It's interesting that Lou Costello initially was reluctant to do this movie, since it became probably the most popular and successful instalment in the Abbott & Costello catalogue. It was so popular, in fact, that many of the Abbott & Costello movies to follow were along similar lines -- they would go on to meet The Mummy, The Invisible Man and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You can sort of see where he was coming from ... horror/comedy isn't exactly a highly respected genre, although there have been several classics in it since (Young Frankenstein, An American Werewolf in London, etc).
The story starts when a couple of crates arrive in the US, to an office manned by Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello). The two of them are asked to the two crates to the their destination, a house of horrors. What they don't realise is that one crate contains Dracula's coffin and the other, the Frankenstein monster. Dracula awakens and escapes with the monster, leaving the two freight handlers to deal with the insurance company over the missing goods. But it turns out they have bigger worries -- Dracula has chosen Wilbur's brain to transplant into the Frankenstein monster in order to revive him ...
Since the Universal horror franchise had stopped taking itself seriously several years previously, it made sense that the final movie should just go the whole hog and be a comedy. As a comic team Abbott and Costello were never of the same stature of, say, "Laurel and Hardy" or "The Marx Brothers", but they do have their moments -- and a lot of them are in this movie. Abbott of course plays the straight man to Costello's blundering comedian, and it works very well with this script. They are backed up by arguably the strongest cast out of any of the Universal horror movies, with Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange and Lon Chaney Jr in their finest roles. All of the monsters are played perfectly straight, with the comedy coming from Abbott and Costello themselves.
"Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is silly and zany and very, very funny. Whether or not it can be classed as part of the Universal horror series, it is as entertaining as any of them and absolutely essential viewing.
The story starts when a couple of crates arrive in the US, to an office manned by Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello). The two of them are asked to the two crates to the their destination, a house of horrors. What they don't realise is that one crate contains Dracula's coffin and the other, the Frankenstein monster. Dracula awakens and escapes with the monster, leaving the two freight handlers to deal with the insurance company over the missing goods. But it turns out they have bigger worries -- Dracula has chosen Wilbur's brain to transplant into the Frankenstein monster in order to revive him ...
Since the Universal horror franchise had stopped taking itself seriously several years previously, it made sense that the final movie should just go the whole hog and be a comedy. As a comic team Abbott and Costello were never of the same stature of, say, "Laurel and Hardy" or "The Marx Brothers", but they do have their moments -- and a lot of them are in this movie. Abbott of course plays the straight man to Costello's blundering comedian, and it works very well with this script. They are backed up by arguably the strongest cast out of any of the Universal horror movies, with Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange and Lon Chaney Jr in their finest roles. All of the monsters are played perfectly straight, with the comedy coming from Abbott and Costello themselves.
"Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is silly and zany and very, very funny. Whether or not it can be classed as part of the Universal horror series, it is as entertaining as any of them and absolutely essential viewing.