Frankenstein Wednesdays Saturday: "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man" (1943)... Scavengers Dissemble!

  Continuing my weekly "But What Do I Know" through Universal's first 8 Frankensteins...

Bela Lugosi ISn't The Frankenstein's Monster!

  I think I've uncovered something in this film not mentioned anywhere else, something quite important, which might be why the longer I've left writing about this film the harder it's got. It isn't the fact that Bela Lugosi's place was often taken by a stunt double called Gil Perkins (as pictured above), lending the Monster a pleasingly squished Ötzi the Iceman quality; that is well documented, for example here in imdb.

 Ötzi the Iceman

 It's to do with a twist that's very clearly given away in one shot - a secret one of the characters has been hiding that should completely change our understanding of what we've just watched, but appears in no account or summary I can find. First though, some background. There's a lot of background...

 Not a scene from the film, more's the pity. 

 1941's "The Wolfman" was not Universal's first werewolf movie. That was 1935's "Werewolf of London", a surprisingly botany-heavy story steeped in Jack-the-Ripper atmos, featuring an uptight British type called Dr. Wilfred Glendon. Star Henry Hull fell out with make-up maestro Jack Pierce after refusing to don a full muzzle as later sported by Chaney, resulting in actually a far more frightening and influential, if less iconic, look for his man beast.

  However, while WoL established the mythos of a bite which creates a beast that must kill whenever the moon is full, contemporary audiences still dismissed the exercise as a rip-off of Jekyll and Hyde. So when Univeral returned to the idea in 1941, they chose for their hero not an uptight European scientist this time, but Lon Chaney Junior as a visiting American, and man of the people, "Larry Talbot", who sits on the wrong bit of the armchair in a fancy castle, or in the front with his chauffeur, like John McClane. Talbot tries it on with locally engaged Gwen Conliffe, whom he takes to a "gypsy carnival". There he is bitten by a dog he then beats to death, only to have it turn into Bela Lugosi. Bela's mother, the gypsy Maleva, is the only one who can explain this mystery, the keeper of the lore - a potentially problematic depiction, unless one considers how much the Catholic church would literally kill to be considered this powerful an authority on the supernatural. Talbot is finally despatched in his wolfman form (not that of a dog, like Bela –  never explained) when his skull is smashed in with a silver cane by his father, and Maleva repeats a beautiful elegy over his body, previously spoken for her own son: "The way you walk was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end." She is played by Maria Ouspenskaya, who studied under Stanislavsky, and every time she reaches "... to a predestined end" the mixture of grief and relief broadcast will leave you feeling naked.

 Beyond that predestined end however, falls the sequel. "Universe" is an overused word when talking about film, but it's also an exciting one so let's use it: "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" created the first Cinematic Universe. Before Marvel, before DC, before "Happy Days". Not only was it the first sequel to two previously unrelated films, it was also, arguably, an improvement on "The Wolfman", and definitely an improvement on "The Ghost of Frankenstein". The look on Maleva's face when the resurrected Larry Talbot found his way back to her is why we have sequels. And making her the liminal instrument of this crossover between stories was just one of the many excellent ideas "The Wolf Man"'s screenwriter Curt Siodmak had that helped give this project a hope of making sense. And when Siodmak's script gives us unmusical exposition, director Roy William Neil and cinematographer George Robinson ensure that every frame is still a painting; the shot of Maleva's cartwheel, for example, thicker than itself with the mud of worlds as she and her newly adoped son move between myths in search of the secret of death...

 Or the justly celebrated opening scene, in which Talbot is inadvertantly resurrected by graverobbers in a crooked cemetery busy with crows. Even the simple phone call to a police station in Llanwelly a few scenes later, made by Inspector Owen hoping for some clue as to the identity of his hospitalised American, is an evocative example of just what can be done with care and a camera: a perfect composition of character and clutter suggesting either cosiness if you're a local, or claustrophobia if you're a stranger. (Apologies for all the "c"s.)

Not an example of what I just said, but I can't screengrab from Blurays.

  In the end though, maybe too much care went into this film, because "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man" predicts the future of franchise blockbusters not only in its creation of a cinematic universe, but also in its telling of a story posthumously butchered by reshoots. Working out what the original story might have been is one of both the happiest and saddest aspects of watching the film, because beautiful as it is, what reaches us is still a mess, best remembered for what it got wrong: the Monster.

We never see Lugosi do this in the film.

 Bela Lugosi was sixty when he finally got to play Frankenstein's Monster, who's found by Talbot encased in ice beneath the ruins of Frankenstein's castle in Vasaria. This is not however, you may remember, exactly how we left him at the end of "Ghost of Frankenstein". That film ended with the Monster given the brain of his devious "familiar" Ygor, a brain that would give the Monster world-conquering intelligence but also, because of a blood mismatch, leave him blind. In his blindness the Monster, now voiced by Ygor actor Bela Lugosi, stumbles into a shelf that was presumably put up by Linda Barker because everything blows up when it falls over, including the sanitarium of Ludwig Frankenstein, younger son of the Frankenstein who first created this Monster, who had mistakenly implanted the brain of Ygor into etc... One can understand why, having to deal with both this continuity and that of "The Wolf Man" Universal decided to smooth a few things out a bit for the sequel, reintroducing the lumbering mute giant that audiences would be more familiar with, rather than continue the story of Ygor's brain. But we also know that this was a decision made quite late, maybe too late, because the monster was originally given dialogue, but when test audiences heard Lugosi's Hungarian accent they laughed it out of town. We're also told that Lugosi was playing the monster blind, which is why he always has his arms out in that I'm-coming-to-get-you stance that became short-hand for the undead, and that all references to his blindness were removed from the movie, which is why Lugosi's performance seems so inexplicably stiff. Even these behind-the-scenes reports however don't really explain how an actor as capable of poetry as Lugosi could wind up giving a performance so clunky, in a film in which everyone else is so very, very good. Including this guy:

 "The Song of the New Wine" might be my favourite scene. Anyone who's sat through "Cosi Cosa" in the Marx Brothers' "Night At the Opera" will sympathise with Chaney's longing for death while surrounded by this ersatz buffoonery, but given the year of "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man"'s release, the nightmarishness of this lederhosen-heavy, rural knees-up might not be unintentional. The singer praises proprietor Vazec's warm welcome for example, but the last time we saw this tyrolean Tim Wetherspoon he was hounding a gypsy out of his inn. And while no mention is ever made of how good a war the locals of Vasaria might be having, their police have definitely had a change of uniform:

 Rolecall, left to right: That's Lionel Awill again in the foreground. Definitely Lionel Atwill this time. Not Sir Cedric Harwdwicke. He's the Mayor, he collects pipes, he's a goody. Next along, that's Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, played by Ilona Massey. Is this the same Elsa who was daughter to Ludwig in "Ghost"? I definitely think we're not supposed to ask that. She talks about the work of both her father and her grandfather though, so yes she must be, which then begs the question of what happened to her cousin Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo Peter from "Son of Frankenstein" if she's now inherited the lot. Anyway Talbot wants to buy the castle/sanitarium/ruin off her, because it may contain equipment that will finally free him from the curse of his lycanthrop by killing him off. And Elsa is fine with that; this Frankenstein is not remotely interested in Science. She's interested in good times, and fabulous hats.

 To Elsa's right, bearing down on Maleva, is Dr. Frank Mannering from Cardiff, played by Patrick Knowles, and he loves Science. He's been after Talbot ever since the latter fled his hospital to tour central Europe with a band of gypsies in 1943 looking for death. (Knowles also played the fiancé of Talbot's love interest in "The Wolf Man", which contributes beautifully to the sense of oppression felt by Talbot waking in care after years of oblivion.) Dr. Frank has pursued Talbot by following his "trail" in the newspapers, which suggests Larry must have continued to kill while on the road with Maleva, and also that every damn night has a full moon... Finishing off the role call, between Maleva and the black-clad policeman Guno on the right, yes, that's Dwight Frye! In lederhosen. One site credits his character as "Rudi the Tailor", but I can't find any evidence elsewhere of a profession for him. There are some excellent clothes in Vasaria though, so it's nice to think Rudi might have had a hand in them. This is the last we'll see of Dwight Frye on Frankenstein Wednesdays. I love Dwight Frye. So it goes.

  While Dr. Frank's oath prevents him from taking Talbot's life, it is still he rather than Baroness Frankenstein who gets the old life-and-death equipment up and running,  Lugosi's monster who directs them to the equipment, and the Baroness who finds her father's books. In the only version of the film that survives, it is then Talbot who first asks to be shown Frankenstein's kaboodle having freed the Monster from the ice, but that appears to be added afterwards in Audio Dialogue Replacement, and we know Lugosi's dialogue was cut - we can see his lips moving - so maybe we don't have the whole story.

Definitely blind.

 Anyway Dr. Frank Mannering learns with some direction from the awkward, mute Monster, that life can be transferred from one body to another and that it can also be drained, so this is how Talbot wishes to die. The Monster has also just done a rampage, so Elsa hopes Mannering will drain the Monster's life as well and clear her family name. In fact not just Elsa's freedom, but that of Mannering and Maleva seem conditional upon the Monster's destruction post-rampage. It's the best Atwill's mayor can offer them. They wait for Dr. Frank to repair the machinery therefore, Elsa nervous that he might be secretly planning to make the Monster stronger - just because that's what scientists do - while back at the inn, proprietor Vazec and his superb shirt are stirring shit and plotting to blow up the dam by the hospital/castle/ruin so that our heroes will all drown "like rats". (Oh yes, an enormous dam was pointed out when Talbot and Maleva first arrived, like the sulphur pit suddenly in the basement of the laboratory in "Son". Good to have some foreshadowing again.) It is at this point in the story that the shot I banged on about at the beginning of this post occurs. Forgive the poor quality, I can't rip Blu-rays...
 

 Did you see that?!! THE MONSTER'S PRETENDING! That walk! Those dumb stiff arms! They're not there because that's how Lugosi thought blind monsters walk, they're there because, all this time, we haven't been watching Lugosi play the Monster at all, but Lugosi playing Ygor playing the stupid Monster! It's a con! So there was continuity all along. And that's what we lost in the reshoots. Not just lines of dialogue, or an explanation of his blindness, but an explanation for his entire performance - a whole storyline in which Ygor is using the Monster's guileless body to manipulate Talbot and Dr. Frank into granting him super-human strength. Consider also the look Lugosi gives as the Wolf Man's life is slowly transferred...

 Every commentary I've seen suggests this look was proof that in the orginal script the Monster's sight had now returned. But as the clip above proves, he could already see! This is just him getting stronger! The moon is full, however, and so Talbot though drained of life is transformed once again, defeating Ygor's evil plans in a final battle, saving the world and finally achieving redemption. And maybe he was still drowned at the end, I don't know, but what a story that would have been! Of course that's not the story we now have, since Universal decided as a result of the test screenings that people didn't want a megalomaniacal Hungarian-voiced Monster. But without the presence of Ygor, the Monster has no agency, and the film's final fight is completely without stakes. Someone simply ADR's "Don't pull that lever", some beams fall, and Gil Perkins takes over the Monster duties, keeping things stiff despite shots in which we could see Lugosi move far more fluidly and threateningly despite his sixty years and his bad back...

  Finally it is Vazec of all people who saves the day. Elsa looks on pointlessly as the Dam bursts, the valley floods, and the crimes of her grandfather are finally wiped clean. But this isn't "Frozen 2". The nazis won. And Lugosi's performance will be condemned as a mockery, without anyone realising that mockery is exactly what the actor had been going for. When he roars at the Wolf Man in the final ruckus, he's taking the piss! A beautiful, sly, brave performance, which robbed of context, proved to be Lugosi's last in any Horror film for Universal. So it goes.

 Oh Bela. As Maleva might say, "the way you walked was funny, through no fault of your own..." but Thank the Gods for Roy William Neil! Because he smuggled in that shot. It's unalterably there, and for those in the know, only Ygor's presence can explain it. So we do have that story. We've had it all along. It just seems weird I can't find any evidence that anyone else has ever noticed it. But it's definitely there! You saw it, right? If you did, pass it on. Bela deserves this. And let's celebrate perhaps the best B-movie ever made!

"Insane? He's not insane. He simply wants to die."

 Next week... well in four days' time I guess if Frankenstein Wednesdays are still going to be a thing, 1944's "House of Frankenstein". Karloff's in it. And I'll probably write more about werewolves and make-up and stuff. Guys, this is important.