Cynical Cinema

Another movie mash-up, this time perhaps the first one ever, was 1943’s Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. As is proper, Frankenstein gets top billing, since his was the superior series of movies. In fact, the Frankenstein movies were excellent up to this point, and continue being excellent through this one. In a sense, this is the sequel to both The Wolf Man and Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein, only this one involved only Frankenstein’s monster, and he isn’t portrayed by Boris Karloff, the original and best monster. Bela Lugosi, however, one of the great monster movie actors, reprises his role as the Wolf Man.The premise is solid. Grave robbers awaken the Wolf Man, who has lain dormant in his coffin for five years. Lugosi, afraid he is going to continue killing, seeks the help of Dr. Frankenstein, who has done crazy experiments altering life and death. The Wolf Man wants Frankenstein to figure out a way to kill him so he can stop injuring innocent people. However, he arrives to find Frankenstein dead and only his monster remains in his palace. The two of them recruit Frankenstein’s daughter to help find his missing notebooks so that the Wolf Man may be killed.

Of course, not everything goes to plan, and leads to the obvious conclusion of Frankenstein fighting the Wolf Man to the death. The tone of the movie is similar to the Frankenstein series, which was excellent throughout, and some of the characters - most notably the old gypsy woman - from the Wolf Man movie show up. Not essential viewing, but certainly a great addition to both the Frankenstein and Wolf Man series.