Frankenstein meets the wolf man

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Frankenstein meets the wolf man
Original title Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1943
length 74 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roy William Neill
script Curt Siodmak
production George Waggner for Universal Pictures
music Hans J. Salter
camera George Robinson
cut Edward Curtiss
occupation

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (original title Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man ) is an American horror film from Universal Studios from 1943 and continues the Universal Frankenstein series . Lon Chaney Jr. slipped into the role of the wolf man again and Bela Lugosi played Frankenstein's monster .

action

On a clear night with a full moon, two grave robbers break into the Talbot family crypt. Lawrence Talbot, who turned into a werewolf four years ago and was killed by his own father, is believed to have been buried with all of his belongings that night, including a purse bulging with banknotes. When they open the coffin, they discover that Talbot shows no signs of decay and that there are bundles of monkshood in the coffin. When the light of the full moon falls on him, he comes to life again and holds one of the grave robbers while his accomplice escapes.

Unconscious with a fractured skull, Talbot is found in a city and taken to a hospital, where the next full moon turns him into the werewolf killing a patrolman in the city. The next morning at the hospital, Inspector Owen and Dr. Mannering didn't tell the recovered Talbot that he was a werewolf. Talbot himself realizes that apparently he cannot die. Dr. Mannering thinks he is a lycanthrope because of his brain injuries . When checking the Talbot family crypt, the murdered grave robber is found. Meanwhile, Talbot managed to escape from his straitjacket and the hospital during the night, and he went in search of the old gypsy Maleva.

Together with her he drives to the city of Vasaria in search of Dr. Frankenstein, who is supposed to heal him from his curse. But according to the innkeeper there, the doctor and his creature were burned and buried in the sanatorium (see Frankenstein returns ). Talbot is transformed as he continues with Maleva and takes refuge in the forests of Vasaria. After the werewolf's first victim, the villagers hunt down the supposed murderous wolf. During his escape, the werewolf breaks through the floor of the sanatorium ruins. Maleva is found by the pack near the ruins and taken to the village.

In an icy glacier cave beneath the structure, Talbot discovers the Frankenstein monster, frozen in a block of ice. He frees the weakened monster and hopes that the creature can show him where the diary of Dr. Frankenstein is, from the contents of which he hopes a cure for his werewolf existence.
The monster knows a secret compartment in the old library, but it is empty except for a picture of Baroness Elsa Frankenstein. Talbot does not want to give up hope and lures the Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, the daughter of Dr. Frankenstein, on the pretext of buying the ruins to Vasaria. When Talbot asks her for help, she feels sorry and agrees to help him.

During the village festival, Dr. Mannering to Vasaria to bring Talbot back to England. When the monster also appears at the village festival, Talbot escapes with him from the village. Dr. Mannering promises the villagers his help in the destruction of the monster and together with the baroness and Maleva he goes to the ruin where Talbot and the monster are. Elsa finds the diary in a secret compartment within the secret compartment. According to the diary entries, the secret of the werewolf curse and the creature's superhuman strength lies in an excess of electrical energy in the body. If this energy is reduced, Talbot should become a normal person again. The constant preparations for the treatment in the ruin make the villagers suspicious and the first thoughts about the destruction of the ruin and its residents arise. The energy required for the treatment is provided by the flow of water through the former sanatorium from the dam above.

Dr. Mannering begins the treatment, but he is seized by scientific curiosity and instead of draining the excessive energy, he increases the strength of both to see the maximum of their powers. This leads to overvoltages and explosions in the laboratory.
Frankenstein's monster can see clearly again, breaks his bonds and attacks Elsa. Talbot, who has since become a werewolf again, grabs the creature, and a fierce battle breaks out between the two monsters. At the same time, one of the residents of Vasaria placed an explosive charge on the wall of the huge dam above the ruins in order to destroy the castle.

The explosion breaks the dam. Elsa and Dr. Mannering manages to escape, but the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster are washed away with the ruins of the castle.

Sequels

Frankenstein meets the wolf man should follow three more sequels, including the comedy Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein , for which stars like Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange parody their star roles as wolf man, Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, and which at the same time parody the conclusion the Frankenstein series from Universal.

DVD release

Frankenstein meets the Wolfman is available for the first time in German in The Monster Legacy DVD Collection . The DVD collection includes, among other things, the complete Frankenstein range from Universal.

  • The Monster Legacy DVD Collection , October 14, 2004, Universal Pictures

Others

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
  • In Frankenstein meets the wolf man , Bela Lugosi slipped into the mask of the creature, a role he had turned down twelve years earlier because the figure is mute. Lugosi accepted the part because, according to the script, the role also had text. Ironically, all of his dialogue scenes in the film fell victim to the scissors.
  • With the cutting out of the dialogue sequences of the monster, all references to the creature's blindness were also removed. The creature lost its sight at the end of Frankenstein's return due to a faulty brain operation . In the absence of this information, the almost helpless stumbling around with the outstretched arms of Frankenstein's monster seemed more ridiculous than frightening.
  • There are still photos of the cut out scenes in which the creature speaks (e.g. the conversation of Chaney Jr. and Lugosi around the campfire in the ruins of Frankenstein Castle, where Larry Talbot, and thus the audience, of the blindness of the Monsters). In the mid-1980s, a search for a copy of the original uncut version began in the archives of Universal Studios. This has been unsuccessful so far (2008).
  • Originally, Lon Chaney jun. both roles, the wolf man and the monster, take on. However, the producers decided that the trick-technical effort was too high and the shooting schedule was too tight.
  • The scene in which the monster can be seen for the first time does not show Bela Lugosi, but his stuntman Eddie Parker . Parker doubled Lugosi in various scenes, such as when Talbot freed the monster from the ice. In the final fight, however, Parker did not double Frankenstein's creature, but the wolf man. Lugosi's stuntman in this scene was Gil Perkins .
  • The film was made during World War II and, according to the US government, should be part of a massive anti-Germany campaign. Screenwriter Curt Siodmak , who himself was of Jewish descent and had left his homeland because of public anti-Semitic speeches in 1937, nevertheless moved the location of Frankenstein's castle from Germany to the fictional "Vasaria". "Vasaria" is symbolically translated to mean something like "water place" and is an allusion to the dam and the hydroelectric turbine that is located in Frankenstein's laboratory.
  • The continuity between the films made by Universal Studios has always been loose. In this film, Wolf Frankenstein from Vasaria is portrayed as the creator of the monster, while in the previous film Frankenstein returns only a son of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein was. Finding the monster in the ice in this film also contradicts the end of the previous part. His identity as Ygor is also not addressed.

Web links