Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

I've seen this one as often as any movie I can think of. We all grew up on Abbott & Costello. I'm a fan, so I enjoy all their movies. A&C Meet Frankenstein is the one the novices and non-fans always mention. With good reason, it's great fun. Famous for having the monsters play it straight.

This line is already a cliché, but here we go again - for it's time and genre this movie is real gem. Once again we have Lugosi as Dracula, Chaney as Wolfman and Frankenstein monster all together in one movie, but this time, instead of horror classic, we have Abbott and Costello comedy, and I must say I prefer this approach. It's not Oscar material, but it's 80 minutes of pure fun.8/10

Originally to be titled "The Brain of Frankenstein". A high-budget film with an an almost flawless script and some of the best dialog and performance of Lou Costello's entire film career. Here, the monsters play it straight, not for laughs. The Wolfman tries to be the hero, but his curse prevents it. Only the second time that Bela Lugosi played Dracula for Universal Pictures. (He has even played "Frankenstein's Monster".) They did such a terrific job with Glen Strange as the monster and he played it very well. He was 6-ft.-six. He often was cast in westerns, and he was Sam the Bartender in the "Gunsmoke" TV series. Look for the "goofs" next time you watch it: Dracula's reflection. "Frankie" stumbles a few times. An operating table starts to fall before it is pushed over by the monster. Pretty-good effects animation by Walter Lantz Productions (Famous for Woody Woodpecker) Great sets, crisp photography. A legendary film score. (Too bad they re-used it at least 3 other times.) On the AFI's list of the 100 best comedies of all time. A film never equaled and it never will be. What a cast! When I was a kid, the brain operation scene scared me to death, even on a TV! What a startling, nasty sound the electricity makes! The monster that burns up at the finale has a cast-wax head, from the original "mask". I had the opportunity to see this film on a big screen, at a Saturday matinée in the 1950's. I was 5. Of course, Vincent Price is the famous voice of the cigarette smoking Invisible Man. Best quote of the film is by Lou Costello: "The next time I tell you that I saw it, you believe me that I saw it" Next best: Wolfman: During a full moon, I turn into a wolf... Lou: "Yeah, you and 20 million other guys". A bit of flicker on the opening titles, but otherwise a great copy in the 2015 re-issue.

Baggage handlers Chick (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur (Lou Costello) are instructed to deliver and unpack two crates containing the coffin of Count Dracula and the body of Frankenstein's monster, which are destined to be attractions at a museum of horrors. While they are at work, the vampire rises from his coffin and reactivates the monster, much to the dismay of Wilbur, who has trouble convincing his friend of what he has seen.Meanwhile, Wilbur's girlfriend Sandra (Lenore Aubert) is preparing a special surprise for her beau: she intends to transplant the hapless fellow's brain into Frankenstein's monster, having made a dastardly deal with Dracula. Fortunately for the chubby chap, lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) is on hand to help defeat the Count and his lumbering lackey.I recall enjoying Abbot and Costello's movies as a kid, and I'm a long-time fan of Universal's classic horrors. I hadn't seen this film for the best part of four decades and was keen to see if it was as entertaining as I remembered. The answer is, I am sad to say, far from a resounding yes.Abbot and Costello's comedic antics obviously amused the younger me, but as an adult I found their routines rather dated and laboured, with quite a few of the scenes repeated ad nauseum. Chick's constant berating of his simple 'friend' Wilbur is difficult to find funny, although not hard to understand since Wilbur's constant blubbering and screeching rapidly gets on the nerves.Of course, the comic duo are not the film's only attraction: the film features a lovely animated credits sequence, a few decent special effects, and some welcome eye candy in the form of the lovely Aubert and the equally delightful Jane Randolph as insurance inspector Joan Raymond. Then there's the little matter of it's trio of classic monsters—but while it's nice to see Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) together again, this silly caper simply doesn't do them justice, the creatures proving so inept that they can't even catch a bumbling buffoon like Lou Costello. It's an unfitting swan song for these classic scary characters.5/10, purely for the sake of nostalgia.