Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is regarded as the final nail in the coffin for Universal's classic horror series. The Legacy DVD release containing all of their other films from the 30's and 40's does not include it. It's a shame. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstien is a horror film, albeit a playful and funny one. It might star Bud and Lou but the monsters are not belittled or made fun of. Dracula (Bela Lugosi), Frankenstein's Monster (Glenn Strange), and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr) pose a genuine threat to the two comedy stars.
Wilbur (Lou Costello) and Chic (Bud Abbott) are working as freight handlers when two crates arrive destined for exhibition in a local house of horrors. No prizes for guessing who is contained within these boxes. Dracula awakens and begins a fiendish plan to replace the murderous brain of Frankenstein’s Monster with one belonging to a buffoon. This means trouble for Wilbur who is just the type of donor the Count is looking for. Larry Talbot arrives in town and tries to help the hapless duo but sooner or later there’s going to be a full moon and his alter ego The Wolf Man will emerge.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is helped greatly by the casting of the actors who played the monsters in the earlier films. Glenn Strange replaced Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster after his last appearance in Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee 1939). Now Strange pales in comparison to Karloff but his presence here adds to the feeling you are watching a classic Universal monster film two idiots have wandered into. Bela Lugosi returns to his most famous role for the first time and last time since Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula. Lugosi is even better second time around. Lon Chaney Jr is always good value as Larry Talbot, ever-anguished and staring nervously at the sky.
Universal struggled through the Depression despite having overseen a golden age of horror with hits like Dracula, Frankenstein (James Whale 1931) and The Wolf Man (1941). In 1942 beginning with Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill) they began combining their horror franchises by having each of their monsters turn up in the other’s films. Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein may have been made for cynical reasons, but the finished result deserves to be mentioned alongside Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer 1936) as one of the more curious films to appear from Universal’s golden age of horror.
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