Monster Mash-Up: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Dear readers, I would hate to portray either myself or my sweet Penny Dee as a pair of aloof recluses who never venture from our house or offer a warm word to passers by but I must admit we have not frequented the social circuit as much as we did in the halcyon days of our courtship. Back then we met quite the assortment of curious individuals and my beloved Penny Dee, always the darling in these situations, would have the ear of all present. Her nature was so winning that these newfound acquaintances would often reward her with handmade charms and jars filled with a mysterious brackish liquid that now fills our libation cellar with a most heady scent. The point that I suppose I am driving at in a roundabout sort of way is that getting around socially can be a rewarding experience and even if you’re a lycanthrope or an ungodly amalgamation of corpse pieces, it can be awfully nice to meet new people every once in a while.

Lon Chaney Jr. decides to avoid concealing his concern about the state of the moon

At least that's how it initially seems in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) has been entombed since his first appearance in The Wolf Man (1941) and has been getting along just fine being dead. Physically he seems in splendid condition and his lifeless state ensures that he doesn’t get into any of the murderous mishaps that plagued him in life. Sadly, his eternal slumber is interrupted by a pair of thoughtless grave robbers who restore him by exposing his body to moonlight. After a brief revival of his lycanthropic misbehavior, he awakes in an asylum where he has an absolute devil of a time convincing anyone that he is capable of superhuman transformation.

Once he gathers his wits about him, Talbot sets off on a rather determined quest for self-extermination. He reunites with his old doomsaying gypsy acquaintance Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), who convinces him that the answers he seeks lay in the work of the late Victor Von Frankenstein. They depart with great haste for Vasaria, where Talbot uncovers not only the late doctor's journals but the monster forever associated with his surname. This is how Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and let me tell you, it starts out as quite the cordial howdy-do. Talbot is somehow capable of leading the monster (Bela Lugosi) about as he pleases and successfully entreats him to stay his tempestuous ways. But it would hardly do to have this rare encounter of monstrous greats continue without conflict and with the help of disgruntled locals and lunar exposure, the rapport between Talbot and the creature dissolves completely.

Though I confess my encounters with popular culture are not altogether frequent, I have noticed people bandying about the term “shared universe” with great abandon these days and I can only hope this newfound public hunger will drive people to examine one of the earliest attempts at fusing cinematic realities. Chaney pops off the mortuary slab with the same exuberant anxiety that characterized his previous portrayal as though no time has passed. Lugosi, who played the werewolf that first set off Mr. Talbot’s series of misfortunes, returns to the narrative thread as Frankenstein’s monster and his performance is reminiscent of that old “light as a board, stiff as a board” theatrical trick. Unfortunately, all of his dialogue was scrubbed from the final cut but even robbed of his voice, hobbled by rigidity and masked by makeup, Lugosi’s presence makes for a meaningful pairing of character and actor.

It has been three quarters of a century since Universal expanded its marquee to fit two titans of the genre into a single feature and while the combination of two horror headliners does not result in a film that is twice as good as their standalone adventures, it does produce something that’s at least as good. It is also a perfectly satisfactory account of the inevitable confrontation between a monster born of man and a monster born of the moon.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man runs 74 minutes and is certified approved.