Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

I’ve always enjoyed the comedy duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, remembering watching their movies as a child as I’d spend my Saturdays watching the local channel that would feature their films.  They were such a great pair—Abbott being the straight man and shining Costello on as the chubby little guy who usually cried wolf.  But it’d been years and years since I had the good fortune to sit down and watch one of their movies, not recalling any of the ones I’d seen as a kid.  Knowing that the most popular ones they’d filmed were the ones that featured the Universal Monsters, I checked with Netflix for the availability on the first one and had it sent to me.

Some of the most notable and recognizable movie characters are the Universal Monsters from the 1930s to the 1950s.  Icons like Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Wolf Man are just a few of the well-known monsters that we’ve all come to know and love.  To this day, those movies still work and will forever be timeless, as the use of eerie shadows and tranquil illumination make me feel that I can never get enough of them.  The first of the monsters movies—Dracula—is nearly 90 years old and it was the one that started them all.  Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein soon followed, making Universal Studios monster movies the phenomenon of its time.

 

The witty comedy duo, Abbott and Costello, were a hit in the 40s, making Universal Studios a lot of money with their films.  Toward the end of that decade, it was quite an ingenious idea to have the comedy duo “meet” the popular horror monsters of that era with the first experiment beginning in 1948.  The idea was so successful that it spawned another four films where the two comics run into other popular scary movie characters in comedic fashion.  But the movie that started this trend, however, is none other than Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

 

Although the title makes it sound like the comics were only going to meet Frankenstein’s Monster (of course, the title is a misnomer, as Frankenstein was the name of the man who’d created the monster, not the name of the monster itself), but two other characters are brought into the mix as well.

 

Before any further discussion, here’s the plot breakdown of the film…

 

Two hapless freight handlers, Chick (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur (Lou Costello), find themselves encountering Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange), and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.).

 

Released in 1948, this was the perfect time for a mishmash of comedy and horror, putting together the genius comedy of Abbott and Costello with the ever-popular and ongoing Universal Studios monster movies.  With the recent films of The Wolf Man and House of Frankenstein still popular and going strong, it was a no-brainer to put this together. 

 

The director, Charles Barton, has quite a list of films he’s helmed from the early 1930s until the 1960s, with quite a few popular television series interspersed between.  One thing I’d noticed, however, was how many Abbott and Costello films he had directed and that number is eight.  Seems that Barton was a good fit with the comedy twosome and Universal Studios had recognized that, giving him the reins to direct the funnymen in all those hits.

 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein does feel like one of the serious Universal Classics at its heart, especially with Lugosi picking up where he had left off so many years before.  Although he had played a similar vampire character of Count Mora in Mark of the Vampire in 1935, this was the first time in 17 years that Lugosi came back to play Dracula in a feature-length movie.  Lon Chaney Jr.’s last outing as the lycanthroped Larry Talbot had only been 3 years prior along with Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s Monster in House of Dracula.  But they all stepped into their roles flawlessly and had played them earnestly, regardless of the film being a comedy.

 

By today’s standards, yes, the movie isn’t very scary and might be seen as a bit cheesy.  Even the comedy of Abbott and Costello isn’t that great in this flick, but all the components that were brought together for this outing totally makes up for any inconsistencies you may notice.  Some of the skits seen throughout this film made me chuckle—one in particular, when Costello needed to grab a table cloth and pulled it off while leaving all the glasses and candleholders in place, he stops to look at the camera, breaking the fourth wall…classic.  You’ll see quite a few scenes like that, where Lou Costello chews the scenery.  In fact, there are a few YouTube videos you can find where there are some very funny bloopers from this movie, a lot of them having Glenn Strange crack up at Costello’s antics.

 

First off, one of the biggest misconceptions of all the popular monsters is that Frankenstein is the name of the monster in the film of the same name.  Really, the title refers to the doctor who created the creature with it never receiving a name within the film’s story.  It’s been a misnomer for years and years, and I’m sure if you were to show a picture of the monster to anyone and asked them to name the creature, they’d reply “Frankenstein.”  But here, in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein isn’t in the story, but all this can be overlooked…unless you’re a picky movie enthusiast like me.

 

You can tell all the cast is having fun, at times not really taking the film seriously, but overall you can tell Universal had struck a gold mine with this concept.  In fact, the studio mined the idea four more times with Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955).

 

Lastly, I’ll say it’s kind of sad that the real creator of these famous monsters wasn’t asked to come back for these films and that’s the great make-up artist, Jack P. Pierce.  He, alone, is responsible for the appearance of Frankenstein’s Monster and The Wolf Man, as well as many other famous monsters from Universal Studios’ canon of early horror flicks.  Here, Bud Westmore was brought in for the task of replicating Pierce’s work.  And it’s not to disparage Westmore’s efforts, it’s just upsetting that Jack Pierce was treated the way he was by Universal.

 

So…what’s my final “bit” on Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein?

 

The movie has nearly the same feel as most of the Universal Monster movies, just supplementing some of the light comedy touches from the comic duo.  It never feels like a parody of the films from the 30s and 40s—Bela Lugosi as Dracula is just as ominous, Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s Monster is somewhat menacing, and Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man is once again frightening—so, they’re never put in situations that make them look ridiculous.  The movie, as a whole, is a good time and fun for all ages.

 

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The Hidden

Although I have a great appreciation for the films of the 1980s, it’s usually reserved for the ones released within the early part of the decade with anything after 1985 being ignored or not as enjoyable…for the most part.  For instance, my love of the Friday the 13^th franchise is mainly for the first four films and I usually stop after watching the fourth film.  With the A Nightmare on Elm Street film franchise, I go as far as The Dream Warriors.  It just seems that the latter half of the 80s included too many silly films and they all became parodies of what we’d seen a mere few years before it.  But for some reason, 1987 was a year that churned out some very memorable movies that were entertaining and exciting.

 

With that said, and as unfortunate as it is, The Hidden had fallen through the cracks and hasn’t seen resurgence thus far.  But I’m here to tell you…it needs to be looked at and discussed.

 

The plot breakdown…

 

An alien parasite with the ability to possess human bodies goes on a merciless crime spree in Los Angeles, committing dozens of murders and robberies.  In pursuit of the extraterrestrial criminal is FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan) and police detective Tom Beck (Michael Nouri) who is investigating the recent outbreak of violence.  Closing in on the vicious intruder, the city faces a brutal threat like no other it has ever encountered.

 

Speaking of the 80s, there was a time back then when many productions were filmed in and around the Los Angeles area.  Although I’m not that familiar with the L.A. area, seeing these films almost makes me think I know it quite well.  Most of the films were memorable classics like The Terminator, To Live and Die in L.A., Lethal Weapon, and Die Hard, and those films always bring a sense of nostalgia into me.  I can go through a slough of films that most of you would recognize, but The Hidden stands out as an underrated classic—to me anyway.

 

I remember seeing this in theaters way back in 1987 and it seemed to be somewhat of a hit, resonating a little bit of a following at the time, but it seemed to be quickly forgotten after its run in theaters.  It’s understandable, of course, since 1987 was a big year for hit films.  Films like Beverly Hills Cop II, Lethal Weapon, Robocop, Creepshow 2, Fatal Attraction, and Full Metal Jacket—which preceded and followed The Hidden—made it a vague memory soon after it came out.  In fact, I happened to be perusing eBay when I noticed a Japanese import of this DVD which made me pause and gave me a bit of a surprise as it instantly brought me back to 1987.  Believing it to be an above-average sci-fi/action/thriller, I knew I had to add it to my collection.

 

The film grabs you right from the beginning, as it opens on a bank robbery, seen from a security camera, with a man shooting up the place before taking off with his take.  One part of this scene that I enjoy is after the crook shoots everybody up and is about to leave with his loot, he pauses to look at the security camera and smiles before shooting it out.  He then goes out to his Ferrari, pops in a cassette to blast some heavy metal music (these aspects are a repeated trait of this villain in the film), and speeds off with the police sirens being heard in the background.  Right away, this movie sucks you in.  It leaves you with so many questions: Who is this guy? Why is he so violent? Why is he openly breaking the law, even after getting away from the bank?  It’s the right way to start a film like this, hooking the audience to watch until the end.

 

For a little known film, with probably not that big of a budget, the special effects were—and still are—pretty convincing.  Even though the movie is thirty years old, it still makes me scratch my head here and there as I wonder how they performed some of those gags.  It’s no secret, especially if you read the plot summary to the story, that the film is about an alien parasite that takes over human bodies and will leave a dying one to take over another.  So performing those scenes would’ve been a daunting task, even by today’s standards.  I won’t get into the descriptions of those scenes, but I would’ve thought the special effects would’ve looked phony today, but it still holds up.  The gurus that worked on it obviously make use of dummy heads of the actors that had to be created, but they looked spot on.  Compared to The Terminator and Robocop, which were made around the same time and employed similar special effects techniques, the mechanical heads here looked way more convincing.

 

One critic’s quote on the cover of the DVD, by some random movie journalist, cites this film is “Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Terminator,” which is the perfect description because that’s the feel of this film throughout: The movie doesn’t let up, there’s no dull downtime (besides the dinner visit, but that lets us—the audience—get to know the characters of Gallagher and Beck a bit more), and it’s basically the good guys against an unstoppable force that can take over anyone it chooses.  Hell, I’d even say there’s a little bit of The Thing in this flick as there’s a bit of a who’s who plot device to the story.

 

Always giving kudos to animal actors, I have to give props to Roy the Dog who plays Jake, Lieutenant Masterson’s (Clarence Felder) dog.  A characteristic that’s shown throughout the film, when the parasite takes over a body, the alien-controlled person tends to slightly lick their lips to appear menacing or cluing in the audience to show that the person we see is the antagonist.  At one point during the movie, the dog becomes infested with the parasite and later we see it looking at Gallagher as it licks his lips.  The scene always puts a smile on my face.

 

If there’s anything I can nitpick about the film is that I wish there was a backstory shown of where this parasite came from, maybe a scene showing it escaping the planet from where it originated.  But I understand the budget the film had to work with and it really doesn’t take anything away for me.

 

Being a 30-year-old movie, you’re going to see some silliness like the cars of the time and the technology available (like a car stereo that plays cassettes or a man walking around with a boom box), but as long as you can get past that, you’ll enjoy the movie immensely. 

 

My final “bit” on The Hidden?

 

The movie is a forgotten gem that many people may not know about or have never seen before.  Although it’s your typical 80s flick with a lot of gun fighting and action scenes, it’s a well-made film that encompasses so much originality and the right balance of humor and gravitas.  As I’d mentioned, the special effects are still believable and the acting is taken seriously, making this movie a must for a fun, popcorn-munching good time.  Maybe Shout! Factory can get a collector’s edition going with this one…I know I’d appreciate it.

 

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