Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Blu-ray Movie Review

Who's undead first?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 17, 2012

There’s probably no major studio associated with one particular genre more than Universal is with horror. Warner Brothers may have had gangsters and Metro Goldwyn Mayer may have had opulent musicals, but even before either of those majors had firmly established their own identities, Carl Laemmle and his largely hand picked team were already establishing the studio’s bona fides in the horror genre with the iconic Lon Chaney versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. The studio really got its shriek freak on a decade or so later when Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy terrified audiences and then collectively became one of the more remarkable franchising efforts in the then still young studio system. Universal churned out a steady stream of outright sequels or at the very least tangentially related films for both Frankenstein and The Mummy, though unlike today’s cinema world where sequels seem to be in production virtually from the moment the original film is announced, it took three years for the first Frankenstein follow up (Bride of Frankenstein) and around nine for The Mummy to start shuffling along again when The Mummy’s Hand premiered in 1940. Only Dracula seemed to escape the sequel mania, perhaps because its one follow up, 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter wasn’t the sensation that its progenitor had been. The late thirties and (especially) the forties saw Universal continuing to mine its monster heritage, and in 1941 it created a new franchise for Chaney’s son, Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolf Man. But perhaps due to real life horrors intruding on audiences courtesy of World War II, the monster genre had suffered a serious decline by the late forties.

The forties had also seen the rise of another major Universal box office attraction, one seemingly antithetically opposed to the studio’s long history with various goblins and ghoulies, the iconic comedy duo of Abbott and Costello. The pair had initially been cast in supporting roles in Universal’s largely forgettable One Night in the Tropics, but had become sensations with their now legendary “Who’s on first?” routine, and Universal signed them to a long term contract, where as headlining stars (including their debut film as leads, Buck Privates) they became one of Universal’s most reliable “products”, with several major hits to their name. Their shtick may have been getting a bit tired by 1948, though, and whether by serendipity or actual intention, Universal came up with the bright idea of pairing the duo with a coterie of their most iconic monster creations. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (actually a misnomer, as there are several other iconic Universal creations in the film as well) ended up being a smash hit, one of the most fondly remembered of all the Universal Abbott and Costello outings, and it remains a surprisingly deft send up of the entire monster genre.

Anyone who’s ever seen an Abbott and Costello film can probably guess the general outlines of this one even if they’ve never experienced it. Once again, poor Costello (playing delivery boy Wilbur Grey) repeatedly witnesses horrifying goings- on after he delivers the actual bodies of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) to a local wax museum and House of Horrors. Wilbur’s exasperated partner, Chick Young (Abbott), refuses to believe there are any supernatural or otherworldly goings-on afoot, despite Wilbur’s increasing panic. In the meantime, poor shlub Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.), AKA The Wolf Man, keeps trying to avoid that dreaded full moon in order to warn everyone of what he knows is the real reason these two dreaded monsters are wreaking havoc—it’s part of a mad plan to replace the Frankenstein Monster’s less than agile brain with one that will more easily do Dracula’s evil bidding. That’s right, you guessed it, Wilbur’s none to intelligent intelligence has been deemed the perfect fit for the monster. In a simultaneously unfolding subplot, since both crates which were to have housed Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster have been found empty, Chick and Wilbur have been arrested of theft and a comely insurance investigator (Jane Randolph) is hoping that the boys will lead her to the supposedly stolen goods.

The film is about as manic as one might expect, but it’s also undeniably sharp at times, with some especially funny verbal interplay that helps to offset the more typical Abbott and Costello (well, truth be told, mostly Costello) slapstick. When Lou first gets a warning call from Larry Talbot just as the full moon rises, the poor guy wonders why someone has called him only to put their growling dog on the line. Later, there’s some extremely amusing interplay with Lou and the Frankenstein Monster, sequences that evidently led to actor Glenn Strange’s repeated blowing of takes due to laughter, making piecing together a final edit a rather difficult predicament.

It’s a little sad to see Bela Lugosi so obviously prematurely aged but still giving a surprisingly spry (even gleeful) second run at his most iconic role. Strange makes for an unexpectedly doleful Monster, and in fact may be more prone to draw sympathetic sighs from some audience members than shrieks of horror. Chaney would never be confused for a fantastically deep actor (though occasionally he did surprise with some portrayals, notably in High Noon), but the good news is here he seems to be totally in on the joke, delivering a perfectly pitched performance that is part straight man, part joke wolf.

Abbott and Costello suddenly found themselves hot properties once again after this film was released to virtually unanimous acclaim and massive box office receipts. That of course kicked off a new round of Abbott and Costello Meet. . . films with other Universal monsters, including The Mummy, but those follow-ups were in many ways just like the sequels of the very monster movies they parodied: largely bland attempts to recapture the magic and mayhem of the original.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. In virtually every way, this is a major step up from the earlier Blu-ray release of Abbott and Costello's first starring feature, Buck Privates. Though there's little doubt that the film has undergone some digital scrubbing and tweaking, there's a much more noticeable and natural looking layer of grain on this release, and contrast and black levels are also much more solid, making the film's inky black and white cinematography gorgeously evocative a lot of the time. The elements do still show some occasional wear and tear, with a stray scratch or fleck being momentarily apparent. Overall, though, the image here is nicely sharp and well detailed, with impressively modulated gray scale and a nicely filmic appearance.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track (delivered via a 2.0 mix) is nothing much to write home about, but it quite capably reproduces the modest charms of the film's original sound mix. There's very good to excellent clarity, with no egregious hiss or other damage to report, and some surprisingly full bodied mid- and low range sound effects dotting the landscape. The mix boasts very good fidelity and decent dynamic range, at least for a soundtrack of this vintage.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters (SD; 33:18) is hosted by historian David J. Skal and offers an enjoyable overview of the comedy duo's interaction with various Universal horror stars.


• Feature Commentary with Film Historian Gregory W. Mank. Mank is scholarly but accessible in this very informative and enjoyable commentary. Some of the commentary is frankly of the "now we're seeing" category, but Mank also provides some unexpected little nuggets, like the fact that animation under the credits sequence was probably done by Woody Woodpecker's Walter Lantz and that Glenn Strange was once the singing voice for John Wayne in some of the Duke's early Western films.


• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1:40)


• 100 Years of Universal: The Lot (HD; 9:25) is one of several featurettes being recycled on several centenary celebration Blu-ray releases. This one concentrates on Universal's iconic backlot.


• 100 Years of Universal: Unforgettable Characters (HD; 8:18) reviews some of the most memorable characters from Universal films.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is still a whale (James or otherwise) of a lot of fun some seventy-plus years after its release. Costello's typically panicked persona and Abbott's typically perturbed persona play perfectly into this frankly lunatic enterprise that has a trio of classic Universal monsters wreaking all sorts of havoc. The film is brisk, bright and breezy and it contains several laugh out loud sequences that are among the best things Abbott and Costello ever committed to celluloid. This Universal release boasts generally very good video and audio, and comes equipped with one pretty interesting supplement (along with these now rote "100 Years Of" featurettes being included on all the recent Universal catalog releases). Highly recommended.