Chainsawmidget and the Universal Monsters.

[Rev. Powell]

Ghost of Frankenstein. 

 

Okay, weird thing here.  In Son of Frankenstein, Wolf Frankenstein was married to a woman named Elsa.  In this movie, the other son has a daughter named Elsa.  Kinda bizarre. 

And "Bride of Frankenstein" starred a woman named Elsa.

[M.10rda]

Oh boy, did it ever!     

I don't recall ever watching SON OF... but I've seen GHOST OF..., and although I didn't like it too much, I still liked Bela plenty. Whenever anyone suggests that Bela "wasn't trying" et al, it always makes me admire him a little bit more. I'll take Bela Not Trying over many other actors Trying any day!

[chainsaw midget]

The Invisible Agent


Here we once again stray from the horror and even the monster aspect.  Our Invisible Man is a war hero.  When Nazis and a very wonderful and sadistic Peter Lorre (who actually plays a Japanese man here, yeah, I know...) track down the grandson of the original Invisible Man and threaten his life for the formula, he instead agrees to become the Invisible Man for the US military. 

This is very much a wartime propaganda movie, but it's not a bad one.  Our hero is actually shown to be somewhat bad at his job.  The fact that he can't resist playing pranks on a Nazi leaders or eating right out in the open where he can be seen immediately cause him problems and nearly blow everything.  Likewise, the Nazis seems to be very on the ball and quite competent, which was a rarity back then, even if they do still feel the need to constantly backstab each other. 

And some of the Invisible effects are just great.  Especially the scene where he's in the bath lathering up his invisible body with soap.   

[RCMerchant]

I wasn't wild about GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN either. Or SON OF DRACULA. Chaney is wonderful as the wolfman, but a little too well feed to be a walking corpse or a vampire. Don't get me wrong! I love Lon Chaney! OF MICE AND MEN (1939) is a classic! "I like the dogs, George!"
As far as SON OF FRANKENSTEIN- yeh. That hits all the buttons.

[chainsaw midget]

The Mummy's Tomb

It's a movie. 

The Tomb doesn't really play any important part in the Mummy's Tomb.  Mostly the Mummy goes around strangling people with one hand.  In the Mummy's Hand, the main character discover the mummy's tomb.  Seems like the titles on these two movies could be switched. 

Anyway, the mummy's tomb starts 30 years after the Mummy's Hand, and spends the first 10 minutes (of a 60 minute film) showing footage from that movie while the main character gives us a "Previously on The Mummy" explanation. 

So, 30 years later the High Priest (who DIDN'T die when he got shot in the Mummy's Hand) decides to seek revenge against the people who desecrated the tomb.  He passes his title, and his mummy over to a new High Priest that moves to America and sicks the Mummy on the family of the guys from the first movie. 

The may be the first movie to utilize that tried and true horror sequel cliche of bringing back the cast from the first movie only to kill them early on. 

Other than that, the Mummy just kind of walks around alot.  There are some pretty long shots of the mummy just walking and Chaney doesn't exactly bring a lot to the role.  There is a decent fight in a burning building though. 

Oh, and there's also one scene where you can clearly see the "tombstones" blowing in the wind. 

I mean, if you have to watch a monster movie, this is a monster movie, but it's not exactly one I'd highly recommend. 

[chainsaw midget]

Frankenstein meets the Wolfman

One one hand, this feels back to classic standards.  Mad science, castles, angry mobs, old villages, mist, and all that fun stuff. 

On the other hand, the editing of this did Bela wrong.  We'll get to that in a second. 

The movie starts with grave robbers exposing Larry Talbotts non-decayed body to moon light where he comes to life again.  As good as he was in the last movie, he's even better here as a man who is completely lost and without hope.  All he wants to do is die, but he knows the curse of the Wolfman won't even let him do that for good. 

After a brief hospitalization, he tracks down Maleva, the old gypsy woman from the previous movie for help.  She tells him that she knows a doctor that's able to help people that are otherwise beyond help.  Dr. Frankenstein. 

What she doesn't know is ... well, what's been going on in the Frankenstein movies.  The doctor is dead.  His lab was blown up.  The monster is frozen in ice.  Let's talk about the monster for a brief moment. 

When last we saw the Frankenstein, he had Ygor's brain put in his body and was blind.  This movie makes no mention of either.  Apparently, they were going to, that's why they had Lugosi as the monster, but for whatever reason the cut all of Lugosi's lines.  So there's no explanation for why he's walking around with his hands stretched out. 

Anyway, back to the Wolfman. With the help of a doctor and the Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (the daughter Elsa, not the wife Elsa) they plan on using Dr. Frankenstein's notes to drain the life energy out of the Wolfman and let him die, and they'll do the same with the Frankenstein's Monster.  However like all good doctors in these movies, he goes a little nuts and decided that he absolutley has to see what Frankenstein is like at full power. 

There is a very brief shot of Bela as the Monster smiling wickedly as he realizes he's getting restored, and it is wonderfully chilling.  It makes one wonder what the movie would have been life if they had allowed Bela to really play the Monster like he played Ygor. 

Anyway though, there's a full moon, the two monsters fight, and a particularly angry villager (one's who's even angrier and madder than your average angry villager) decided to BLOW UP THE DAM and let the water destroy what's left of Frankenstein's lab.  And the two monsters are swept away in the waters. 

This is a fun one.  I'd put it right up there with the other classics. 

OH!  and I almost forgot to mention, the movie actually has a surprisingly catch musical number.

[M.10rda]

Initially seeing that title made me think I should revisit this one (after decades!) to enjoy it and Bela again. Then you reminded me of why I haven't revisited it in decades. I just watched a Universal "monster" movie starring Lugosi which I bet isn't in your set, and it reminded me of the worst kind of Lugosi role - the one that denies him the ability to do anything interesting whatsoever. Those are hard to watch, and when people claim Bela was a "bad" actor, maybe those are the films (FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN included) that they're talking about.

[chainsaw midget]

Don't get me wrong.  It's a good enjoyable movie.  It's just not a good Bela Lugosi movie.