Monster March: House of Dracula (1945)

As the third monster mash in an ostensible trilogy with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and House of Frankenstein, it’s hard for me to find a Marvel Cinematic Universe analogy to explain what House of Dracula contributes to the Universal Classic Monsters franchise. Instead, I find myself looking at House of Dracula like Return of the Jedi – a third installment that doesn’t really do anything wrong but neither does it quite excel. There are flashes of brilliance, but on the whole there’s nothing that we haven’t seen before.

Dr. Franz Edelmann (Onslow Stevens) receives a strange visitor just before sunrise – Count Dracula (John Carradine), seeking a cure for his vampirism. While the doctor prepares a blood transfusion to cure the count, who is himself conspiring to consume the doctor’s assistant Milizia (Martha O’Driscoll), Dr. Edelmann takes on another patient – Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), who believes the doctor can rid him of the curse of the werewolf. Meanwhile, in the caves beneath Dr. Edelmann’s castle lies the lifeless body of the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange), and soon it will take all of Dr. Edelmann’s strength to keep these creatures from tearing down his home.

 

My chief complaint about House of Dracula carries over from House of Frankenstein – the monsters never truly meet. After seeing Chaney and Lugosi on screen together for much of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, it’s a shame that Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster are kept at arm’s length from each other. Talbot meets the other two, but it’s a far cry from the elegant way that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein brought the same three monsters together into the same plot. 

 

Instead, what we get in House of Dracula is something akin to the setup for a joke – a vampire, a werewolf, and a Frankenstein walk into a doctor’s office. The plot then becomes a revolving door; when Dracula leaves the office, Talbot enters, and their treatments continue in alternating sequence. I had hoped that there might be some larger string that ties all this together, some way that it all related to a larger plot by Count Dracula, but again the filmmakers seem set on putting the monsters on the same bill without ever featuring them on the same screen. 

 

It's another cash-grab, to be sure, but there seemed to be something more genuine about it in House of Frankenstein. Perhaps it was the legitimating presence of Boris Karloff, who felt like an appropriate thread to unify the whole piece. I hope it’s no slight to Onslow Stevens to say that he’s no Boris Karloff, but there is something a little disingenuous about bringing the whole cinematic universe back together through an actor making his franchise debut in the role. Stevens is perfectly serviceable, at times recalling particularly in his voice a B-movie Orson Welles, but for the most part we’re left wondering what’s so special about this doctor. For one, I’m still not sure what sort of reputation a doctor might have to suggest he could cure both vampirism and lycanthropy, but Karloff never invited that question. Karloff had a presence and a history, but Stevens only has half of one of those. One almost wishes, based on the way the film develops, Dr. Edelmann had instead been Dr. Jekyll – that’d resolve a few of the film’s problems straight away.

There’s the problem of overwhelming coincidence in the film – why is all of this happening now, in this doctor’s office – but there’s a larger problem of continuity, which the Universal Monsters movies have usually been so careful to avoid. For starters, if House of Frankenstein is any indication, at least two of these monsters should be dead. Now I’ll grant you, “dead” is a relative term for this crew, but House of Dracula very carefully and deliberately acknowledges the fate of the Frankenstein monster from House of Frankenstein while glossing over where that film left Dracula and the Wolf Man. The net effect, then, of disregarding continuity – especially at this late date in the franchise, when this is effectively the conclusion of the series before the spoof era begins – is the feeling that none of this matters much, that all of this happened before, and that it was better that time around. There’s something a little cynical about the “do it again but differently” approach in House of Dracula, something that makes me a little sad this is the way it all ended.

That’s not to say, though, that there isn’t good material here. John Carradine acquits himself better as Dracula this time around, particularly in a scene where he seduces a nurse playing “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano – it’s an archetypal image that I’m retroactively surprised didn’t originate with Lugosi. Dracula’s motivations might not make much sense in this film (he wants to be healed, until he doesn’t, and why he leaves his coffin in direct sunlight is anyone’s guess), but at least his presence dials into what the film needs, even if I’m still not convinced he’s the Count Dracula. Indeed, his presence looms over the whole film, as it does on the poster, such that you’re always waiting for Dracula to reenter the picture. That he doesn’t – and that the titular house isn’t even his – is to the film’s discredit.

 

In their respective roles, Chaney and Strange appear, after several movies of doing decent work, to be phoning it in. Chaney is trying, but there’s a weariness in his performance, an overly familiar attitude like slipping into a pair of shoes just before you know they’re about to give out. Just about the only new thing this film adds to Lawrence Talbot is a mustache, along with the unusual revelation that lycanthropy is just a case of pressure on the brain that can be alleviated by fractionally enlarging the skull. As hokey as that sounds, it’s the kind of preposterous balderdash that usually makes these films fun, but when the rest of the film doesn’t hold up, that kind of hokum gets the scrutiny it doesn’t deserve and can’t withstand. Strange, meanwhile, has two settings in this film – comatose and raging – and so there’s little to say beyond his inclusion feeling perfunctory. The film plainly doesn’t know what to do with the Monster; he was at least a vessel for Dr. Niemann’s revenge in House of Frankenstein, but here he’s little more than an action figure pulled out of storage.

 

So falls the Universal Classic Monsters cinematic universe – in a sense, the House of Dracula, the house that Dracula built back in 1931. We might see this as a case of “how the mighty have fallen,” but on another level we might see that House of Dracula is the moment when these creatures escape the bounds of their respective franchises and enter the level of myth. Unburdened by continuity, these monsters are now free to go wherever the next generation of creators will take them; recall that the Abbott and Costello films made no pretense about being true sequels. Rather, the monsters became mythic nightmares, haunting phantoms from a bygone era that operated not on the level of narrative continuity but as freeze-frame images – a swirling cape or a glinting fang, a lumbering giant, or a primal evolutionary throwback. Maybe that’s what the House of Dracula has been all along: not a literal castle in which the vampire resides, but a conceptual wheelhouse of metaphors and filmic illusions not unlike a waxwork house of horrors. We’ve been tenants in that house for the past month; now maybe it’s time to build our own additions and rewrite our own nightmares. 

House of Dracula is not rated. Directed by Erle C. Kenton. Written by Edward T. Lowe. Starring Lon Chaney Jr., Martha O’Driscoll, John Carradine, Lionel Atwill, Onslow Stevens, Glenn Strange, and Jane Adams.  

Tune in tomorrow for Wolf Man Wednesday – the final installment in Monster March – with She-Wolf of London (1945) starring June Lockhart.

Monster March: House of Frankenstein (1944)

If we continue the cinematic universe metaphor, House of Frankenstein is inarguably the Universal Monsters’ version of The Avengers. Although it’s a bit of false advertising – Dracula never actually meets Frankenstein’s monster or the Wolf Man – House of Frankenstein is nevertheless surprisingly fun. The second “monster mash” movie and a direct sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein also finds a way to weave Count Dracula and Boris Karloff back into the mix. Though the plot is rickety and ramshackle, it’s an achievement all the same, the monster movie equivalent of simple and pure popcorn fun. 

Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his hunchbacked assistant Daniel (J. Carrol Naish, doing his best Peter Lorre) escape from prison and vow to continue the experiments of the late Henry Frankenstein. Through a series of untoward events, Niemann comes into possession of the bones of Count Dracula (John Carradine), who he reanimates in his quest for revenge on his jailers. And on the road to Visaria, Niemann also finds the frozen bodies of Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) and Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), who have their own demands on the not-so-good doctor.

 

House of Frankenstein is really two different movies, and both of them are pretty fun. For the first act of its 71 minutes, House gives us the Boris Karloff and Dracula reunion we never truly got to see, yet it’s not Karloff’s Monster meeting Lugosi’s Dracula. That, I suspect, would have been an absolute winner. Instead, Karloff is crowbarred into the film (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) as an unrelated mad scientist with Frankensteinian proclivities, yet there is a warming charm just to see Karloff included again. At 57, he hadn’t played the Monster in five years, so his very presence is almost a legitimating one, with Karloff as the elder statesman of the Universal Classic Monsters universe. Karloff has tons of fun as Dr. Niemann, and there’s a fiery impish glint in his eyes as he plots his next move.

 

As Dracula, however, John Carradine is a touch underwhelming. His performance is exceptionally hammy, with large bulging eyes and vamping – pun intended – posture. Where there was a subtle seductive charm about Lugosi’s Dracula, Carradine plays the magnetic allure like literal hypnosis, and his skeletal appearance is a far cry from Lugosi’s full-bodied menace. In short, it’s hard to accept that this is the Count Dracula, up to and including the continuity error that his bones are said to be resting in his coffin after we saw Countess Zaleska cremate his body in Dracula’s Daughter. (Perhaps, though, the filmmakers were already perfecting the art of the retcon – which, in the case of Dracula’s Daughter, suits me just fine.)

 

Continuing the grand recast is Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s monster. There’s a moment in Ed Wood when Bela Lugosi (played by Martin Landau) opines, “You think it takes talent to play Frankenstein?! It’s all make-up and grunting – mmrrrghh!” It’s a reductive comparison, one which the real Lugosi may or may not have believed, especially given that Lugosi had himself played the Monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. We know, however, that Karloff did so much more with the character in his three films, proving that he had left unfillably big shoes (in more ways than one). On the spectrum, Strange acquits himself better than Lon Chaney Jr. did, and the editors of House don’t cut his bulky feet out from under him as they did Lugosi. However, the fact remains that Strange isn’t given much to do beyond looking imposing, but he gets a few shining moments when he accesses the Monster’s twin childlike senses of wonder and terror at a world he cannot comprehend.

 

Finally, Lon Chaney Jr. is back as Lawrence “Wolf Man” Talbot, and every time I say a negative thing about Chaney in another monster role, he reminds just how reliably good he is as Talbot. From the moment Talbot thaws out of the ice, Chaney elevates the movie, giving another deeply human embodiment to a character that could just as easily have been a lame caricature of an idea. Although his plotline is largely a retread of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man – Talbot feels guilty about his lycanthropic curse and wants to die – Chaney brings his trademark pathos to the role, especially in scenes with the Roma girl Ilonka (played with winsome charm by Elena Verdugo), who is herself encumbered by the question of whether she should help relieve the sympathetic Talbot of his burden.

 

All of this comes to a crescendo in an increasingly dramatic climax that includes electrocution, horse-whipping, and defenestration before the most abrupt ending I can recall seeing since White Heat. It’s the sort of ending that desperately leaves you wanting more, and indeed I was left fairly frothing at the mouth aching for more from House of Frankenstein – more Karloff, more monsters, more/any Lugosi, more of the characters bumping into each other. But it wasn’t a question of starvation; my desire for more was akin to hitting the bottom of the popcorn bucket and wanting a refill. Sure, it’s a campy cash-grab, and certainly it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it tastes good and leaves you wanting more. Isn’t that the most we can ask of the Universal Classic Monsters?

 

House of Frankenstein is not rated. Directed by Erle C. Kenton. Written by Curt Siodmak and Edward T. Lowe. Starring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Glenn Strange, and Elena Verdugo.

Tune in tomorrow for See-Thru Thursday, with The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944) starring Jon Hall.

Next week for Wolf Man Wednesday, it’s She-Wolf of London (1946), starring June Lockhart. For the continuing saga of Lawrence Talbot, though, join us next Tuesday for House of Dracula (1945).

Monster March: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Assigning yourself the task of watching thirty monster movies in a row can feel like a chore, especially toward the end of the assignment, when you’ve seen all the good monster movies and far too many of the bad ones. Within minutes of starting Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, though, I was smiling and laughing. Not five minutes went by without a good chuckle, and by the end of it I found myself thinking, “Was that so hard?” How it took a comedy duo to finally get the monster mash right, I’ll never know – but I’m very glad they did.

Chick Young and Wilbur Grey (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello) are baggage handlers on a routine delivery to McDougal’s House of Horrors. Against the advice of a phone call from Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), Chick and Wilbur open the crates to discover the bodies of Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange). Wilbur suspects the bodies are still living, much to Chick’s chagrin – and Talbot’s arrival from London only complicates matters when the bodies disappear and the full moon rises...

 

I don’t want to spoil things too much for the coming weeks, but “monster rally” movies like House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula cheat a little bit by including all the monsters in the same movie without them ever sharing the screen together. Three/four years after those films, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein fixes that problem by embroiling the holy trinity of monsters in one unified plotline, and it’s frankly genius to pit Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster against the Wolf Man so that the monster mash becomes a proper monster smash by the third act. Funneled through the dynamic of Abbott-as-skeptic and Costello-as-rube, you have the perfect formula for hijinks. As an entry in the cinematic universe, it’s debatable whether this is a proper sequel or whether it’s merely a standalone riff. It’s not quite a horror film, but it is fairly spooky with an emphasis on zany, and that makes for a very fresh new take on characters that, quite frankly, had grown stale over twenty years.

 

Moving away from the horror and toward the comedic is a shift in tone that seems to anticipate the likes of Scooby-Doo, who debuted in 1969. Indeed, I’d venture to say that Scooby-Doo wouldn’t exist without this film’s blend of mystery, monsters, and slapstick comedy. The sequence in which all five main characters chase after each other through a hallway of doors, for instance, is exactly the kind of gag that the Scooby-Doo crew would make their signature gag years later, at times even with versions of the Universal Classic Monsters. (Of course, Abbott and Costello are lightyears funnier than anything the makers of Scooby-Doo could dream up; I defy you to find eight minutes of Scooby-Doo anywhere near “Who’s On First,” but that’s beside the point.) In fact, moving into the realm of parody/spoof is in a sense the natural evolution for the Universal Monsters; the two House movies, for example, have their tongues planted firmly in their metaphorical cheeks, so it’s a short putt to outright punchlines. 

 

As for the monsters, I can’t overstate how good it is to see Bela Lugosi back as Count Dracula; if it did nothing else, the film could ride that nostalgia wave for eighty minutes and still be a home run. We’ll see a number of vampires during Monster March – Carlos Villarías, Gloria Holden, John Carradine, even Lon Chaney Jr. himself – but Lugosi remains the gold standard. Even with seventeen years away from the role (and to be fair his age does show), Lugosi slinks right back into the character, and he is magnetic. Indeed, perhaps the film should have been called Abbott and Costello Meet Dracula because he’s the undeniable monster star of the film. As before, his hypnotic stare extends beyond the proscenium of the silver screen; with a waggle of his fingers and a glint in his eyes, he captivates the audience as well as the soft-minded Wilbur. (As for the fact that this Dracula casts a reflection in a mirror – well, let’s just pretend we didn’t see that, hmm?)

 

After not having much to do in his preceding outings, Glenn Strange gives what is probably his best performance as Frankenstein’s monster, though the make-up looks to be a closer cousin of Herman Munster (debut, 1964) than before. It’s also a relief to hear the Monster speak again, having fallen silent once more after Bride of Frankenstein in 1935. As iconic as Karloff remains, I couldn’t help feeling that a great deal of the modern idea of the Monster is encapsulated in Strange’s performance here – the stilted voice, the thudding walk, the arms outstretched (inherited from Lugosi). With this film becoming a legend almost overnight, one wonders how much this film cemented the common conception of the Monster, taking what all the other performers had done before and rolling it into one iconic interpretation.

 

And in his swan song as the Wolf Man – attaining the unusual status of being the only performer to play this particular monster – Lon Chaney Jr. remains compelling. His make-up seems bushier than before, and his proclivities are a bit bloodthirstier, but this is still Lawrence Talbot, the same good performance Chaney had given in the past. He’s in the odd place of being the “straight man” of the monsters, fighting against the other two, but that puts him on a path where Abbott and Costello are his best allies, and it’s a miracle he doesn’t get more frustrated with that turn of fate. Instead, he remains surprisingly patient, confident that these two buffoons are his best hope at saving the world from Count Dracula.

 

What makes Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein a hit is that it’s both a monster movie with comedy and a comedy film with monsters. Both tones are balanced with dexterity, and the comedy is especially funny after more than seventy years. Costello’s underhanded self-deprecation, Abbott’s quick wordplay, even the physical comedy that’s gratifyingly never at the expense of the monsters doing their spooky stuff – this film has it all. I’ve silently been keeping a note all throughout Monster March about which movies I never need to watch again, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein ain’t one of them. It’s so good, I might work it into an annual rotation for Halloween – that is, if I can’t get Monster March to stick. 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is not rated. Directed by Charles T. Barton. Written by John Grant, Robert Lees, and Frederic I. Rinaldo. Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, and Lenore Aubert. 

Tune in tomorrow for Mummy Monday, with The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) starring Lon Chaney Jr.

Next week, we’ll see what we can see when Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, and Arthur Franz.