Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

NIGHT 30

     "Young people making the most of life... while it lasts."

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) (also known as Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein) is a loose sequel to the Universal horror films. Toward the end of the run of monster movies the studio was willing to try anything to revive interest in the classic monsters and this film proved to be an instant hit.

Chick and Wilbur work as freight handling baggage clerks where they get a strange delivery that they have to personally deliver to a 'house of horrors', wax museum. Unfortunately for them, the horrors in these crates are very real.

One of the things I really like about this film is it has a very simple good story. Dracula wants to put Wilbur's brain into the Frankenstein monster to make him completely obedient and Laurence Talbert knows Dracula is up to something but can't turn him in and has to quietly follow him because of his own dark monster side. All the while Wilbur is one of the few humans to catch on that something is up, but Chick and the others just think he's a babbling idiot so they don't listen. It really is a great idea of how to blend an Abbott & Costello story and a Universal monster movie.

This film has some really great situational humor. Director Charles Barton was the main director of Abbot & Costello sketches through out their careers and this film is a fine example at how good they were with those. I love the way they incorporate the "horror movie-ism"s into some more classic Abbott & Costello style sketches like the revolving door with the trick candle and the part where they're trying to run away from Frankenstein's monster and Dracula at the same time and they end up and down the castle stairs and into and out of rooms and even barricading a door in a room only to have Frankenstein's monster just open it in the opposite direction. Also the fact that they have Bud Abbot dressed in just a black dress shirt and grey slacks with his costume that just consists of a wolf mask, and Lon Chaney is wearing the same thing before he transforms into the wolf man makes for some really smart and well planned out mistaken identity. It's brilliant and hilarious stuff.

As an audience today we're really not used to comedies like this anymore and some of the skits (like the ones mentioned above) can seem a bit long-winded when viewed today. I think the problem is we're so used to quick faster paced movies that when you watch a film like this where they spend ten minutes on a revolving door gag or even five minutes with Lou messing around with luggage our brains just kind of belittle the comedy in-front of us.

Probably my favorite thing about this film is its dialogue and verbal jokes. This film has some hilarious comedy via puns and jokes that crack me up every time. This is of course amplified by Abbott & Costello's mastery of comic timing and facial expressions. I love the running gags with Wilbur's inability to speak when he's frightened so he has to pantomime the Dracula and Monster walks.

And I gotta mention the performances of Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. This film is a must see for classic monster fans because of these two, they really just give it their all and really don't hold back even though this is just a silly comedy. Lon Chaney Jr. reprises his magnificent role as the troubled and tortured Wolf Man (1941) like it was yesterday for him and even though it had been far longer since Lon Chaney donned his cape and fangs you can still really see here why his performance is still considered one of the greatest adaptations of Dracula (1931). Both of these actors just loved the characters and there is no greater proof than their performances in this film.

While Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) may have just been a studio's grab at helping a dying franchise, it's proof to me that horror and monsters can be used in more ways than just to scare people. This is ever so proven in present day where we still get "monster mania" at least once a year.

4.5/5 Stars.

Happy watching!




Tomorrow is the final night of this year's 31 Nights of Macabre Movies! I'm gonna send it off right with a great animated zombie film from last year!

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The Haunted Palace (1963)

NIGHT 5

     "One becomes accustomed to the darkness here."

 

The Haunted Palace (1963) is an AIP horror film directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr. The film is considered part of Corman's series of eight films largely based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, dubbed the Corman-Poe cycle. Unlike the rest of the Corman-Poe cycle though, this film is actually based on a novella by H.P. Lovecraft entitled The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. This is actually the first film adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story ever made! As Roger Corman made more of these films he started to play with different things as he went on: Tales of Terror (1962) is an anthology film, The Raven (1963) is a comedy,  and The Haunted Palace only takes it's title from Edgar Allan Poe.

The story takes place in the town of Arkham where 110 years ago it's residents burned-alive a warlock by the name of Joseph Curwen. In present day Arkham a man named Charles Dexter Ward comes to town to inherit the property left to him. One problem, Charles Dexter Ward is the spitting image of his long dead ancestor, Joseph Curwen. And the people of Arkham do not want him to stay.

As with the rest of the Corman-Poe cycle the sets are great in this film, but dare I say they seem a bit more lavish in this one than rest of the series? I really dug the design of the mansion/palace sets here.

All in all, The Haunted Palace is a very fair adaptation of the H.P. Lovcraft story, It's not an exact telling, but they got the "gist" of the original story and worked from there. I think it works very well, Roger Corman did well to combine the spirit of the story with his already established style of the other Poe films he did.

Overall most of the acting is good, I could have done with better actors for the villagers but let's face it, they didn't have much of a role anyway. Debra Paget is particularly good as Ward's wife, Anne. And Lon Chaney Jr. is great as always, I only wish he had more of a role because essentially just a glorified henchman. He's effective though, he's got that "nice guy" charm that makes you believe whatever he says.

The biggest problem with this film is the loads of exposition needed to explain some of the finer aspects of the Lovecraft tale, and the details of the supernatural Cthulhu Mythos behind what's happening in the story. This film would have a hard time explaining it visually so it just has the characters lay out the necessary details which seems pretty awkward at points. And honestly, you'd be less truthful to the story but I'm not sure you need them to name the Great Old Ones and could have just said he's summoning a demon for all I care!

I also didn't understand why every single villager from one hundred years ago has a descendant that looks exactly like them, and remembers what the Warlock looked like 100 years ago. Come on, no one thought this through?

I really like the ending, but it is a very open ended scene to end on. Ending on that note actually makes it seem that the story isn't actually over in the slightest. I'm kinda surprised no one tried to make a sequel?

Vincent Price loves these kinds of roles and honestly he's the perfect guy for it too. It's hard to imagine this whole film working at all with a different actor playing those roles though so props to him. He plays both roles with a real level of conviction and it's not the "hammiest" role I've seen him in, but there's a bit of that too.

One thing I really loved was this story's focus on Ward's wife, Anne. They could have probably done more with her, because essentially she just does whatever her husband tells her... something I attributed to the timeframe this is supposed to take place in (but still we could have seen more struggle with obeying her husband). But letting the story focus on her (even partially) is an interesting move because as Charles gets wrapped up in the scheme, she's able to witness it all first hand. Kind of a cool idea.

The Haunted Palace (1963) is one of the better of the Corman-Poe films. If you're not into the big dark medieval horror epics like I am, you will probably find less to like here than I did, but it's in no way a horrible film and it's definitely very watchable.

4/5 Stars.

Happy watching!




The 31 Nights of Macabre Movies continue tomorrow with a far less successful Lovecraft adaptation, Die, Monster, Die! (1965).

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The Corman-Poe Cycle

1. The House of Usher (1960) (based on the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher")
2. The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) (based on the short story of the same name)
3. The Premature Burial (1962) (based on the short story of the same name)
4. Tales of Terror (1962) (based on the short stories "Morella", "The Black Cat", "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar")
5. The Raven (1963) (based on the poem of the same name)
6. The Haunted Palace (1963) (based on H.P. Lovecraft's novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, using the title from Poe's 1839 poem)
7. The Masque of Red Death (1964) (based on the short story of the same name with another Poe short story, "Hop-Frog", used as a sub-plot.)
8. The Tomb of Ligeia (1965) (based on the short story "Ligeia")

Tales of Terror (1962)

DAY 8

Tales of Terror (1962) is the fourth of eight films based on the stories of Egar Allan Poe, and like most of the others in the series this film stars Vincent Price. This film is a departure for the series however because unlike the previous films which would use one of Poe's stories and then stretch them to feature length this film uses 4 different Poe stories to tell 3 separate parts in one film. This film tells the stories of Morella, then combines both The Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat, and finishes with the story of The Facts in the case of M. Valdemar. This film also has another departure: The Black Cat is the first story in the series that's been adapted into a pure comedy, this would lead the way for the next in the series The Raven (1963) also starring Peter Lorre.

Like many other horror films this one has very beautiful and detailed sets (it's only a pity they did not light them better). And consistently my favorite part of the Corman-Poe films (besides Vincent Price of course) is the very beautiful costumes, they may be a bit lavish or not actually historically accurate but they always seem to fit the hammy dialogue and the creepy stories wonderfully.

I assumed that because this film was going to tell multiple of Poe's stories in shorter time, this was to pick smaller stories that would have been harder to stretch to a feature running time, and therefore they would be more accurate to the actual stories. Unfortunately I was wrong. All of these stories are VERY loosely adapted and usually only carry the same themes or basic ideas of their originally written counterparts. Truthfully I didn't really care too much for the new versions either. The first one I liked mostly because of Vincent Price's acting (more on that later), but the second story seems more like a test to see if it was possible and barely resembles titular story at all, and I actually don't care for the third story in paper or on screen but I thought the climax at the end was handled nicely.

Also I find it weird that Vincent Price plays roles in each story and yet they switch out the entire female cast for each part. Maybe the actresses couldn't portray different enough acting but I would like to assume that they could have given the chance. I mean I like Vincent Price a lot, it just seems weird to me that he's is in each story and we switch between 3 different blondes for each part of the film. Funny.

And the magnificent thing about this story? Vincent Price. I got hooked into the first story on his acting alone. Usually in the Corman films I feel like his performance has an undertone of humor to it, often being very playful and "hammy" with the lines. But the first story felt like a change from that. His acting is very grave and fittingly solemn. The whole time I was just thinking, "man, this guy can really act!" And then he follows it up with probably one of the goofiest performance of his career as the expert wine taster in the next portion of the film.

Also I need to mention that the way the three stories interconnect is very simply done with a simple voice over from Vincent Price talking about, what else? Death. Loved it.

Tales of Terror (1962) plays out more like a test than anything else but the results are interesting enough to give it a watch. 3/5 stars.

Happy watching!







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