Review of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) by Kenneth L — 19 Jun 2011

Abbott and Costello, they were funny guys. They weren't the Marx brothers, but then no one was besides the Marx brothers. Their brand of humor, though it may seem a bit corny today, is still good enough for a few genuine, innocent laughs. And of course, they do have the single best comedy routine in history, the "Who's on First" routine, though that isn't in this particular movie.

It's funny that the title is "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," since actually Frankenstein is the one person they never meet. They meet Frankenstein's monster, and Count Dracula, and the Wolf Man, and even the Invisible Man briefly, but never actually Frankenstein himself. The concept for the movie, on one level, is an obvious studio contrivance to make money. You can just hear the producers saying, "Abbot and Costello are popular; our horror movies are popular; let's throw them together and have something twice as popular!" On another level, though, it's actually kind of brilliant, and an example of one film universe bleeding into another of the sort you don't really see anymore. It's especially interesting here that Dracula is played by Bela Lugosi and the Wolf Man by Lon Chaney Jr., the two actors who actually played the respective roles in the original horror films. Imagine if you saw a movie today parodying serial killer movies that starred Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, but also had Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter and Robert Englund playing Freddy Kreuger. It just wouldn't happen these days.

Anyway, the movie throws the unsuspecting Abbott and Costello into a plot involving the Wolf Man trying to stop Dracula from resurrecting Frankenstein's monster. Much of the humor comes from Costello's nervous reactions to scary things going on around him, which no one else happens to see. Costello was a genuinely gifted comic actor, with his distinctive pudgy face, high-pitched voice, and high amounts of nervous energy. He can be funny and scared in a way just about no one else can. Abbott was mostly the straight man to Costello's antics. It's fun to watch Lugosi especially do his Dracula thing. The movie doesn't actually have quite as many hilarious and absurd moments as you would hope, but it's still amusing and charming in a quaint way.