Weirdhouse Cinema: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss 1943's "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," starring Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
In this October episode of Weird House Cinema, we return
once more to the classic universal horror pictures of yesteryear.
And I picked this one in large part because it
played here in Atlanta the Plaza Theater as part of
the Silver Screams spook Show. And I'm a sucker for
the chance to see a gorgeous looking black and white
horror film in a historic theater that likely showed this

(00:40):
movie back in nineteen forty three. It's hard to get exact,
you know. I think you'd have to go in and
look at newspaper clippings and so forth to figure out
what exactly played there. But given that this was, you know,
a major release and a popular film, there's a very
good chance that played at that particular theater back in
the day.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
If I had a time machine, Yeah, to see the
either excitement or disappointment on the children's faces when we
get to the closing credits.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
That's true. I mean the children who are wanting the
monster mash that this movie offers up. Yeah, they're they're
gonna have to wait a little bit. There's not a
lot of mashing at first.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
So do we say what the movie is yet? It's
nineteen forty three's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, one of the
great later universal horror sequels.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yes, yes, and note it is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man.
You know, it's not versus the Wolfman battles the Wolfman.
They meet. They're setting them up with each other. It's
kind of like my Dinner with Andre sort of situation,
or at least that's what he could seem to imply.
So Yet to be clear, this is not generally considered
among the best Universal Studios monster pictures, but it is,

(01:52):
I believe, the first major film in which a monster
from one movie meets, fights, or teams up with the
monster from another film. This sort of monster mash has
become just a staple of monster films, and this is
where the tradition seems to kick off, Like Frankenstein Meets
the Wolfman shambles so that mathra versus Godzilla can run

(02:14):
later on.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, or Freddy versus Jason for that matter. I
mean it started a long tradition, and this does seem
to be the first big one. So yeah, my opinion
is that while this movie is not the best of
the best for Universal, it does not rise to the
level of like the really exquisite Frank sequels like Bride
and Sun, which are both great. If you think about

(02:36):
it as something like a late Universal B movie, it's
a pretty excellent example. And I love the atmosphere and
the use of eerie sets, particularly there's one at the
beginning that's like this wind swept cemetery and the opening
grave robbing scene. I also really love the model and
miniature work with the castle at the end, and the
you know, the blowing up of the dam and the

(02:57):
flood and all that. I love lun Cheney Junior's tortured performance.
It's big and emotional and sometimes funny and often you know,
quite empathic. And the monster mash stuff. The fight at
the end, while quite brief, is a treat.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I look forward to discussing that sequence.
So yeah, it is a lot of fun. Like we
were talking about this off, Mike, I rewatch were actually
for me, I watched for the first time in full
The Wolfman in preparation for this because I don't think
I'd ever watched the entire picture. And while The Wolfman
the immediate predecessor, one of the two immediate predecessors to

(03:34):
this film, while it is definitely the better movie, I
don't think it would have been as fun a picture
to talk about here on Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
I agree. I mean this confirms a trend we have
observed many times in the past, which is the quality
of a Weird House episode doesn't necessarily relate to the
quality of the film. Yeah, some are just great to
talk about whether or not they're actually all that good.
But this movie is not bad. Just the ways in
which it's good are more limited.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, the critical reception was luke warm. I meant, I'm
to understand that it was a successful movie though from
a business standpoint, and it certainly inspired people. You know,
just the idea alone of Wolfman meeting Frankenstein. You know,
it unleashes the gate for all of these these monster
mashes to come. And I've read I've actually mentioned this

(04:25):
on the show before, but Spanish horror movie icon Paul
Nashy was was particularly inspired by this motion picture. Saw
it at a young age, and it inspired him to
eventually become all of the Universal monsters himself, because yes,
he did, at some point or another play a version
of all of the main universal monsters with the with

(04:45):
the exception of the gill Man. I don't I don't
think Paul Nashi ever played a gil Man, but everybody
else he definitely got in there and played all the
big Gothic characters for sure.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, we saw, of course, he created a full universal
monster mash of his own in Assignment Terror. I think
that was maybe not the only time he even did
that in the era. And then there's another later career
one in a sleazy or nashy movie called Howl of
the Devil, which is essentially a slasher film, but it

(05:15):
involves a child imagining encounters with his deceased father who
was a movie star and played all of the Universal monsters,
so he gets to appear in ghostly form in the
monster makeup of every one of them.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So, even at a point where Spanish cinema especially was
turning away from Gothic horror and embracing slashers, he still
managed to shoehorn Gothic universal inspired horror into the picture anyway, Yes, yes,
all right, So this is generally considered part of the
Universal Monsters timeline, the Universal Frankenstein timeline. So I figured

(05:51):
it might make sense to just break down where we
are with this picture in the sequence of films. Okay, okay,
So first of all, there came nineteen thirty one Frankenstein
James Whale Classic Picture, yep, and then came nineteen thirty
five's Bride of Frankenstein. Arguably the best of the whole series,
and this is one that we covered on Weird House
Cinema several years back.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I would say beyond arguably for me, it's not just
the best of the series, it's the best Universal monster
movie ever made. It's like, you can't top it. But
one of the closest runners up, I think is actually
the next one in the series, Son of Frankenstein from
thirty nine, which is I saw for the first time
when we were getting ready to cover it on the show,
and I thought was way better than I would have expected,

(06:36):
so much better than really it had any right to be.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
That's right. We talked about this film last year and
I think it just reran this Monday of this week.
But yeah, this is the film that introduced Bella Lugosi's
Igor character wonderful, Yeah, which is a wonderful plotting character
that becomes increasingly important before he's forgotten. Run him in

(07:00):
just a minute. Okay, So that was thirty nine. Then
came nineteen forty one's The wolf Man, which which we
just alluded to that of course starred Lon Chaney Junior.
He's going to reprise that role in this picture. This
movie was a big hit and again is a solid
moody where a wolf story that is set in Cardiff.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
Now at this point there's no interaction whatsoever between the
Frankenstein universe and the Wolfman universe. The first Wolfman movie
is a standalone film. We're just mentioning it as one
of the multiple streams that feeds into Frankenstein meets the
wolf Man.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I mean, nowadays we kind of know the trope
right that you start doing the crossovers once you run
out of things to do. And they had not quite
run out of things to do, certainly with Frankenstein just yet,
because in forty two they put out The Ghost of Frankenstein.
This is not one I have seen in full, but
I went ahead and pulled up the ending and watched
it prior to coming in here, and I read about

(07:59):
the plot. Basically, this film continues the son of Frankenstein
plot line, where we get we get a we get
another doctor Frankenstein in the mix. We have the monster, yeah,
something like that. We have the Monster again. Confusingly, this
time the monster is played by Lon Cheney Junior, who
is just coming off of playing the wolf Man. And

(08:21):
we had Bella Lagosi once more is Egor. And in
this picture there's like a plot to put a new
brain in the monster, and Igor, who of course has
you know, is suffering from various you know, health problems
at this point, manages plots to get his own brain
put in the monster. So in the final moments of

(08:41):
the film, the monster speaks in Bela Lugosi's voice and
and and is talking about how he's you know, you know,
seek vengeance on all his enemies and so forth. But
there's been some sort of a mishap some the blood
he didn't factor in the blood of the of the
host and so forth, and so the man is blind,
and the heroes were able to overcome the monster, and

(09:03):
the monster burns up in the castle, or so we thought. Okay,
because then comes today's film, nineteen forty three's Frankenstein Meets
the wolf Man. This is a movie that comes in
and serves as a sequel of sorts to the previous
two films, though it's a lot easier, I would argue,
to pick up the pieces of the Ghost of Frankenstein

(09:25):
than it is to pick up the pieces of the
wolf Man, because the Wolfman comes to a pretty satisfying,
gloomy close in a way, superstition triumphing over logic, and
we have the character of Larry Talbot, the wolf Man,
beaten to death with a silver cane by his own father.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
It's done.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
It's like Highlander one done at that point. But as
with Highlander one, sometimes you just got to make a
sequel and you've got to just find a way to
make it work on the page.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
This film today fits mo more comfortably as a Frankenstein
sequel than it does as a Wolfman sequel.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
And you can.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Especially tell that because of all the ways that it
ignores elements of the Wolfman lore and like ret CON's
things from the previous Wolfman film. And we'll talk about
that more as we go on, but but yeah, it
works more as a Frankenstein's sequel, but then, confusingly, we
don't get to the Frankenstein stuff until halfway through the movie.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, we have to. I think we have to put
in a lot more legwork to bring the wolf back
to life. And then the wolfman is Larry Talbot, and
even though he's dealing with like, you know, miraculous or
infernal resurrection here, you know, he's still the most relatable
human character in the picture, and therefore we spend a
lot of time with him. All Right, the Frankenstein series

(10:47):
would go three more films after this, House of Frankenstein
in forty four, House of Dracula in forty five. Let's
get Dracula into the mix on all this, right, sure,
people were paying for it. And then finally Abd and
Costello meet Frankenstein in forty eight, which kind of finishes
things out on an obvious, obviously comedic level. Bella's in
that as well. I believe that's his last performance as Dracula.

(11:10):
I've never actually watched it, but I'm to understand, like
you know, Bella gives it his all, and he doesn't
he doesn't give into the hamminess of it. He like
plays it straight.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
I've considered checking out House of Frankenstein for Weird House before.
I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm sure i'll watch
it at some point.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Maybe maybe we'll get to it next October.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Okay, So I was thinking about how some interesting themes
are brought to light by the overlap of the two
characters in Frankenstein Meets the wolf Man. Something Frankenstein's Monster
and the Wolfman have in common as distinct from the
other universal monsters, is that they are the two monsters
who both evoke pity. Both of them are dangerous. They

(11:50):
you know, they're violent, and they kill, but neither one
is consciously malicious. Larry Talbot, the character who becomes a
werewolf in The Wolfman, is depicted as not in control
of his actions when he transforms into the beast, so
he you know, he wolfs out and then he later
awakens in the morning to learn what he has done

(12:12):
and is filled with horror and remorse, but he has
no ability to stop it or control it.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, and Larry Talbot is portrayed in both films as
basically a likable guy, you know, really kind of an
everyday guy. Because ultimately, you know, we have a character
actor playing the role. You know, he doesn't have that
kind of like sharp job leading man vibe that various
other leads have. He feels very relatable and people like him,

(12:40):
the ladies like him. He's easy going, you know, and
except for the fact that he does turn into a
murderous monster on a full note.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yeah, but it's not by his choice, right though, I
do recall in the original wolf Man is something about
he's like really really trying to date a lady who's
already engaged something like that. But you know, maybe that's
a more minor character flaw here. So that's Larry Talbot

(13:07):
very sympathetic, you know, pitiable character even though he's a monster.
It's not his fault. Meanwhile, Frankenstein's creature is it seems
very much also not his fault. He has reanimated against
his own will. As he says at the end of
Bride of Frankenstein, we be long dead, like he recognizes
that he should not be and he comes into the

(13:28):
world as an innocent only harming people at first by
accident and then later out of desperation and rage after
being persecuted. And so you could contrast this with the
other universal horror villains of the era, such as Dracula,
The Mummy, the Invisible Man, which are all much more
vicious and devilish. I think it's an interesting choice. The

(13:51):
first ever monster mash film decided to combine the two
monsters that don't want to be monsters and would live
in peace if they could.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, even when you listen Dracula,
the Mummy and the Invisible Man, like the Invisible Man
is kind of the most evil.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, like some megalomaniac.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, I mean at least Dracula and the Mummy they
have undead status, like they're not completely human anymore. But
the Invisible Man is just a man who has made
himself invisible. And uh, and I mean that's I think
that's ultimately as part of why he's so fascinating. It's
the whole idea, like if if I were invisible as well,
would I become if I had some sort of a

(14:33):
power that was brought upon me, would it change me like.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
This as well?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, that one asks the question what would you do
if you could get away with anything?

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, but again this movie is also interesting and just
how you forced the whole concept basically is because both
titular monsters had effectively been killed off in their previous film,
the movie has to first really put in the work
to not only bring one of them back to life,
but bring them both back to life, get them in

(15:00):
the same plot, in the same place at the same time,
arrange the plot so that they have to meet, they
have to essentially work together, and the plot entails the
resurrection of one monster to kill the other essentially, And
as we'll discuss, by the end of the film, you'll
be wondering what really came of any of this.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, by the end of the film, I was very
fuzzy on what exactly the mechanics were, Why are they
training the energies from one monster? What exactly is the
doctor trying to do? We know there's what he says
he's going to do, but then it's clear that his
actual intentions are different, and I think it's never made
clear really what they are. Certainly with regard to Talbot,

(15:38):
we do get an idea of what he wants to
do with regard to the monster.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Right, Yeah, And as we'll discuss, even though it is
cinematically treated as a victory at the end, I really
have some serious questions about whether there was any victory
at all, but we'll come back to all that.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Also, one thing I just have to mention at the
top here is the main character of the wolfman in
this movie. His name is Larry Talbot. I think it's
almost certain that at least once in this episode I'm
going to accidentally call him Lyle Talbot, which is the
name of a prolific mid twentieth century American actor. The
reason I would Sayle Talbot is that I'm aware of

(16:14):
him because he ended up repeatedly collaborating with ed Wood
by virtue of the fact that Talbot, by his own admission,
never once in his entire career, turned down a job offer.
So if you've got a movie, he'll be in it.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right, Joe, do you have an elevator pitch for
this one?

Speaker 3 (16:30):
It is, can't medical science find a way to kill me?

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Like?

Speaker 3 (16:34):
What's a guy got to do to get dead? Around here?

Speaker 2 (16:37):
All right, let's listen to some of that trailer audio.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
But he doesn't understand there's a curse upon me. I
changed into a wolf. Listen to the movie. I saw
my father become obsessed plankings collar he died a horrible
there's no deeps order storm after her. She would come

(17:08):
in to by Oscar. Why should we treat it so fancy?
She's a Frankenstein, all right?

Speaker 2 (17:40):
If you want to go watch Frankenstein Meets the wolf Man,
well it's widely available wherever you get your Universal Studios
Monster movies. You want to watch them, uh streaming, you
want to watch them and on on Blu ray, on DVD, VHS,
laser disc, what have you. There is a way out there.
This is This one has been released so many in

(18:00):
so many different formats. Alright, let's get into the people
behind the picture here, starting with the director. This one
was directed by Roy William Neil. He lived eighteen eighty
seven through nineteen forty six, Irish born American film director,

(18:23):
best remembered for this film as well as a whole
bunch of Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. He directed I
Think most of them like eleven films from nineteen forty
three through nineteen forty six. His other movies include nineteen
thirty four's Black Moon starring Fey Ray, thirty four as
the ninth Guest, and nineteen thirty five's of The Black

(18:44):
Room starring Boris Karloff.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Black Moon and the Black Room.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah, that's right. I don't think these films are at
all related, but he did direct both of them. I
think well, black Moon is like a voodoo picture, all right,
And the screenplay on this one is once more the
word of Kurtziodnik, who lived nineteen oh two through the
year two thousand. We discussed him previously on Weird House,
as he wrote the screenplay for nineteen forty six's The

(19:10):
Beast with Five Fingers, as well as another movie.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Oh Creature with the Adam Brain.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
That's right. So, Siodnc was a German born novelist, screenwriter,
and director who left Germany for first first for the
United Kingdom and then for the United States due to
concerns over rising anti Semitism under the Nazis. His German
output was already pretty successful prior to this, including a
sci fi film that I haven't seen, but it involves

(19:40):
a sort of an aircraft carrier base titled FP One
Doesn't Answer. And he did British war thrillers and some comedies,
and then he struck it big with his nineteen forty
one screenplay for The Invisible Man Returns and his original
screenplay for forty one's The Wolfman. He went on to
write tons of screenplays, let's say, including this one, also

(20:01):
a nineteen forty three film titled Oh.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
I didn't realize what you were getting at for a second,
I walked with a zombie. So Rocky went in on
two songs for two so Odmac scripts.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
That's right, that's right. I mean, this guy was prolific,
Son of Dracula in forty three, House of Frankenstein in
forty four, and many more. He also wrote the nineteen
forty two sci fi novel Donovan's Brain, which has been
adapted three different times as The Lady in The Monster
in forty four, Donovan's Brain in fifty three, and The
Brain in sixty two. Now, I found it notable that

(20:33):
multiple films based on his work or screenplays that he
wrote for motion pictures concern mind or brain transference, most
famously Donovan's Brain in its various adaptations, but also nineteen
forties Black Friday, which by the way, stars Karloff and
Lagosi and I think is otherwise like a crime thriller,
but it has brain or mind transference in it. And

(20:56):
then in nineteen seventy film titled House Memory. And the
really interesting part about Frankenstein meets the Wolfman is that
you wouldn't be able to guess this from watching the film,
but this movie was also supposed to feature a mind
or brain transference plot as.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Well, between who between Frankenstein and the Wolfman or somebody else.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
No, no, So it's this would not be original to
this picture, but it's picking up the pieces from the
end of nineteen forty twos The Ghost of Frankenstein, in
which again Lugosi's Igor manages to get his own brain
transplant planted into the body of the monster again played
in that film by Lyncheney Junior, before the castle gets

(21:38):
burned up. So in this film, the monster, who will
now be played by Lugosi was originally had dialogue spoken
by Lagosi, because it's not just Frankenstein's monster, It is
supposed to be Igor's brain in the monster's body, and
so he would have been he was blind. That's why
in this film we'll see Frankenstein's monster walking with arms outstretched,

(22:02):
which became kind of like a cartoon stereotype or trope
of Frankenstein's monster, and that's where it comes from. This film,
but you would know this from the film because they
don't mention the blindness. They certainly don't mention the Egor's
brain plot, like that's just completely removed along with all
of Lugosi's dialogue.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
That would make sense, and that would also kind of
spoil some of the themes I was talking about if
they had stuck with the Egor's brain thing, though, I
guess you could still assume that they just don't discuss
it in this movie, because so I was talking about
how Frankenstein is essentially an innocent but Egor is not
an Igor is a malicious, sadistic killer. In fact, it's

(22:43):
part of his character and son of Frankenstein that he
was already once hanged for his crimes but survived the hanging,
putting him in a kind of legal limbo where he
couldn't be punished again.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, you know, we're obviously we're speculating here about a
version of the film that didn't survive. But I don't know,
maybe Egor is more to be pitied in this film
because he's kind of like really written himself into a
corner here and it's like, oh, well, I'm stuck in
the body of a blind monster that apparently can't die either.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
But as you said, apart from the fact that the
monster in this film is being played by Bella Lagosi,
there's nothing about it that would indicate it his ego
or like, he never identifies with the igor and the
characters don't discuss this.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, You've got to.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
You have to have read about that or heard about
that somewhere else. It is not It is not a
part of the picture experience here, Okay, all right. Lon
Chaney Junior once more, yeah, plays Lawrence Talbot The Wolfman.
Ln Chaney Junior lived nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy three,
second generation horror film icon, son of the legendary Ln Cheney.

(23:44):
Lon Chaney himself lived eighteen eighty three through nineteen thirty.
The Man of a Thousand Faces right across four decades
of cinema, Lon Chaney Junior's role as Larry Talbot the
wolf Man easily his most famous role and one that
in many ways just ends up defining his career. In
many ways, you could even argue I would say that

(24:05):
Lawn Cheney Junior becomes more famous than his father. I mean,
he is the guy mentioned in where Wolves of London
after all, he and he is one of the like
the Key, he's on the Mount rushmore of Universal monsters.
You know, he is the Wolfman now and forever.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
That's right. It is not a woo.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
I saw Lawn Chaney Senior walking with the Queen.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, not to take anything away from lawn Chaney Senior's career,
obviously a very important figure in his own era, but
I would say overall, more people are going to be
familiar with Lawn Chaney Junior. So he apparently had a
pretty rough childhood. He was discouraged from entering show business
by his father and instead went into business, only to

(24:46):
begin his own acting career after his father's death from
throat cancer. At first, he acted under his own name
and steadily got larger parts and serials and action movies.
He also did stunt work to pay the bills, and
after some bigger independent roles in the mid thirties, ultimately
Universal Studios signs him and they say, hey, you know,

(25:06):
we're going to sign it to this contract. We're going
to put you in some movies. But what about what
about let's go ahead and call you Lawn Cheney Junior.
Because that is not his birth name birth name actually
frightened Toll Cheney, and so his earlier appearances he's builled
as such, but universal is like, nope, you're the son
of Lawn Cheney. You're Lawn Cheney junior. Okay. So at

(25:28):
this point he begins appearing in all manner of films.
He even plays Lenny in a nineteen thirty nine adaptation
of Mice and Men. But he didn't actually act in
a horror film until nineteen forty one, when he appear
in Man Made Monster and of course The Wolfman, and
this film's the Wolfman's success and legendary status. This propels
him into a horror icon territory pretty quickly, with subsequent

(25:51):
horror films including well The Ghost of Frankenstein, which we've mentioned,
in which he plays the monster. Nineteen forty two is
The Mummy's Tomb, in which he plays the Mummy. Then
he's back for Frankenstein meets Wolfman. Then he's in Son
of Dracula in forty three, playing Count Alocard. I guess
is Dracula junr.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
He does not have vampire energy.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
He doesn't. He really has a great like I say,
I watched part of Ghost of Frankenstein. And he has
a great Frankenstein's monster face. You know, he's a big guy. Yeah,
and so you know, he really embodies the monster rather well,
as we'll discuss. I think a lot. Eve embodies the
monster far better than Bela Lagosi.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Let's see, he played more mummies in two nineteen forty
four movies, The Mummies Ghost and The Mummies Curse. Let's
see forty four's House of Frankenstein as Larry Talbot once more,
forty five's House of Dracula Talbot again. And then he's
also in forty eight's Avid in Costello Meet Frankenstein. I
think he's just built as the wolfman in that, but
I guess it's less important who the wolfman is. And

(26:54):
of course that's the final movie in the classic universal
Frankenstein series. And from here list goes on, but a
few notable horror entries meant to mention include nineteen fifty
nine's The Alligator People.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Oh, Alligator Person's in the Bog and Fog.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, yeah, another Rocky ericson reference. Another one is nineteen
sixty three's The Haunted Palace.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Oh, I've got that one on disc, but I haven't
watched it yet. The is Corman Poe is Vincent Price
in that one he.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Is, Yes, he plays Charles dexter Ward. This is the
one that is they're giving it the Poe treatment, call
it Edgar Allen Poe's The Haunted Palace, but it's actually
to some extent based on an HP Lovecraft story. That's
fun case of Charles dexter Ward. Yeah, let's see. Then
there's a sixty seven's Hillbilly's in a Haunted House, which
I think I watched the riff version of that, and oh,

(27:41):
nineteen sixty seven Spider Baby. If you haven't seen this one,
this is a great proto Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, directed
by Jack Hill. He plays the patriarch of like a
you know, like a killer hillbilly family, but with some
interesting twists, basically like their two daughters, in particular, one
of which likes to play spider Uh.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Oh, I haven't seen that one.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
It's good.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I recommend it. I think I watched that one on
Criterion Channel. Other films of note, just to pull out
another couple these are non horror films, but he was
in nineteen fifty two is High Noon, and also nineteen
fifty eight's The Defiant Ones. So again, this is a
ridiculous movie in so many ways, but Lon Chaney Junior's
performance is Larry Talbot Tragic Cursed where wolf turned wandering

(28:27):
immortal seeking death is easily the most commanding performance in
the picture, and it gives us, weirdly, the most relatable
character despite his very unrelatable circumstances. Like again, clearly a
gifted character actor, you know, charismatic and relatable, and we
get to see him employ all of his talents in
a lead role here quite nicely. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yeah, despite the fact that, as you say, his main
character struggle is h I can't get death in me.
But he is really good in the role. And I
can't remember if you already mentioned this. I apologize, but
I think it is strange that I was reading he
was originally when they're planning to make this movie, they
were originally going to have him play both roles, Frankenstein's

(29:13):
Monster and the wolf Man, and then they were like,
and no, that would be too difficult, So maybe he'll
just play Frankenstein's Monster because he had done that also,
and goes to Frankenstein and then they were like, oh no,
he'll just be the wolf Man. So this was like
the third option for who Lonchani Junior would be in
the film.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think it's the right choice, though, Yeah, I mean
you can't have I mean, he's the only guy who
can play Larry Talbot, so it had to be. Now,
if he played the monster as well, I mean, that
could have worked. But again, setting up this film, the
whole idea was that the monster would speak with Belo
Lagosi's voice. So what if the monster was played by
Bela Lagosi? Like on paper, that makes sense?

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Oh, should we talk about Bella Agosi?

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Now, yeah, we're already talking about him. Let's let's talk
about Bella. So yeah, Belo Lagos, we've talked about him
multiple times in the show already, with eighteen eighty two
through nineteen fifty six here playing the role or a
version of it that he allegedly passed on back in
nineteen thirty one. I'm not sure if there's one hundred
percent certainty on any of this. You know, help film

(30:16):
mythmaking goes and you know, one person says one thing,
one says the other, but the story generally goes that.
Writing high on the success of Dracula, he wanted the
part of Frankenstein doctor Frankenstein for himself, and he didn't
want to play a mute monster as the monster appeared
in the script at that time, and so it just
didn't come together.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
So when you say frankenzein, he wanted to play the
doctor the creator, Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, that speaking role. And you know, I think at
the time the story is that he considered the monster
part beneath his abilities.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
You know, I.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Adore Bella Legosi, but somehow I think this is one
of the weakest performances of his that I've seen something about.
He seems to have not found his them or ever
landed on the right posture as the Frankenstein Monster here.
And this really makes me appreciate all the more how
extraordinary Boris Karloff's performance is. Carloff in the role is not,

(31:12):
to quote the film ed would all grunting and makeup.
He's bringing a lot of He's bringing a lot to
the performance, and you really appreciate it when you see
somebody else, even as somebody as wonderful of an actor
as Bella Legosi, try to do the role and I
think sort of fail. Worth flagging again however, that despite
his turn as the Monster being a low point, I

(31:33):
think Bella still did play one of the best villains
ever in the Frankenstein universe. I mean, there's actually a
lot of great competition because you got Septimus Pretorious and
Bride that's all time great villain. But right up there
with Septimus Pretorious is Bella Leegosi as Igor and son
of Frankenstein. Again, one of my favorite Universal films and

(31:53):
my favorite role in that film.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Yeah, I agree with all that I can. Granted, again,
we don't get to see the performance and the character
here as it was originally intended, the Igor Monster. But yeah,
Lugosi's Monster just always feels awkward to me in this picture.
It's just nothing. It just doesn't click for me for
some reason.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, he does have some great moments in close up
on his face, that is true. Yeah, I'll give him that,
but the full physicality of the performance doesn't quite work.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
All right, Let's look at some of we've covered the
big hitters here. Let's talk about some of the supporting
human roles here. So we do have a descendant of
Frankenstein a showing back up and this is the character
Baroness Else of Frankenstein, and she is played by Ilona Massey,
who lived nineteen ten through nineteen seventy four Hungarian American, film,

(32:45):
stage and radio performer, best remembered for this film. It
would seem her only true horror movie, but she also
starred in nineteen forty two's Invisible Agent. This was a
comedy thriller in which the Invisible Man's grandson battles Nazis.
Peter Lorrie co starred in it, but that alone has
not been enough to get me to watch it just yet.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
That is an interesting premise.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's like, Yeah, I don't know horror comedies of this era,
I'm weary of.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
It's not her fault. I would blame it more on
the writing, but I would say her presence in this
film is largely curious. She is often kind of standing
around in a scene where you would think she would
be having more of a reaction to what's going on,
but she doesn't.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, I feel like, especially since she is the Frankenstein
character in this picture, I wanted her to be more
involved in everything. I guess she feels a little more
passive than she could have been, Like she's not strapping
on the goggles herself if I remember correctly.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
I mean she does go at the end in like
sort of short circuit all the machinery and that lab.
But yeah, that's basically the one moment like that.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Otherwise, her role in this movie seems to be just
to light up the screen as a porcelain starlet. Like
she's always wearing like white and she has like basically
white hair, super white skin, so she amid all the
gloom and the grayness. It really feels like she's almost
has like an angelic presence despite being a Frankenstein. And yeah,

(34:21):
she also another important role she has is to be
physically carried around like an unconscious bride by the monster.
At one point, this is teased on the poster, and
for once, we actually get it in the film. As
we've discussed many times, there's so many movies where the
poster art features the monster carrying a woman around and

(34:42):
it doesn't actually happen. Here, we get it Monster Bridle
carry certified.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
That is true true advertising in this case. She also
this character does indirectly contribute one of the most unintentionally
funny moments of the movie, and it's when Lon Chaney
Junior is digging through the burned remnants of the ruined
Frankenstein Castle, and he identifies a new lead in his
detective work by finding the glamour photo of Ilona Massey

(35:11):
autographed as like elsa Frankenstein to my father, but it's
like a Hollywood photo, like posing in a sequin dress.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, all right, let's see other supporting characters. We have
Patrick Knowles playing doctor frank mannering. I mean, he's more
than supporting this is he's an important.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Character, major in terms of plot developments, but also feels
very much like a rando who wandered into the story,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, Like, in a way, shouldn't the baroness be doing
all the things that he's doing. I feel like, yeah,
she would if she were a male character. But yeah,
they're just switching it up and they're like, oh, well,
the female character can't actually be the mad scientist.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
It would have been a lot better if she had been.
That could have worked, but instead, no, we have this
character like, oh, remember this random guy who didn't really
make an impression from the first act. He's going to
do some mad science now.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, so the actor here. He lived nineteen eleven through
nineteen ninety five. He'd previously appeared in The Wolfman, though
in a different role. He also played Will Scarlett in
nineteen thirty eight's The Adventures of Robin Hood, so he
was a certified swashbuckler. His other credits include nineteen forty
one's How Green Was My Valley, nineteen forty two is
the Strange Case of Doctor RX Prescription, Okay, and then

(36:30):
nineteen seventy three is Terror in the Wax Museum.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay. He's very smooth in this film. Do you notice
how smooth his skin is? Extreme babyface?

Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's true, that's true. Let's see Lionel app while is
back in this one. He's in a number of these
universal horror movies, this time in a more reduced role.
He played the inspector and son of Frankenstein, you know,
with he had the artificial arm and had got to
really eat up up fairly ample screen time and had

(37:02):
some great scenes. Here he plays the mayor, so he
has much less to do. But by god, Lionel Atwell
is going to act his heart out in any scene
you get him in, so he really chews it up,
and there's there are a few scenes where he's standing
amid other villagers kind of looking up at things occurring,
like Castle's exploding and whatnot. And he's the most animated

(37:25):
of the bunch.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Oh yes, which is also in contrast to the way
this character is written, who is just the calming voice
of reason as other goings on are happening. Like He'll
literally be in scenes where he's standing there as other
characters are discussing the planning of a terrorist plot and
he's just like, Oh, you don't mean any of what
you're saying, and then he walks away.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, but he Yeah, he was. He was in a
bunch of these old films and was a numerous Frankenstein movies.
In fact, he was in Ghost of Frankenstein previously. I
believe I could be mistaken here, but I think he
is the doctor that ends up betraying Frankenstein by helping
Igor put his brain in the monster.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Oh yeah, Well, I would like to see lionel atwill
do more villain roles, so I'm gonna have to check
out Ghosts next.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, I'm very interested based on all of the crazy
choices it seems to make. Yeah, all right, let's see
other We also have another like returning player from the
Universal Horror franchise. Dwight Frye is back. Dwight fry you
remember played Renfield opposite Lugosi and Dracula and pops up
in bit sometimes almost invisible roles in other pictures. Here

(38:34):
he plays a character named Rudy who's just kind of
one of the vocal townspeople.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Right, Yeah, he's a he's a villager. It feels almost
like a cameo. He's only got a few lines, but.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
When he when he does speak though, he has that
that signature Dwight fry kind of live wire energy.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
So yeah, I really like him.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
All right.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
We have another returning actor reprising her role as the
wise roma woman Maleva. We have Maria Ospinskaya who lived
eighteen seventy six through nineteen forty nine. She played this
character in The Wolfman. Russian actress who started out in
silent film and then late in her career played a
lot of older woman roles in Hollywood. Two time Academy

(39:15):
Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress for nineteen thirty seven's
Dodsworth and nineteen forty's Love Affair. Her only other horror
film was nineteen forty two's The Mystery of Marie Roget
which I've not read the original story. This is an
Edgar Allan Poe story, a sequel to the Murders in
the Room Morgue. Does it have gorillas in it? I
don't know. I would hope like doing a Dracula sequel

(39:39):
without vampires, right, yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
One more character. This is another film has a number
of these. The character is not much, seems to be
just the background side character, but ends up being very
pivotal to the plot. Yeah, and that is the character Vazik,
the Innkeeper, played by Rex Evans who lived nineteen oh
three through nineteen sixty nine. This guy, I was in
various films at the time. A heavyset actor did a

(40:03):
lot of heavy set character roles. Played Hermann Goring in
the nineteen forty three anti Axis Powers comedy Nazi Nuisance.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
I could see that.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Okay, Yeah, I think it's one that was like positioning
the leaders of the Axis Powers is like three stooges.
I am not putting this on the watch list, but
interesting connection for this actor. His other credits, though, include
nineteen forties The Philadelphia Story, nineteen forties The Invisible Man,
returns and Hitchcock's Suspicion in nineteen forty one. All right,

(40:35):
I'll just mention in passing that Jack P. Pierce, the
monster makeup Master, returns once more to do the makeup.
Here he worked on nineteen twenty eight's The Man Who Laughs,
thirty one's Dracula, thirty two is The Mummy, thirty three
is The Invisible Man, forty one's The Wolfman, and and
so forth. So you know everything, all the makeup looks

(40:56):
pretty darn good, especially the Wolfman makeup, as we'll discuss,
and then the music comes to us from Hans Jay
Salter born eighteen ninety six died in nineteen ninety four
Austrian American film composer. His most celebrated scores or scores
that he worked on include The Wolfman from forty one,
Scarlett Street from forty five, and he's also he's not credited,

(41:17):
but he's one of like three different uncredited composers on
The Creature from the Black Lagoon from fifty four. He's
one of these composers who is Oftentimes he's either uncredited
or he's one of two or three different composers whose
work was used and sometimes it's stock music, but he
himself was a six time Oscar nominee himself.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
All right, are you ready to talk about the plot?

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
So the title in opening credits play over a chemistry
laboratory set with a bunch of bubbling flasks and beakers
pouring fog all over the table. And I think this
opening imagery feels like an odd fit for most of
the runtime of the film, because while unrestrained scientific research
is a major theme of the original Frankenstein series, it

(42:11):
does not really become a major theme of this movie
until the very end, until like right at the end.
The first half is all wolfman stuff and there's very
little laboratory work until the climax.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah, but it's like like a glass with the dry
eyes in it, you know, getting the smoking like you
want to reach up and grab it off the screen
and take a sip.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
It does look nice.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
So the action opens on a lonely cemetery at night.
And I said this earlier, but I love this opening set.
The atmosphere is wonderful. There's a bright full moon and
banks of mist pour across the sky down on the ground.
We can see. It must be late autumn or winter,
because the trees and the shrubs are bare, they've got
black limbs casting shadows in the moonlight. The cemetery is

(42:57):
surrounded by this ancient tumble down all of stone, which
has wrought iron spikes and marble ornaments on top. And
then on one of these gateside flourishes there is a
raven perch just cawing, so the wind rattles the tree
branches and it blows these little dead leaves through the
air like confetti, and we see a bronze placard on

(43:18):
the stone gate engraved with the words here rest the
Dead of Lenwelly and Lenwlly viewers would probably remember at
the time this movie came out is the fictional village
in Wales that is the setting of The Wolf Man,
and I think later became the setting of a bunch
of horror stories and films. So up the hillside path

(43:40):
to the cemetery come two men. They're both kind of
leaning and staggering as they walk. One carries a lantern,
the other a shovel. These guys do not feel like
the first string of the grave robbing team. They seem
a little incompetent, but perhaps under the influence and they
approach a big old as a liam in the cemetery

(44:01):
bearing the name Talbot.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Well, you know they're not robbing graves because things were
working out well for them elsewhere in life.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Yeah, now we've sort of already covered this, but just
to get the backstory straight again, Talbot is the name
of the family. In the original film The wolf Man,
the main character played by Lon Chaney Junior is Larry
Talbot who comes back to visit his ancestral estate in
Wales after being away for many years. He gets bitten
I think, on the chest one night by a werewolf

(44:32):
and the curse is transferred to him. You know, you
probably know the general lightline of the story from there.
Wakes up in the morning, what have I done? But
worth noting is that at the end of The Wolfman,
Larry Talbot is dead, dead, dead, beaten to death with
a silver headed cane by his own father played by
Claude Rains.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, and it's sad, it's grim. And again this is
not a moment that leaves you wondering, I wonder what
will happen to Larry Talbot all these adventures continue, No,
it seems done.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
So the two grave robbers climb through the transom over
the door to the mausoleum. They head inside and they
surveyed the tombs, eventually coming to the one they're looking for.
The shorter grave robber reads the inscription out loud, saying,
Lawrence Stewart Talbot, who died at the youthful age of
thirty one. R ip ooh man. When viewing this, this

(45:26):
is really one of those I am older than Homer
Simpson moments. Larry Talbot does not read as younger than
I am now to be fair Lawn Cheney Junior was
a bit older than the character, but still younger than me.
Wild Wow, I assume many people your age, my age,
or anywhere in between, we have a similar reaction. Just
he seems like a more mature fellow. Yes, it was

(45:50):
a different time anyway. So the grave robberies here crack
the vault with a chisel while discussing what they're looking for.
Room around the village is that Talbot buried with a
big wad of cash, a gold watch and a ring,
And they say it's a sin to bury good money
when it could help people. The taller one says, what
do you think it'll look like after so many years,

(46:11):
and the other one says, just bones in an empty skull.
So the lid pops open and they peer inside, and
the body appears to be covered in some kind of
dried herb. They pull like crispy branches of this herb
off the body, and one of them recognizes what it is.
It is wolf spain. Then the lead grave robber freezes

(46:33):
as if startled, and he begins to recite a poem
he knows by heart. Even a man who's pure at
heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf.
When the wolf Spain blooms and the moon is full
and bright, the face of the body lying in the
tomb is then uncovered, and it is clearly not just
bones in an empty skull. The body is fleshy and quick.

(46:55):
One of the robbers mutters that he looks to be
merely sleeping, and despite this, the smaller thief gets to work.
He lifts Talbot's dead hand and wrenches a ring from
his finger, observing it in the moonlight to see that
it's made of gold. But then suddenly Talbot stirs and
we see his long fingernails, which they press on nails
aren't they. He's got sharp, long fingernails, revealing he is

(47:19):
not dead, and he reaches up with one hand and
snatches the arm of the smaller thief. Note that at
this point he is fully human looking. There's no wolfman
makeup in this scene except for we see the long nails,
and the thief cries for help. He drops his lantern
into the ground that starts a fire. The second grave
robber panics and abandons his partner, escaping through the transom,

(47:42):
over the door and running away through the graveyard while
the wind shakes the trees, and I think, okay, good start,
strong opening scene. The writing and the acting don't especially sing,
but they're good enough, and the set design and cinematography
are wonderful, so it's a really good mood at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
I love this sequence, And it was ultimately rather rather
a revelation concerning other werewolf films that I've seen that
you know, all were clearly influenced by this and The
wolf Man on one level. I mentioned Paul Nashy earlier,
and we previously discussed nineteen eighties Night of the Werewolf

(48:21):
on Weird House Cinema. This movie basically opens the same
way grave robbers come to the tomb, this time of
Voldemar Leninski Nashi's werewolf character. They're going to rob the grave,
but when they open it up, werewolf gets them. Though
in the Nashy picture, the werewolf is already like fully transformed,
and it's a good bit more terrifying, you know.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Is riping in wolf mode?

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Yes, And then this scene also solves another puzzle from
another werewolf film, and that is why does a werewolf
emerge from a casket? In nineteen sixty five Sola Loba,
in my opinion and anyway, excellent female werewolf film from Mexico,
we see the werewolf arising fully transformed out of a casket.

(49:08):
And in that episode we were discussing and we're like,
why is she getting out of a casket? And I
think this is probably the reason because that movie, like
a lot of werewolf movies, was inspired by Frankenstein meets
the Wolf Man.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
That does make a lot of sense because typically the
werewolf is not understood as an undead type of character,
so why would it be coming out of a grave.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
It's not dead.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
This is a living person who transforms. But yeah, if
it's a callback to this scene where the werewolf has
been assumed dead and lying, you know, laying. I think
the implication is that all of the wolf spain piled
up on top of him is some kind of talisman
that has like suppressed his power and kept him down there.

(49:49):
Did you read it the same way?

Speaker 2 (49:51):
I guess so. Yeah, Like, you know, one of the
big problems with the plot of this picture is that, yeah,
Talbot is like, I wish I could die. There's got
to be a way to me die. And despite the
fact that he very clearly died in the first film,
and we had, you know, lore that established that werewolves
could die, and then it also just seems like, isn't
this something you could maybe manage, like, I don't know,

(50:13):
shackle yourself whenever there's a full moon, or you have
somebody lay a bunch of wolf'spine on you and you
can just kind of like cry o sleep through the
full moons. Like it seems like there might be another
way forward here.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
It really does, but the film it just elides these details.
Don't worry about that. Yeah, you know, we got we
got a plot to persist a film.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah. Anyway, what happens next is we cut to a
nearby city. I didn't know where this was at first,
but I think this is supposed to be already in Cardiff,
in you know, the big city in Wales, where a
policeman is patrolling an empty street at night and he
comes across the unconscious body of Lon Chaney Junior, collapsed
on the cobblestones with a gaping head wound. And then

(50:54):
we cut to some time later in a hospital where
Talbot is recovering in bed with bandages around his head.
His surgeon, a doctor Mannering played by again a very
baby faced Patrick Knowles, enters the ward accompanied by a
police inspector named Owen. They are informed that not only
is the patient recovering well from surgery, he is already

(51:14):
conscious and talking, and this is quite unexpected given the
severity of his head wound and the procedure required to
fix it. So the doctor and the inspector go to
see him. Talbot's awake, but at this point very soft
spoken and tentative. He says that he feels no pain
at the moment, but he's confused. He doesn't know where
he is, and to his distress, he doesn't remember how

(51:36):
he got there. Talbot gives them his name, and the
doctor and inspector leave to go see what they can
find out. So Owen phones police in Llanwelly to inquire
about Lawrence Talbot and they inform him with certainty that yes,
Lawrence Talbot is from Lanwelli, but he is also dead.
He died four years ago, so it was supposed to

(51:56):
be four years since the events of the first film. Also,
I will say that the inside of the land Welly
police station does not look like a police station, looks
like a beer hall. It's got these stone arches, long
tables and big roaring fireplace. And then one of the
policemen is pumping air into the tire of a bicycle
in the middle of the room. Seems like outdoor work.

(52:18):
But yeah, anyway, of course, Inspector Owen concludes that Talbot
is an impostor, but doctor Mannering convinces the police to
hold off on interrogating him any further, you know, until
he's recovered. But unfortunately before that can happen. There is
a full moon.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Something about the pacing and the sense of time in
this film, but it feels like there are roughly four
full moons a week in the universe of Frankenstein Mee's
the Wolfman.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Full moons are constantly happening and randomly.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
You don't know when's going to occur. You can't possibly
prepare for them.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
That does seem like part of the plot. You don't
know when it will be a full moon, which is
not how it works.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Yeah, Larry's like, oh, geez, when's the next full moon.
He's like, oh, it's right now.

Speaker 4 (53:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
So Talbot is lying in his hospital bed and the
moonlight falls on him through a large window at the
end of the room. His eyes go glassy, and then
as he lies there in his bed staring into space,
we begin to see the changes. And this is the
classic Wolfman transformation, where a sequence of different shots fade
into one another, and in each one he has more

(53:24):
of the wolfman makeup applied, so he quickly grows a beard.
The beard creeps in from his jaw toward the center
of his face until his head and face are fully
covered in dark hair, his teeth turned into piercing canines.
His nose becomes somewhat canine too, though to be clear,
this is not the long snout kind of where wolf makeup.

(53:46):
We've talked about these differences in other episodes in the past,
but the wolfman makeup is relatively humanoid, flat faced, just
with lots of hair, claws and fangs.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
And I think I've probably said this before, but yeah,
on with snouted were wolves, I don't okay anymore. It's
it's the wolfman slash wolf woman. Look, that's what I'm into.
That's that's that's what I like to see. And so yeah,
the makeup here looks incredible. I mean, you could maybe
critique it and say, well, maybe the nose looks a
little peaky there's but you still can't take much away

(54:20):
from it. It is the classic wolf man.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Look.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
All other wolfman's, wolf men and wolf women wolf people
exist in the shadow of this creation.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
One more note I want to add about this transformation
scene is that we've all seen sloppy versions of this
effect or I don't know if your cinematic diet is
like us, you've seen sloppy versions of this kind of transformation.
But it's really smooth here, looks great. And one thing
that was pointed out by Shane Morton at the Silver
Scream Spook Show is that the pillow that his head

(54:51):
is on for the transformation was made out of porcelain,
because you know, you have to like film stop apply makeup,
film stop, apply makeup, and you can't have the pillow
changing underneath lawn Cheney Junior's head. So you have a
porcelain pillow there behind his head, which wow, I thought
was very fascinating.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
That's a good solution. I wouldn't have guessed that by
looking at it. Yeah, But once the transformation is complete,
we see the Wolfman on the loose in Cardiff, tearing
through the city streets in the dark, sort of doing
parkourp yeah, yeah, jumping up on top of crates and
these cotton bales piled up in the street. He attacks
a policeman, snarling and grabbing him by the throat, and

(55:31):
then we can see in shadow as the Wolfman drags
the body away down an alley.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
He's really scary and intimidating, looking the same as in
The Wolfman. I saw this film with my family and
afterwards my wife was asking me. She's like, do you
think people who saw this movie originally, if they were
they scared by it? Did they find this particular film scary?
And I don't know. There's some based on some aspects
of the plot, I could see an argument for it

(55:57):
being not that scary, but I don't know these thnes
with the wolf I think hold up really well.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Yeah, some of the later stuff, especially the big climax,
by that point, it doesn't feel like it's supposed to
be scary. That's like fun mode. At this point it
has turned into Godzilla versus King Kong.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Once the monsters are fighting each other, you're safe. Yeah,
It's like, yes, right, have them fight each other and
I will slip out the back.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
So the next morning, the hospital staff find Talbot lying
face down sideways on his bed. He's kind of dirty,
his hair is must bandages are missing missing, and the
window is hanging open. And he suddenly awakes and asks
Mannering his doctor to call the police. He says, because
I am a murderer. So Talbot has no control over

(56:41):
his actions when he is in wolf mode. And I
think there is some question about whether he remembers anything
when he wakes up. I recall from the original Wolfman.
Rob correct me if I'm wrong that he does not
remember anything when he wakes up. But maybe what's going
on here is he's just putting the pieces together based
on what happened in the first movie, not based on

(57:02):
memories of the previous night.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
He has a lot to figure out here. Yeah, what
you know, Like, even if he is remembering, oh yeah,
I'm a were wolf, he has to he's probably thinking,
didn't I die? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (57:15):
So anyway, they call up Inspector Owen, but Mannering convinces
he or he tries to convince Talbot that he is
not a murderer. He says, true, there was a constable
killed last night, but that was several streets away, and
he was killed by a wild animal. Talbot says, that's
just it, I turn into an animal.

Speaker 4 (57:32):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
I did laugh at that line.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
That was great.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Nothing on his delivery, but the line itself was pretty funny.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Mannering explains it all away. He's like, no, no, no,
you're not a murderer. You're suffering from a delusion. So
what's a guy got to do to get arrested for
murder around here? Anyway? When Owen arrives, Talbot desperately recaps
the major events of the first film. He was bitten
by a wolf on the chest, though it wasn't a wolf,
it was a man, a were wolf. Talbot killed the

(58:01):
original werewolf in a fight. He beat it to death
with the silver cane, but then he began himself to
transform at night and roam Hill and Dale in a
bloodthirsty rage beyond his control. And then he says, ask Maleva,
you know she'll tell you this is again a character
from the first movie. It is the mother of the

(58:21):
werewolf played by Bella Lagosi that turned Talbot, and she's
going to be back in the sequel. And I think
the werewolf character in the first movie is not only
played by Bella Lagosi, but is named Bella.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Yes you're correct, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Then Talbot gets really bad news. Owen says, come on,
tell us your real name. You can't be Lawrence Talbot.
He died four years ago, and this leads Talbot to
realize that he has the curse of immortality because he
is a werewolf. He cannot die now. I recall several
reviewers saying that the movie This movie has serious plot

(58:58):
holes or at least inconsistency and premises that were not
really reconciled with the events of the previous films. Unless
I'm missing something, this does seem to be the big one,
or at least a major one. It is clearly established
in The wolf Man that you can kill a were
wolf you need a silver weapon. Not only is this
said by the characters, it actually happens multiple times in

(59:21):
the film. The premise is proven.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, Like there are multiple places in The wolf Man
where he's like, I just killed a wolf and they're like, no,
you kill a were wolf? Like, yes, you can kill werewolf,
otherwise there'd be like six of them in this movie.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Right, yeah. But then a major theme of this movie
is that there is no known way to kill a
were wolf. There is no way to do it, and
Talbot's desperation at the discovery that he cannot die is
what sends him on the collision course with Frankenstein, with
the Frankenstein lineage. So this is so big that it
feels like it can't just be an oversight. It seems

(59:57):
like the sequel appears to have deliberately chose and to
ignore a major plot device established in the first movie
for the sake of character pathos. You know, the hopeless
frustration of Talbot's search for a way to die, that's
like the main emotion in the film.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, I mean, I guess, on one hand, I come
back to Highlander. One is that when a movie wraps
up so succinctly, you have to break something in order
to make a sequel work. And maybe that's what's going on.
But also, I mean, in turn, like, what is the
most interesting choice in bringing this character back? There's an
argument to be made that I mean, we're talking about it.
This is you're turning him into a sort of another

(01:00:36):
iconic creature of fantasy, like the undying wanderer, someone who
maybe wanted well, not in Talbot's case, but in the
mythic sense, it's sometimes someone who wanted to live forever
and then realizes that that was a ridiculous wish and
now they wish they could take it back.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, but I mean, but Talbot is purely pitiable and tragic,
like he didn't ask for this, It just happened to
him by accident, terrible fate.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
But it fitting that he should be facing all this
confusion and existential dread, because it's very much the nature
of the character and the Wolfman as well.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Right, So Talbot is put in a straight jacket and
carried away by orderlies. He's fighting all the way, and
then Mannerling and the Inspector have this bizarre exchange that
I can't really decode. They go back to his office
and Owen says, you mean to say that Talbot actually
experienced that murder last night? And then this is what
Mannering says, I'm afraid. So people with brain and injuries

(01:01:32):
sometimes develop super normal mental powers that are quite extraordinary.
Certainly he got up and opened the window. The borderline
between delusion and reality is very narrow. Sometimes a patient
may unknowingly overstep that line. So what is he alleging happened?

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
I can't help but think this is sort of plot
artifact from the first film, because the first film, I'm
to understand that the odd mix the wolfman's grip originally
left it rather vague as to whether we were dealing
with an actual monster or just purely clinical leacanthropy. So
somebody who thought they were turning into a wolf and

(01:02:12):
you know, was maybe murdering even thinking they were a wolf. Yeah,
but then they change it and they realized no, like,
moviegoers want to see a wolf man and we're going
to give it to them. But the film still plays
with this idea a bit, this sort of logic and
superstition butting heads about what's occurring. So this just seems
like maybe another callback to that theme.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Yeah, and so Mannering clearly thinks that Talbot is a
clinical lichnthrow by man under the delusion that he is
a wolf. But it sounds like he's implying here that
that also gives him supernatural powers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Why not.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Anyway, the inspector and the doctor decide to take a
road trip up to Landwelly to figure out more about
Talbot's backstory. So they go to the family mausoleum and
the cemetery from the opening scene, and they find that
the door has been broken down from the inside. They
also find Talbot's coffin empty and the body of a
local vagrant lying on the floor of the crypt, dead

(01:03:08):
by way of a severed jugular. They also hear stories
from the local constable about a wild animal who killed
many people in these parts four years ago. They say,
you know, bit through their throats, drained their blood. John
Talbot thought he killed it one night, attacked it in
the dark, But it was his son. He killed, poor
mister Larry. And so the local police showed them a

(01:03:31):
show our two characters. Here a photo of Lawrence Talbot
and Wow he sure does look a lot like our
licanthrope in Cardiff, and then Owen says, of course it's
not the same.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
If it were, I'd be off me top. So Owen
and Mannering make a plan to bring the landwelly constable
back to Cardiff to see if he can positively id
their patient. But when the doctor calls the hospital, he
learns that Talbot tore off his straight jacket in the
night and escaped. Oh no, we have loose Talbot and

(01:04:02):
they say, tore off his straight jacket. How bit right
through it with his teeth.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Did not wolf proof.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
So sometime later we rejoined Talbot as he wanders into
a Romani camp dressed like a vagabond with a wide
brimmed hat. He is looking for Maliva, the wise old
woman from the first movie. Maliva was the mother of Bella,
the original werewolf who turned to Talbot and then was
killed by Talbot. Both Bella and Meliva were in the

(01:04:41):
first film, Divulgers of Lore. So I think Talbot is
here hoping to find answers, primarily to find out how
he can be cured, or more likely, how he can
just die. So he meets with Maliva and she receives
him with sympathy. He says, Maliva, here, I still carry
the sign of the pentagon, the mark of the werewolf.
I kill people. When the moon is full, I turn

(01:05:04):
into a wolf. But unfortunately, she says that she has
no power to help him. She doesn't seem to know
of a way that he can die. But she says
that she will join him and take care of him
as she would her own son. And while she doesn't
have the power to help him, she knows of a
man who might. And here we get dumb, dumb, dumb.

(01:05:24):
Nobody says the name Frankenstein yet, but that should be
the audience. They're out there thinking, oh, is she talking
about Frankenstein.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
That's quick note on pinograms, though, if you like pentagrams,
watch The Wolf Man because they talk about pentagrams a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Though it's am I wrong in remembering that in the
first Wolfman, it's not the wolf the werewolf who has
the pinogram. Isn't it his victims who have the pinogram
emblazoned on them?

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Well, then you also have the pinogram on the cane.
Like the cane has this big round part that has
the pentagram on it. And then the wolf's head, so
it looks like like like a golf club, and in fact,
Talbot makes a joke when he first handles the cane
and pretends to play little golf with it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
So Maliva is part of the team now and she
is going to lead him to a village in the Alps.
It's a place called Visaria, the village in the shadow
of the ruined castle Frankenstein. They sort of on the
way there, they go on a wagon road trip through Europe,
and we see a bunch of still photos of different towns.
But Talbot and Meliva when they get to Visaria, they

(01:06:29):
visit the local inn and tavern to ask about doctor Frankenstein.
But of course this gets them a quite frosty reception,
particularly from Vazik, the innkeeper, a large bespectacled man with
a handlebar mustache. I watched this with Rachel and she
was calling him Teddy Brosevelt.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Yeah, and when we first meet it, it seems like
a real nice guy. You know, he's bringing around the beer. Yeah,
it's a popular place.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
But no, he reacts unpleasantly when they ask him about Frankenstein.
He leads them to the window and points out at
the crumbling castle. We see that it is nestled in
a mountain ravine next to a rushing river, just downstream
from a large dam, and Vazik says coldly, there that
is his burial place. The fire destroyed him and all

(01:07:16):
of his misdeeds. He didn't die any too soon for us.
We all wish that he had never been born. What
did you want with him? And Maliva here says that
she heard he was a great doctor and that he
could help people that other doctors couldn't cure. Is that
part of the Frankenstein story. I don't remember anything about that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
And it seems it's a reasonable suspicion that, hey, he
was doing like amazing godlike things. What if uh, we
looked at that research again, maybe we could find something
helpful in there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
It seems like part of the prep for his treatment
is he'd have to go ahead and kill you before
he could resurrect you. Right, yeah, anyway, Vazik scoffs at
this idea as well. He says that murder is all
that frank Stein brought to the people of Visaria. They
say he harbored a monster at his house, a fowl
being created by black magic and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
He was also a job creator, though I think he
is being a little unfair.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
The news that Frankenstein is dead hits Talbot very hard.
He collapses into a chair. He's like, ah, this was
my only hope. And then Vazig tries to throw them
out of the bar. He doesn't want to serve anyone
who would be asking about the mad doctor, and this
leads to a confrontation. Talbot shouts at him on the
way out, so they seem to be developing enmity for
one another. Afterwards, Maliva and Talbot ride their wagon up

(01:08:36):
the mountain pass and Talbot says, now I must go
on living. There's no hope for me to die. And
then oh, surpriseful movement just comes out of nowhere. When
Talbot begins the transformation, he jumps off the wagon and
runs into the woods as the change takes hold. So
while on a wolf Ram page, he kills a young

(01:08:59):
woman of the village, and then we later this all
happens very fast, and then we later see the villagers
they formed this mournful procession in the streets. Vazak is
carrying the woman's dead body and the locals begin to
talk about who could have done this. Could it be
Frankenstein's monster returned? They say, no, the monster is long dead.
An animal bit her to death, and then Dwight Fry says,

(01:09:22):
what animals are there around here that can kill people?
And a wolf howls in the distance. They say, a wolf,
a wolf that's his cries, So they form a posse,
you know, pitchforks torches, the classic Frankenstein posse.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
They've done this a few times before, soiliar quickly, Yeah,
familiar with the procedure.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Angry mob torches and pitchforks guns this time, and they
go out into the woods hunting the beast. They pursue
the wolfman through the forest in the dark, shooting him
and driving him into the ruins of the castle, and
eventually the wolfman, wounded, stumbles and falls into an underground
cavern filled with ice and snow, but there's no snow
on the surface. I was confused about this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Yeah, yeah, it feels like we're almost in a magical
land at this point, but it looks really cool.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
The villagers also capture Maliva and they take her back
to town for interrogation. So later Talbot awakes in this
snowy cavern with tattered clothes. He's back in human form,
and he searches around and then finds, tucked away in
a corner of the space what looks like a great
translucent window made of ice under a stone arch. He

(01:10:31):
begins to kind of chip at it. He bashes through
the ice with a rock, and then behind it he
finds the frozen, unconscious body of Frankenstein's monster. But of
course it is not Karloff. It's Bella Legosi in the
Karloff makeup.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Great sequence here with the breaking ice, I did.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
Like this, yeah, And so with the ice broken away,
the monster begins to stir and regain consciousness, so Talbot
thinks his prayers may be answered. We see Talbot in
the monster wandering through the room of the castle together.
I didn't get this at first, but part of the
reason that the monster is walking the way he is
is that he's supposed to be blind. I don't think

(01:11:10):
any characters say this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Right, And then originally he's supposed to speak, So this
is like a true team up at this point, Like
I don't know, Talbot's saying, like, hey, monster, you want
to come with me and maybe we can help each
other out and the Monster's like, yeah, let's get out
of here. This place sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
But I think the producers found the dialogue lines of
the monster laughable, so they removed them from the film.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
That's what That's what I've read, so Talbot.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
Yeah, Talbot leads the monster by hand, asking the monster
to show him where he can find doctor Frankenstein's notes
and diaries, something that will explain how to kill a werewolf,
I guess. So the monster tries to show him a
secret hiding place behind a bookshelf, but the safe inside
doesn't contain any use anything useful. I don't know how
Talbot determines that these papers are not useful. He just

(01:11:55):
dumps them out really quick and he's like, it's not here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Yeah, what are you looking for? Why would it stand out?

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
So yeah, and Talbot is filled with despair, but in
the safe he finds this is the part where he
finds an autographed Hollywood Glamour photo of Alona Massey and
it's it's signed Elsa Frankenstein, it says, to my father,
So great news.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
There is a there is a surviving Frankenstein and she's hot.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
She's a movie star. Yeah, to my father, I made
it big in Hollywood, signed Elsa. But okay, here's a
new angle. Maybe doctor Frankenstein's living descendant, his daughter, Elsa,
will know how to help them. So Talbot makes contact
with her by deception. He poses as an investor looking
to buy the castle, and this gets him a meeting

(01:12:42):
with Elsa. In this part of the film, we also
get to know the mayor of Visaria, played by Lionel Atwill,
who is acts like he's sort of also Elsa's lawyer.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, you got to wear a number of hats in
this town, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Elsa wants to be free of the memories of what
her father did, and she is eager to sell the
estate and put it all behind her, but she hasn't
been able to find a buyer, so the prospect is tempting.
But when they sit down together, Talbot reveals his true
intentions that he simply wanted to meet with her to
talk about something, and this was the only way. I

(01:13:17):
have to say, I would have expected her to be
more annoyed about this deception, but she takes it rather well,
at least at first.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
Yeah, like this would be a huge red flag. I
need to get away from this individual who just totally
misrepresented themselves and is not actually interested in the business
proposal that was presented to me.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Yeah, but when he reveals that what he really wants
is the records of her father's research on the subject
of life and death, she turns cold. At that point,
she says she doesn't have any records and if she did,
she would have destroyed them long ago. She says, her
father was a great scientist, but everything he created brought
unhappiness and terror. So it seems like we're at an impasse.

(01:13:59):
But that doesn't mean we can't party a little bit
because outside music is playing. The mayor comes in and says, oh,
it's the Festival of the New Wine here at the village,
and the mayor convinces Elsa and Talbot to stay for
the evening's festivities. Basically, he sets them up on a date.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Basically this is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man, because we
we get actual Frankenstein, not Frankenstein's monster, meeting Larry Talbot
who is the wolf Man, and yeah, they essentially go
on a date.

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
Also at the wine festival that night, we are treated
to a musical number, which I think is wonderful. It's
I looked this up to see if this is a
traditional song. If it is, I couldn't find evidence of that,
but maybe I didn't look hard enough. In the one
like YouTube rip of it I found it was just
called the Song of the New Wine. Farroh la far
aw lee. It's a rousing tune.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Yeah, yeah, they have a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
Here, come one and all and sing a song farroh
la far a lee for life is short but death
is long. Farroh la farrow lee. There'll be no music
in the tomb, sing with joy and down with gloom
tonight the new Wine is in bloom farro farro far
so low. And then also you remember the part the

(01:15:09):
song gets some sick burns in on Vasik, the innkeeper.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
The singer goes up to him, and the verse he
sings for him is I guess he's freestyling because he's
just making up verses about the people around in the square.
He goes up to Vasik and says, his barrel bellies
dipper lipped for drinking wine. He's well equipped, but where's
his chest? It must have slipped farroh la farah lee.

Speaker 4 (01:15:33):
Darn yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
Unfortunately, when the singer makes his way over to the
table where Elsa and Talbot are having their date. He
sings a verse toasting to their health and happiness, and
he ends on a line wishing that they may live eternally. Whoops,
it's a sore subject. Talbot freaks out. He grabs the
singer by the collar and screams in his face, I
don't want to live eternally. Why did just say that

(01:15:57):
to me?

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Yeah, he really shows his butt here. I guess you
could say this is a real I think you should
leave sort of moment.

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
Exactly why'd you show that? But in the middle of
this explosion of anguish, a character from earlier in the
movie suddenly returns. It's doctor Mannering from the hospital in Cardiff. Like, wait,
he tracked Talbot down all the way to the Alps.
Doesn't he have other patients?

Speaker 4 (01:16:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
I guess it just seems like this case of clinical
like anthropy is too interesting it is worth going on
a wolf hunt across Europe.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Yeah. I would say that his interest here is quite suspicious,
and that suspicion may pay off.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
Yeah, There's been nothing indicated about Mannering so far that
would raise eyebrows or make him think make you think
that he's like overly curious about no, no, no, secrets
of life and death.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
At this point, he feels totally like a plot convenience. Yes,
he's just there to move the plot along and get
us to the point where these two monsters can really
do more together.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
In Act one, he's a complete square. Yeah, But they
discuss how Mannering tracked Talbot here by following newspaper reports
of wolf attacks. And by the way, Elsa is just
sitting at the table listening to this, and then eventually
she almost seems to get bored and she goes to
dance with the mayor. So Mannering wants to put Talbot

(01:17:18):
in an asylum where he can't hurt anyone, and you know,
seems like a reasonable plan to me, like put you
in a locked facility so that you can't escape on
the full moon and harm anyone. But Talbot says, no, no,
it wouldn't work. I'd only escape again. I have to die.
It's the only solution. Unfortunately, it seems that's impossible unless
we can find doctor Frankenstein's diary and discover the secrets

(01:17:42):
of life and death.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Which again feels like a huge leap it like a
leap that doctor Frankenstein's discoveries would be applicable to this scenario.
But that's what the whole movie is about.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
Now, Mannering seems skeptical but a little bit interested. He's
heard of Frankenstein, he says. Doctor Frankenstein's ex experiments were
considered rather extraordinary. Medical science never recognized them. Meanwhile, by
the way, Vasak, the innkeeper, is listening in on them,
scheming this conflict here is unjammed by a monster ex machina.

(01:18:14):
Suddenly out of nowhere and for no given reason, Frankenstein's
monster comes wandering into the town square, and everybody starts
screaming and running away from the new wine festival. So
Talbot saves the day by getting the monster onto a
horse drawn cart full of wine barrels, and then he
drives them away from the crowd. Farroh la far a lee.

(01:18:35):
But I guess importantly, doctor Mannering here witnesses the monster,
and I think this somehow changes what the characters accept
as reality. Did you take that as a motivating moment?

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
Yes, I did, But I have to say I was
also just rather distracted by the prospect of Frankenstein's monster
and the wolf Man going on adventures together on that cart.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
Like what happens next, Yeah, yeah, him traveling a traveling duo,
and they've got plenty of wine with them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
So they disguise themselves as school children. I don't know,
there's so many hijinks that you could up to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:09):
After this, there is a scene in the tavern where
the prominent men of the town discuss what to do next.
As you might expect, Vazik is sort of the hot
head of the group. He wants to storm the castle
and get monster blood immediately. Also seems like he wants
to maybe kill Elsa because she's a Frankenstein, but he
is thwarted by the reservations of the mayor and some others.

(01:19:30):
The mayor says, we've tried to kill the monster by
force before. We must use our brains for once, and
Vasik says brains, I'd rather depend on my fists though
he's a real tough guy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Yeah, and they're all just like oh.

Speaker 4 (01:19:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
After this, Doctor Mannering, Elsa, and Meliva all somehow end
up in this big town argument scene. They're like in
the room and the door. The doctor Mannering offers his
opinion to the mob. He said, why would he have
thoughts on this? I don't know. He says, the monster
was created artificially. It must be destroyed by the same means. Artificially.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
The doctor tells them that if the people of the
village trust him, he'll take care of the problem. He'll
rid Visaria of this curse once and for all. And
instead of being like, who is this guy, the villagers
all seem to agree, Oh, yeah, okay, let's give this
assignment to doctor Mannering, the doctor from Cardiff who just arrived.

(01:20:38):
So it now seems kind of the gang is getting
all together. Maliva elsa doctor Mannering all go up to
the ruins. There they find Talbot with the monster. Talbot
calms the monster and convinces the monster that the new
arrivals are friends. He says, this is doctor Mannering. He's
come to help you, to make you well. Now what
exactly is he supposed to be doing the monster, like

(01:21:01):
make him undead? It's not clear what the offer is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
I yeah, I was not able to get a hold
of any kind of like prior script to see like
what legosis eg or monster would have been saying, like,
because I feel like the answer probably can be found
there if that exists. Like is he saying like, I
will end your existence because you're entombed blind in the

(01:21:27):
body of this monster, or I'll make you better. I'll
make it so the monster can see, Like what exactly
is in it for the monster here? Whether we're considering
this the same monster that we had in previous films,
or is this the monster egor connection that what we
got at the end of House of Frankenstein, I mean
goes to Frankenstein.

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
So they all agree that the doctor will help them
find a solution, and Elsa reveals that she actually does
know where her father's diary is hidden. It's in a
secret compartment inside the other secret compartment. Yes, so it's
a book called The Secret of Life and Death Triple Secret,
and then Mannering. Mannering reads out loud from the book, fascinated.

(01:22:09):
He says, matter ages because it loses energy. This artificial
body I have created has been charged with superhuman power
so that its span of life will be extended. Its
lifetime will equal the lives of more than one hundred
human beings. This my creation, can never perish unless unless
its energies are drained off artificially by changing the polls

(01:22:32):
from plus to minus. Okay, that's the secret, all right?
And then Talbot he reacts to this by saying, but
that's the secret of life. What good does it do me?
I'm not interested in life. I wasn't created artificially. I'm
a human being. I've got real blood in my veins.
What can we do to end my life? And then

(01:22:53):
the doctor reads on and says, energy which cannot be
destroyed can be transmitted. And this seems to mean something
to Talbot. He says, well, if that's the case, then
the energies from my body can be drained off also,
so they formulate a plan by using doctor Frankenstein's old equipment,
they can drain off the werewolf energies from Talbot by

(01:23:17):
changing the poles from plus to minus, which should allow
him to die.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
And conceivably do the same thing to the monster as well. Why, again,
we come back to why is the monster necessary for
this process?

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
At this point?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Unclear? I mean they promised the monster help. Meanwhile, in secret,
Elsa goes up to the doctor and she says, did
you mean what you said about helping the monster be well?
And the Doctor's like, oh, uh no, I mustn't do that.
But we could see he's developing a curiosity here. So
we've got the plan in place which will lead us

(01:23:53):
to the climax. So we're getting up to the final
scene here, doctor mannering. He first sets about preparations. He
orders a bunch of equipment to repair Frankenstein's machines. Meanwhile,
Vazik and his crew meet in the tavern grousing about
the situation. These guys are very like they remind me
of Senator Walter k Powers and the brain eaters. They
want action, and the mayor tries to chill them out.

(01:24:16):
But Vasik, Dwight Fry and a couple of the other
guys are like, eh, the Frankenstein girl, the doctor, they're
all up to no good. And then frank and then Vazik,
in front of everyone, describes a plan. He says, we
should blow up the dam that will flood the castle
and kill them all.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Yeah, just a little domestic terrorism, That's that's all the
situation calls for.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
So the mayor, the mayor, by the way, is sitting
at the table and here's this whole plan, and his
reaction is you're drunk vasik. That's why no one takes
your word seriously.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
That'll put him in his place.

Speaker 4 (01:24:48):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Meanwhile, up at the castle, a full moon is coming
tonight and Talbat is impatient.

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
This time.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
He does seem to know a full moon's on the way.

Speaker 4 (01:24:57):
Don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
Finally, but he.

Speaker 3 (01:24:59):
Doesn't want to live through another night of wolf terror,
and Mannering promises. He says his work is almost complete
and he will be able to kill Talbot before the transformation.
By the way, at what point did Mannering become convinced
that Talbot was a real werewolf and not a delusional lichanthrope.
Was it like when he saw Frankenstein's monster or is

(01:25:22):
he even actually convinced of that at this point? Does
he still think that he's not a real werewolf?

Speaker 4 (01:25:28):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
I mean, I assume that he bought into the werewolf
thing by now. Yeah, but why Yeah, the closest we
can come to is he saw, well, Frankenstein's monster is real,
therefore why not were wolf?

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
Elsa meanwhile, is working her angle on Mannering, which is
destroy the monster. She's like, look, you could just lock
Talbot up somewhere, but you've got to do what's really important,
destroy my father's creation. And Mannering is, yeah, he's stretched
thin by all of this work, but he indicates that
Elsa shouldn't worry. He implies he will destroy both of

(01:26:00):
the creatures tonight at the same time. Then he powers
up the machines and they begin to arc with this ferocious,
deafening electrical power. And then later that night we see
both Talbot and the monster strapped to tables side by side,
hooked up to the fantastical laboratory array, and Mannering reads
from Frankenstein's notes, reading out loud, connecting the polls plus

(01:26:22):
to minus will charge the energy output of the nervous system,
as by connecting the minus to the minus seems utterly nonsensical.

Speaker 4 (01:26:34):
Mannering.

Speaker 3 (01:26:34):
At this point he gets a far away look in
his eyes and he says to himself, I can't do it.
I can't destroy Frankenstein's creation. I've got to see it
at its full power.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
So sudden heel turn here where he's He's kind of
like the parking valet in Ferris Bueler's Day Off, Ferris
Bueler's Day Off, who takes the sports car and you
know Garret grabs a buddy and rides it throughout the town,
all over Chicago, because he's like, it would it'd be
just a crime not to drive the heck out of

(01:27:08):
this car. It'd be a shame a crime not to
power Frankenstein's Monster up to full strength.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
Right, gotta take it for a spin. So he fiddles
with some cables, retools the machine to juice Frankenstein's Monster
to maximum frank And we see the effects of this,
like the leads connected to the bolts, and the monster's
neck starts smoking.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
In the monsters.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Yeah, the monster's mouth twitches with stimulation. It's like he's
saying words with his lips closed. This is a good
detail in Lugosi's performance, by the way, like the close
ups on his face are great. Elsa is in bed
for some reason. Why didn't she stay up for this?
She's awakened from her bed and she comes to check
out the action and the lab, and then she realizes

(01:27:52):
what is happening. She shouts at Mannering, no, you're making
him strong again. But Mannering doesn't stop. He's got to
see him in full power. So the monster turns to
look at Mannering and smiles and again this is a
good Lugosi close up. Meanwhile, up at the dam we
see Vaazig just planning dynamite. He's getting ready to flood

(01:28:13):
the castle by himself, no crew with him. It seems
kind of sad and lonely.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
Yeah, and again, he's a big guy, so it took
a lot for him to creep up and climb on
the dam to find just the right spot to place
the dynamite. But he's doing it. He is going to
blow up the dam.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
He's on a precarious, slippery little ledge there planting this dynamite.

Speaker 4 (01:28:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
Again, We come back to the castle and Elsa at
this point is actively trying to stop mannering. She throws
a switch or something and it short circuits the machinery.
Stuff explodes and you know, beams and rocks begin falling
from the ceiling. But it's too late. The monster is
all powered up. He is at full power, and he
busts out of the straps and begins to rampage through

(01:28:56):
the room. He goes after Elsa, he picks her up.
She faints, of course, immediately goes unconscious, and we get
the monster carrying away. Elsa's unconscious body like the poster promised.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
But just then.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
Talbot transforms into Wolfman and he comes to save the day.
He attacks the monster, rescuing Elsa. I found this so
confusing because I thought the whole thing about the Wolfman
is that he retains none of Talbot's mind and is
just a slavering beast. Why would the Wolfman form of

(01:29:30):
Talbot be trying to save Elsa. That's something Talbot would do,
But the Wolfman isn't Talbot anymore, That's the whole point.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
Yeah, it seems like the most he would do is
like try to drag her away by the neck and
eat her himself. Yeah, but no, he's suddenly a hero wolf.

Speaker 3 (01:29:46):
He's more like Valdemar Doninski here.

Speaker 4 (01:29:47):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
Anyway, so up at the dam of Vaaak lights the
fuse on the dynamite and we see the dam is
about to blow in the laboratory, the Wolfman and the
Monster begin to fight. They you could out Robinnie notes
on this on this matchup.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
Yes, So it's we have to consider this is the
first monster mash, so it is not going to be
as advanced as as many of the later battles are
going to be. Between various monsters, but it's still really good.
There's some you know, throwing each other around. The werewolf's
prime strategy is to try and climb on progressively higher

(01:30:25):
pieces of furniture so as to leap off, like luchador
style at Frankenstein's Monster, which which is a lot of
fun and I don't know, you know, it's we see
shades of that earlier with the world. We're always climbing
on stuff. Wolfman likes to get up high like he's
a goat.

Speaker 3 (01:30:41):
We saw that in Cardiff when he was running around
doing parkour on the cotton bales.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
Yeah, keep getting higher and higher till you have some
nice height come off the top rope.

Speaker 3 (01:30:50):
The monster is supposed to be a much bulkier, I think,
heavyweight style fighter, So I'm imagining this is this kind
of like a matchup between Andre the Giant and Mysterio Junior.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, David Goliath sort of a
vibe here. Yeah, each of them have their strengths and
so yeah, it's a fun smack down here.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
Again occurs very late in the picture and doesn't last
that long. But again, we really hadn't We didn't have
this before. This is a this is a first, so
everything we get here is a gift.

Speaker 4 (01:31:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
So while the two monsters fight, Mannering and Elsa flee
the laboratory and they escape the castle, do we ever
see what happens with Maliva? Does she escape? Do they
show show her?

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
I'd kind of forgotten about her by this point, but yeah,
I hope she's okay. Maybe she found a little boat
or something. Yeah, she's a survivor. I bet she's fine.
She is, But we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:31:44):
I don't think we see her at the end unless
there's something I'm forgetting here. So the dam explodes, water
rushes toward the castle while the monster wrestling goes on,
and then finally a huge, massive water bursts through into
the laboratory and we see the rushing river roy the
castle entirely, every part of it is washed away in
the flood. And here I love the model work. Oh

(01:32:06):
and the dam and the flood and the destruction of
the castle looks great. I love this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:32:12):
And then suddenly just the end bump bump, bump, bump,
bum feels extremely sudden. I am sure people in the
theaters and this came out would have been been like, wait,
it's over.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
Well, yeah, it feels I mean, on so many levels
it feels sudden, because, first of all, we've already established
that neither the Wolfman nor Frankenstein's Monster can be easily
killed by conventional methods, like it was going to take
mad science to do it. A flood is not going
to cut it. Collapsing castle is not going to cut it.
So I don't you know, I don't have any any

(01:32:47):
there's no indication here that they have defeated the monsters.
They just maybe washed them downstream and now they're you know,
the next town's problem. And yeah, what Mannering and the
Barrenness escape, But like, are are we supposed to believe
that they are a magical item now because they've escaped together,
because communication and relationship is very important, And there's already

(01:33:08):
been a very serious betrayal with his decision to power
the monster up to full strength instead of destroying.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
Mannering has done a serious done some serious crimes and betrayed. Yeah,
been deceptive in the perpetration of these crimes now, and
it seems like he's just getting away scott free. Yeah, yeah,
and we and again maybe this was indicated and I
just missed it. We don't know what happens to Maliva,
yeah and yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
So the main question of this movie is will the
Wolfman be able to die to you know, to to
end his uh, to end his tormented eternity of immortality?
And I don't think they answered that question. Like, it
wasn't clear to me whether Mannering actually did anything to
cure the Wolfman's immortality. I don't think so. I think

(01:33:56):
all he did was push frank to full power.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Yeah, Like, and we don't even get a firm answer,
Like if we'd at least gotten I mean, this would
have been a more of a downer ending. But if
we'd had a scene where Talbot is like, oh, I
guess I'm cursed after all, I'll never die and he
just wanders off, you know, into the distance like that
you know, incredible hole music. Yeah, that would that would
have been That would have felt more like closure. As
it is, We're just like, did the movie forget how

(01:34:20):
the rules that they had already established. They were just like,
we gotta have we gotta end the film, folks, Sorry,
people have to go home.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
Well that is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man they do indeed.

Speaker 2 (01:34:30):
Meet absolutely and again, you know, just despite the ridiculousness
that we had some fun with here, really fun film,
definitely worth checking out. I really enjoyed it. And you know,
it's the again the first monster mash. It's it has
almost religious significance for film fans. All Right, we're gonna
go ahead and close this one up, but we'll be

(01:34:52):
back later in October with more halloweeny Weird House Cinema selections.
In the meantime, will remind you stuff to blow your mind.
Is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie
on Weird House Cinema. And if you would like to

(01:35:13):
see a list of all the movies we've covered over
the years, go over to letterbox dot com look us up.
Our username is weird House, and you can find a
nice Weird House Cinema episode list and you can get
a nice rundown on all the movies we've covered over
the years. This was film number two hundred and twenty two,
I believe. And sometimes you'll even get a peek ahead

(01:35:33):
at what's coming up next.

Speaker 3 (01:35:35):
Here's thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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