Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Director: Charles Barton
Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr.

Synopsis:
A pair of bumbling baggage handlers unwittingly deliver Count Dracula and Frankenstein's monster to a house of horrors and become pawns in the Count's plot to fully revive the monster.

Impressions:
We get Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman in a monster mash dream team and we toss in the comedic antics of Abbott and Costello for good measure. Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. reprise their famous roles, but unfortunately we don't get Boris Karloff as the monster (though Glenn Strange does well enough in the role in his place). This being an Abbott and Costello movie, the main attraction is the jokes and while not all of them land and a few scenes are dragged out a little too long, there are more than enough laughs to be had to make it worth the price of admission. The core plot is actually pretty good and well exceeds what you would need for a movie like this, though a little more polish would have been nice. The characters of Professor Stevens and Joan are largely superfluous and Talbot's dialog is a bit more stilted than everyone else's. I'm, of course, digging into it deeper than the average viewer probably will. If you want to see Universal's iconic monsters together on screen and have some laughs while you're at it, this is well worth a watch.

Rating:
Watch It