[HorrorScience] Frankenstein and the Wolfman (1943)

Reading time: 6 minutes

Qualification

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man

Year

1943

Duration

74 minutes

Director

Roy William Neill

Distribution

Lon Chaney Jr, Bela Lugosi, Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Maria Ouspenskaya, Hans Salter, Dennis Hoey, Dan Barclay, Rex Evans, Harry Stubbs, Dwight Frye

Script

Curt Siodmak

In the 40s, after deciding to continue with the classic horror films that gave him so much success and money, someone within Universal thought that It was time to cross their franchises, let's go what is known as a crossover, to create something eye-catching that would attract the public.

The result was Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man, translated at the time as Frankenstein and the Wolf Man. This film is the direct continuation of The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein's Ghost (1942), although it is not necessary to see the previous ones to understand it, since the plot is not very complex.

The film begins in one of the most classic ways, with two grave robbers trying to steal the corpse of a wealthy family, in this case the Talbot family. When opening the coffin They realize that Larry Talbot's body is intact Although he died a few years ago, that will not be the only surprise of the night, as the full moon shines in the sky and Larry wakes up, ending the life of one of the thieves.

The next morning a police officer finds Larry unconscious on the ground and ends up hospitalizing him. Upon regaining consciousness, he realizes that his nightmare of becoming werewolf has started again and this time he will go for the long haul, because for some reason, he seems unable to die. The doctors will not believe the story about lycanthropy that Larry tells them, and even believe that he is a fake for using the name of a deceased person (as the police officer confirms).

In an act of desperation, Larry turns to the gypsy Maleva, who knows his entire story, but she tells him that she cannot help him, although she knows someone who may be able to end his suffering, a certain Doctor Frankenstein. When they arrive at the place where the doctor lives, they discover that he is dead and that the town hates everything related to his experiments, so Talbot and Maleva are not welcome.

[HorrorScience] Frankenstein and the Wolfman (1943) — Grave robbers are a classic in these movies

After having become a werewolf once again, Larry ends up taking refuge in the ruins of Dr. Frankenstein's castle, where he will find the monster buried, which he will free in the hope that it can help him. find Frankenstein's diary, because apparently he knew everything about life and death.

The monster's condition is pitiful and he is of little help, so Larry tries to contact the doctor's daughter, Elsa Frankenstein, who decides not to help him, fearing that Larry will use his father's knowledge to do some atrocious experiment.

The town festival has started and gives us a curious musical scene where the song seems to bother the werewolf who begins to be somewhat disturbed by his impossibility of dying and his feeling of guilt. It will be precisely there where Larry will meet the doctor who treated him at the beginning of the film (after discovering that he is indeed the real Larry Talbot) but their conversation is interrupted by the monster, who walk free again and start wreaking chaos. Larry decides to take him with him to avoid greater evils, at the same time that Elsa and the doctor decide that perhaps they should help poor Talbot in his search for death and, in the process, try to eliminate the monster once and for all.

Frankenstein and the werewolf It is important as a concept, since using two famous characters in the same film was something relatively new (in fact, I don't remember any right now). crossover prior to this one) but beyond that idea and the fact that two sagas continued at the same time, there is nothing interesting or notable.

the movie The slow but sure decline that hit Universal's horror films continues, which had little to do with what they were a decade ago. The curious thing is that despite the importance of this film, I think it falls behind or at the same level as other more unnecessary ones like Frankenstein's Ghost, which seems inexplicable to me.

Maybe that's because the confrontation between the monster and the werewolf is brutally unsatisfying, since it only lasts a few seconds and is interrupted by the abrupt end of the film, leaving us wanting to see a real clash between both monsters. The movie is quite short (which I think is very good) but maybe They should have considered adding 10 more minutes and give us a more epic ending that showed the potential of Frankenstein's monster and the ingenuity and agility of the Wolf Man.

Y ya que hablamos de ellos, conviene comentar que pese a que el hombre lobo sale bastante bien parado (al fin y al cabo es el protagonista) el monstruo de Frankenstein vuelve a estar totalmente desaprovechado y actúa de una manera bastante lamentable. Hay quien dice que la interpretación de Bela Lugosi como monstruo es olvidable, y sin duda está bastante lejos del monstruo de Karloff, pero lo cierto es que creo que su interpretación esta basada en el hecho de que el monstruo esta supuestamente ciego (digo supuestamente, porque en muchas escenas parece saber perfectamente lo que tiene delante) tras los sucesos de Frankenstein's Ghost. Así pues, el monstruo es olvidable, aunque casualmente la manera de andar del monstruo (con los brazos por delante) en esta película es la que comúnmente se ve en imitaciones del personaje, algo que obviamente no deja de ser una curiosidad que en nada ayuda a la película.

Curiosities about the film:

Bela Lugosi rechazó el papel del monstruo de Frankenstein en 1931, debido a que él prefería el papel del doctor y se negaba a actuar cubierto de maquillaje y gruñendo. En esta película por fin vemos al actor interpretar el papel que hizo famoso a su principal rival, Boris Karloff.
El monstruo de Frankenstein hablaba en el enfrentamiento final, pero esos comentarios fueron quitados en producción, aún así se puede ver al monstruo mover la boca en algunas escenas, sin que salga ningún sonido.