and mouse game between Wolf and Inspector Krogh who at first is the only nice person to Wolf. But as he begins to suspect Wolf’s involvement the tension gets turned up. It all leads to a head with the Monster possibly trying to kill Wolf’s son and all the players come together in one of the most exciting climaxes of all the Universal horror films.
However, I realize I’m in the minority when it comes to my opinions on the original Frankenstein trilogy. There are many that feel this was the beginning of the end for the series. Their complaints are often things like Ygor shouldn’t be the main villain. You’re welcome to your own opinion, but I find Ygor to be more compelling and in keeping with the theme that man is more monstrous than the Monster itself. I mean this is a guy who is essentially using a mentally handicapped man to murder for his own revenge. Some say it’s a big step backwards for the Monster to go back to grunts and whatnot after “Bride.” It is, that’s what makes it sad. He was struck by lighting and again that is what allows Ygor to manipulate it. They take issue with the fact the continuity between films doesn’t match. That seems like a silly thing to hold against a film from this era as all them ignore random plot points from the last film. Even just going from the original “Frankenstein” to “Bride of Frankenstein” they change a bunch of details and those even have the same damn director. I’ll never get why some people are so harsh on this film.
4.) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Now this is a film that people can and still do debate whether it should count as a part of the main series. Ultimately I chose to discuss this on the grounds that it’s my Halloween Article and I’ll do as I want. Plus, when else am I going to get the chance to talk about this film? If you’re wondering where are “House of Frankenstein,” “House of Dracula” or “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf-Man” aren’t on this list, well the Monster often barely plays a part in those film and it can be argued that other monsters are the real stars of those films. As such, keep an eye out for them in other years. With all that out of the way let’s talk about one of the best horror comedies ever. We have two of the most iconic comedians ever Abbott and Costello playing baggage clerks who get packages for a wax museum which turn out to contain the Monster and Count Dracula. It turns out Dracula arranged this with a sexy female doctor (who is dating Costello) to get to Costello’s mind to use as the new brain of the Monster. He sees this, but Abbott doesn’t and thus has a hard time convincing anyone of this. The only person to confirm this is Larry Talbot AKA The Wolf Man. Soon all the monsters converge on Abbott and Costello and they must defend themselves against them.
So essentially this is two different films stitched together much like Frankenstein’s Monster. We have Abbott and Costello doing their usual shtick with fast word play. While the monsters engage in what could have been a lost horror classic. One thing this film has over the “House of …” films is unlike those films which are practically vignette films, the monsters all interact and appear throughout this film with roughly the same amount of time. This comedy is a better horror crossover film than the actual horror crossover films, how nuts is that?! So a large part is going to depend on how funny you find Abbott and Costello. Me? I always laugh. Plus they do a great job and mixing the two styles like the scene with Costello trying to return a briefcase to Larry when he’s transformed and always JUST missing him never realized he’s in a room with a werewolf that’s trying to kill him. The climax is fun and exciting and again honestly better than most of the other OFFICIAL film’s climaxes.
Finally here’s another question how many times did Bela Lugosi play Dracula? Oh too many to count right? WRONG! Twice, in his entire career he only ever played Dracula twice. He played tons of vampires who were often Dracula in everything, but name but really only twice. So this gives us a chance to see the true Dracula return to the role he made into an icon. Hollywood may have never wanted him, but he shows even though he’s older he IS Dracula. Again, they make better use of him throughout the film than most of the real films. Bela could speak fluent English by this point and so he can hold longer conversations and really firmly establish himself and the true mastermind of the film. And that’s something else I really love about this film, even though it is a comedy the monsters themselves are treated with respect. Even when they are technically in the “comedy” scenes they’re always treated as the real threats that they are. Thus, making the comedy much funnier. I love this film and it really helped get me into the Universal monster movie series. Still thankful my cousin and I decided to watch this film that one fateful night.
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3.) Ghost of Frankenstein
Here’s where the films start to radically dip in quality. Boris Karloff left the role of the monster, but the series had to continue as it made too much money for Universal. This film picks up shortly after the last film. Despite that film ending so happily and the towns people enjoying the new dawn, this film opens with a town meeting of all the townspeople complaining. It gets pretty ridiculous. I half expect someone to yell “I stubbed my toe last night, IT’S THE MONSTER’S FAULT!!!” They then march right up to the castle and destroy what’s left of it inadvertently freeing the Monster from the sulfur pit. Somehow (they never explain) Ygor (again played by Bela Lugosi) is alive despite the gunshot wounds. Lighting strikes the Monster restoring him to full power and they go to find the OTHER son of Frankenstein, Ludwig. The Monster gets into trouble and is captured by the police. Ludwig learns that the Monster is in his town and must decide what to do about it.
The film is just very by the numbers and you can tell this is written by someone who was just assigned this project and had no real idea of where to go from here. The ending is where it gets more interesting. The ghost of the original Henry Frankenstein (sadly not played by Colin Clive) appears and convinces him to go through with the experiment. Ygor gets one of the lab assistants to cut out his brain and switch with the Monster’s. And in the only moment that is a LITTLE creepy and effective the Monster gets up and speaks and its Ygor’s evil voice. It ALMOST makes up for the rest of the film being as basic as it could possibly be. However, a cool ending isn’t quite enough to save this film.
2.) Frankenstein (1931)
I’ll bet you’re surprised to see this so low on the list. Much like “Dracula” (which was also made and released the same year) despite loving many parts of it and how important it is for film history this film just doesn’t work for me. It’s a loose adaptation of the novel which I don’t hold it against it as accurate adaptations were quite rare back then. Plus you had to contend with the budgets that were small even then. Universal did not view these movies as their A-products. Like “Dracula” I find the film to just be dull mostly. Unlike “Dracula” where I still find some charm in it there is none in here for me other than Boris Karloff’s performance which is amazing. We also has Colin Clive as Dr Henry Frankenstein. Yes that is weird that they changed him name to Henry, but its even weirder in that his friend is renamed Victor for some reason. Its like they’re teasing us. We also have Edward Van Sloan who is good, but I much prefer him as Van Helsing. There are many memorable scenes and lines like the “It’s Alive!” and “In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!” or the little girl scene with the flowers, it’s all good stuff. It’s just in-between each of those good elements the film just drags. I know when this and “Dracula” came out sound was still new and the idea of have a persistent score throughout wasn’t immediately apparent. However, I find the lack of score to just be so detrimental to the effectiveness of the film.
1.) Bride of Frankenstein
This is stuff like “King Kong” (1976) being my favorite version that probably would make other fans of the franchise want to revoke my membership card. However, I have never and will never just go along with popular opinion just because it’s popular opinion. Nor will I hate a film for that reason either for that matter. A quick summary after the events of the last film the Monster survived and has some more episodes from the novel happen to him. At the same time, Dr Pretorius (an old mentor) comes to Henry and tries to enlist his help in his own experiments. Later he meets up with the Monster and they kidnap Henry’s fiancé and will only return her if Henry help build a female Monster so he’s no longer alone. The Bride comes alive, takes one look at the Monster and rejects him. Having a change of heart he destroys himself, the Bride and Pretorius in an explosion but let’s Henry and his fiancé escape. So I’m sorry to say I just simply think this film sucks.
OK to be fair there are some things that I do like about it. Boris Karloff is great as always. Colin Clive is again so over-the-top it’s great. The actor that plays Dr Pretorius is so camp it’s impossible to take your eyes off of him. The blind man scene is wonderful and later would be brilliantly parodied in “Young Frankenstein.” Basically everything about the Bride herself is great. She’s only onscreen for a few minutes yet somehow she’s as iconic as the monster. I’d even venture to say that she’s more famous to casual fans than Colin Clive. It makes you wish she could have been in more of the film itself which brings me to the problems. Overall the film is just too wacky for my tastes. You have Pretorius who can somehow create little people that he keeps in jars which feels like it comes from a whole other genre. The fact that now practically EVERY cast member besides a few are camp or very over-the-top makes this world hard to feel engaged with. It’s strange because in a certain way I could describe other classic 30s films I enjoy like this, but for whatever here it not only doesn’t work for me it annoys me while watching.