House of Frankenstein
                 
Director: Erie C. Kenton
Year: 1944
Rating: 7.0
By 1945 Universal seemed unable to create any more original monsters and their franchises were running out of gas. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, the Invisible Man and more recently the Wolfman had been providing chills and thrills since 1931 and though there had been a few slow years, Universal basically owned the horror genre. Now though, Universal felt that they needed more punch in their line-up - sort of like Marvel movies - and in 1943 they combined the Wolf Man and Frankenstein in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and it was a hoot and apparently did well enough at the box office to bring on a sequel of sorts.



This squeezes so much into its 70-minute running time. A little episodic in nature, but there is Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, Karloff and a tragic love story. And the mob with torches of course. The ending shot is one for the books. It doesn't really hold together and there are fewer scares than a cooking show, but it is wonderful in its own ludicrous way. And just seeing our favorite monsters is a treat though only the Wolf Man is played by the original actor, Lon Cheney Jr. They tried getting Bela, who had  been in The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, but he was too busy. A shame. Instead Dracula is portrayed by John Carradine who was to play Dracula a few more times in his career. Frankenstein's monster is not played by Karloff who after three times was tired of doing so. That honor is passed on to Glenn Strange who would portray him two more times. He had appeared in many films before Frankenstein but is remembered primarily for taking over for Karloff.



This time around Karloff gets to play the Mad Scientist, Dr. Niemann, instead of the monster. Niemann has tried to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Frankenstein and wants to do some brain transfers. But his experiments have landed him in jail for fifteen years. As he tells his fellow prisoner Daniel "I could give you a perfect body if I wasn't in jail" and as he says it, lightning dramatically strikes the prison setting them both free. Daniel is a hunchback and dearly wants a new body so he becomes Karloff's Igor. And Karloff needs a killing machine to revenge himself on those who threw him into jail.



That is like the first ten-minutes. It gets sillier. In a good way. They discover Dracula as a skeleton in his coffin with a knife stuck between his bones. Once Niemann takes it out, Carradine appears. They strike a deal. I will protect your coffin but you have to kill for me. But Dracula being a vampire, he can't pass up a pretty neck. Once they get to Dr. Frankenstein's castle, they discover the Wolf Man and The Monster still frozen from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and put them in the defroster.



But perhaps the best part of the film is the love story. Daniel the hunchback saves a gypsy girl (Elena Verdugo) from a whipping and falls in love. In a tragically poignant scene she begins to return his affection until she sees his deformed body. Like City Lights or the Beauty and the Beast. Daniel is played by J. Carroll Naish and he is surprisingly effective at playing this heart-broken man. And then her luck continues when she falls for another man, not knowing that a full moon is coming. Directed by Erie C. Kenton who had directed the brilliant Island of Lost Souls and The Ghost of Frankenstein. Showing up also are Lionel Atwill, George Zucco and Sig Ruman. There is a fair amount of killing but because of the Code, much of it is done in sillouette. Which works well. Oddly, though the film is titled The House of Frankenstein, he gets much less screen time than Dracula or the Wolf Man. But don't worry. A sort of sequel is called House of Dracula.