By Todd Garbarini
Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein
is one of the funniest movies ever made.
It's listed at number 56 on the American Film Institute's list of top
100 comedies. I personally feel that this
ranking is unfair, as it should instead be in the top ten. No matter how many times I've seen it, it
never fails to make me laugh out loud. Jerry
Garcia of the band The Grateful Dead declared it as his favorite movie and it
is held equally in high regard among Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's most
die-hard fans. Filmed in February and March of 1948, the film was
released on Tuesday, June 15, 1948. They
really banged out films quickly in those days.
The budget was just under $800,000.
Even though it stars one of Hollywood's greatest comedy duos who succeeded
in just about every entertainment arena there was at the time - on stage, on
radio, on motion picture theater screens, and on television - there are moments
in the film that can be very frightening to young children who are unaware of
the film’s satirical tone. I was roughly
six years-old when I first saw it and it gave me nightmares. As I got older and realized that it was just
a movie, I really grew to love it. Sunday mornings were a struggle for me as my
family dragged us off to church and I would nervously check my wristwatch during
the sermon in the hopes that we would get home in time for me to see the Sunday
Morning Movie at 11:30 AM on WPIX-TV Channel 11 in New York City. They showed one of eighteen Abbott and
Costello films that they made for Universal International in the 1940s and 1950s
in constant rotation. Some were terrific and some weren't, but Sunday mornings
weren't the same without Abbott and Costello when they followed F-Troop.
The premise of the film works perfectly
because the duo and the monsters play the material straight. Lon Chaney, Jr.
sells the movie in his portrayal of Larry Talbot, a man who knows all about the
Frankenstein monster and Dracula since he himself is the Wolf Man. He attempts to stop the shipment of the
exhibits of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster to McDougal's House of Horrors fully
knowing them to be real monsters. Naturally, his attempts to convince Chick
Young (Bud Abbott) do not go according to plan. However, Wilbur Grey (Lou
Costello) begins to believe him. Wilbur's girlfriend Sandra (Lenore Aubert) initially appears innocent,
though she proves to be in on the plot to replace the Frankenstein's monster's
brain with a dim-witted one, namely Wilbur's. This sets into motion some of the
funniest antics that Abbott and Costello have ever performed on screen.
When reading about the history of the
making of this film, one comes to learn that the original script was entitled The Brain of Frankenstein. Lou Costello
was not a fan of this script, and even commented that his five-year-old
daughter could have written better. Learning this fact later on truly astonished me. The title of the film
was also changed to avoid confusion to the audience who might have assumed that
was a legitimate Universal monster movie.
Boris Karloff was approached to play
the monster but declined, his reasoning being that he didn’t feel that the
monsters should be mocked. He
reluctantly agreed to be featured in a promotional ad campaign for the film as
long as he didn't actually have to see the film!
The opening credits, created by
animator Walter Lantz of Woody Woodpecker fame, are among the film's
highlights.
The film has been released on home
video many times: multiple times on VHS, three times on laserdisc, and three
times thus far on DVD. Now, as part of
Universal Films' 100th anniversary, there is a new Blu-ray edition which comes
with a DVD which replicates the 2000 DVD release, and a digital copy of the
film. If you're wondering about the
presence of the Realart Pictures logo title card that found its way onto the second
DVD release (the film was re-released in 1956 by Realart on a double bill with
1949’s Abbott and Costello Meet the
Killer, Boris Karloff), the answer is no. These discs contain the Universal International title cards, and I can
honestly say that the Blu-ray is definitely worth the upgrade. The picture is much clearer and sharper as
one would expect from such an upgrade. The
extras from the previous editions have been ported over to the Blu-ray and give
insight into the making of this classic film.
A huge highlight of the movie is Frank
Skinner's brilliant and sinister score, which is rumored to be up for a re-recording
and released as an upcoming soundtrack CD.
There are two new and interesting bonus
features available on the Blu-ray include two short promos. The first is called
100 Years of Universal: The Lot which
features sound bites from Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, John
Landis, Dan Aykroyd and others talking about their love of making films at
Universal on the famed back lot. This
promo runs just under ten minutes. The
second is called 100 Years of Universal: Unforgettable Characters that covers the
gamut of the classic monsters, Al Pacino's turn as SCARFACE, and BACK TO THE
FUTURE to name just a few. This runs
just over eight minutes.
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