Director: Erle Kenton
Year: 1942
Rating: 6.0
Universal knew it had a good thing going with Frankenstein
and kept it going as long as they could. The Ghost of Frankenstein is the
sequel to Son of Frankenstein. You need to be a genealogist to keep all these
films straight especially after they begin to cross-breed. I have to confess
my ability to watch horror films is pretty graphically mild and these old
Universal films fit me perfectly. And once upon a time they scared the hell
out of audiences. I expect tracing the history of the increasing graphic
content in horror films would say a lot about the 20th century. But not today.
This - the fourth in the Frankenstein series (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein,
The Son of Frankenstein) - is surprisingly fun (though brought down to a
mere 67 minute running time). By the fourth film most series have dropped
in quality dramatically - but this looks very good with excellent sets, it
has some solid horror actors - Lon Chaney as The Monster, Bela Lugosi returning
as Ygor and Lionel Atwill as one of the two mad doctors - and a few good
mainstream actors - Evelyn Ankers as Elsa Frankenstein, Ralph Bellamy as
her boyfriend and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the other mad scientist. That is
a lot of B film credits all in one place.
It moves quickly like a burglar getting out of town. Karloff played The Monster
in the first 3 films but was a bit tired of the character and was on Broadway
doing Arsenic and Old Lace - so The Wolf Man stepped in and though no Karloff,
Chaney does ok. One of the better scenes takes us back to the first film
of the confrontation between The Monster and the little girl. We know how
that ended and in this one a small adorable girl plays a large role and we
keep waiting for something to go very wrong.
In this one Ygor is rummaging in the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle where
lo and behold he sees a hand reaching out of the ruin . . . it’s alive! But
not in great shape though a fortuitous bolt of lightning helps him regain
his strength. So to revive him totally Ygor takes him to another son of Frankenstein
(Hardwicke) and blackmails him into finding a new brain for his friend. Now
who could it be? So yes, they are stretching the bounds of credulity to keep
the franchise going and I am so glad they did.
