Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein 4K 1948

Most comedy duos suffer from one common, rather serious flaw: one of the partners is always much more charismatic and funny than the other. This rule also applies to the duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. In Charles Barton's film, the duo is carried solely by Costello. Lou played a cowardly, impressionable simpleton named Wilbur. Abbott, on the other hand, embodied a stubborn and serious (if not sullen) skeptic named Chick.

In my opinion, Barton's bold experiment to combine two opposing genres (horror and comedy) was only half successful. While the comedy duo looks quite natural and in their element, Universal's classic monsters look more than questionable, as do the actors who played them.

The role of Dracula was traditionally played by Bela Lugosi. Of course, he is no longer the Transylvanian dandy of the early 1930s, but the sparkle in his eyes still glows. Dracula turned out to be too human, too emotional. He is not at all the hero that Tod Browning's audience has become accustomed to. But in Barton's film, Lugosi's Dracula demonstrates his new acting tricks, which will come in handy more than once in the last years of his career - unique, legendary hand gestures, as well as the habit of hiding his face under a cloak.

Glenn Strange (Frankenstein's monster) and Lon Chaney Jr. (Talbot/the werewolf) are clearly not working at full capacity, as they look frankly lackluster. By the way, it is not entirely clear why the film's title declares that Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. The monster appears in only a few short scenes in the film.

Paradoxically, I really liked the use of animation in Burton's film. On the one hand, it saves on special effects, and on the other, it gives the film an even greater aura of comedy, light absurdity, and caricature. And the effect of the bat turning into Dracula turned out to be exceptionally realistic, smooth, and impressive. It is unlikely that at that time it would have been possible to repeat this trick in any other way with the same sense of realism.

In terms of humor, the film is for those who appreciate the specific, highly exaggerated jokes of the middle of the last century. One moment even made me laugh out loud—when Wilbur and Chick, fleeing from the Monster, propped up a door that opened in the completely opposite direction.