LogFAQs > #971911976

29. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Directed by: Charles Barton
Score: 245

Mythiot: 18
Gavs: 20
Suprak: 20
fortybelow: 21
Inviso: 25
Poke: 27
Tangy: 27
John: 27
Karo: 30
plasma: 30

Mythiot
Abbott and Costellos schtick feels a lot more primitive and dated than Chaplain or the Marx Brothers, but they manage to get a decent number of laughs as well as a lot of credit for basically inventing the genre spoof and roping Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. into playing intentionally comedic versions of their classic characters. (Boris Karloff is unfortunately absent, though he got to meet the pair himself in a later movie.) Bonus points for a cool opening animated sequence that basically admits how bad the classic Wolf-Man looks by giving animated Wolf-Man an actual wolfs head, and for a laugh-out-loud funny ending cameo by Vincent Price early in his career doing a pitch-perfect impression of Claude Rains.

GavsEvans
Hey kids, did you know this was The Avengers of your grandparents generation? Actually, it may be great-grandparents by now. Are there even any children reading this?

This seems like an odd crossover on the surface, combining comedy with horror. I didnt think the comedy worked that well at first, as I found the characters to be a bit annoying and the jokes were too telegraphed. Luckily, the horror half is more successful, which enhances the comedy as well later on. The key here is that the monsters are still taken mostly seriously the humour comes from Abbott and Costello reacting to them. The climax focuses primarily on horror, as Abbott and Costello run from Frankensteins monster, who had effectively established his villain cred minutes earlier by grabbing Sandra and yeeting her through a window. Ill admit I didnt see that coming! Some of the funniest jokes were also in this sequence, such as the failed bed barricade, and the surprise ending cameo. (See, it really is like The Avengers!) Most of the special effects are also pretty impressive for the films age, particularly Draculas transformations between his vampire and bat forms. Cutting corners here would be forgiven for a spoof film like this, so its appreciated that the film didnt do this.

I think I know now why Universals Dark Universe didnt take off they forgot to include Abbott and Costello! Obviously, theyre both long dead, so you would need to recast or use another duo instead. How about making a Jump Street crossover? Schmidt and Jenko Meet Frankenstein has a ring to it, doesnt it? I was joking at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like that idea unironically. That describes this film too, come to think of it. Its a grower.

fortybelowsummer
Youre making enough noise to wake up the dead! I dont have to wake him up. Hes up. I didnt know quite what to expect going to this, as I didnt really know what Abbot and Costello were all about. I was aware of them, of course, but had never seen them actually perform (except Whos on First). I love the Universal monsters, so it had that going for it, and get outta here, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney are in it too (along with Glenn Strange whos not as well-known as Boris Karloff but played the Monster just as much)? I knew that I would probably not hate it, if I went in viewing it as an important piece of the Universal Monsters canon and not a cheapening of them. So Abbott is the frustrated straight man and Costello is the eccentric goofball and needless to say, they work really well together. The comedy is old fashioned but mostly entertaining and Costellos mannerisms in particular are unique and funny. I appreciate how they pulled this off, combining the slapstick humor with the trademark menace of the monsters. They arent there doing pratfalls or saying silly things, they are just as spooky as always. Huge respect for this film for being the first big successful horror comedy that put the genre on the map.

Vis
Now, I grew up watching old Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, so it was really nice to finally see the inspiration behind those handful of cartoons with the Abbott and Costello cats. While this one still didnt QUITE match my modern-day comedic sensibilities, Ill say that it did a pretty good job for what it was going for as a film. I mean, youre dealing with taking three of the classic movie monsters and removing the fear aspect by replacing that with comically over-the-top terror from Wilbur. While this movie is still a LITTLE on the side of slapstick and its not QUITE modern in its comedy, it feels like a step towards something like Shaun of the Dead, where its just taking something scary and defanging it, in a way. It was a fun movie, overall, especially once the plot really started to get going.

Tangy
It wasn't too long into this flick until I realized Abbott and Costello's comedy was just not for me, at least based on this one film alone. My main issue is that despite the two of them being an iconic duo, Costello got a vast majority of the screen time and half of it was spent with him yelling "Chiiiiiiick!". Just for his partner to show up, brush him off, then rinse and repeat. Thankfully, there's also a bunch of monsters here to keep things interesting. Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney returning to their titular roles is what carried this movie for me. There's just something so surreal about seeing these iconic characters being involved in slapstick. Lugosi especially just seems like he's having so much fun here that's hard not join in on that. So yeah I'll give it some bonus points for creativity Also the title of this really should have been Abbott and Costello Meet Dracula. He was very clearly the main antagonist and the name would've actually been correct too!

Biggest Laugh: Dracula messing with Costello

John
It's really neat that they got actors like Lugosi and Chaney back for this. Beyond that, the movie is just alright. Some okay gags but many of them are really just aren't on the level of other comedies of the time or earlier. I think part of my issue is that it played a lot of it a bit straighter than expected? The monsters themselves weren't really comedic versions of their original characters like in Young Frankenstein, but just slightly less effective repeats of the originals, with Abbott and Costello just every once in a while throwing in a joking quip or a little light slapstick. There's a few funny moments but it's mostly forgettable.