Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) Review

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) Review

 

The Wolf Man/Larry Talbot is such a tragic character, and the sequel continues his tragic tale, while also serving as the fifth entry in the Frankenstein series, following Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, and The Ghost of Frankenstein. This was the first time two characters from two different series’ of films crossed paths, and it would be far from the last time.

The opening shots are as iconic as anything from the original Wolf Man, with a dark, windy graveyard on a night lit up by the full moon. A couple of grave robbers break into the tomb of the Talbots, find Larry buried with wolfsbane, and one of them recites the poem from The Wolf Man, with a slight alteration: when the moon is fully bright. Larry comes back to life and escapes his tomb, then is taken to a hospital, unconscious from a skull fracture. He wakes up and tries to piece together what happened. Lon Chaney Jr. is just as great as before, with his sad, glassy eyes and moping expressions. Investigators discover that Lawrence Talbot died four years ago, but dying doesn’t make a difference to a cursed man.

Larry changes into the Wolf Man in the hospital bed on the full moon and we see the transformation on his face, accomplished by Chaney lying in one place as more makeup and hair were applied to him with the camera staying in one place, with the frames dissolving to show the progression. He attacks a police officer in an alley at night, then wakes up in the hospital bed the next morning. He knows what his unfortunate reality is now: he’s a murderer, but he also realizes he can’t die, so it kind of makes him like a zombie, except he has his mind, so it’s more like a form of immortality, though not a desirable one. In this first part of the film there is a doctor and an inspector dealing with Larry, but they aren’t very interesting characters.

Larry escapes the hospital and goes looking for Maleva (the old gypsy woman from The Wolf Man) to find out how he can die, but she can’t help, though she does know someone else who can: Dr. Frankenstein! Only problem? He’s dead. His notes may still exist in the ruins of the castle, though, so Larry goes looking. He turns into the Wolf Man again and the townsfolk think Frankenstein's monster might be on the loose once more, but a villager reminds everyone the monster burned to death. The angry mob is quick to hunt down the Wolf Man. It's an exciting pursuit, and Wolfie ends up falling into a frozen cave. Larry changes back to human form and discovers Frankenstein's monster frozen in ice! So, apparently the monster didn’t get destroyed in a fire. Also, the inside of the castle is in shambles, but the exterior seems fine…even though it was completely blown up in The Ghost of Frankenstein. We’ll get into more continuity errors soon.

The monster wakes up real quick and Larry helps it out, certain it knows where Dr. Frankenstein's notes are in the wreckage of the old castle. He finds no notes, but Frankenstein's daughter might know, so he arranges to meet with her under the pseudonym Taylor and the false pretenses that he wants to buy the land. Their interaction is a bit dry, and initially she won’t help him. What follows are some scenes at a festival with lots of singing gypsies, which feels a little out of place. It’s certainly not as gripping as the scenes with gypsies in the original Wolf Man. Then, Maleva, baroness Frankenstein, and the doctor who was treating Larry at the hospital go to the Frankenstein castle ruins to help Larry and confirm Frankenstein’s monster is still alive. It's kind of cool to see Larry so confident when dealing with the monster, but it also makes the monster feel less scary than before, and its lack of speech makes it feel less like a character than in past movies.  

Dr. Frankenstein’s old machines somehow survived the fire in the castle, so they repair them, but the buildup to the big conclusion feels slow. Larry just waits around and the villagers back in the village chit chat. The doctor and baroness, meanwhile, decide they should actually destroy the monster and Larry with the machines, but Larry thinks he’s going to have his life energy transferred to the monster. Wouldn’t you know it? The night of the big procedure happens on a full moon! The doctor lights up the electrodes and decides to restore the monster to its full power just to see what happens. They couldn’t help slipping in a mad scientist character at the last second. I guess it just couldn’t be a Frankenstein movie without one.

Meanwhile, a villager rigs the dam behind the castle with dynamite to get rid of the monsters and the castle once and for all. The two monsters finally meet in the final moments of the film and have a short fight before the dam blows up and a flood washes them and the remains of the castle away. Is the ending disappointing? Yes and no. It’s plenty exciting, the miniatures are pretty great, and the fight is fun despite being short. But, the ending does feel a bit rushed and the meeting of the monsters is pretty brief, though it isn’t like a big fight between them is teased the whole movie. Remember, this is the first time two major characters had ever been in a crossover film like this, so it was a novel concept, and the fact that they fight at all is kind of miraculous. Because it was the first movie of its kind, the producers weren’t too concerned with how well it blended the two different series of films, which brings me to the issues of continuity.

The Wolf Man is set in modern day (1941), but Frankenstein took place long ago if it’s to be believed the original movie is set when the novel is set (1800’s). The monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man doesn’t speak, and walks around as if blind...because it is! At the end of Ghost of Frankenstein Ygor’s brain is put into the monster’s body. Ygor was played by Bela Lugosi, and fittingly enough, Lugosi plays the monster in this one. But, they cut all his dialogue because test audiences allegedly laughed at Lugosi's voice for the monster. They don’t explain that this monster is still blind, which is also something that happened at the end of Ghost, so he appears bumbling for no reason. Some of these details are the sources for the wider pop culture understanding of these monsters; werewolves are now famous for changing on the full moon only, and the Frankenstein monster is often referred to incorrectly as Frankenstein, as well as being depicted as lumbering with its arms stretched out.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man has a less streamlined story compared to previous films in either series, but it has some great scenes interspersed with some uninteresting ones. Lon Chaney Jr. carries the movie on his shoulders and is reliably great, but the characters and story surrounding him are of lesser quality compared to earlier films. It works much better as a second entry to The Wolf Man series than a fifth entry in the Frankenstein series.