Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 16, 2016

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is being released as part of The Wolf Man: Complete Legacy Collection.

Having frightened screen audiences with several monster movies (including sequels) throughout the thirties and early forties, Universal Pictures decided to produce films featuring two or more of its iconic antagonists. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is ostensibly the studio's first installment to include such a pairing. Taking place four years after the story events of The Wolf Man (1941), two vagrants arrive at a cemetery in Llanwelly Village convinced that Lawrence Talbot/the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) is not really dead. Fans of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) will appreciate this opening sequence in which the men proceed to open the coffin. Indeed, writer/director Tom McLoughlin begins Jason Lives in the same vein with Tommy Jarvis and his friend Allen Hawes going to the local cemetery and digging up Jason's grave. In Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Talbot is revived and transformed into the werewolf, which has unsavory consequences for the unwanted intruders. Talbot finds himself in a hospital the next morning, concerned that he committed a terrible act hours earlier. Talbot comes under the curious care of Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles), who seeks to uncover the secrets behind his patient's abnormal condition of lycanthrophobia.

The meeting of two monsters.

Genre fans expecting a tag team film consisting of the Wolf Man and Dr. Frankenstein's Monster (Bela Lugosi) may be disappointed since the latter does not turn up until halfway through the picture. The plot dictates that Talbot find an antidote to cure his beastly affliction so he eventually hooks up with Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey), the famous heiress to the mad scientist who kept private notebooks on his experiments. Massey's Elsa is initially not forthcoming about accepting Talbot's offer to buy her father's estate, for reasons more than financial. Elsa eventually becomes close to Mannering, who tries to perform experiments on the Monster and the Wolf Man. Massey channels Marlene Dietrich in tone and physical beauty. Knowles is also very good as the intelligent young doctor. With a run time of seventy-four minutes, though, the protracted story and structure of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man does not allow its titular characters to share ample screen time together. Still, Chaney anchors the film with a performance that rivals his work on the first Wolf Man film.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man makes it US debut on an AVC-encoded BD-50 that it shares with two other titles. Universal presents the film in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The studio provides this feature with a healthy bitrate encoding of 27494 kbps. The print is in the best shape of all titles in the collection, even surpassing restoration work on The Wolf Man. Unlike the inaugural film in this Wolf Man set, there are few white speckles that blot this digital transfer. Grayscale is clean, consistent, and smoothly rendered throughout. There are no density fluctuations to hamper George Robinson's black and white cinematography. The inky blacks occasionally approach the black levels on The Wolf Man's presentation. I noticed only one small reel change marking but it appears in the right corner for just a millisecond. There is also a thin vertical tramline visible on the right during a scene transition. However, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has a mostly unblemished transfer.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal gives the movie a very solid DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 recording at 1990 kbps. The studio has kept hiss to a minimum and there are no distracting anomalies to mar dialog or music. The original master seems to have been in relatively good shape.

Universal has provided optional English SDH, French subtitles, and Spanish subtitles. I watched the film entirely with the white English subs and they are presented accurately and completely. They describe sound effects and occasionally (but not always) note the character whose speaking in all caps. They are either centered in the middle of the screen or placed on the speaking character.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1:37, 480i) - an unrestored, full-frame trailer that appears to be a re-release trailer. May not be the first trailer that Universal originally ran.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is probably the best sequel in the original Wolf Man anthology. The 1943 film is given a pristine HD transfer and a problem-free sound track. Extras would have been appreciated but the disc definitely comes RECOMMENDED.