Franchises: Universal's Frankenstein Series. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

This is where my love for both Universal Horror and classic horror in general stems from, as it also happens to be one of my earliest movie memories. I've talked before about how, with both of my parents working, my paternal grandparents often took care of me when I wasn't in school. To keep me occupied, my grandmother, Nana, would leave me in her living room with the TV on and, several times, I happened upon the Sci-Fi Channel, which hadn't been on the air for very long. One day, weirdly enough after seeing an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea that featured a werewolf, I saw the majority of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. My first recollections of it were when Larry Talbot first transforms into the Wolf Man while lying in a hospital bed and then attacks a policeman out on the streets. I also vividly remembered Larry running away from Maleva when he feels himself about to change again, his discovering the Frankenstein monster frozen in ice, and the Monster stumbling through the village. However, I somehow missed the final battle, likely because I ended up changing the channel accidentally and couldn't find it again. That was a huge shame, as I know I would've gotten a kick out of that as a little kid. Over the years, I would often check out the Crestwood House book devoted to this movie, as both my elementary school library and the Monteagle public library had a copy. Ergo, I learned its story fairly well (or, at least, the author's interpretation of it), but I didn't see the movie itself again until I was twelve, when I bought it on video. Not only did it bring back so many awesome memories but, being much older and knowing the intricacies of the plot thanks to that book, I was able to appreciate it more. Nowadays, while I can admit to the movie being fairly flawed, especially when it comes to the portrayal of Frankenstein's monster, which does him a great disservice, and its connection to the previous Frankenstein film, I still think it's one of the most entertaining films in the entire Universal Horror canon, especially the second phase.

On a windswept, full moon night, two grave-robbers break into the Talbot family crypt at the Llanwelly cemetery and open the coffin of Larry Talbot, believing he was buried with money and other valuables. Removing a chunk of the wolfsbane found in the coffin, the one man, Freddy Jolly, removes the golden ring from the body's finger. However, the light of the full moon resurrects Larry as the Wolf Man and he grabs hold of Jolly, while his partner flees in a panic. Larry is found unconscious on the street in the city of Cardiff later that night and is taken to Queen's Hospital. Despite undergoing a critical operation to repair a massive fracture in his skull, Larry is conscious and able to speak immediately afterward. He soon learns where he is and, when questioned by Dr. Mannering and Inspector Owen, reveals who he is and from where he hails. But when Owen calls the Llanwelly police station on a routine checkup, he's told that Lawrence Talbot has been dead for four years. That night, when the full moon rises again, Larry once more becomes the Wolf Man, escapes his room, and kills the very constable who found him out on the street. Found back in his room the following morning, Talbot tries to explain to Mannering and Owen that he's a werewolf, but they don't believe him. Furthermore, when he's told that he's supposedly been dead for four years, Larry realizes he's cursed with immortality as well. While Mannering and Owen go to Llanwelly to try to confirm his identity, Larry escapes from the hospital. He tracks down Maleva, the old gypsy woman, and begs her to help him end his life and find peace in death. Knowing of Ludwig Frankenstein, she takes Larry to the village of Vasaria, only to then learn that the good doctor is dead. During one of his spells as the Wolf Man, Larry finds his way to the burned ruins of Frankenstein's home and comes upon the Monster in a frozen cavern beneath it. After releasing him, the Monster attempts to lead Larry to Ludwig's notes on his experiments. Though he's unable to find them, Larry is able to contact Elsa, Frankenstein's daughter, who can hopefully give him the notes, which may lead to a means of freeing himself from his curse.

This film, the start of Universal's series of monster mashes (although, this is the only one up until Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein where the monsters actually fight), is nowadays considered to be the first instance of a "shared universe," decades before Marvel made the idea very popular and profitable. And yet, it's often been said that the idea started out as a sarcastic joke by screenwriter Curt Siodmak, during a conversation between him and producer George Waggner. Waggner, reportedly, didn't find it that funny, and not too long afterward, when Siodmak needed a job in order to complete a payment on a new car he'd bought, he was assigned to turn his own quip into an actual screenplay. Tasked with this, he decided to write around the notion that the title characters' motivations are actually polar opposites, with Frankenstein's monster wanting life and power, while Larry Talbot seeks death to end his curse. And because of their both being outcasts from society, they would have to come together to accomplish their respective goals. But, by the time the movie was finished, just the bare minimum of this dynamic would made it to the screen.

The film was directed by Roy William Neill, an Irish-born director who'd first entered the film industry in 1915 as an assistant director, before becoming one in his own right in 1917. He made 55 films during the silent era alone, and during a period in the 1930's when he went to London, came very close to directing 1938's The Lady Vanishes, but ultimately, Alfred Hitchcock got it. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man would be Neill's one and only Universal Horror, as he's best remembered for directing all but one of the studio's Sherlock Holmes films. I can remember hearing somewhere that he wasn't exactly thrilled with the job, and his directions to the stuntmen for the climactic monster battle were simply where to start, where to finish, and what kind of fight it should be. Neill has also often been described as a rather humorless man but, regardless of what he may thought of the material, it's hard to deny that he exceeded in the technical side of things here. Afterward, he continued on with the Sherlock Holmes series, directing the last of them, Dressed to Kill, in 1946, and he directed one last movie, a film noir called Black Angel, featuring Peter Lorre, the same year. In December, Neill died of a heart attack at the age of 59.

Even though I've labeled it as part of Universal's Frankenstein series, this is much more a sequel to The Wolf Man than a follow-up to The Ghost of Frankenstein. Make no mistake, this is Larry Talbot's story once again, as the first act and much of the second are all about his accidental resurrection, his seeking to find release from his curse, and his journeying to Vasaria to do so; Frankenstein's monster, by contrast, doesn't make his first appearance until 35 minutes in and, even then, he's virtually superfluous to the plot, as we'll get into. Many also consider this to be Lon Chaney Jr.'s finest performance as Larry Talbot, and for good reason. While he was certainly likable in the first film, he had some macho aspects to his personality that haven't aged well, none of which is here. He's also no longer the happy-go-lucky guy he once was, and he's especially pitiable during the first act. After being brought back to life by the light of the full moon, the first thing Larry is consciously aware of is when he awakens at Queen's Hospital in Cardiff, with no memory of how he got there or how he received his serious head injury. And then, that night, when the full moon rises, the knowledge of his curse comes flooding back to him when he feels himself beginning to change into the Wolf Man again. The next morning, after having killed a constable on the street, Larry awakens, knowing what probably happened, a fear that's confirmed when he learns of the constable's death. Larry tries to tell Dr. Mannering and Inspector Owen about his being a werewolf, even showing them the scar on his chest, and tells them to talk with Maleva, but, as per usual, they don't believe him. What's more, when he's told that Lawrence Talbot is said to have died four years before, Larry realizes he's practically immortal and can't die through normal means. He eventually escapes the hospital when he becomes the Wolf Man again and tracks down Maleva, begging her to help him find a way to die. While she can't do it herself, she offers to take him to Vasaria to see Ludwig Frankenstein. But, when they arrive, they learn that, not only is Frankenstein persona non grata in the village, but he's dead and his home was destroyed in a fire. 

Completely despondent about the prospect of having to continue living with his curse, Larry, again, transforms and kills a young woman, before being chased by the villagers up to the ruins of Frankenstein's home. He falls through the burnt flooring and into an icy cavern below, where he eventually reverts back to his normal state. There, he finds Frankenstein's monster, frozen in ice, and releases him, hoping he knows where Frankenstein's scientific records are. But when the Monster is unable to find them, Larry, upon finding

a picture of Elsa Frankenstein, who's now a Baroness, hopes that she can help him. Posing as a potential buyer for the old house, Larry meets Elsa and tells her what he really wants. To his dismay, she refuses him, saying she doesn't have any of her father's records and that she will never go to the ruins. Even worse, he learns that night that Dr. Mannering has traced him there, intending to have him return with him to Wales so he can put him in an insane asylum. But when the Monster wanders

into the village and causes panic, Larry stops him before he can hurt anyone and they escape back to the ruins. There, Mannering, Elsa, and Maleva meet up with both him and the Monster, with Elsa revealing the hidden panel housing her father's diary. Studying Frankenstein's notes, Mannering opts to repair the laboratory equipment so he can drain off both Larry and the Monster's energies, killing them both. But, unfortunately for Larry, a last minute change of plans leads to him transforming again for a climactic fight with the Monster.

The Wolf Man himself is still the iconic werewolf we all know and love, although his makeup design is a bit different: his hair isn't as wild-looking as before, and his dog-nose is wider. Still, the methods Jack Pierce used to apply the makeup remained the same and, like before, Lon Chaney Jr. proves himself very physically adept and menacing in the role, like when he's prowling the streets of Cardiff early on and attacks the constable, stalks the woods near Vasaria and the frozen cavern beneath Castle Frankenstein, and during the final battle with the Monster (although, most of that was a stunt double). As I mentioned in my review of The Wolf Man, I liked how, in that film, the Wolf Man's vocalizations sounded like those of an actual dog and I wished they carried it on in the further movies. But, no, they instead went with more typical monster snarls, which I don't find as impactful. And also like in the first movie, it seems as though the clothes the Wolf Man wears just come with the change. When he changes in the hospital early on, he's wearing a hospital gown, but when he's prowling the streets, he's wearing that buttoned shirt and dark pants. You could say they were underneath the gown and he tore it off when he changed, which is a fair assumption, even if that's not hospital procedure. But when he's back to normal in his room the next morning, he's also back in his gown again, as if, like Wilfred Glendon, he has enough intelligence as a werewolf to think to change into preferable clothes so he can prowl and kill in comfort!

In this film, the transformation scenes are far more elaborate than what we saw in the original Wolf Man. Instead of their magnitude only being hinted at or happening offscreen, this time, we get full close-ups of Larry's face as he changes, and there are three such moments, no less. The first one, as he's lying in his hospital bed, is the best one, as it's the one we see in the most detail, and it's impactful even before he starts changing. Larry slowly awakens to the light of the full moon filling his room, sees it, slowly lays back down, and then,

feeling the change coming on, puts his fists on his forehead and removes the bandages on top, even smacking them in hopeless frustration. We then get the classic lap-dissolve on his face, thanks to a combination of Pierce's makeup, John P. Fulton's visual effects work, and editor Edward Curtiss' skillful cutting, and it's awesome. I can so vividly remember watching this when I was five, and not quite understanding what was happening at first (I thought his nose was growing bigger), until he was fully transformed. Even at that young age, I knew

he was the Wolf Man when I saw his ultimate form. I also remembered his second transformation, with him running away from Maleva and standing behind a tree as he looks up at the moon, which also looks pretty cool, with the added detail of his face already getting hairy when he first runs behind the tree. But, as cool as the transformations are to watch, they were long and arduous for Chaney, as he had to have bits of the makeup applied, get into position in front of the

camera, get up, have more makeup applied, get back into position, and so on. They came up with ingenious ways to help the process along, like making the pillow in the hospital scene out of plaster to keep the creases from moving, and using panes of glass with his outline etched onto them to ensure he got back into position perfectly, but it was still nightmarish to go through, even if Chaney's later recounting of them was seriously exaggerated.

In writing the screenplay, Curt Siodmak made some tweaks to the werewolf mythology he'd created in the original film. Most notably, the full moon is now clearly behind the transformations, with various shots of it, including at the very beginning. To that end, the last stanza of the poem he came up with is changed to, "And the moon is full and bright." Also, while wolfsbane seemed to be tied into it as well, given the one line in the poem about it blooming, when the grave-robbers open Larry's coffin, they find it filled with the

plants, as if it were put in there as a type of deterrent. And finally, there's the idea that someone with this curse is also immortal. Despite it being four years since the events of the first movie, Larry's body hasn't decomposed at all. He instead appears to be in suspended animation, with the light of the full moon both bringing him back to life and unleashing the beast within again. I used to wonder why Maleva didn't just create a silver bullet and shoot Larry with it, but since being clubbed with his silver-tipped cane didn't actually kill him permanently, it now seems that it takes more than silver to truly put a werewolf down, which is why she suggests they seek out Dr. Frankenstein.

Since he had just played Frankenstein's monster, the original plan here was for Lon Chaney Jr. to play both him and the Wolf Man, with doubles used for shots featuring both monsters onscreen. However, this was idea was scrapped before filming, as it was decided to be far too time-consuming and would take too much of a toll on Chaney. Instead, since Ygor had effectively become the Monster when his brain was put into his skull at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein, it kind of made sense that Bela Lugosi should now play the Monster himself. Moreover, he was meant to carry on from the ending of Ghost, with the Monster speaking Ygor's voice and still blind, although that notion was eventually derailed. Making the film was not a happy experience for Lugosi, as it quickly became clear that casting him had been a mistake. By this point, he was sixty years old and in poor health, which resulted in him suffering badly from the lengthy makeup application and the heavy costume, at one point collapsing on the set. Stunt doubles Eddie Parker and Gil Perkins often had to fill in for him, with the former constantly being off-camera in full costume and makeup in order to step in when necessary. In fact, Roy William Neill thought Parker looked better as the Monster and preferred him to be onscreen whenever possible, including the Monster's introductory scene. This led to Lugosi having little actual screentime in the finished film.

Even more humiliating, before the film was released, all of Lugosi's dialogue was removed, supposedly because audience members at a test screening laughed at the sound of his Hungarian-accented voice coming out of the Monster's mouth. Curt Siodmak later said as much: "Do you know why they took the Monster's dialogue away? Because Bela Lugosi couldn't talk! They had left the dialogue I wrote for the Monster in the picture when they shot it, but with Lugosi, it sounded so Hungarian funny that they had to take it out!" I find

that confusing, as nobody seemed to laugh at Lugosi's voice coming out of the Monster's mouth at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein. Other sources have suggested that the dialogue itself was the problem, as it had instances of the Monster plotting to take control of the world, which was felt to be too evocative of Adolf Hitler. Whatever the case, the dialogue scenes were either cut altogether or the Monster's lines were muted; in the first scene between him and Larry, you can see the Monster's lips moving if you look carefully. Thus, all

references to his blindness, which was why Lugosi played him with constantly outstretched arms and awkward, static movements, were removed as well. If you didn't see the previous movie, you definitely wouldn't know that the Monster is meant to be blind and, as a result, Lugosi's performance has often been unjustly ridiculed. The stuntmen apparently imitated Lugosi's stance even more than was necessary, including at the end of the film, where the Monster's eyesight is restored after Dr.

Mannering makes him strong again (that's why there's a close-up of his blinking eyes during that scene, and why he then looks at Mannering and smiles). But besides Lugosi's already miscast performance being sabotaged, the biggest disappointment with the Monster here is that he's such a non-entity. Again, this is Larry's movie, whereas the Monster doesn't come in until quite a while and, even when he does, all he has to do is lumber around the castle ruins and the village, then

engage in a fight with the Wolf Man at the very end. They try to make him a significant part of the story, with Mannering's promise to the villagers to destroy him, along with the Wolf Man, and his sudden need to see the Monster at his full power, but it doesn't work. Dark Corners Reviews on YouTube calls this the absolute nadir of the Universal Frankenstein series but, while I don't entirely agree with that, as the Monster does get to do more here than in either House of Frankenstein or House of Dracula coming up, this is still a low-point for the character.

It's a shame about Lugosi, as I do have a soft spot for him as the Monster, since his was the first version I ever saw, and also because I personally think the makeup looks better on him than it did on Chaney. The details are very similar, as the top of the head is much flatter than it was on Boris Karloff, but Lugosi's face matches up with it better, and it looks as though they even gave him dark lips, similar to his Dracula makeup, as well as dark fingernails. And even when he's stumbling around awkwardly, he's able to project more of a

personality through the makeup than Chaney did, and he actually snarls and growls a few times. Still, it would be nice to see the version containing his dialogue but, since the 80's, when the film was first released on video, the Universal archives have been thoroughly searched and no existing print has even been found. Like London After Midnight and the deleted spider pit scene from King Kong, it's likely lost forever. The shooting script, however, does exist, and Scribbles to Screen, a channel on

YouTube, did a video with a recreation using the script to see what that version may have been like. I recommend checking it out. Finally, it's ironic how Lugosi's stiff movements and outstretched arms have become the familiar image and posture of the Monster, even more so than Karloff's physicality. Like James Rolfe once said, it all goes back to him.

The presence of two monsters in this one movie likely made it the most challenging job Jack Pierce ever had up to this point, even when the plan for Lon Chaney Jr. to play both of them was wisely abandoned. Pierce had to tightly schedule the time-consuming makeup applications and ensure both monsters were ready when needed, especially when different scenes involving them were scheduled on the same day. This forced him to not only use more rubber appliances than he normally cared to but he also had to supervise others working in the makeup

department, as he obviously couldn't apply two makeups at the same time. And because stuntmen and doubles were often needed to stand in for Bela Lugosi, and the climactic fight would consist mostly of the stuntmen, with the actual actors used for close-ups, the workload was doubled yet again. I have a feeling that's why the monsters are never onscreen together in both House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, and why there was never another monster bout produced for the remainder of Pierce's tenure at the studio.

Because Evelyn Ankers had played Larry Talbot's love interest in The Wolf Man, the studio felt she shouldn't play another and thus, recast Elsa Frankenstein with Ilona Massey, who'd just appeared in Invisible Agent. In the end, the issue was a moot point, as Elsa never becomes a love interest for Larry, with their only somewhat romantic scene being when they have dinner together during a village festival and, even then, Larry's hopelessness kills any interest she may have in him. By the time you get to the climax, she even thinks Larry is insane. After watching Ankers, with her very slight English accent, in The Ghost of Frankenstein, Massey's Hungarian accent is a little hard to get used to, at first. However, I will say that she has more to play with as Elsa. Like her father, grandfather, and uncle before her, she's now haunted by memories of the Monster, the events of the previous film, and her family's sinister legacy. She's eager to sell the burnt out ruins of her father's house, which is how she meets Larry, who poses as Taylor, a potential buyer. But when he reveals what he truly wants, she refuses to help, saying none of her father's records survived and that she will never go near the house ever again. Then, in the ensuing chaos of the Monster's reappearance, she finds herself the target of the villagers' ire, who accuse her family of bringing them nothing but misfortune. She's similarly rebuffed when she offers to lead them to the old house's ruins in order to destroy the Monster, as the villagers believe she's trying to deceive them. But when Dr. Mannering offers to destroy the Monster himself, Elsa leads him, as well as Maleva, to the ruins, where they meet Larry. Elsa reveals where her father's diary is hidden and Mannering uses to devise a way of killing both Larry and the Monster. However, Elsa fears that Mannering may fall into the same trap as those before him and begs him to clear the name of Frankenstein by destroying the Monster, just as he promised. This, of course, doesn't go as planned, and Elsa is targeted by the Monster after he's reinvigorated. Fortunately for her, the Wolf Man attacks him and she and Mannering are able to escape.

Patric Knowles, who played Frank Andrews in The Wolf Man, has a meatier role here as Dr. Frank Mannering, who treats Larry Talbot when he's brought to Queen's Hospital in Cardiff. Like many, he initially doesn't believe Larry's claims that he's a werewolf but does believe he's disturbed, suffering from the mental disease of lycanthropy. Determined to help him, Mannering and Inspector Owen travel to Llanwelly village to see if Larry really is the man he claims to be. They inspect the crypt and don't find Lawrence Talbot's body, only that of one of the grave-robbers. He and Owen are then shown a picture of Larry and note that it does look like the man in Cardiff. When Mannering phones the hospital and checks up on Larry, he discovers he's escaped. Mannering then disappears from the movie for a while but reappears in Vasaria, as he's been following Larry across the continent, tracing him via the murders he's committed as the Wolf Man. He still doesn't believe that Larry is a werewolf but does think he's insane when the moon is full and begs him to return with him to Wales, offering to try to find a way to cure him. When the village is in an uproar over the Monster's reemergence, Mannering, despite being accused of being in cahoots with Elsa Frankenstein and Maleva (whose name he recognizes, as Larry mentioned her), offers to help destroy him, as well as Larry. After meeting the Monster face-to-face, and finding Dr. Frankenstein's diary, Mannering devises a way to drain off his and Larry's life energies, repairing the laboratory to do so. But, despite Elsa's pleading with him to clear her family name, when the time comes, Mannering can't bring himself to destroy the Monster. Instead, he decides to charge him up to full power, leading to the climactic final battle between him and the Wolf Man.   

Also returning from The Wolf Man is Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva. Though she's shocked and even a bit frightened when Larry shows up at her camp, like before, she comes off as very understanding and motherly towards him, due to the guilt that it was her own son who passed the werewolf curse on to him. Though she tells him that she can't kill him herself, she decides to help him find Dr. Frankenstein, saying he has the power to help him. We later learn from Dr. Mannering that, during Larry and Maleva's journey to Vasaria, he became the Wolf Man several times and killed some people but, obviously, he didn't harm her. She must've had some way of keeping him from attacking her or, perhaps, was sometimes able to use that same supposed spell from the first film to temporarily return him to normal. After they arrive in Vasaria and learn that Dr. Frankenstein is dead, Maleva becomes a peripheral character for the rest of her screentime. When Larry transforms and runs away from her, she's later found by the police dogs and locked up. She's released when the village is in chaos after the Monster has appeared and she joins Mannering and Elsa in journeying up to the ruins, as she knows Larry will trust her. When they meet up with him, she confirms that Elsa is being truthful when she offers to give over her father's diary. Curiously, after she tells Elsa at one point near the climax that Larry is not insane but simply wants to die, Maleva disappears and is never seen again. The reason for this is because Maria Ouspenskaya was injured at one point and unable to finish her scenes, so they had to write her out. Maleva never appears in any of the subsequent films, either, so her exact fate remains a mystery. 

A character whom you think is going to have a significant part in the story but, as it turns out, is only present during the first act is Inspector Owen (Dennis Hoey). He investigates Larry when he's first brought to Queen's Hospital and, learning that Lawrence Talbot has been dead for four years, decides he's an imposter. Coming off as an aggressive and pompous man, Owen interrogates Larry about his "real name" and dismisses his claims about being a werewolf. Still, wanting to do something to help him, Owen decides to go up to Llanwelly and try to confirm Larry's identity. He's accompanied by Dr. Mannering and, together, they find that Larry's body is missing from the Talbot crypt, as well as learn about the attacks that plagued the village years before and that Sir John Talbot "accidentally" clubbed his son to death. Owen and Mannering are shown a picture of Lawrence Talbot and remark on the similarities with their suspect in Cardiff. However, after Mannering phones the hospital and learns that Larry escaped during the night, Owen is never seen again.

Though he had major supporting roles in the two previous Frankenstein movies, from here on out, Lionel Atwill's appearances would add up to little more than bit parts. Here, he plays the good-natured mayor of Vasaria, who sets up the meeting between Larry and Elsa Frankenstein. More significantly, when much of the rest of the village is out for Elsa's blood after the Monster is seen, he's the one who tries to keep the peace, telling the villagers that Elsa has done them no harm whatsoever. He particularly butts heads with Vazec

(Rex Evans), a cantankerous, alcoholic innkeeper who, in his first appearance, becomes enraged when Larry and Maleva ask him about Dr. Frankenstein and throws them out after telling them of his death. He's the one who begins rallying the other villagers against Elsa, as well as Mannering and Maleva, believing they're in cahoots with both each other, as well as Larry and the Monster. When the Mayor insists they should use their brains for once, Vazec snarls, "Whose

brains? Yours? I'd rather depend upon my fists!" And when Mannering and the others repair the laboratory and order machines and electric parts for it, Vazec, believing Mannering to be a mad scientist himself, suggests they blow up the dam near the ruins in order to kill them all. The Mayor doesn't take his threat seriously but, during the climax, Vazec proves how serious he is when he does blow it up, with the ensuing flood interrupting the fight between the Monster and the Wolf Man (and just when it's getting good, too. And like before, Dwight Frye has an undignified tiny role as a villager named Rudi (at least, according to the credits). He has more screentime than he did in the last movie but they give him some very dumb lines. When the villagers, after finding a young barmaid dead, hear the Wolf Man howl in the distance, the chief of police exclaims, "A wolf!" and Rudi adds, "Yes, a wolf! That's his cry!" No, duh, Sherlock! And later, he has this gem: "Much as I'd like to kill the Monster, I'd hate to crawl around those dark catacombs of Frankenstein's in the black of the night." Sadly, this ended up being one of Frye's last films, as he died of a heart attack late in the year, at the age of 44.

One last character I want to mention is this singer (Adia Kuznetzoff) who, during the Festival of the New Wine in the village, goes around singing an upbeat song about living life to its fullest while you have the opportunity, with lyrics like, "For life is short, but death is long." At first, everything goes well, even when he sings a slightly roasty section about Vazec. But when he goes over to Larry and Elsa's table, he sings, "To them I toast, come drink with me. That may they ever happy be. And may they live eternally." Larry doesn't like the sound of that, and when the singer follows that up with, "For life is short, but death is long," he loses it. He grabs the guy, and yells, "Eternally?! I don't want to live eternally! Why did you say that to me?" The singer and everybody else backs away as he yells at them, clearly thinking he's either psycho or drunk. I know Larry is a tortured soul and all but still, damn, man! You act like he knows you're a werewolf and said it just to be an asshole!

Again, like The Ghost of Frankenstein, the film may have been produced as a B-movie, but the filmmakers and studio were able to raise it far beyond that dubious moniker to where it feels like an A-list picture. For one, it has a really good opening title sequence, probably the best of any Universal horror film, with someone pouring an elixir into a beaker, which overflows with smoke and the title then materializes and slowly floats down into place, with the other credits following

suit. It's certainly a major step-up from Ghost's unoriginal use of The Wolf Man's misty forest setting. The opening scene, with the two grave-robbers sneaking into the Llanwelly cemetery, is even better, one of the most atmospheric of any of these movies. The setting is exactly what comes to mind when you think of a creepy, windswept graveyard at night: there's a full moon, the wind is making the tree limbs sway back and forth, there's a plaque by the front gate that reads, "HERE REST

THE DEAD OF LLANWELLY," a crow, at one point, caws at them, coming off as if it's laughing, and the graveyard itself is old and in disrepair (the sergeant who meets with Dr. Mannering and Inspector Owen tells them that no one goes there unless they absolutely have to). Once the men break into the Talbot family crypt, they look at the various plaques before finding Larry Talbot's coffin, as the Wolf Man's leitmotif can be heard softly in the background (in fact, the music in this

entire scene is suitably eerie). When they break open the coffin, Freddy Jolly removes the wolfsbane and recites the old poem, which is followed by an ominous shot of the full moon outside the window. The moonlight then slowly creeps in and illuminates Larry's body, who, as Freddy notes, looks more like he's asleep than dead. Freddy removes his gold ring but Larry's hand, which now has claws, reaches up from the darkness and grabs his arm. While Freddy struggles with the revived Wolf Man (whom we don't see in his full glory just yet), his partner chickens out and runs, leaving him behind to die. 

That opening sequence is the first hint of the great team director Roy William Neill and cinematographer George Robinson made. Neill himself was known for being an expert when it came to light and shadow, often giving his films a film noirish look, and, with Robinson, the two of them created some truly atmospheric imagery here, including the instances where the camera follows the moonlight as it literally creeps into the Talbot crypt and then, later, Larry's hospital room. Again,

unlike in The Wolf Man, you get plenty of shots of the full moon, often right before Larry transforms in order to hammer home the connection. Also, the way they photographed settings such as the dark, gaslighted streets of Cardiff at night, the frozen cellars beneath the ruins of Castle Frankenstein, and the interiors of the ruins, which come off as gloomy even during the daytime, is so classically Gothic that you can't help but love it. Besides the lighting, they also made sure to show off how great these sets are, with big, wide crane shots. For

instance, after the shot of the very first shot of the full moon, the opening starts with a close-up of the plaque on the graveyard's gate, pans up to reveal the grave-robbers approaching it, travels with them as they walk through the gate and into the heart of the place, and ends on a close-up of the name, "TALBOT," above the entrance to the family crypt. Similar wide shots of the Vasaria village square are seen during the Festival of the New Wine, showing us the large scale and number of extras.

Naturally, the Llanwelly cemetery and the interiors of the Talbot crypt are just two of the really cool sets we have here, and they're just as spooky in the daytime scene when the sergeant leads Dr. Mannering and Inspector Owen to the crypt. The cemetery is also one of many exterior settings actually done either on the backlot or the soundstages, with other examples being the small patch of woods where the gypsies have set up camp and where Larry finds Maleva; the woods 

around Vasaria, leading up to the ruins of Castle Frankenstein, where the Wolf Man is chased by the villagers, as well as a little mock-up of the dam that's destroyed during the climax; and the streets of both Cardiff and Vasaria, the latter likely being the same European village set we've seen in dozens of movies by this point. As far as interiors go, the most noteworthy are those of Castle Frankenstein's burnt out ruins, especially the icy cavern beneath them, which the Wolf Man falls into and where

Larry later discovers Frankenstein's monster frozen inside a wall of ice within a short alcove. (For those who are incredulous about how the Monster ended up in ice after last being seen in a burning house, it was explained in his deleted dialogue that he ran down into the cellar, towards an ice-house to escape the flames. Remember, Ludwig said in Ghost that there was an operating room in the cellar that was kept at low temperatures.) Up above, in the actual main part of the house, which have a constantly gloomy sky visible through the

destroyed roof, is a room meant to be the old study, with a bookcase containing a hidden spot containing the box that Larry initially hopes houses Dr. Frankenstein's diary, as well as a secret panel behind it where the diary is actually hidden. As for the laboratory, you see it both when it's in disrepair, albeit surprisingly undamaged from the fire, and after they've fixed it up and Mannering prepares to use the machines, which are powered by exterior turbines, to drain off both Larry and the Monster's energies. Said machines consist of the expected

electrical apparatuses, two tables that the subjects are strapped to, and a main control panel Mannering uses to operate everything (a lot of this equipment was recycled from The Invisible Woman, shot just a couple of years before; and, as you might expect, they do sneak in some stock laboratory footage from past Frankenstein movies, specifically the original). The laboratory is also where the climactic monster fight takes place.

After the Wolf Man transformation scenes, the most noteworthy visual effects shots are those of the miniature of Castle Frankenstein and its surroundings, particularly the dam up the cliff behind it. The details in this miniature are excellent, right down to the water rushing down from the dam and through the base of the castle, and it looks really good when it crumbles apart at the end after being hit with the cascade of water

after the dam is blown up. When Larry and Maleva finally arrive at Vasaria, we get a nice matte painting depicting the town off in the distance. Speaking of which, there's also some very obvious rear-screen projection during the montage of their journey (including one that has a lone horse randomly walking alongside their wagon), and there are plenty of electrical effects during the climactic scenes in the laboratory.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, for all its entertainment value, is often considered a better Wolf Man movie than a Frankenstein movie, and that's not solely because of the lackluster portrayal of the Monster. Rather, Curt Siodmak's script makes the film's relationship with The Ghost of Frankenstein a very muddled one. Let's just ignore trying to reconcile the two franchises' respective time periods and settings in bringing them together, as that's always been impossible to pin down. At

the outset, things seem straightforward, as the main setting is Vasaria, which, despite the change in its spelling, is where the previous film took place, and Dr. Frankenstein's house burning down is mentioned. Also, the very name of Frankenstein being taboo does make sense, given how Ludwig was discovered to be harboring the Monster in his house and the Monster's abduction of Cloestine. And despite her being played by a different actor, Elsa is a character from the previous movie. The

confusion comes when the characters talk about the doctor himself, as it's hard to figure out if they're talking about Ludwig or Henry Frankenstein. While Maleva's description of the doctor as, "A great doctor who could help people that other doctors couldn't cure," sounds like she's talking about Ludwig and his reputation for helping those with "diseases of the mind," her taking Larry to him for his knowledge of life and death sounds like they're actually seeking out Henry. It also comes off that way when Larry tells Elsa that he wants her

father's records, adding, "His experiments with life and death. The records of the creation of the Monster." And when he and Mannering talk about Frankenstein at the festival, Mannering describes his experiments as, "Rather extraordinary. Medical science never, never recognized them," while Larry remarks, "That's just it. Why don't you ask that girl, his daughter? She can tell you about things that Dr. Frankenstein did that your medical science has never heard of!" Again, are they talking about Henry or Ludwig?

Elsa herself adds all the more to the confusion. She tells Larry, "My father was a great scientist, but all he created brought unhappiness. Terror." And she later tells Mannering that, "I saw my father become obsessed with his power." Uh, when did Ludwig ever become obsessed? All he ever tried to do was give the Monster a benevolent brain. If anyone became obsessed with power, it was Dr. Bohmer. She does also mention her grandfather, who is obviously Henry, and asks Mannering to undo the

harm they caused, knowing her grandfather was the Monster's creator after reading his diary in the previous movie. You could argue that, since she was kept out of the loop, she was unaware of Bohmer's treachery, and since this is many, many years since Henry's time, Talbot and Mannering probably don't know anything about him (I still find it hard to believe that Frankenstein's infamy never traveled across all of Europe but, you never know). But when they find the diary purported to be Ludwig's, it's clearly Henry's (i.e., what Elsa

herself read before), as it refers to the Monster as, "My creation," and explains how his body has been charged to the point where he could possibly live for hundreds or even thousands of years. And Larry goes on to deduce that Dr. Frankenstein experimented in that laboratory and the machines could drain off his life energy, but again, that's alluding to Henry Frankenstein's work. Obviously, this was made when people didn't have access to movies and the ability to watch them endlessly, so continuity wasn't the filmmakers' top priority, but

it's still so confusing when it really shouldn't be. (Incidentally, the Monster's deleted dialogue made the connection to the previous film clearer, as he paraphrased something he said near the end of it, about Dr. Frankenstein creating his body and his son giving him a brain.)

Another continuity issue that we've seen in previous movies is the location and design of Ludwig Frankenstein's house. In The Ghost of Frankenstein, it was outside the main village but that was the only distinctive aspect of its location; here, it's now up on a cliff-side, next to a flowing river coming down from a nearby dam, which was most definitely not there or even mentioned before, nor were the turbines used to power the laboratory machines. Moreover, it's now gone from a big, upper-class house to an old, Gothic castle built from stone. But, when you remember how drastically Henry Frankenstein's home changed over the course of the first three movies, this lack of continuity is hardly a big deal.

As much of a lackluster Frankenstein movie as it may be, whenever we're dealing with just the Wolf Man, the movie is top notch. Not only is that opening wonderfully spooky but so is the build-up to the first onscreen transformation and kill. Following the opening, the constable in Cardiff comes across Larry lying on the sidewalk. At first, he tries to make him get up and move on, but when he gets no response, he turns him over and shines his flashlight on him, illuminating a bloody wound on his left temple. The constable blows his whistle

and Larry is taken to Queen's Hospital. But then, the following night, the full moon rises and he transforms into the Wolf Man. The very constable who found Larry is making his rounds again and is about to go into the police station, when he sees the Wolf Man prowling around nearby. He hides within a doorway, jumps up onto some stacked up sacks, and jumps behind some crates. The constable goes to investigate, only to find no sign of him. But then, when he turns his back, the Wolf Man grabs him from behind, snarling ferociously, and as he

struggles, bites into his neck, before dragging his body away. The next morning, when he's found back in his hospital bed, Larry, knowing what happened, tells Dr. Mannering to call the police, saying he killed someone the night before. Mannering has the nurse call Inspector Owen, and when he arrives, Larry tries to tell them that he's a werewolf. But when they won't believe him, and with Owen questioning his identity, Larry grows frustrated and tries to escape, but Mannering signals for some orderlies who restrain Larry and put him in a straight-jacket.

After Larry escapes the hospital, he reunites with Maleva and the two of them journey to Vasaria. But after they're told that Ludwig Frankenstein is dead, they travel on, only for the full moon to appear in the sky above them. Feeling himself beginning to change, and then seeing the moon, Larry jumps off the wagon and runs away from Maleva. He hides behind a tree, where he completely becomes the Wolf Man, and despite Maleva yelling for him not to go, runs off into the woods. Later, with the moon in the sky above

Vasaria, and him howling in the distance, a procession of people walk down the middle of the village, led by Vazec, carrying the body of a girl in his arms. (I believe this girl is meant to be a barmaid who exchanged looks with Larry when he and Maleva were at the inn; I've also read she was meant to be Vazec's daughter, although it's not made clear in the movie). At first, they fear it could be the work of Frankenstein's monster, but then, they hear the Wolf Man howl nearby and head into the woods to find him. Up near the ruins of Castle

Frankenstein, the Wolf Man spots the mob and, snarling at them, turns and runs farther up the hills. They spot him when he's on a ridge and one of the villagers shoots at him with his rifle (like the hunters at the end of The Wolf Man, they don't seem fazed that the "wolf" they're hunting is humanoid and wearing clothing). Though he's hit and tumbles to the ground, the ordinary bullet doesn't hurt him. He quickly gets up and runs to the castle ruins, the mob not far behind him. They lose

his trail, as he backs through a doorway and falls through the burnt out flooring. He lands in the snowy cavern beneath the castle and, getting back up and seeing where he fell, makes his way through the cavern and tries to climb up at the other end. Unable to get up, he falls back down and, like when he was caught in the trap in the first movie, falls to the ground and rolls around in a fit. Meanwhile, Maleva is found by the police and taken back to town.

Some time later, Larry awakens in the cavern, back to his normal self. Getting to his feet and looking around, trying to get his bearings, he notices a large alcove with a sheet of ice in back of it. Noting something strange about it, he walks up to it and wipes away the snow, revealing a vague, humanoid shape behind it. He grabs a large rock and begins knocking away the ice and snow, revealing the shape to be that of Frankenstein's monster. At first, the Monster remains inert, but when Larry grabs at the ice and rips away more of it, his eyes slowly

open. Larry rips away more and more of the ice, as the Monster moves to help free himself (I still remember how much this scene enthralled me when I first saw it as a young kid; seeing it is always total nostalgia fuel). Later, with the Monster on his feet, he and Larry make their way up into the ruins themselves. There, Larry asks him to lead him to Dr. Frankenstein's records, and the Monster, understanding him, makes his way through the ruins and leads Larry to the alcove in the bookcase housing the metal box. Though Larry is disheartened and frustrated when he finds the diary isn't in the box, he does find Elsa's framed picture and decides to contact her about it.

During the Festival of the New Wine, while Larry is talking with Dr. Mannering after learning he's followed him across Europe, chaos breaks out when the Monster appears. A pair of people scream about his arrival and then, he comes shambling down the street, sending everyone running off in a panic. He upends a table that some women are hiding under, and everyone runs around frantically, knocking and jumping over stands and clamoring to safety. When the Monster approaches a parked

horse-drawn cart, with a group running away from him, Larry pushes past them and goes up to him. He grabs his arm and the Monster snarls, until he tells him who it is. He tells the Monster to come with him and they climb up into the cart, with Larry taking the reins. They drive off and round the village square, as the Monster pushes off the barrels in the back of the cart to deter the villagers from running after them. The next day, Mannering, Elsa, and Maleva arrive at the ruins, searching for

the two of them. They meet up with Larry, as Elsa tells him that she'll show him where her father's diary is. Larry decides to trust them, but they run into a temporary obstacle in the form of the Monster. Though he's supposed to be blind, he senses that Larry came back with several other people (despite the original intentions behind Bela Lugosi's performance, it does look as though the Monster sees the three strangers). He grabs a large club and, when Larry enters with the strangers, he raises it with a threatening snarl. Larry approaches

him and, when he growls again, tells him, "They're friends." With that, the Monster lowers the club and allows Larry to take it from him and toss it aside. Mannering approaches cautiously and Larry introduces him to the Monster, telling him, "He's come to help you, to make you well." The Monster turns towards Mannering and allows him to examine the stitches on his wrists and the electrodes in his neck. Elsa then interrupts him in order to show him and Larry where the diary is hidden.

The climax begins when, after strapping both Larry and the Monster to the tables in the laboratory, Mannering prepares to drain off their life energies. But, at the last minute, he decides he can't bring himself to destroy the Monster, exclaiming, "I've got to see it at its full power!" He changes up the connections in the cables attached to both of them and fires up the machines. The sound of this awakens Elsa, who's sleeping in a nearby room, and she walks into the doorway to see what's

happening. Energy flows through the cables and into the Monster's electrodes, his facial muscles twitching from the sensation. Those down in the village are drawn to the square, as they can see the lights flashing from within the castle's windows. Elsa walks down into the lab, near where Mannering is working, and when she sees the wisps of smoke flowing from the tips of the Monster's electrodes, as he slowly open his eyes, she realizes Mannering is restoring his strength. As

if hearing this and comprehending it, the Monster turns towards them and smiles at Mannering. Elsa climbs up to the control panel and pulls a switch, blowing out the machines and causing them to spark wildly, while two beams in the ceiling crash to the floor. A brief cutaway to the dam shows Vazec climbing along its face, with sticks of dynamite in his pocket. Down in the village, the Mayor notices he's missing, while Rudi intones, "He said he'd blow up the dam." Sure enough, Vazec sets the dynamite at the dam's base, while

back down in the castle, everything settles down, for the moment. While Larry is horrified to awaken and see that the full moon has risen, the now super-charged Monster easily breaks loose from his table. Mannering grabs a wrench to use as a weapon but the Monster easily tosses him to the floor when he comes at him. As Larry changes into the Wolf Man, the Monster approaches the trapped Elsa and knocks Mannering unconscious when he gets up and tries to attack him again. He chases down and grabs Elsa, intending to make off with her, while

the Wolf Man rips away the sheet covering him and struggles to break free of his own leather straps. Curiously, he seems like he's doing so to try to save Elsa, suggesting that there's still a part of Larry within him.

The Wolf Man breaks free and runs up behind the Monster. He pulls him back, causing him to drop Elsa, as the two of them fall to the floor and wrestle. While you've had to wait the whole movie for this fight, and while it is brief, despite its historical significance, it definitely satisfies the urge for a monster brawl. The Monster throws the Wolf Man off of him and up against a transformer, while at the dam, Vazec lights the fuse to the dynamite. The Monster grabs the Wolf Man as he

tries to lunge at him and shoves him back, against some equipment, while Mannering comes to and Elsa rushes to his aid. The Wolf Man jumps at the Monster, knocking him to the floor, and the two of them struggle. Mannering and Elsa escape, as the lit fuse makes its way to the dynamite. The Monster throws the Wolf Man into one of the tables they were strapped to, as the dam is destroyed with a loud explosion. The Wolf Man climbs over the table and onto the control panel,

before jumping at the Monster. As the water rushes down towards the ruins, and Mannering and Elsa make their escape through the woods, the Wolf Man climbs back up onto the control panel, crouching on the machine itself. The Monster lurches towards it and, in my favorite part of the fight, throws both him and the machine clear across the room. Outside, the water reaches the castle, while the Wolf Man, after being shoved away by the Monster, climbs up to another vantage point and jumps at him; the Monster actually holds

up his arms and growls while smiling, as if this fight is actually fun to him. Just as the Wolf Man leaps and tackles him, the water crashes through the roof and quickly fills the room. The two of them continue fighting despite this, as the cascading water causes the ruins to crumble and disintegrate completely, as Mannering and Elsa watch from nearby, as do the villagers, who cheer the destruction of both the castle and, presumably, the monsters.

The music score, again the work of Hans J. Salter, is another patchwork of recycled themes and motifs, with some new additions here and there. Case in point, the opening credits begin with the main title from The Wolf Man, only to transition into that of The Ghost of Frankenstein, with cues from both scores dominating the music. Much of the classic music associated with the Wolf Man is here, and you hear a reprise of the Monster's lumbering theme from the previous movie when Larry finds him, as well as that memorable building and rising motif when Larry pulls him out of the ice and when he's wandering around the ruins. Other themes from Ghost are reused, such as the music for when the villagers blew up the castle, which is played when the Wolf Man is hunted down after killing the barmaid, and the climactic battle is scored almost like a concert consisting of its music, as well as much of the exciting music from The Wolf Man's third act. The tragic part of the Wolf Man's theme music plays at the end, when the castle is destroyed, and the music that played over the first movie's ending credits is heard here over the "THE END" card. As far as new music goes, Salter creates a very subtle, eerie, otherworldy piece for the opening, built around the ominous notion that the full moon is high in the sky, a motif that's often heard whenever you get a glimpse of it. Also, each time Larry becomes the Wolf Man, you hear these sad, hopeless strings as he realizes what's about to happen, followed by an eerie build-up of the Wolf Man's motif that climaxes when he's fully transformed. And the scenes down in the ice cavern are scored with a twinkling sort of piece that fits with the frozen surroundings. Finally, Salter did write the music for the song Adia Kuznetzoff sings at the festival, with Curt Siodmak actually providing the lyrics.

All in all, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man may not be a totally flawless classic, it is definitely a fun film, one where the pros outweigh the cons. You have a great second performance by Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, as well as good performances by just about everyone else, wonderfully atmospheric sets and scenes, superb cinematography, some ambitious visual effects work with the Wolf Man transformation scenes, some memorable new pieces of music along with the motifs you've heard in previous movies, and a brief but exciting climactic fight between the two monsters. The faults, however, lie with Frankenstein's monster, as not only was Bela Lugosi woefully miscast in a role he wasn't fit for, but the performance he did give was badly undermined in post-production. On top of that, the film's connections with the previous Frankenstein are very tenuous, as the characters never seem to make up their minds about which Dr. Frankenstein they're talking about. But, while it may not be the best followup to The Ghost of Frankenstein, as a sequel to The Wolf Man that merely brings in Frankenstein's monster as a bonus, it's done quite well and definitely worth watching for fans.