Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

USA • 1943 • 74m •

• Directed by: Roy William Neill. • Starring: Ilona Massey, Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Dennis Hoey, Don Barclay, Rex Evans, Dwight Frye, Harry Stubbs, Lon Chaney Jr., George Calliga, David Clyde. • Music by: Hans J. Salter.

Graverobbers open the grave of the Wolfman and awake him. He doesn't like the idea of being immortal and killing people when the moon is full, so he tries to find Dr.Frankenstein, to kill him, but Frankenstein is dead and only his Monster is alive and this one wants to live, not to die like the Wolfman.

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Image from: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Life hasn't been too kind for poor Larry Talbot, Lon Chaney Jr. Hated despised living and hunted down like an animal until he was finally shot dead with a silver bullet, by someone who loved him, and then went to his final reward: Eternal Peace & Quite in the Talbot Family Plot. That was four years ago but now in the movie "Frankenstein meets the Wolfman" he's brought back to life by two greedy grave-robbers, Tom & Freddy, who break into his crypt in order to steal his gold watch and ring.

By opening up Larry's coffin, in their lust for gold, the two grave-robbers brought him back to the land of the living from the world of the dead. Talbot,waking up from his eternal rest, murderers Freddy and is later found lying in the street of the nearby village unconscious, with a sever gash on his head, and put in the Queens Hospital for observation.

It was in the hospital that Larry realized who and what he was and wanted no part of it in fact he wanted himself dead but the trouble was, for Larry, is just how could he die or be killed since he's dead already? Going high and low throughout the countryside of 19th Century Germany with his Gypsy fortuneteller and companion Maleva, Maria Ouspenskaya,who's knows the secret of Larry's unnatural condition and what caused it, in fact it was Maleva's son who put him into it, and whom to find in the village of Vasaria that can cure it; you see Larry Stewart Talbot is a "Wearwolf".

Larry trying to find the late Dr.Frankenstein's diary about the secrets of life and death, it's the death part that Larry's really interested in, gets in touch with the late Dr.Frankenstein's daughter Baroness Ilsa Frankenstein, Ilona Massey,to help him find it but at the time the only thing that Larry found in the burnt down and frozen Frankenstein Castle was the monster, Bela Lugosi, that the late Doctor Frankenstein created.

The townspeople of Vasania are a bit weary of Larry and the Baroness and later Larry's doctor, from the Queen Hospital, Dr.Mannering, Patric Knowles, snooping around the ruins of the Frankenstein Castle and get very edgy when the monster decides to take a walk through town. With the sudden emergence of the Frankenstein Monster driving the townspeople into a frenzy they decide to storm the Frankenstein residence and put an end to it the monster and everyone , Larry the Baroness and Dr.Mannering, that's in it once in for all but not before we have the "Fight of the Century" between Franlkenstein, the monster that is, and Larry Talbot the Wolfman.

A one scene movie with almost all the action and excitement coming in the last ten minutes as the two legendary movie monsters go at in a fight to the finish as the town dam breaks, or is blown up, and floods and pulverizes the entire valley, together with the Frankenstein Castle, to dust.

Nowhere as good as the previous "Frankenstein" and "The Wolfman" epics from Universal Studios "Frankenstein meets the Wolfman" is watchable only because of it's two top horror stars, Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi, being in it and slugging it out, this after they made nice with each other earlier in the film and became good friends. Lon Chaney Jr's. Wolfman was far better in here with a lot more action scenes then in his original Wolfman movie two years earlier.

Bela Lugosi was a lot stiffer then you would have expected him to be, playing the Frankentein Monster, moving at a snails pace and his battle with Larry the Wolfman looked a bit staged in making him look like he was winning the fight when the Wolfman was easily outmaneuvering and taking the fight to him as he just slowly, unlike the Wolfmans sharp and quick movements, lumbered along trying not to embarrass himself by falling on his face; you can see here that Bela made the right decision not to take the part of the Frankenstein Monster back in 1931 when he was offered it and had it go to, who later became, his major rival in horror movies Boris Karloff.

In the end Larry Talbot finally got his wish and he didn't need the late Dr.Frankenstein's diary and notes, about the mysteries of life and death, to get it. All that was needed, for Larry to depart from his life of pain and suffering, was a couple of sticks of dynamite placed under the power dam overlooking Frankenstein Castle and a book of matches to do the trick, he died.

Yes in the end, of "Frankensein meets the Wolfman", Larry Tolbat got what he wanted, peace & quite from the world around him, but not for long; Lon Chaney Jr. was to come back the next two years, due to popular demand, again as Larry the Wolfman in both "House of Frankenstein" in 1944 and "House of Dracula" in 1945 as well as five years later, again playing the tormented Larry Talbot, in the Universal comedy/horror classic "Abbot & Costello meets Frankenstein".

Review by sol from the Internet Movie Database.