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| Images courtesy of Universal Pictures |
Universal Monsters were on the rise with 1931’s Dracula and
Frankenstein as well as The Wolf Man from 1941, prompting a
cacophony of sequels and eventual crossbred spinoffs in which these disparate
horror movie adversaries would be mashed together in a kind of free-for-all. Following James Whale’s two films Frankenstein
and The Bride of Frankenstein, irrespective of the source material
Universal Pictures was intent on franchising these horror icons into their own
subset of continuing film series. After Son
of Frankenstein in 1939, B-movie director Erle C. Kenton best known for the
1932 adaptation of Island of Lost Souls starring Charles Laughton and
Bela Lugosi took the reins for what became the fourth official iteration with The
Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942. Meanwhile
Roy William Neill in 1943 did the first in what became a whole series of ‘monster
rallies’ so to speak with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, starting a
trend that would eventually be picked back up by Kenton in 1944 with today’s
Universal Monsters feature House of Frankenstein.
As with some of the earlier iterations, the roles of who
played the monster and/or the doctor were swapped around despite sharing much
of the same cast and crew and this time around it’s Boris Karloff as the mad
doctor rather than his monster which he immortalized in the 1931 film. Picking up plot wise where Frankenstein
Meets the Wolf Man left off, it was originally entitled Chamber of
Horrors as a big Universal Monsters movie mashup. With Karloff in the role of Dr. Gustav
Niemann, the film loosely based on Curt Siodmak’s The Devil’s Brood follows
the mad doctor’s escape from prison who takes a hunchback named Daniel (J.
Carrol Naish) under his wing as his assistant with the promise of rebuilding
the deformed man’s body into something beautiful. On his way to the abandoned Castle
Frankenstein in Visaria, he crosses paths with a traveling showman housing the
frozen staked corpse of Dracula (John Carradine) which he promptly sets free to
wreak distracting havoc.
Meanwhile a Hunchback from Notre Dame subplot is
worked in involving Daniel and a Romani dancer named Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) and
it doesn’t take long for Daniel and the mad doctor to find the abandoned Castle
Frankenstein. What they don’t expect to
find is an underground frozen arctic cavern where both the bodies of Frankenstein
and The Wolf Man remain in suspended animation. After freeing a distraught and upset wolf man
aka Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), the doctor agrees to cure him of his
affliction provided he assists in tracking down key medical notes from the late
Dr. Frankenstein. As expected, the mad doctor
Niemann breaks his promise instead wanting to weaponize the revived undead
monster as a means to exact revenge on those who originally imprisoned
him. But what they don’t anticipate is
their monster develops something of a conscience and doesn’t behave as they
hoped and planned for.
Originally more expansive featuring a mummy and adapted for
the screen by Edward T. Lowe who himself scripted The Hunchback of Notre
Dame as well as The Vampire Bat, at the time House of
Frankenstein was the most expensive and technically ambitious Universal
Horror film yet attempted. Shot within
30 days and reusing sets from other movies such as Green Hell, Pittsburgh
and Gung Ho!, this precursor to what would or wouldn’t evolve into Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein was one of the earliest Universal Monsters
mashups or free-for-alls. Though not
particularly frightening then-or-now, between the cool visual effects and set
pieces, the atmosphere and trying to cram in as many disparate monster threads
as possible make it a unique Monster Rally film with Karloff reluctantly
sharing the screen with the horror icon that made him famous. With moody smokey cinematography by recurring
Abbott and Costello horror parody cameraman George Robinson and an
appropriately effective horror score by Hans J. Salter and Paul Dessau, House
of Frankenstein looks polished with a number of striking vistas
(particularly a frozen cave reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno.
Released in 1944, the $354,000 horror movie did modestly
well at the box office against other Universal horrors released alongside it
such as Ghost Catchers and The Invisible Man’s Revenge. Critically on the other hand it did terribly
with many eviscerating it completely and besmirching the very notion of the
Monster Rally film. Yeah there’s an
element of silliness to them but that’s part in parcel to their charm and they invariably
paved the way for one of horror-comedy’s greatest moments in Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein with The Wolf Man chasing Dracula throughout
a castle. Not even a year later, Erle C.
Kenton followed it up with House of Dracula and once more figured out a
way to bring all the characters we saw die in House of Frankenstein back
for another round, regarded as the last honest-to-God horror version of the Frankenstein
property before pumping the gas full steam ahead into comedy. As such, House of Frankenstein represents
something of an intermediary period with Universal Pictures trying to decide
the fates and paths many of its most beloved monster movie icons would take
where one foot was firmly planted in horror while the other was ready to step
into laughter.
--Andrew Kotwicki
