Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, What Could Have Been

I love Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, it has to be one of my all time favorite films. From the opening in the crypt where the Wolf Man is resurrected by the light of the moon to the final battle between the two title characters, it's just a monster junkie's best fix.

But with all fixes, there's the come down after the high, and FMTWM has one big downer for monster fans.

At the end of Ghost of Frankenstein Ygor played by Bela Lugosi has his brain implanted in the body of Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, and we get to hear the Monster talk with Lugosi's voice. Because Ygor's and the Monster's blood type are different the Ygor/Monster goes blind before a fiery house collapses on him.

The script for FMTWM has the blind and weakened Monster, still with Ygor's brain, buried in an ice cave that must of been under the house that burned to the ground in the last movie. Bela Lugosi was hired as the Monster so the voice would match the end of Ghost of Frankenstein. Ironic since Lugosi walked away from playing the Monster twelve years earlier.

Apparently there was an early screening of a cut with Lugosi speaking the monster's lines went badly and Universal re-cut the film taking out any reference to the Monster talking or being blind. This made Lugoi's stumbling, arms out stretched, blind Monster look stilted. Critics often put the movie down and sight the Lugosi's Monster as a low point, not understanding that Lugosi was actually doing what the script called for.

Instead of a mute mindless Monster, we could of had a sinister Monster wanting to be powerful again. It adds a dimension to the character that could of been expanded upon in the next movie, but it was not to be.

Today no footage of Lugosi's originally filmed scenes exist. The original screen play which was published in the 1990's (it's out of print now) so we can use our imaginations to try and recreate what we today would of found to be a great performance.

Below is the trailer for FMTWM.

Until Next Time, Stay Insane!

House of the Wolf man

UPDATE: I noticed that the video gets cut off on the right side in some settings, so the direct link to the youtube video is HERE.

This looks really cool. I really, really, really, REALLY hope it's good. Sometime...okay, almost all the time when someone tries to make a movie in the vein of the the Universal Horror movies it comes off campy...But I have a good feeling about this one.

The star is Ron Chaney, who is the grandson and great grandson of Lon Chaney Jr. and Lon Chaney Sr. respectively, so you know there is love mixed into the blood of this film.

My first feeling when watching this trailer is this is the type of movie I wanted to make when I was twelve. Okay, I still would like to make a movie like this. But these folks have actually done it, so I am a little jealous. It takes a lot to get me excited these days, but this has me giddy like a zombie...if zombies were giddy.

There is no release date yet, but keep an eye out for it. The bloody-disgusting.com web site has the one sheet done in the style of a 1940's Universal Monster poster, which will be my desktop image in a few minutes.

Until Next Time, Stay Insane!

Trivia from The Mummy's Curse

Virginia Christine, who played Princess Ananka in Lon Chaney Jr.'s The Mummy's Curse, was in her later years Mrs. Olsen the Folger's Coffee Woman. Yes, the sexy female mummy that rises from the mud in Curse only to fall to dust at the end was also the kindly Mrs. Olsen, sooth sayer and constant coffee drinker.

I'd forgotten this little fact until this past Labor Day when I watched a marathon of the Mummy films from Karloff's The Mummy to The Mummy's Curse. As I watched I grabbed my computer and looked up the different actors and actresses to see what became of them (via www.imdb.com).

Move Horror movie fun facts to follow...