House of Dracula (1945)

Dracula (John Carradine) needs help. He hates the life of the undead superhero, so he seeks out the good Doctor Edelmann. Surely he can solve the problem. Drac gets all mysterious what with him needing to only come only at night. Under the microscope, Dr. Edelmann discovers that Drac's blood contains a large number of midi-chlorians ...

Also seeking free help is Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr), hating his proto-wolverine existence. Doc concludes Chaney's head ... that is, Talbot's head ... isn't soft enough. Meanwhile, Drac starts making moves on Doc's lovely-ish assistant, wolfie jumps a cliff trying to end his life, and they then stumble upon Frankenstein's Monster sitting in the muck. And it's about then that I realized that this series has finally run it's course.

The problem of crowding the film with monsters is two-fold. First, you lose focus on a central story. Are we following Drac's plight or Wolfie's? Secondly, screen time for each is drastically cut. Frank's Monster is barely in it and Drac makes an earlier than expected exit. Maybe it would have worked better if you made the monsters the direct protagonists rather than spiral the story around the doctor and his assistants. Still, make the climax a duel between wolfie and Drac, and lose the Monster instead of using him as a Deus ex machina of sorts. Better movies don't have you re-writing them in your head while watching.

Code standards has that monsters must die at the end of the film. As such, there has to be a vaguely plausible explanation why the actors were getting work again. We completely forgo this in Wolfie and Drac's case. Lionel Atwill, at death's door, makes one last appearance. As a cop, once again. And no Universal Horror can be considered complete without a hunchback assistant. Here is the only unexpected twist the film offers: the hunchback is a hot chick. Seriously. And the mad scientist character is ... well, I'll hold off on that.

Here we rest the original run of the Universal Horror series. Typical in acting and production quality of the series. My biggest mistake was grouping the movies by central character. I should have watched them in sequence instead. If I watch them again, that's what I will do. So, how come they never invited the Mummy to the party? I'll finish them off next October. AMRU 3.

House of Frankenstein (1944)

Or, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man 2.

Not really, but almost. The evil doctor Niemann (Boris Karloff) and his faithful assistant Igor ... I mean Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) escape from prison, commandeer a travelling circus, and head for Visaria in order to take up the good doctor Frankenstein's work. Said circus also happens to feature the bones of Dracula (John Carradine), which if you take the stake out, his evil body reappears.

While searching for Frankenstein's notes in his demolished mansion, they stumble across the body of the Monster (Glenn Strange) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr). Stop me if you heard this one before. Anyhow, Niemann promises Daniel a proper body so that he can woo this hot gypsy chick, promises to keep Dracula's coffin safe during the day, and promises Wolfie that he will kill him. Instead, the douche, he totally uses his new circle of friends to work on his real project: getting the monster back to full strength and killing the people who sent him to prison. And what would a Frankenstein flick be without Lionel Atwill in there someplace. Once again, he plays an inspector.

So, Karloff took a break from Broadway to appear in the movie, but apparently Lugosi wasn't free. Seems he took up Boris' role. Therefore, Carradine becomes a lackluster Dracula. And speaking of which, what, was he in the movie a whole four minutes? The only reason I can imagine for his appearance is to make the movie poster more crowded with monsters and to introduce him for the next movie. I understand there was a thought to include The Mummy as well, but that would have been ridiculous.

A few interesting points: As this movie mostly takes place in "Visaria", which sounds like "Vasaria" where Ghost Of was set, the evil doctor house is that of the other brother's, and he was the least evil of all the Frankenstein's. Nobody from the actual family appears, unless you count the Monster. George Zucco had a small part as the circus owner. I had to go online to find out what role he played. It was all too brief. And, Chaney, Strange, and Naish all died in 1973. Chaney and Naish's collective last movie was the schlocky Dracula vs. Frankenstein, which I totally have to watch.

Thirteen years after the advent of Universal's reign as the king of horror, we are seeing their demise. The appearance of a large, slow moving creature isn't enough to scare audiences anymore and compensating with a monster mash has limited appeal. There is one more, however, but I will explore that with the Dracula line. Eventually.

Despite this, I actually found House Of to be a bit of a rebound for the franchise. It was fun. Doesn't touch the early work, but every bit as good as Son Of. AMRU 3.5.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Grave robbers rob the grave of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) and find his corpse covered with wolfbane. When they remove it, he awakens, transforms, and goes on a rampage. He awakes in a Cardiff hospital. They think he's crazy because he claims to be a dead man.

He escapes to find the gypsy woman (Maria Ouspenskaya) who's son he killed in his last film. She'll help him! She tells him to find the mysterious Doctor Frankenstein! If anyone knows the answer, it'll be him. So, off they go, to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of ... oh, I'll say Vasaria.

Well, Frankie's dead so Larry chugs through the ruins of Castle Frankenstein (which I guess is the mansion from Ghost of) looking for the the late doctors notes, and finds the monster, himself (Bela Lugosi, why not, it was his brain). Frozen in ice. Of course he's still alive. Can't kill a good monster.

So, Larry meets up with the Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey) who now sports a German accent. Into the mix is the dashing doctor Mannering from the Cardiff hospital and Lionel Atwill as the mayor. Larry convinces her to show the location on her dad's notebook in hopes of finding a way to drain the life from his body. You see, Larry wants to die.

The image of the monster, stumbling around with out-stretched hands is from here. You see, the monster was supposed to be blind. That happened at the end of Ghost of, but they forgot to mention it here. Also, the monster could talk but all of his lines were cut. Go figure.

They swapped actresses for Elsa Frankenstein, but for a good reason. Evelyn Ankers from Ghost of also played Talbot's love interest in The Wolf Man. That would be just weird. Weirder still was the idea of trying to have one actor (Lon) play both lead monsters. That idea was thankfully scrapped.

So, the long slow decline of the Frankenstein franchise continues. Certainly not unwatchable, but disjointed and not as interesting as the previous efforts. AMRU 3. And, yes. Elsa Frankenstein does meet the Wolf Man.

The Wolf Man (1941)

The eldest son of the affluent Talbot family dies in a horrible hunting accident, so ne'er-do-well younger son (Creighton Chaney) returns home to patch things up with 'oll dad (Claude Rains) and take his place as favorite boy. Dad shows junior around the laboratory. Seems Larry knows a thing or two about telescopes as he took a janitorial job in a California observatory. Straight away he points said telescope townward to spy the young hotties.

His eye lands on young Gwen (Evelyn Ankers). He pays her a visit and creepily explains how he has been stalking her. She is a proper lady and engaged to a proper gentleman, but for some reason cannot resist his lumpy goodness. He coerces her into visiting those lovely gypsies that are welcomed everywhere they go. To keep her virtue intact, Gwen brings along her undoable friend, Jenny (Fay Helm).

They visit the Gypsy fortunate teller Bela (Bela). Jenny gets her fortune read first. Seems her future has her being chowed on by an Evil man-wolf. Lumpy Larry arrives in the nick of time to kill the offending wolf, but after her throat has been ripped out. For his troubles, he gets a nasty bite to his chest. When the authorities arrive, they find Bela's body and Larry's walking stick. Hmmmm ...

Would I be spoiling things to say that Chaney becomes The Wolf Man?

Rains playing Chaney's father was rather interesting, because in real life Creighton's father was also a little man who could act circles around him. Bela was also good in his limited role, and Ralph Bellamy was good in his supporting role, but who I really noticed was Jessie Arnold as the Gypsy woman. Creepy and nuanced, the right kind of character actor. Chaney, as always, is ham-fisted in every scene.

Now, I've pointed out that the modern incarnation of zombies (post-Romero) are actually ghouls, not zombies as they exist in "real life". So too will I criticize the werewolf. IMdb asserts that many myths of werewolves come from The Wolf Man, but a few came from Werewolf of London, most notably that being a werewolf is a curse brought on by a bite. In folklore, however, one is granted the power of a werewolf by signing a pact with the Devil.

That aside, this icon of horror that made Chaney "Jr." a star, owes very little to him. The good story and script, good acting (mostly), and quality sets and production survived a mediocre actor in the lead. Imagine if Karloff got the role. AMRU 3.5.

"Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."

Wolf Blood (1925)

In searching for the oldest surviving "werewolf" movie, the best answer turned out to be 1925's Wolf Blood. Dick Bannister (how's that for a post-Victorian porn name) is the field boss of a Canadian logging camp. The leader of a rival camp is resorting to underhanded tactics, even shooting at the workers. Boss Dick calls on the owner to come and check things out.

The owner is the young socialite daughter that inherited the company. She and her much-too-old-for-her Doctor Fiance decide to go visit. Seems the socialite likes the company of the rugged lumberjack type, and Dick becomes rather smitten as well. He hasn't seen a woman in years, after all. For the sake of propriety, they decide to avoid each other's company.

Evil field boss from the rival company decides to dam an important logging river. Our hero pays him a visit. A fight ensues and Dick Hero is out numbered and left for dead in a ravine. The good-but-maybe-not-good-enough doctor finds him in the nick of time. Dick needs a blood transfusion, but the only person available is a horrible half-breed (hate those people, don't you?) who was kicked out of camp by our hero for selling the Devil's Elixir to the men. He refuses to help, but says he can get blood from his she-wolf. Oh, hey! A Wolf, just like in the title! Fancy that. And only half way through the movie.

Dick gets wolf blood, half-breed blabs all around town, men become suspicious, and doctor tells his love that now that he has wolf blood in him, he has become like an animal. Oddly, she don't mind.

Mostly, this is a love triangle with the wolf element added for drama. Barely a werewolf story, but close enough. It wasn't spectacular, but it held my interest. At just over an hour, it was tolerably short. I give it an AMRU of 3.

Go watch it here.

Werewolf of London (1935)

Doctor Glendon (Henry Hull) is a dedicated botanist who doesn't go in for that society life stuff that scientists are frequently thrust into. He leads an expedition into Tibet to find the mysterious mariphasa, a plant that blossoms only by moonlight.

The good doctor does find said plant, and brings it back to London. Yea, maybe he was bitten by a half man, half wolf beast, but who cares? This plant is cool!

Night after night he studies the plant all the while dutifully ignoring his young, hot wife (Valerie Hobson). He meets the strange Doctor Yogami (Warner Oland), who claims to have met him in Tibet. He too was searching for the mariphasa plant but came up empty. It seems the blossom of the mariphasa is the only way to keep the victim of a werewolf bite from transforming. Doctor Glendon doesn't care about that, he's got this awesome plant to look at! And he's got this awesome dentist's lamp to look at it with, too! His young hot wife (remember her?) doesn't mind. Her long lost hunky childhood friend is around to keep her, ahem, entertained.

This was the first werewolf movie. Well, the first talkie werewolf movie. A good movie, but it failed when it came out. People thought it too similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which I still haven't seen. Bela Lugosi was considered for Dr. Yogami, who would have been awesome in the role. Though, Warner was pretty good as well. Over the next three years he would play Charlie Chan nine more times then die of pneumonia. I bet he was way better than Sidney Toler. He sucked.

The "werewolf" character took a six year hiatus until reinvented by Creighton Chaney in The Wolf Man. I prefer calling the thing a "wolf man" rather than a werewolf, because historically, a werewolf was a man who made a pact with the devil to gain the ability to transform into a wolf. Not someone cursed to change into a man-wolf hybrid. Whatever. Too many history and folklore classes, I suppose.

Nevertheless, it's a good movie. AMRU 3.5. But it's not the FIRST werewolf movie. According to IMDB, the oldest movie with werewolf as a keyword was Nosferatu, which I've seen, but I don't remember the wolf. I will see a restored copy soon, so I'll keep an eye out.

The oldest surviving "werewolf" movie is called Wolf Blood (1925). You'll hear about it soon.