Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”
We watched the 1943 movie “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” last night. It’s kind of like a boxing match: The Thriller for the Killers.
The cast includes: Lon Chaney Jr (as Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man); Bela Lugosi (as Frankenstein’s monster); Lionel Atwill (as the mayor of the European village, Vasaria); Patrick Knowles (as Dr. Frank Mannering); Ilona Massey (as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein); Maria Ouspenskaya (as Maleva, the gypsy woman); Rex Evans (as Vazec, the innkeeper).
As the film opens in merry old England on the night of the full moon, we catch sight of the Wolf Man pooping on somebody’s lawn, which the homeowner gets really mad about and yells one of the classic lines from this movie: “Pick that up!”
But the Wolf Man doesn’t typically carry a poop bag and decides to eat the homeowner. That segues into one of the hundreds of commercials on MeTV urging you to adopt any critter crawling across your path. After the commercial break, all you see are the film credits rolling on your TV screen.
Just kidding—sort of. Actually, Larry Talbot wants to lose the habit of eating every Tom, Dick, and Harry that crosses his path on every night of the full moon. So, after grave robbers open up his tomb, he escapes after chewing on one of the thieves. He wakes up in Dr. Frank Mannering’s foot care and dental implant clinic where the doctor explains Larry suffers from lycanthropy, a psychiatric condition in which a delusional person believes he turns into a wolf whenever the moon is full and he sees too many TV commercials about dog food. You know who you are.
However, when Larry proves that he can really transform into a wolf and is cursed to live forever, Dr. Mannering researches the local leash laws in England, and can’t find any legal prohibitions against werewolves snacking on humans, nor are there any laws allowing euthanizing the critters. This depresses Larry, who decides the answer to his problem is to find some way to die that involves a mad scientist named Dr. Frankenstein, who created a monster with a Hungarian accent who has bolts sticking out of his neck.
The only person who can help is Maleva, a gypsy who unfortunately gets arrested just because she’s a gypsy after she takes Larry to a European village called Vasaria where we find out Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein (son of Victor Frankenstein and brother of Wolf Frankenstein and second cousin twice removed of Bud Frankenstein, who re-created the Frankenstein monster from spare parts around the lab) has kicked the bucket but his daughter Baroness Elsa Frankenstein knows where all of Ludwig’s notes are kept locked away.
The Mayor of Vasaria invites Elsa, Larry, and Dr. Mannering to the Vasaria festival where one of the performers does a poor job of lip-synching a really long song. It’s so bad that Frankenstein’s monster hears it and it drives him crazy.
The innkeeper Vazec has a real grudge against the Frankenstein family which leads to a confrontation with the Mayor, Dr. Manning, the Baroness, Larry, and the Internation Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Monsters (IAPCM). There is pitched battle between Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolf Man, the details of which can’t be revealed because that would involve spoilers—damn it all!
This is a puzzling film which tends to raise questions about who’s the bad guy here. I think it’s the festival singer. Whatever. It’s an OK movie and I give it a Shrilling Chicken Rating of 3/5.
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