"[Lou Costello] came charging in the office one day and said, "My [five-year-old] daughter could write a better script than this. You're not serious about making it, are you?" But Robert Arthur and Universal were insistent on making a more contemporary version of the two Burlesque comedians smash hit "Hold that Ghost" (1941) going through as many two script outlines before settling on the writing team of Frederic I. Rinaldo and Robert Lees. The Universal monster movie was already slowly on the decline, having not made huge numbers in the box office since "The Bride of Frankenstein" in 1935!
Originally entitled "The Brain of Frankenstein," the comedy horror resurrected Bela Lugosi to his last A-list film and Lon Chaney Jr. to the role of Lawrence Talbot/The Wolf Man for the first time since 1945's "House of Frankenstein." Boris Karloff, however, did not come back as Frankenstein's Creature, but made up for it in promotion as well as being one third of "Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff" in the coming year. Glenn Strange would reprise his role as The Creature and Vincent Price made a cameo at the end in accordance with 1940's "The Invisible Man Returns."
This was all Bud and Lou's film, eventually titled the simpler "...Meet Frankenstein," and the studio was their house full of gags between scenes. Out of respect for Chaney and Strange's makeup, pie fights would never land on any of the monsters but they still would occur. "One day, Lenore Aubert, wrapped in a mink, put a leash on Strange and, accompanied by Bud, Lou, and Lon in full make-up, took the Monster out for a stroll on the lot just in time for the studio tour tram." ("Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) - Articles - TCM.com") Regular costar Bobby Barker would randomly pop up in scenes or caskets surprising either of the duo and the cast. Card games and exploding cigars were often the norm. Glen Strange found himself a victim of the giggles more often than necessary.
Lugosi, however, was a staunch professional, not partaking in the tomfoolery. Suffering from addiction to painkillers due to contracting sciatica from war injuries, and finding himself more often on the stage than the well-paying screen, the great "Count Dracula" was beginning to be worn down. According to director Charles Barton, "[...] there were times I thought Bela was going to have a stroke on the set. You have to understand that working with two zanies like Abbott and Costello was not the normal Hollywood set. They never went by the script and at least once a day, there would be a pie fight." Lugosi would later explain to The New York Times, "There is no burlesque for me. All I have to do is frighten the boys, a perfectly appropriate activity. My trademark will be unblemished."
"...Meet Frankenstein" was an immediate hit with audiences and critics alike, earning $2,250,000 in 1948 and would land at 51 in the "Top Grossers of 1948" in Variety. (Variety (January 1949)) Unfortunately, The New York Times would bemoan "most of the comic invention in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is embraced in the idea and the laugh. The notion of having these two clowns run afoul of the famous screen monster is a good laugh in itself. But take this gentle warning: get the most out of that one laugh while you can, because the picture [...] does not contain many more." "The comedy team battles it out with the studio's roster of bogeyman in a rambunctious fracas that is funny and, at the same time, spine-tingling" reviewed Variety. The Hollywood Reporter considered the film as "a crazy, giddy show that combines chills and laughs in one zany sequence after the other." "Nobody excels Costello as strangulated, speechless terror. Nobody can top Abbott at failing to see the cause for it. No one can beat Frankenstein, Dracula, The Monster, and Dr. Moray at engendering it separately and together behind Abbott's back, but always in Costello's full view" congratulated the New York Star. Regardless, one of the final major Universal horror films would usher in a new era courtesy of Hammer Productions.
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