"Ta-daa! Is this what you like? We've no idea any more."
There's a reason I tend to write more about the begininnings of these films than their ends. This one opens superbly. Boris Karloff is back from his theatrical sabbatical. We see nothing but his hand first, just as we did when first introduced to him in "Frankenstein" thirteen years earlier. It shoots out from the hatch of a dungeon cell to throttle a jailor, then Karloff's astonishing brow, wreathed with filth and hair, follows and then the voice, that unaltered South London lisp, sepulchral but local (the ghoul next door), slow and yet entirely without vibrato, unwavering as entropy: "Nowwww will you give me my CHALK?" Karloff is given his chalk, and we move into his cell, a beautifully realised early example of the trope of mad scrawlings on a prison wall. How mad? Well, he's working out how to put a human brain into the skull of a dog.
I just photographed the television.
By now Karloff was as iconic as the Monster he'd created. He'd just finished playing Jonathan Brewster onstage in "Arsenic and Old Lake", the murderous victim of some botched plastic surgery which had left him looking like Boris Karloff. That's how iconic he was. (Beautifully, when the play went on tour the role was taken over by Bela Lugosi.) He was the consummate maniac therefore, and so while his Top Trump Type: "Mad Doctor" was billed fifth on the poster below, the actor himself was the biggest draw, and topped the bill accordingly.
I can't tell who the woman is. Also, this film doesn't really like women.
This would also be Karloff's last Horror Film for Universal, however, because... huhhh... not just because this was directed by "Ghost of Frankenstein"'s Erle C. Kenton, but that can't have helped. The more recent "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman"'s director, Roy William Neil, was busy with the updated Sherlock Holmes pictures starring Basil Rathbone, extraordinarily rewatchable shorts rich in dark character and macarbre detail that benefitted hugely from a solid appreciation of the importance of goodness and evil in a shocker. It's those Holmes films, still many fans' favourite - if not definitive - interpretation of the detective, that stand as Universal's best contribution to the B Movies of this period. "House" meanwhile (the abbreviation, not the TV show) has some superb stuff in it, but doesn't seem to notice. It lacks care, and there's a sense it only existed because audiences still seemed to like this kind of thing. For a few beautiful moments though at the beginning, it looks like this might actually become the theme of the film. Let's return to those moments then.
Everything crumbles on the continent, and the lightning that gave Karloff life in "Frankenstein" immediately sets him free by striking his prison. He is accompanied in his escape by the poster's promised "HUNCHBACK!", hoping for a better body to put his brain in. This is Daniel, played by J. Carrol Naish. He has lovely, big eyes and horrible hair. (Returning to the poster quickly; more than the promise of a returning character, a monster on a poster promises a returning story: "The MAD DOCTOR" will be destroyed by his own hubris therefore, "The WOLF MAN" will look for an escape from his curse even in death, "FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER" will go wrong, "DRACULA" will try and steal your wife, and "The HUNCHBACK" will swing from awnings and suffer unrequited love for a gypsy, which is exactly what happens to Daniel.) He and Karloff's Professor Niemann, a protegé and fan of the original Doctor Frankenstein, escape into the rain (a welcome attention to detail in a Kenton film) and immediately encounter a travelling Circus of Horrors run by former Moriarty actor George Zucco in a fez.
This is where things get interesting, and we've aleady had Boris Karloff give a lecture on transplanting a human brain into a dog followed by an exploding prison. The star exhibit of Lampini's two coach carnival is the actual skeleton of Dracula, who in this film is an "old legend" rather than a recent casualty. But nobody believes it. "Doubts! Jeers! Cries of Fake! Fake!" Lampini complains of his audience, and who can blame them? And that's what I find interesting, that Horror now found itself occupying the same simultaneously real and pretend narrative space as Father Christmas...
... That the authenticity of Lampini's sideshow suggests that all cheap sideshows are authentic, that there are two worlds, the world of the story and the world of the audience, with the sideshow as threshold, perhaps even the same threshold diagnosed as "MAD" in the poster's "MAD DOCTOR", an incredibly potent idea in the future of Horror writing, which this film inevitably does absolutely nothing with. A familiar refrain now: God, what a film this might have been.
This shot, while included in the film, is arguably better than it.
But no, it's simpler than that. Niemann just needs transport, and so he has Daniel strangle Lampini and the caravan driver and steal their identities. A vampire might also come in handy to help Niemann exact his revenge on the Burgomaster who imprisoned him and the former colleagues who testified against him, even though Daniel appears a perfectly adequate murderer, and so Niemann also removes Dracula's stake. Veins appear in the coffin, followed by muscle, followed finally by the suave Pez dispenser John Carradine, licking his lips. He has clearly read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" in preparation for this role and has the moustache to prove it.
"I don't need to say the line, 'Look into my eyes.'
I can just say it with my eyes. Look.
I am such a great Dracula."
I am such a great Dracula."
Holding the stake over Dracula's heart, Niemann promises to look after his coffin. "In that case I will do whatever you wish," is the Prince of Darkness' reply. And... yeah. Okay, it's rubbish but here's how I think we're supposed to watch this: Dracula's back, let's not worry how or why, let's just have some Dracula for a bit and treat this as a portmanteau film, a series of stories rather than a single... you know... Let's have some fun with Dracula and see if it's interesting if he's just sort of unremarkable on the surface this time, just thin and randy, and watch him turn into a bat and get invited into a house and talk to a lady about his sexy world of the dead and give her a magic ring and leave holes in Sig Ruman's neck and then get chased so hard by the police that his carriage disintegrates and let's also keep this shot in:
In fact let's return to this shot where his moustache has come off a couple of times actually, and then the sun rises and he turns into a skeleton and the magic ring falls off so we definitely know the story's over and that it's had no consequence on any of its survivors, and then let's get back to Niemann, who ditched Dracula's coffin anyway.
Which we do. Niemann and Daniel have arrived in the village of Vasaria so that Niemann can pick up Frankenstein's old notebooks. Actually, in this film the village is called Frankenstein, but there's the burst dam and castle from "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" so the film's definitely wrong, and I'm right and this is Vasaria. Niemann also finds Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman frozen in the ice beneath the ruins, presumably because people really liked the ice in the last film. No wait, this is the same ice cave as before, isn't it? Is it? It's hard to keep track.
Niemann and Daniel's descent into the glacier is a beatifully orchestrated set piece though, with the land giving way beneath Daniel entirely convincingly. It's a crumbling world, and Karloff particularly is dressed for it superbly... But again, the still deserves a better film:
The Ice Melts then, and Lon Chaney's Larry Talbot the Wolf Man resumes consciousness and is natually depressed to find himself still alive a third time. He explains what happened in the previous film - refers to Dr. Mannering, the whole kaboodle - and Niemann promises.... Do you know what? I can't remember... to look after his shoes or something, if Talbot helps the two of them cart Frankenstein's handily unconscious Monster to Niemann's own lab in the village of Visaria. With an "i". That's just the name of Niemann's village. Some villages have similar names. It's a hundred kilometers away, and joining them will be the gypsy Ilonka, played by Elena Verdugo. Trying to write about how she fits into this won't be pretty, but there were gypsies in Vasaria, not the gypsies of 'The Wolfman", but one-dimensional subhuman stereotypes, one of whom Daniel saved from a whipping. So now she's with them, and very grateful, and very playful. She tickles the driver's ankle, that kind of thing, and when Larry Talbot takes over the driving from Daniel, romantic complications ensue. The War is definitely not a thing.
Braining Bad.
Cinematographer George Robinson also shot "Frankenstien Meets the Wolfman",
which might be why all this looks so great.
We arrive in Visaria, and Daniel kidnaps Niemann's two former colleagues, Ullman and Strauss (MICHAEL MARK!) while Frankenstein's Monster is being "preserved" with steam back in Niemann's pub tat strewn laboratory, a gig even Monster actor newbie Glenn Strange couldn't be arsed to lie down for, so an old Lon Chaney mask is glued to a dummy to serve as the Monster until the story can work out what to do with him. Daniel loves Ilonka. Ilonka loves Larry Talbot. Daniel wants his brain put into Larry Talbot's body. Professor Niemann wants to put the Monster's brain into Larry Talbot's body, Ullman's brain into the Monster's body, and Larry Talbot's brain into Strauss' body. It's like The Seagull. Talbot then transforms into the Wolf Man in front of a mirror and kills a Visarian. The mob get their torches. Talbot has a nice scene explaining to Ilonka that he absolutely remembers what it's like to be the Wolf Man, and what it's like wanting to kill, and also, having accompanied Niemann all this distance in the hope of finding a science that can put him out of his misery, that the only way he can be killed is by a silver bullet shot by someone who loves him WHICH IS NEWS TO ME. Anway, that then happens.
The Wolf Man attacks Ilonka, she shoots him, they both die. It was by far Larry Talbot's least creepy relationship with a woman. Daniel is left heart-broken. The End. Surely. No wait, Frankenstein's Monster is still strapped to the gurney! And speaking of gurny:
Daniel then takes his grief out on Niemann, who hasn't done a damn thing for him despite all his helpful murders. Niemann lied to him and he lied to Dracula. In fact I'd love to believe Niemann was secretly a complete quack all along, which is why he keeps everyone waiting for their new brains in Visaria. He never actually performs a transplant after all, and while the Monster is revived, Talbot was also revived without any boffinry. But the Monster clearly considers Niemann his saviour, so I suppose the film did as well. Glenn Strange wakes with a face like a landed fish, mouth wide and soundless, interestingly incapacitated. Is he smiling? Or did Karloff teach him that silent scream? Or wait, is he going for palsy? Anyway he bursts from his restraints and throws Daniel out of the window. Like Dracula, he is now just another of Niemann's henchmen. The mob arrive and set fire to the bog. The Monster escapes, dragging the unconscious Niemann out of his lab, and into some quicksand. Everyone loves this mess and so Universal have to make yet another one. Karloff, intensely aware that Horror is allowed to be anything but mediocre, goes off instead to work on some extraordinary collaborations with Val Lewton at RKO, "Isle of the Dead", "Bedlam" and "The Bodysnatcher". Bobby Pickett records "The Monster Mash". The BBC ban it. The End.
Your homework for next week is 1945's "The House of Dracula". There will be blood. I'm not actually suggesting you watch it though, I'd never want to be responsible for that, but now I've said that, aren't you curious? I mean, everyone died in this one, how will they come back? And will John Carradine be Dracula again? Will his top hat turn into a bit of a bat? Will I ever get round to writing about the Wolf Man make up? Is Frankenstein even in this bloody one? Will it be a really short blog? Find out.
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