October 30, 2025 • 53 mins
Aaron and Darlene watch some classic sci-fi from the 1950s and '60s, good and bad. They talk about what makes these films memorable and fun, and if you should take a trip back in time and enjoy these films as well.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry, miss
I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When was it just azumbly as we've seen attitude to
it since we gave to a few low cabbages.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
An intellectual carrot. That mind boggles you see you see
your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, I said Santa Claus. Long enough, we will.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Bring him to Mars.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I've been afraid a lot of times in my life,
but I didn't know the real meaning of fear until
until I kiss peck me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
One thing will be clear. It's not from man to
interfere in the ways of God's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup, Episode
two eighty. I'm Aaron Pellier, I'm Darlene. We watched Abbot
and Costello Meet Frankenstein from nineteen forty eight. This is
a movie that we knew that we would both like,
and Darlene has been putting off for years now because
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Think it's it's vaudeville. It's it's abbiting Costello.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
It's why did you think that it wouldn't fit.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
The reasons?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I just said, it's vaudeville.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's comedy. It's it's Costello doing Costello, okay, and Abbitt
being the straight person that he doesn't slaps him around,
abuses him, and.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Uh yeah, is there a plot? Oh yeah, there is there.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
There is a plot, and there is.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Actually good acting, There are characters, there is character development
even so to speak a little bit. So this is
actually much more of a movie than the serials that
we also that we say no we won't do because
of they're not really being a proper plot. It's just
(02:24):
going from cliffhanger or cliffhanger. So after watching this, I'm
actually very assured that this fits into Earth versus Soup.
If you have not heard of Abitt and Costello, Abbitt
and Costello are vaudeville comedians. They were argued, well, I
think they were actually the highest paid actors slash comedians
(02:45):
in World War two, making like over well, they raised
like millions of dollars eight I think it was eighty
million dollars during World War two for war.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Bonds, war bonds. I don't know how much it was.
I didn't write it down.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, we watched a whole documentary actually on abt Costello
making these movies after we were done watching the movie.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But this, this movie itself made three point two million
dollars in.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The box office, and it had a very low budget.
It basically it had less than five hundred thousand dollar budget,
so like four hundred thousand or something like that. It
made like eight times its money back. Ab and Costello
were always a money making machine effectively for the studios,
(03:29):
and they felt that the studios felt, hey, let's make
this money making machine. Uh, combine it with our money
making machine of monsters.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, they were money making machine up until there was
it was another team that well, Martin and.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I don't I don't know. I think what what they what?
What the what? The documentary that we watched described was
that that ab and Costello were very well regarded and
always had work, always high paid up until comedy started
shifting post war, like mid nineteen fifties, And it was
(04:13):
because humor was getting a little more a little more
dirty in some ways. And when I say dirty, I
don't mean like today's dirty. I mean dirty compared to
like Abbant Costello, who refused to do any kind of
adult style humor, like joking about like relationships. Even they
(04:35):
did joke in certain ways, and they do that in
this film about having a dame, but like it's so okay. Look,
Abbot Costello.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Is so clean clean.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It is clean clean, Yeah, alb and Costello is something
that you can basically show to two or three year
olds and you're not going to get have them get offended.
At least you shouldn't be able to get offended by them.
I knew about Abbot Costello since I was a little kid,
because of course I watched these movies, but it was
(05:07):
also because I absolutely adored the Who's on first routine
that they did.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Who's on first, what's on second?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't know on third?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Tomorrow is Catcher.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Something like that?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I actually used to know the entire routine, which is
which is very strange. But I loved abbant Costello just
like I loved the Three Stooges. But I loved ab
and Costello in a different way because Abbant Costello was
more rapid fire, witty wordplay, where the Stooges were physical comedy.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
And it's always Costello doing the witty fast hammer the
language thing.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They both do it. They need to play off each other,
so they both do it. And like Costello, he's he
takes the pratfalls though, So there there is physical hue.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Were there?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What else should we say about this movie. There's a
lot to actually say about this movie.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You have a lot of names in him.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, there's actually.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Bella Lagosi as Dracula.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, and we need to point out we need to
point out that you imagine Bella Lagosi playing Dracula in
every movie. The thing is Belagosi played Dracula twice. The
first time was in Dracula, the second time was this movie. Okay,
those were the only two times he ever played the
(06:37):
character on screen. Did he do like appearances as Dracula,
like on on like talk shows? Yes, but he was
only in two movies, and this was one.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And you got Glenn Strange as the Monster.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Which he does a fantastic job.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And you got Vincent Price not he doesn't credit Well,
it's his voice.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's only his voice. He should have gotten like and
a guest appearance by because he plays the invisible man
in the final scene and you don't see him because
it's just Vincent Price's voice. But by god, you know
that's Vincent Price immediately, which is really funny that he
has such a distinctive voice. We've both clearly seen this
(07:21):
movie before. We both have a lot of love for it.
You will hear that while we talk about the plot,
and we can go through.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I stop taking notes at one point.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Because you were just enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I was just reviewing what now, Abn and Costello, And
like I said, Costello is my favorite other two.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, well he is for me too. But when we
describe the plot, I am not going to describe the
word play, the rapid fire like noises that Castello tends
to make.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
When he's terrified. Yeah, oh, I don't.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Know, rabbles. He babbles, But I'm not gonna do that.
And we're gonna be able to go through this plot
fairly quickly because of that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, the first thing we need to talk about, okay,
is the cartoon credits.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Cartoon credits are actually really cool, really cool. Right, did
you have something to say besides saying they're really cool?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
They're really good, well done, and you said something about it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
It's because all of the animation in this is done
by the same guy that did Woody Woodpecker, okay, and
and that means he's attached to all the George Powell
movies because we see George Pale as like an attachment
to Woody Woodpecker too. Woody Woodpecker gets into like weird
nineteen fifties sci fi and horror like in so many
(08:50):
strange ways like this weird connections. If if somebody makes
like an actual like homage to nineteenth fifties science fiction,
you have to have Woody Woodpecker in it, like just
like a woodywood Pecker toy, or you hear like somebody's
watching Woody Woodpecker on TV or something like that, because
it's always there's always a weird connection.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well this is in forty eight, so.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, I know this is not this is pre George
Powell really doing a lot of his stuff. But anyway,
it's a really cool credit sequence. And then we get
to have stock footage, but it's stock footage we have
literally just watched and I can't even remember the name
of the movie that we watched, but it's the same
stock footage of London at night. And then we see
(09:34):
the clock tower of Parliament with Bodka right in front
of it, and I'm like that. I love that shot.
It's an amazing dramatic shot of the clock tower where
everyone calls it big Ben. It's not big Ben's the
bell inside. It's the clock tower and Bodka Bodacia, however
you want to pronounce it is there like riding her horse.
(09:55):
I freaking loved that statue when we saw it in London.
I remember pointing it out to you, going, there's.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The Parliament, the clock tower in Bodica. Is the symbols
you would you would the statue of Bodica. Are the
symbols that you do for London.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There's there's a few.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Without doing modern today you do the Gurkin No, but
the wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I would disagree. I would say yes absolutely, the houses
of Parliament and the clock tower Bodica. No, because those
people wouldn't really understand Bodica. You would do you would
do Piccadilly Circus in general, or you would do Lord
Nelson's column.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
But Piccadilla's Circus is like doing New York's uh Times Square.
It's going to data, it's going to Date.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then Buckingham Palace because that's pretty iconic as well.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
But while they've got the Wheel, the eye of One,
the eye, and you got the I know we're way
off track.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
We're way off the Jellybean. Well, we got the jelly
bean now, which is great. I mean you also have Belfast,
hm us Belfast. That's there, but that's post war Belfast.
I don't think would be there at this point anyway.
I don't think. I think she was probably still in service.
I don't know her entire service history, but I don't
think she would be docked yet on the Thames.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And they hadn't yet done the theater Williams.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Oh they had, They hadn't. They hadn't remade the globe yet. Yeah, yeah, okay,
let's get back to the plot. We see Lon Cheney
as Talbot, and I often like, write it right down, Talbot,
But yeah, this is Lon Cheney Junior reprising his role
for the last time. I think this is the last
time he plays Talbot, and I I again every time
(11:51):
Lon Cheney is on screen as Talbot, the.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
How your heart for him?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Because he doesn't want this. Yeah, he acts extraordinarily well
through this. He's a great actor anyway. Anyway, He's looking
out a window and he's trying to get a hold
of somebody in Florida. He's like making frantic calls, okay.
And then we go to Florida and see Abbot Costello
(12:20):
working as like a baggage clerks in a train station
for like, but it's more than a train station. It's
like a transshipment center, so like boxes are coming in
there to be delivered locally. And Costello almost knocks himself
out by collapsing bags. And we meet his girlfriend, whose
(12:42):
name is Sandra Mornet. Okay, she's checking up on him.
She's a beautiful brunette. Abbott, as as he is wont
to do emotionally inverbally, abuses Costello about like how he's ugly,
how no dame should actually like him? What's wrong with her?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
See who's why do they see this? Why do they
say see something in you in Wilburt versus him because.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
He's a thin If there's one thing I will say
about Abbic and Costello, the the the body shaming that
is part of their routine is kind of awful. Let's
be fair. It does. It makes me feel uncomfortable. And
and the general the general chauvinism that comes off of
(13:40):
Abbot because he's just he's like the ladies man. He's
always trying to be sweet to women, but he's he's
also just there to like.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But Costello always plays the sweetheart, the man that never
grew out of being a boy.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, that's part of the routine.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
And it's every doesn't matter what.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Movie it is, it's always the same. Yeah. So I
mean if I had, if I had a complaint, I
think it would be, like I do feel a little
uncomfortable watching it and having Abbott like just rip into
Costello about being fat or short or ugly or whatever,
and I'm like, oh, whatever. So the phone rings and
we hear that it's Talbot on the other line, and
(14:25):
he asks, if there's two big crates they are going
to be delivered to a House of horrors, don't deliver them,
wait until I get there, you know. Blah blah blah,
And he tells the porters, don't do it, just wait.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
He finally gets a hold of him. That's something you
have to say, because it's been he's been doing this.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
All day, like calling different places.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And it's because going to be at the full moon.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And he's like, I'm going to you know, I have
to go. It's going to be the full moon. And
then he like changes on the other on the line
and he's growling, and Costello thinks that somebody's dog, yeah,
and he just kind of hangs up. All right, Fine.
So we have a guy named McDougall who runs the
House of Horrors.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
He comes in, she is the worst person in his
dog goe for.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He's he's the kind of guy that you would be like, sir,
I think you just need to talk to my manager,
and you you take a step back. Then you take
a step back in and say, sir, I'm going to
ask you to leave. As the manager, I'm going to
ask you to leave. Otherwise I'm going to call the
police because you are a piece of shit that is
just abusing me for doing my job competently. You just
(15:35):
don't want to wait your goddamn turn.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, you wouldn't get nasty.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I mean, McDougall's a piece of shit.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
He is. He's over the top, but he's supposed to.
I guess he was written to be over over the
top totally.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And he's like he just starts he's somebody.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That doesn't have money but wants to be treated like
he's he's king, He's king.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And he like he immediately starts threatening lawsuits after lawsuits
about his boxes. Oh god, it just goes on and
on with him.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But anyway, and you have to deliver it tonight.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Sander has to break her date that she made with Costello.
McDougall yells and demands the crates be delivered. So that night,
ab and Costello arrived at his House of Horrors and
it's filled with mannequins and wax figures, and they start
opening the crates. Inside one of the crates.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
After being yelled at by a mystery mister McDougall, and
Abbott is not so great with Costello again.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It's all this abuse. Anyway. Inside one of the crates
is a coffin with the crest of Dracula. Yes, Dracula
is really in it, because this House of Horrors guy
just got a hold of rates with Dracula and Frankenstein
in him.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Somehow, and lawn Cheney's chasing him down.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Because he's wanting to destroy them.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I don't know if it was destroying him to stop him,
because at one point he said friends.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think he thinks maybe the monster is a friend,
like the Frankenstein's monster is a friend, but he.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Says that they're living, and we find out that Dracula
it has some kind of power over Frankenstein. He's got
a charge a little charging device.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, sort of okay, all right, we'll get we'll get
to it. We'll get to it. Because I have thoughts
on that. I have thoughts on that, and I think
it's nonsense. But anyway, so Abbott doesn't believe any of
the mumbo jumbo that's being said on the plaques about
Dracula or Frankenstein, and Dracula peeks out at Costello as
(18:02):
he reads about the legend. There's lots of timing gags here.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But the candle candle moving, and that's something that they
did in Ghost.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, there's a there's another movie that they did about
the haunting of something. Castello is going to hide a
wax head in Dracula's coffin that he accidentally he beheads
a wax dummy with a guillotine. He goes to like
throw the wax head into Dracula's coffin and Dracula gets out.
And I have to say that, like, by the end
(18:38):
of this movie, I would be very surprised if Costello
can have a single coherent thought because Dracula puts puts
the whammy mind control on Costello multiple times through this
multiple times, I say, he's he clearly has the brain
scramblies by the end of this again another another what
(18:59):
we do in the Shadows reference. I know, but Costello
is already kind of crazy. He's got to be like
broken by the end of this movie, right, well, or
there's just nothing there to scramble. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, that's the weird part is that he's the one
that they want the brain for.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Oh well, they explain exactly why, They explain exactly, and
it makes sense. But anyway, we'll get to it. We'll
get to it. So he gets the he gets the
wammy put on him, and he like covers his face
with a cloak Dracula when he's trying to like put
the wammy on on Costello, and I didn't really understand why.
(19:44):
It's not very clear what the.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Time Bella Lagosi moves, he's got the his his his
coat up.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
And you you kept saying, is that really bell Lagosi?
Why are they hiding his face? It makes sense why
he's hiding his face. I also think think it's a
complete waste of having bel l Agosi in the film
if you're doing that, Like, dude, Bella's the shit, and
he has charisma in this movie. He does when he's
able to actually act. There's a scene later on where
(20:16):
he's acting against Sandra and he's being charming, and you're like, dude,
that's that's the bela Agosa, bela Lagosi that I freaking love,
because he's got that smile and that twinkle in his
eye and he's trying to like and then finally puts
the whammy on her. All Right, Anyway, there's a box
(20:38):
with Frankenstein's monster. Dracula gets back into his coffin while
they're opening the other one, and uh, let's see here
he gets let's see, Dracula wakes up Frankenstein with his ring.
It's his ring that he uses to wake up Frankenstein.
I don't that's not a device. He has a ring.
(20:58):
I don't understand. I don't understand. It might be just
the like, Dracula has a very staticky cape and he's
able to build up a static charge and he wakes
up Frankenstein with that. But he gets Frankenstein to like
pick up his coffin and they run. Okay, fine, So
at this point McDougall thinks that Avant Costello have like
(21:20):
stolen his goods and they get thrown in jail for
the night. Because McDougall's a piece of shit. That's the
best way I can explain it. So then we get night.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It's just that night that it was said to day
in and night. That's what Abit says.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Okay, okay, a day and a night. You might be right.
I thought it was only the night. But that's fine.
We then get a Mat painting of a castle that's
sitting in the middle of the water. This is Florida. Wow,
it's an amazing Matt painting. And then we get an
animated bat that actually flies out there and you're like, okay,
I like the.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Cartoon of the Draculas.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Oh yeah, when he he changes from bat in an
animated form, like an animated bat, into into Bell Lagosi
and yeah, is it is it a realistic effect? No,
it doesn't need to be. It's adorable and amazing, right,
And it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Doesn't take you out of this one because this is
a comedy.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know what if this was a regular horror movie
from nineteen forty eight with that in there, I had
have been pleased. I would have just had a.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Plastic the rubber ones that were in what movie?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was that in a lot of a lot of the
Dracula movies have rubber bats in them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But the one where it was in a room that
only had a.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
H yeah, that's the maze the maze. Yeah. Yeah, there
was like a rubber flooding around. It was just there's
a rubber bat. In the nineteen thirty one Dracula they
have a rubber bat. It looks terrible, but I mean,
I'd rather have the animation, and I'd rather have the
animated like bat into Bella Lagosi thing than you know.
(23:10):
I'd rather have that than CGI. I honestly, I'd rather
have that than CGI. And people would be like, what,
you don't you want to see an animated shift like
that rather than having some something that looks super cool
and you know what, he's a vampire. Do you know
what vampires look like when they change from bat form
(23:30):
to human form? No? Because they're fake grow up? This
was cute moving. See. I have thoughts about this, right, Like,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Think you'd have that opinion if it was Dresden files.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Well, just like some some some vampire coming out and
looking like Woody Woodpecker and turning like you know what, Fine,
that's the way that one looks. Do you think that
there aren't faye that looked like for cartoons or something something?
Oh God, come on fair anyway, I don't care fair.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I'd rather face off.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
A man knocks on the door and we meet. We
see that Sandra Costello's girlfriend is a doctor working at
this this castle. She has an assistant named doctor Stevens,
who seems like would be a very important part of
the plot.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Isn't he's a comic part to this. I don't in
a way and he's not funny, but he's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Be, so we we hear Dracula says, look, you need
to revive the monster. And this is where Dracula suggests
that she did risky experiments that the European police would
be very interested in, and that's why she fled to America.
And I go, so she's she's a she's a Nazi.
(24:56):
I mean, that's why he's implying. I think that's what
he's implying. It you did risky unethical experiments that the
European police would be interested in. And you fled to America.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Okay, Bella with Dracula's castle in the swamp.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It's in the ocean. That's just water out there. They
have to take a rowboat out there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I thought it was like in the middle of a lake.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
It's maybe the middle. Maybe it's in the middle of
lake or whatever. Yeah, something like that, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
So Abant Costello are in jail because of the disappearing bodies.
Talbot shows up at their apartment and he tells Abbot
(25:47):
Costello that he knew the bodies were alive. At this point,
he's like, I knew that they were alive. That's why
I was trying to get you to stop delivering them. Okay,
and tell Abot again and lawn Cheney treasure because he's
he's clearly like panicked. He's playing the paniced. It's nighttime again, right, So, yeah,
(26:10):
it was the night and a whole day that they
were in jail, and they finally got bailed out by
a woman. We learn who that is later, but we
don't know now.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We're assuming it's but it turns out not to be.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But we have ln Cheney there like acting his heart
out credit where credits due panicking because it's night, the
moon's going to be up again and he's going to.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Change and he needs to be locked away into his hotel.
He called it a hotel room that's across the the.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Thing from across the hallway from abbon Castilla's apartment. Well,
here's here's my thought on this. I think some hotels,
some apartment buildings were also hotels that they did like
mixed use or something like that. And also people did
(27:03):
live in hotels at times. Why Abbitt and Costello would
be living in a hotel, I don't know, especially under
their salary because they're just getting paid crap. But they're
union men, and that's made very clear a couple of times.
I'm a union man. I only work sixteen hours a day,
so if I have to deliver this tonight, you're gonna
(27:24):
pay me overtime. Union men only work eight hours a day.
But I'm in two unions. I'm like, sir, good for you.
First of all, he gets that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
He gets up his channon.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I'm a union man. I'm like, damn right, damn two unions,
damn right, so I support that. So, uh, they get
him to lock him in his room. He changes and
Costello comes back and forth to give like Talbot his bag,
and like there's again timing humor of Laden Cheney trying
to like tackle Costello but like Costello just being completely
(28:05):
oblivious so not freaking out and thus like making him
miss because he thinks he's gonna like jerk to the
side or something.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Still's an apple or an orange or something like that.
The end, and thanks to return it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
And then yeah, so so then we meet an insurance investigator, Joan,
who has been brought in by McDougal to investigate abbing
Costello to see where they hid those bodies. Okay, I
need to interject and say ab and Costello are most
likely going to be in prison after this movie for
(28:41):
at least a little while. At least a little while
at least because through one charge of attempted murder, because
all the evidence points to Abbot doing that.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
The whole place.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Like, yeah, it's a fake.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Grand it's a fake dog on Castle, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's a fake charge of ourson. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, it's Feland.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
There's there's there has to be at least a couple
charges of like vandalism involved because of the hotel room
and everything.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Well, the hotel room was nothing more than Lin Cheney's the.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Wax Museum decapitated bodies, wax bodies he.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Decapit, he accidentally decapitated, which mc dougal didn't figure it out.
So if McDougall is gonna be in butt head, I
wouldn't have announced it either, because he's a butt head,
all right.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So she knows that she's she's gonna manipulate Castell at
to show where they hit the bodies, and Sandra ends
up coming to Abic Costell's apartment immediately kisses Stello because
Costello thinks like Sandra came to like tell them, hey,
I'm the one that bailed you out, But it turns
out it was her. And in the end we get
this weird like competition between Sandra and Joan for Costello's attention. Yes,
(30:16):
and this attention is it upsets Abbot. It upsets Abbot
because Abbot's just he just wants a date. And why
is Costello getting two girls when he could have one
of them? You know, at the very least, hey show
a buddy a little bit of love all right. Well, anyway,
they go to Talbot's room. Talbot's trashed everything. He confesses
(30:40):
that he's a werewolf to everybody, and Abbot doesn't believe
a damn thing. He's like, nah, man, you just had
a wicked bender last night. You know, I'll get over it.
But Abbot and Costello and then Joan row out to
the castle on a Rowbot okay, And this is where
we have like another discussion between abb and Costello about
(31:02):
like previous love interests and that, Like Abbot's like, you
you never get pretty girls? What what? What's the what's
the deal? And you go and and Costilla makes this
one line that I actually wrote down because I thought
it was really funny. He says, Yeah, my girl at
the time had so much bridge work that when I
kissed her, I had to pay a toll. That is
a goddamn great joke. That is a great joke. She
(31:26):
had so much bridge work. I had to pay a toll.
You're smiling, say something. This is an audio podcast. So
the girls stared down at each other, and I thought
there was gonna be a catfight. I thought, oh, man,
come on, there isn't. There isn't. So Talbot calls out
to the castle looking for the doctor, doctor Stevens that's
(31:49):
working for them, because he thinks that maybe he he
knows what's going on for some reason. It's super flimsy.
It's super flimsy, and like Costell open like answers the
phone and he thinks he says, I think this place
is Dracula's castle. And then like Talbot's like hello, Hello,
and Custell is already like at the door trying to
(32:10):
get out. He's like, I'm done, you know, I'm out.
But Abbot Costello's starts searching the castle. They find an
underground docking area in the castle. This is like a
freaking bond villain's castle in the middle of the It's
all fa fine whatever. But like Custell ends up going
through a secret door and this whole there's this whole
(32:30):
like secret door.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
He spins around on it and he ends up.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Finding himself in a room that has Frankensiegin sitting on
a stone throne. Dracula rises from a coffin. He gets
Abbott and they do a whole Scooby Dear routine of
going through this rotating door as like bel Lagosi and
and and Abbot.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Not thinking that there's anyone there but Costello seeing And
this is where the actor that was Strange when Abbot, yeah,
when when Costello is.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
On the it's Glenn Strange when yeah, yeah, When when
when Costello sits on his lap. The the the lore
of the movie is is that Costello would just like
add lib things when he sat on his lap, and
Glenn Strange could not keep a straight face. And I
guess they like had to do dozens of takes and
(33:27):
and and this is where I probably should talk about,
like what we learned about Abbott Costello's filming techniques that
since they were comedians and vaudeville comedians, they often had
people on set that would randomly do crazy things to
make everyone laugh. And jes yeah, they basically hired like
(33:47):
professional jesters to come in and just throw pies every
now and then, like what the hell, here's the thing
bade Bella pissed off, pissed off, And there's some footage
of it. There's some footage of it, but it cuts
off before Bella like tears into somebody. And it's because
while Bella understood that there was times for laughing, like
(34:09):
when they weren't filming. He would laugh and have fun
with everybody. But when he was on set and they
were filming, if somebody left around, which this guy did,
he was like mocking Bella by like coming down the
stairs behind him, like hiding his face, and Bella like
stopped and just said, we're filming act like professionals. Like
(34:30):
he got in he stormed off the set and had
to be like talked back to coming back, And I'm like,
you know what, I actually kind of respect that to
an extent. Like but Bella, you know, Abbot and Costello,
like you know their kind. Maybe he didn't know how
they filmed movies, sure, but you know that these guys
are kind of crazy. Maybe Bella was just having a
(34:53):
bad day. Maybe Bella was just having a bad day.
But here's the thing, Like.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
It was probably his work at the versus.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Oh, yes, he was a professional actor because.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
If you if you know anything about him, he'd like
to do things in just one cut.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, he really practiced and sat there in front of
the mirror, like when you watch Edwood, the movie you
know Edward with with Johnny Depp and all that, they
try to actually show that that he might screw up,
but he doesn't. It's not that he doesn't, uh, it's
not that he doesn't want to waste more time by
taking another shot. It's that he's like, if I can't
(35:33):
do it one take, that's my fault. But we're moving
on anyway, because I'm not wasting anybody else's money. Like
he would sit there and just practice specific lines over
and over and over again. Anyway. Anyway, Bella is a
consummate professional, and I guess even well, okay, he liked
(35:58):
Abbot Costello enough that he brought his onto set and
let him talk to them, like so his son like that.
We watched an interview with his son talking about how
much funny he had on set as well with his
father and Abbot Costello, like Abbot Costello were good people.
They were good people in real life, like family men
who really cared.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I mean, it had some his his problems and wasn't
didn't he have a gambling problem.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
No drink. It was drinking, but it was because he
was trying to hide like seizures. He was having seizures
so he would calm down through like alcohol, but it wasn't.
He was a family man. He was like a loving
man to everyone. They all stayed with their wives. They
never cheated, you know that that we know of, but
like their families have nothing but positive things to say
(36:45):
about it. Anyway, everyone brought their kids to the set.
Let's put it that way. It's it's that kind of
I know, we're we've digressed from the plot, but we
see the costumes that Sandra and Joan get into. Sandra
looks like a bride of Dracula, that that kind of
white flowing dress, and Joan dresses up as like a
roami woman with like the coins on her dress and
(37:09):
all that. I'm like, okay, okay, I get what you're
trying to do. Movie, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So we looked a little bit Spanish Dancer too.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
A little bit it could have been so.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Dracula comes down and is introduced to everyone as a
visiting doctor, and Sandra tries to call off the whole operation,
but Dracula puts the whammy on Sandra and then feeds
from her, and we get the one movie screw up.
The screw up that I have to point out. We
see Bela Lagosi's reflection in the mirror. Yeah, that's Dracula.
(37:42):
We shouldn't have seen this. Now, I understand this is
an Abbot Castello movie, but this is a universal movie
with Bela Lagosi as Dracula. I guarantee you Bella saw
that and got upset. I guarantee you. When Bella was
in the theater on open night and he saw that,
he got angry because that, like that broke the character
(38:05):
and he wanted to be in character, damn it.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Oh. The other thing I should say is that Costello
doesn't break the fourth wall. Oh no, but he breaks
the fourth wall.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Castello breaks the fourth wall, so there's nothing left of
it because he winks and nods at the camera all
the time.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yes, but it's not like going and talking straight to
the camera.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He does. I think he does one time in this
where he fully just talks to the camera. Oh at
least once. At least once. And I know that there's
movies where he fully does like a whole thing to
the camera.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
But that's a normal thing for Costello to do.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
So they go they go to this, they go to
this masquerade ball. McDougall shows up and assaults Costello.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
They're supposed to get in costume and they never do.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, but here's the thing, like Talbot and and Abbot
are basically in the same clothes clothes, and and Abbot's
going to go as a wolfman. Talbot gets pissed off
and says, don't put that on, like he's god, I
feel I feel awful for Laura.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And then he changes and.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
McDougall thinks he's assaulted by Abbot because Abbot was going
to be wearing this wolfman costume.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
They never get into Abbot and Costello never get into
a costume.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Mind you. That means McDougall is a were wolf. He
was bitten by a were wolf.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Uh oh but uh originally.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, if you're bitten by a were wolf, yeah, and
you're not killed, yeah yeah, And it is balt Monster
Squad rules because we don't we don't have that dealt with.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Any takes a s inherited silver.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Inherited silver shot from a gun by a woman who
loves that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
That is not this one. That is not the universal.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I know it's not. It's not the proper one. That's
the that's a joke. That's Spanish, the ridiculous like levels
of crap that you have to deal. Okay, look, look, cluck, cluck, cluck,
it's silver you have to kill them with silver. It
can be a silver club. It can be because remember
in the original Werewolf movie, Lawrence Talbot kills Bell Lagosi
(40:27):
with a silver headed cane.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Okay, and it didn't need to be inherited because he
bought it.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
He just bought it. Yeah, it doesn't have to be inherited.
It's just you can kill wear like silver.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
I love the fact that sometimes you have to cut
the werewolf up and put in them in.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, that's not the case. It's it's that if you
don't kill them with silver and you blow them up
with dynamite or something like monster Squad, the only way
to stop him from coming back is putting him in
a whole bunch of jars. That's strippers versus werewolves. Well,
that's in strippers versus Werewolves that they have to put
all the wiggly bits in different jars so they can't
come back together. See that's I love that movie. I
(41:04):
love it.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Never mind, I'll tell that one. There's a move. There's
a show that there's four horsemen or something like that,
and the guy's putting together the one person and I'm like, okay,
you you you sit and brought and put this person
to four Corners of the Earth.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I have no idea what you're talking about. It's an anime,
it might be I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Okay, it must be an anime because he doesn't watch those.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So Dracula wants Costello back at the castle. So like
we get Sandra walking off with Costello and Costello gets
the brain scramblings as Sandra tries to put the Whammi
on him because Sandra's now a vampire. And we learned
that they want Costello back at the at the castle
because they want his brain because it is pliable and stupid,
(41:57):
and that they will be able to control him, unlike
the monsters like raging Brain that basically just wants to
destroy everything, which I don't get. That's the point. The
Frankenstein's monster, as originally depicted, is a child. Yes, the
brain originally was like maybe you know, a damaged brain
or a criminal's brain, it doesn't matter. It's that when
(42:18):
they brought it back normal. Yeah, when they brought him back,
it was like a new being, a new person, right,
That's basically what the girl and didn't know his own strength,
and that's the that's the problem. He was childlike, right, childlike,
why are you worried about this? The monster's just a person,
(42:45):
and technically he's already pliable because Bella, you're going up
to him and going follow me, and he does, and
he's just he's told my cousin, Yeah, yeah, done. Okay.
So anyway, we get the scene where where Abbott is
accused of attacking the Dougal as the Wolfman, Dracula turns
into a bat and chases Costello, and then Dracula takes
(43:08):
Costello and Joan to the island on a motor boat
because Dracula now knows how to drive a motor boat somehow. Yeah,
you know what, You know what, Dracula had adventures during
World War Two where he had to escape from Europe
and probably kill a whole lot of Nazis doing it.
And I'll give him a thumbs up for that. Maybe,
(43:28):
you know what. In some timeline, Dracula helped with the
evacuation of the troops from Dunkirk, and he drove that
boat back and forth at night getting troops. That is
that that that's my own head cannon. That's where he
learned how to drive a boat. And then he slaughtered
a whole bunch of Nazis doing it. That's my head cannon,
all right. So we we have Costello ends up in
(43:53):
stocks and Dracula rises out to check on Frankenstein and
seeing his energy as low, he tells sam And that like, look,
we need to get his brain back in there. Abbot
and Abbott and Talbot make it out to the to
rescue everyone, and then like, Dracula calls out through the
ether to Costello as Costellos that.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Is great on Bela Lagosi.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, where he's just like.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
And Costello is like.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, he's he's he's he's dazed and he's trying
to fight it and he can't. So he's not stupid.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That he's so innocent that he can.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Struggle against it for a little bit. But he doesn't.
He comes back, and so they all return to the castle. Uh.
Talbot changes into the Wolfman and chases down Dracula. Dracula
turns into a bat as the Wolfman tackles him in
mid air off the balcony of a castle of the castle,
dragging a to the waves below. And I'm like, okay,
(45:04):
that's pretty cool. There is no way either one of
them is dead because none of those rocks are silver rocks.
So Talbot's coming back, and I guarantee you since Dracula
doesn't need to breathe, he's just gonna go. No, he's
just gonna go straight down to the bottom of the
sea and wait for the next nightfall, right, because Talbot's
(45:25):
still gonna be knocked out. Wolfman's still gonna get knocked
out or have it broken back or something. He's gonna
be able to get away.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
But he's gonna repair himself.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
After a while, but he's gonna let go of Dracula.
So if Dracula can't somehow get out of the water
and get away, he's just gonna go and sit down
at the bottom of the ocean until the next night
and then come back out like no, one's not either way.
Why wouldn't Dracula turn back into a person and then
just like swim to the surface and get away. Like
(45:53):
these two are not dead. Them just tumbling off a
castle is meant for people to go, Are they okay?
Of course they're okay, of course they yeah, Well it
was nineteen forty eight. So we have the other doctor
and Joan fill a bucket with gasoline.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Oh, yes, he goes put the fill his bucket up
with and it says gasoline.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
On the thing, and I'm like, So they douse the
dock that Frankenstein is on as they're as Frankenstein's like
chasing Abbot Costello to a rowboat and they've set the
dock on fire and Abbot Costello like motor out into
the water.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
But they're still hooked to the well.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
They're able to get it untied, and then Frankenstein just
like burns up in the fire and they have like
a dummy there for that, but that's fine. And then
as they're getting away, like, boy, you know, I'm I'm
glad that we're getting away with this. And then we
end up having Vincent Price have his cameo by saying, oh,
did did I come in too late? You might know
(46:53):
me as the Invisible Man, and he like lights a
cigarette and the cigarettes just floating there and Abbant Costella
jumping of the water the end. Right, that's the plot.
That's the plot. So what works The acting is actually
really good. It's actually actually very good because Abbot Costello,
while they're playing Abbot Costello just as different character names,
(47:16):
they're a charm. They're they're amazing. Bell Lagosi is a gem.
Lon Cheney Junior.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Too serious for these these.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
For Abbit Costello. Yeah, but Lon Cheney Jr. Chef's kiss again.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I don't think Lon Cheney had any problem with the two.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
No, no, but Lon Chaney Junior playing Talbot like this
tragic character even though he's in a comedy.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Holy shit, he still has those long lonely uh torre looks.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, fantastic. Glenn Strange as the monster again, No, lie,
well no, he does have lines, Yes, master or something
like that said he's but the acting of him just
kind of stumbling around. Glenn Strange does a very good job.
The two girls have kind of bit parts that are
a little stereotypical, but not like super offensive. They did fine,
(48:13):
So I'm putting the acting in the it works category,
like firmly in the it works category.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Doctor Stevens was just there too. Yeah, but they have
a name of a doctor where the real doctor was Sandra.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
But they refer to her as doctor and she was.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
She was in a cool surgical.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Well yeah, with the ear flaps and everything on the
surgical cap. That was super cool. No, they refer to
as doctor Mornee like Dracula even calls her doctor Mornee.
So if Dracula is respecting her and he seemingly does, okay,
that's that's pretty cool. So the pacing works, the editing works.
(49:01):
It's comedies, so of course the pacing and cuts need
to work for timing, and of course with an av
Costello movie, it does okay.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
And I always thought There's was really great because it
didn't constantly go back and back and back and back.
About the time that you're annoyed with it getting annoyed,
it stops.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So does anything not work in this not really? Not really. Uh,
it's a pretty darn good film if if you enjoy comedies,
and if you enjoy comedies and horror films, especially the
Universal Horror Film. The documentary that we watched talked about
(49:48):
horror comedies and how there just wasn't like these were
the groundbreaking horror comedies. I'm like, I agree with that.
All the abvant Costello Meats series, yes, are horror comedies.
They the mold, they did a really good job, and
they say like this wasn't really a thing. And again
until Shawna The Dead and I'm like, what, no, the
(50:10):
The The Evil Dead too is a horror comedy. Monster
Squad is a horror comedy. Like there there are things
before Shawna The Dead. Well, Shanna the Dead is fantastic,
there are things before it that are horror comedies. Okay, regardless,
(50:35):
I really like it this movie. I don't know if
there's anything else we can really say about the movie
except that we recommend it. Right.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Well, I would say this is if you wanted to
learn comedy and to learn timing of not you know,
there's a point where it gets to the edge of irritable.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
And then it stops, and it stops.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
These abit and Costello has always put it right to
that edge and then stop doing. Yeah, the thing that
they're doing to make the joke when the joke goes
into being irritable, And I would suggest anyone that's doing
movie theater or any of that to watch him. So
(51:22):
you see, there is that point you just start to
get irritated with the candle slipping, the going back and
forth through the doors, through this, and it stops the
minute that.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You start getting irritated. Yeah, which is impressive that you
know this is nineteen forty eight, like how long ago
that was made and it's still the timing of it
still still holds up. It still holds up, So we
both recommend it. Correct Yeah, okay, even as like a
horror movie. If you like the universal Horny movies, you'd
(52:02):
love this because these are like, look, it's Lon Cheney Junior,
it's Bella Logosi the only other time he plays Dracula
on screen. I would recommend it just for that because
and Bella is actually trying to act his heart out here.
Obviously he has trouble with the comedy aspect of it,
(52:22):
because he's like, I'm playing Dracula and playing this serious character,
et cetera, et cetera. But I recommend it. If I
had to give it out of ten, I give this
like a seven and a half. It's really good.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That's mine.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
So we should leave it there. I I We're gonna
do the other abb In Costello movies at some point,
maybe next I don't know, but we will. They're a
damn joy to watch, and you know, my heart lifts
watching them. So I'm Aaron, I'm Darlene, good evening, keep
watching the Skies. At no point in your rambling, incoherent
(52:57):
response were you even close to anything that could be
considered a rational thought.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this weekn
geek dot net. You can subscribe to the podcast, browse
our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on today's topics.
If you'd like to give us some feedback, send us
an email at Feedback at this Week in Geek dot net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and
(53:24):
surrender your listenership.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We would be on a if you would join us.
Thank you for your cooperation. Good night,
But aren't you fellows ever positive only about doomsday?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What could be worse than disappointing a little girl disappointing
a big girl.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I have other ways of securing your cooperation. Sorry, miss
I was giving myself an oil job.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When was it just azumbly as we've seen attitude to
it since we gave to a few low cabbages.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
An intellectual carrot. That mind boggles you see you see
your stupid lives.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Stupid, stupid, I said Santa Claus. Long enough, we will.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Bring him to Mars.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I've been afraid a lot of times in my life,
but I didn't know the real meaning of fear until
until I kiss peck me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
One thing will be clear. It's not from man to
interfere in the ways of God's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to Earth Versus Soup, Episode
two eighty. I'm Aaron Pellier, I'm Darlene. We watched Abbot
and Costello Meet Frankenstein from nineteen forty eight. This is
a movie that we knew that we would both like,
and Darlene has been putting off for years now because
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Think it's it's vaudeville. It's it's abbiting Costello.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
It's why did you think that it wouldn't fit.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
The reasons?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I just said, it's vaudeville.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's comedy. It's it's Costello doing Costello, okay, and Abbitt
being the straight person that he doesn't slaps him around,
abuses him, and.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Uh yeah, is there a plot? Oh yeah, there is there.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
There is a plot, and there is.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Actually good acting, There are characters, there is character development
even so to speak a little bit. So this is
actually much more of a movie than the serials that
we also that we say no we won't do because
of they're not really being a proper plot. It's just
(02:24):
going from cliffhanger or cliffhanger. So after watching this, I'm
actually very assured that this fits into Earth versus Soup.
If you have not heard of Abitt and Costello, Abbitt
and Costello are vaudeville comedians. They were argued, well, I
think they were actually the highest paid actors slash comedians
(02:45):
in World War two, making like over well, they raised
like millions of dollars eight I think it was eighty
million dollars during World War two for war.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Bonds, war bonds. I don't know how much it was.
I didn't write it down.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, we watched a whole documentary actually on abt Costello
making these movies after we were done watching the movie.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But this, this movie itself made three point two million
dollars in.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The box office, and it had a very low budget.
It basically it had less than five hundred thousand dollar budget,
so like four hundred thousand or something like that. It
made like eight times its money back. Ab and Costello
were always a money making machine effectively for the studios,
(03:29):
and they felt that the studios felt, hey, let's make
this money making machine. Uh, combine it with our money
making machine of monsters.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, they were money making machine up until there was
it was another team that well, Martin and.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I don't I don't know. I think what what they what?
What the what? The documentary that we watched described was
that that ab and Costello were very well regarded and
always had work, always high paid up until comedy started
shifting post war, like mid nineteen fifties, And it was
(04:13):
because humor was getting a little more a little more
dirty in some ways. And when I say dirty, I
don't mean like today's dirty. I mean dirty compared to
like Abbant Costello, who refused to do any kind of
adult style humor, like joking about like relationships. Even they
(04:35):
did joke in certain ways, and they do that in
this film about having a dame, but like it's so okay. Look,
Abbot Costello.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Is so clean clean.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It is clean clean, Yeah, alb and Costello is something
that you can basically show to two or three year
olds and you're not going to get have them get offended.
At least you shouldn't be able to get offended by them.
I knew about Abbot Costello since I was a little kid,
because of course I watched these movies, but it was
(05:07):
also because I absolutely adored the Who's on first routine
that they did.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Who's on first, what's on second?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I don't know on third?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Tomorrow is Catcher.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Something like that?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yesterday.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I actually used to know the entire routine, which is
which is very strange. But I loved abbant Costello just
like I loved the Three Stooges. But I loved ab
and Costello in a different way because Abbant Costello was
more rapid fire, witty wordplay, where the Stooges were physical comedy.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
And it's always Costello doing the witty fast hammer the
language thing.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
They both do it. They need to play off each other,
so they both do it. And like Costello, he's he
takes the pratfalls though, So there there is physical hue.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Were there?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
What else should we say about this movie. There's a
lot to actually say about this movie.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
You have a lot of names in him.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, there's actually.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Bella Lagosi as Dracula.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Okay, and we need to point out we need to
point out that you imagine Bella Lagosi playing Dracula in
every movie. The thing is Belagosi played Dracula twice. The
first time was in Dracula, the second time was this movie. Okay,
those were the only two times he ever played the
(06:37):
character on screen. Did he do like appearances as Dracula,
like on on like talk shows? Yes, but he was
only in two movies, and this was one.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
And you got Glenn Strange as the Monster.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Which he does a fantastic job.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And you got Vincent Price not he doesn't credit Well,
it's his voice.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's only his voice. He should have gotten like and
a guest appearance by because he plays the invisible man
in the final scene and you don't see him because
it's just Vincent Price's voice. But by god, you know
that's Vincent Price immediately, which is really funny that he
has such a distinctive voice. We've both clearly seen this
(07:21):
movie before. We both have a lot of love for it.
You will hear that while we talk about the plot,
and we can go through.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I stop taking notes at one point.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Because you were just enjoying it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I was just reviewing what now, Abn and Costello, And
like I said, Costello is my favorite other two.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, well he is for me too. But when we
describe the plot, I am not going to describe the
word play, the rapid fire like noises that Castello tends
to make.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
When he's terrified. Yeah, oh, I don't.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Know, rabbles. He babbles, But I'm not gonna do that.
And we're gonna be able to go through this plot
fairly quickly because of that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Now, the first thing we need to talk about, okay,
is the cartoon credits.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Cartoon credits are actually really cool, really cool. Right, did
you have something to say besides saying they're really cool?
Speaker 1 (08:23):
They're really good, well done, and you said something about it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
It's because all of the animation in this is done
by the same guy that did Woody Woodpecker, okay, and
and that means he's attached to all the George Powell
movies because we see George Pale as like an attachment
to Woody Woodpecker too. Woody Woodpecker gets into like weird
nineteen fifties sci fi and horror like in so many
(08:50):
strange ways like this weird connections. If if somebody makes
like an actual like homage to nineteenth fifties science fiction,
you have to have Woody Woodpecker in it, like just
like a woodywood Pecker toy, or you hear like somebody's
watching Woody Woodpecker on TV or something like that, because
it's always there's always a weird connection.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Well this is in forty eight, so.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, I know this is not this is pre George
Powell really doing a lot of his stuff. But anyway,
it's a really cool credit sequence. And then we get
to have stock footage, but it's stock footage we have
literally just watched and I can't even remember the name
of the movie that we watched, but it's the same
stock footage of London at night. And then we see
(09:34):
the clock tower of Parliament with Bodka right in front
of it, and I'm like that. I love that shot.
It's an amazing dramatic shot of the clock tower where
everyone calls it big Ben. It's not big Ben's the
bell inside. It's the clock tower and Bodka Bodacia, however
you want to pronounce it is there like riding her horse.
(09:55):
I freaking loved that statue when we saw it in London.
I remember pointing it out to you, going, there's.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
The Parliament, the clock tower in Bodica. Is the symbols
you would you would the statue of Bodica. Are the
symbols that you do for London.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
There's there's a few.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Without doing modern today you do the Gurkin No, but
the wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I would disagree. I would say yes absolutely, the houses
of Parliament and the clock tower Bodica. No, because those
people wouldn't really understand Bodica. You would do you would
do Piccadilly Circus in general, or you would do Lord
Nelson's column.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
But Piccadilla's Circus is like doing New York's uh Times Square.
It's going to data, it's going to Date.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And then Buckingham Palace because that's pretty iconic as well.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
But while they've got the Wheel, the eye of One,
the eye, and you got the I know we're way
off track.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
We're way off the Jellybean. Well, we got the jelly
bean now, which is great. I mean you also have Belfast,
hm us Belfast. That's there, but that's post war Belfast.
I don't think would be there at this point anyway.
I don't think. I think she was probably still in service.
I don't know her entire service history, but I don't
think she would be docked yet on the Thames.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
And they hadn't yet done the theater Williams.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Oh they had, They hadn't. They hadn't remade the globe yet. Yeah, yeah, okay,
let's get back to the plot. We see Lon Cheney
as Talbot, and I often like, write it right down, Talbot,
But yeah, this is Lon Cheney Junior reprising his role
for the last time. I think this is the last
time he plays Talbot, and I I again every time
(11:51):
Lon Cheney is on screen as Talbot, the.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
How your heart for him?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Because he doesn't want this. Yeah, he acts extraordinarily well
through this. He's a great actor anyway. Anyway, He's looking
out a window and he's trying to get a hold
of somebody in Florida. He's like making frantic calls, okay.
And then we go to Florida and see Abbot Costello
(12:20):
working as like a baggage clerks in a train station
for like, but it's more than a train station. It's
like a transshipment center, so like boxes are coming in
there to be delivered locally. And Costello almost knocks himself
out by collapsing bags. And we meet his girlfriend, whose
(12:42):
name is Sandra Mornet. Okay, she's checking up on him.
She's a beautiful brunette. Abbott, as as he is wont
to do emotionally inverbally, abuses Costello about like how he's ugly,
how no dame should actually like him? What's wrong with her?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
See who's why do they see this? Why do they
say see something in you in Wilburt versus him because.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
He's a thin If there's one thing I will say
about Abbic and Costello, the the the body shaming that
is part of their routine is kind of awful. Let's
be fair. It does. It makes me feel uncomfortable. And
and the general the general chauvinism that comes off of
(13:40):
Abbot because he's just he's like the ladies man. He's
always trying to be sweet to women, but he's he's
also just there to like.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
But Costello always plays the sweetheart, the man that never
grew out of being a boy.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, that's part of the routine.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
And it's every doesn't matter what.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Movie it is, it's always the same. Yeah. So I
mean if I had, if I had a complaint, I
think it would be, like I do feel a little
uncomfortable watching it and having Abbott like just rip into
Costello about being fat or short or ugly or whatever,
and I'm like, oh, whatever. So the phone rings and
we hear that it's Talbot on the other line, and
(14:25):
he asks, if there's two big crates they are going
to be delivered to a House of horrors, don't deliver them,
wait until I get there, you know. Blah blah blah,
And he tells the porters, don't do it, just wait.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
He finally gets a hold of him. That's something you
have to say, because it's been he's been doing this.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
All day, like calling different places.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And it's because going to be at the full moon.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And he's like, I'm going to you know, I have
to go. It's going to be the full moon. And
then he like changes on the other on the line
and he's growling, and Costello thinks that somebody's dog, yeah,
and he just kind of hangs up. All right, Fine.
So we have a guy named McDougall who runs the
House of Horrors.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
He comes in, she is the worst person in his
dog goe for.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
He's he's the kind of guy that you would be like, sir,
I think you just need to talk to my manager,
and you you take a step back. Then you take
a step back in and say, sir, I'm going to
ask you to leave. As the manager, I'm going to
ask you to leave. Otherwise I'm going to call the
police because you are a piece of shit that is
just abusing me for doing my job competently. You just
(15:35):
don't want to wait your goddamn turn.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, you wouldn't get nasty.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I mean, McDougall's a piece of shit.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
He is. He's over the top, but he's supposed to.
I guess he was written to be over over the
top totally.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And he's like he just starts he's somebody.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
That doesn't have money but wants to be treated like
he's he's king, He's king.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
And he like he immediately starts threatening lawsuits after lawsuits
about his boxes. Oh god, it just goes on and
on with him.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
But anyway, and you have to deliver it tonight.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Sander has to break her date that she made with Costello.
McDougall yells and demands the crates be delivered. So that night,
ab and Costello arrived at his House of Horrors and
it's filled with mannequins and wax figures, and they start
opening the crates. Inside one of the crates.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
After being yelled at by a mystery mister McDougall, and
Abbott is not so great with Costello again.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It's all this abuse. Anyway. Inside one of the crates
is a coffin with the crest of Dracula. Yes, Dracula
is really in it, because this House of Horrors guy
just got a hold of rates with Dracula and Frankenstein
in him.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Somehow, and lawn Cheney's chasing him down.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Because he's wanting to destroy them.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I don't know if it was destroying him to stop him,
because at one point he said friends.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think he thinks maybe the monster is a friend,
like the Frankenstein's monster is a friend, but he.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Says that they're living, and we find out that Dracula
it has some kind of power over Frankenstein. He's got
a charge a little charging device.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Okay, sort of okay, all right, we'll get we'll get
to it. We'll get to it. Because I have thoughts
on that. I have thoughts on that, and I think
it's nonsense. But anyway, so Abbott doesn't believe any of
the mumbo jumbo that's being said on the plaques about
Dracula or Frankenstein, and Dracula peeks out at Costello as
(18:02):
he reads about the legend. There's lots of timing gags here.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
But the candle candle moving, and that's something that they
did in Ghost.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, there's a there's another movie that they did about
the haunting of something. Castello is going to hide a
wax head in Dracula's coffin that he accidentally he beheads
a wax dummy with a guillotine. He goes to like
throw the wax head into Dracula's coffin and Dracula gets out.
And I have to say that, like, by the end
(18:38):
of this movie, I would be very surprised if Costello
can have a single coherent thought because Dracula puts puts
the whammy mind control on Costello multiple times through this
multiple times, I say, he's he clearly has the brain
scramblies by the end of this again another another what
(18:59):
we do in the Shadows reference. I know, but Costello
is already kind of crazy. He's got to be like
broken by the end of this movie, right, well, or
there's just nothing there to scramble. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, that's the weird part is that he's the one
that they want the brain for.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Oh well, they explain exactly why, They explain exactly, and
it makes sense. But anyway, we'll get to it. We'll
get to it. So he gets the he gets the
wammy put on him, and he like covers his face
with a cloak Dracula when he's trying to like put
the wammy on on Costello, and I didn't really understand why.
(19:44):
It's not very clear what the.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Time Bella Lagosi moves, he's got the his his his
coat up.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
And you you kept saying, is that really bell Lagosi?
Why are they hiding his face? It makes sense why
he's hiding his face. I also think think it's a
complete waste of having bel l Agosi in the film
if you're doing that, Like, dude, Bella's the shit, and
he has charisma in this movie. He does when he's
able to actually act. There's a scene later on where
(20:16):
he's acting against Sandra and he's being charming, and you're like, dude,
that's that's the bela Agosa, bela Lagosi that I freaking love,
because he's got that smile and that twinkle in his
eye and he's trying to like and then finally puts
the whammy on her. All Right, Anyway, there's a box
(20:38):
with Frankenstein's monster. Dracula gets back into his coffin while
they're opening the other one, and uh, let's see here
he gets let's see, Dracula wakes up Frankenstein with his ring.
It's his ring that he uses to wake up Frankenstein.
I don't that's not a device. He has a ring.
(20:58):
I don't understand. I don't understand. It might be just
the like, Dracula has a very staticky cape and he's
able to build up a static charge and he wakes
up Frankenstein with that. But he gets Frankenstein to like
pick up his coffin and they run. Okay, fine, So
at this point McDougall thinks that Avant Costello have like
(21:20):
stolen his goods and they get thrown in jail for
the night. Because McDougall's a piece of shit. That's the
best way I can explain it. So then we get night.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It's just that night that it was said to day
in and night. That's what Abit says.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Okay, okay, a day and a night. You might be right.
I thought it was only the night. But that's fine.
We then get a Mat painting of a castle that's
sitting in the middle of the water. This is Florida. Wow,
it's an amazing Matt painting. And then we get an
animated bat that actually flies out there and you're like, okay,
I like the.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Cartoon of the Draculas.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Oh yeah, when he he changes from bat in an
animated form, like an animated bat, into into Bell Lagosi
and yeah, is it is it a realistic effect? No,
it doesn't need to be. It's adorable and amazing, right,
And it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Doesn't take you out of this one because this is
a comedy.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know what if this was a regular horror movie
from nineteen forty eight with that in there, I had
have been pleased. I would have just had a.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Plastic the rubber ones that were in what movie?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Was that in a lot of a lot of the
Dracula movies have rubber bats in them.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But the one where it was in a room that
only had a.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
H yeah, that's the maze the maze. Yeah. Yeah, there
was like a rubber flooding around. It was just there's
a rubber bat. In the nineteen thirty one Dracula they
have a rubber bat. It looks terrible, but I mean,
I'd rather have the animation, and I'd rather have the
animated like bat into Bella Lagosi thing than you know.
(23:10):
I'd rather have that than CGI. I honestly, I'd rather
have that than CGI. And people would be like, what,
you don't you want to see an animated shift like
that rather than having some something that looks super cool
and you know what, he's a vampire. Do you know
what vampires look like when they change from bat form
(23:30):
to human form? No? Because they're fake grow up? This
was cute moving. See. I have thoughts about this, right, Like,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Think you'd have that opinion if it was Dresden files.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Well, just like some some some vampire coming out and
looking like Woody Woodpecker and turning like you know what, Fine,
that's the way that one looks. Do you think that
there aren't faye that looked like for cartoons or something something?
Oh God, come on fair anyway, I don't care fair.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I'd rather face off.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
A man knocks on the door and we meet. We
see that Sandra Costello's girlfriend is a doctor working at
this this castle. She has an assistant named doctor Stevens,
who seems like would be a very important part of
the plot.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Isn't he's a comic part to this. I don't in
a way and he's not funny, but he's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Be, so we we hear Dracula says, look, you need
to revive the monster. And this is where Dracula suggests
that she did risky experiments that the European police would
be very interested in, and that's why she fled to America.
And I go, so she's she's a she's a Nazi.
(24:56):
I mean, that's why he's implying. I think that's what
he's implying. It you did risky unethical experiments that the
European police would be interested in. And you fled to America.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Okay, Bella with Dracula's castle in the swamp.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
It's in the ocean. That's just water out there. They
have to take a rowboat out there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I thought it was like in the middle of a lake.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
It's maybe the middle. Maybe it's in the middle of
lake or whatever. Yeah, something like that, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
So Abant Costello are in jail because of the disappearing bodies.
Talbot shows up at their apartment and he tells Abbot
(25:47):
Costello that he knew the bodies were alive. At this point,
he's like, I knew that they were alive. That's why
I was trying to get you to stop delivering them. Okay,
and tell Abot again and lawn Cheney treasure because he's
he's clearly like panicked. He's playing the paniced. It's nighttime again, right, So, yeah,
(26:10):
it was the night and a whole day that they
were in jail, and they finally got bailed out by
a woman. We learn who that is later, but we
don't know now.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We're assuming it's but it turns out not to be.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
But we have ln Cheney there like acting his heart
out credit where credits due panicking because it's night, the
moon's going to be up again and he's going to.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Change and he needs to be locked away into his hotel.
He called it a hotel room that's across the the.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Thing from across the hallway from abbon Castilla's apartment. Well,
here's here's my thought on this. I think some hotels,
some apartment buildings were also hotels that they did like
mixed use or something like that. And also people did
(27:03):
live in hotels at times. Why Abbitt and Costello would
be living in a hotel, I don't know, especially under
their salary because they're just getting paid crap. But they're
union men, and that's made very clear a couple of times.
I'm a union man. I only work sixteen hours a day,
so if I have to deliver this tonight, you're gonna
(27:24):
pay me overtime. Union men only work eight hours a day.
But I'm in two unions. I'm like, sir, good for you.
First of all, he gets that. I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
He gets up his channon.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I'm a union man. I'm like, damn right, damn two unions,
damn right, so I support that. So, uh, they get
him to lock him in his room. He changes and
Costello comes back and forth to give like Talbot his bag,
and like there's again timing humor of Laden Cheney trying
to like tackle Costello but like Costello just being completely
(28:05):
oblivious so not freaking out and thus like making him
miss because he thinks he's gonna like jerk to the
side or something.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Still's an apple or an orange or something like that.
The end, and thanks to return it.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
And then yeah, so so then we meet an insurance investigator, Joan,
who has been brought in by McDougal to investigate abbing
Costello to see where they hid those bodies. Okay, I
need to interject and say ab and Costello are most
likely going to be in prison after this movie for
(28:41):
at least a little while. At least a little while
at least because through one charge of attempted murder, because
all the evidence points to Abbot doing that.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
The whole place.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Like, yeah, it's a fake.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Grand it's a fake dog on Castle, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's a fake charge of ourson. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, it's Feland.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
There's there's there has to be at least a couple
charges of like vandalism involved because of the hotel room
and everything.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Well, the hotel room was nothing more than Lin Cheney's the.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Wax Museum decapitated bodies, wax bodies he.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Decapit, he accidentally decapitated, which mc dougal didn't figure it out.
So if McDougall is gonna be in butt head, I
wouldn't have announced it either, because he's a butt head,
all right.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
So she knows that she's she's gonna manipulate Castell at
to show where they hit the bodies, and Sandra ends
up coming to Abic Costell's apartment immediately kisses Stello because
Costello thinks like Sandra came to like tell them, hey,
I'm the one that bailed you out, But it turns
out it was her. And in the end we get
this weird like competition between Sandra and Joan for Costello's attention. Yes,
(30:16):
and this attention is it upsets Abbot. It upsets Abbot
because Abbot's just he just wants a date. And why
is Costello getting two girls when he could have one
of them? You know, at the very least, hey show
a buddy a little bit of love all right. Well, anyway,
they go to Talbot's room. Talbot's trashed everything. He confesses
(30:40):
that he's a werewolf to everybody, and Abbot doesn't believe
a damn thing. He's like, nah, man, you just had
a wicked bender last night. You know, I'll get over it.
But Abbot and Costello and then Joan row out to
the castle on a Rowbot okay, And this is where
we have like another discussion between abb and Costello about
(31:02):
like previous love interests and that, Like Abbot's like, you
you never get pretty girls? What what? What's the what's
the deal? And you go and and Costilla makes this
one line that I actually wrote down because I thought
it was really funny. He says, Yeah, my girl at
the time had so much bridge work that when I
kissed her, I had to pay a toll. That is
a goddamn great joke. That is a great joke. She
(31:26):
had so much bridge work. I had to pay a toll.
You're smiling, say something. This is an audio podcast. So
the girls stared down at each other, and I thought
there was gonna be a catfight. I thought, oh, man,
come on, there isn't. There isn't. So Talbot calls out
to the castle looking for the doctor, doctor Stevens that's
(31:49):
working for them, because he thinks that maybe he he
knows what's going on for some reason. It's super flimsy.
It's super flimsy, and like Costell open like answers the
phone and he thinks he says, I think this place
is Dracula's castle. And then like Talbot's like hello, Hello,
and Custell is already like at the door trying to
(32:10):
get out. He's like, I'm done, you know, I'm out.
But Abbot Costello's starts searching the castle. They find an
underground docking area in the castle. This is like a
freaking bond villain's castle in the middle of the It's
all fa fine whatever. But like Custell ends up going
through a secret door and this whole there's this whole
(32:30):
like secret door.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
He spins around on it and he ends up.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Finding himself in a room that has Frankensiegin sitting on
a stone throne. Dracula rises from a coffin. He gets
Abbott and they do a whole Scooby Dear routine of
going through this rotating door as like bel Lagosi and
and and Abbot.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Not thinking that there's anyone there but Costello seeing And
this is where the actor that was Strange when Abbot, yeah,
when when Costello is.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
On the it's Glenn Strange when yeah, yeah, When when
when Costello sits on his lap. The the the lore
of the movie is is that Costello would just like
add lib things when he sat on his lap, and
Glenn Strange could not keep a straight face. And I
guess they like had to do dozens of takes and
(33:27):
and and this is where I probably should talk about,
like what we learned about Abbott Costello's filming techniques that
since they were comedians and vaudeville comedians, they often had
people on set that would randomly do crazy things to
make everyone laugh. And jes yeah, they basically hired like
(33:47):
professional jesters to come in and just throw pies every
now and then, like what the hell, here's the thing
bade Bella pissed off, pissed off, And there's some footage
of it. There's some footage of it, but it cuts
off before Bella like tears into somebody. And it's because
while Bella understood that there was times for laughing, like
(34:09):
when they weren't filming. He would laugh and have fun
with everybody. But when he was on set and they
were filming, if somebody left around, which this guy did,
he was like mocking Bella by like coming down the
stairs behind him, like hiding his face, and Bella like
stopped and just said, we're filming act like professionals. Like
(34:30):
he got in he stormed off the set and had
to be like talked back to coming back, And I'm like,
you know what, I actually kind of respect that to
an extent. Like but Bella, you know, Abbot and Costello,
like you know their kind. Maybe he didn't know how
they filmed movies, sure, but you know that these guys
are kind of crazy. Maybe Bella was just having a
(34:53):
bad day. Maybe Bella was just having a bad day.
But here's the thing, Like.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
It was probably his work at the versus.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Oh, yes, he was a professional actor because.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
If you if you know anything about him, he'd like
to do things in just one cut.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, he really practiced and sat there in front of
the mirror, like when you watch Edwood, the movie you
know Edward with with Johnny Depp and all that, they
try to actually show that that he might screw up,
but he doesn't. It's not that he doesn't, uh, it's
not that he doesn't want to waste more time by
taking another shot. It's that he's like, if I can't
(35:33):
do it one take, that's my fault. But we're moving
on anyway, because I'm not wasting anybody else's money. Like
he would sit there and just practice specific lines over
and over and over again. Anyway. Anyway, Bella is a
consummate professional, and I guess even well, okay, he liked
(35:58):
Abbot Costello enough that he brought his onto set and
let him talk to them, like so his son like that.
We watched an interview with his son talking about how
much funny he had on set as well with his
father and Abbot Costello, like Abbot Costello were good people.
They were good people in real life, like family men
who really cared.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
I mean, it had some his his problems and wasn't
didn't he have a gambling problem.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
No drink. It was drinking, but it was because he
was trying to hide like seizures. He was having seizures
so he would calm down through like alcohol, but it wasn't.
He was a family man. He was like a loving
man to everyone. They all stayed with their wives. They
never cheated, you know that that we know of, but
like their families have nothing but positive things to say
(36:45):
about it. Anyway, everyone brought their kids to the set.
Let's put it that way. It's it's that kind of
I know, we're we've digressed from the plot, but we
see the costumes that Sandra and Joan get into. Sandra
looks like a bride of Dracula, that that kind of
white flowing dress, and Joan dresses up as like a
roami woman with like the coins on her dress and
(37:09):
all that. I'm like, okay, okay, I get what you're
trying to do. Movie, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So we looked a little bit Spanish Dancer too.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
A little bit it could have been so.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Dracula comes down and is introduced to everyone as a
visiting doctor, and Sandra tries to call off the whole operation,
but Dracula puts the whammy on Sandra and then feeds
from her, and we get the one movie screw up.
The screw up that I have to point out. We
see Bela Lagosi's reflection in the mirror. Yeah, that's Dracula.
(37:42):
We shouldn't have seen this. Now, I understand this is
an Abbot Castello movie, but this is a universal movie
with Bela Lagosi as Dracula. I guarantee you Bella saw
that and got upset. I guarantee you. When Bella was
in the theater on open night and he saw that,
he got angry because that, like that broke the character
(38:05):
and he wanted to be in character, damn it.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Oh. The other thing I should say is that Costello
doesn't break the fourth wall. Oh no, but he breaks
the fourth wall.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Castello breaks the fourth wall, so there's nothing left of
it because he winks and nods at the camera all
the time.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yes, but it's not like going and talking straight to
the camera.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
He does. I think he does one time in this
where he fully just talks to the camera. Oh at
least once. At least once. And I know that there's
movies where he fully does like a whole thing to
the camera.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
But that's a normal thing for Costello to do.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
So they go they go to this, they go to
this masquerade ball. McDougall shows up and assaults Costello.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
They're supposed to get in costume and they never do.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, but here's the thing, like Talbot and and Abbot
are basically in the same clothes clothes, and and Abbot's
going to go as a wolfman. Talbot gets pissed off
and says, don't put that on, like he's god, I
feel I feel awful for Laura.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And then he changes and.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
McDougall thinks he's assaulted by Abbot because Abbot was going
to be wearing this wolfman costume.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
They never get into Abbot and Costello never get into
a costume.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Mind you. That means McDougall is a were wolf. He
was bitten by a were wolf.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Uh oh but uh originally.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Yeah, if you're bitten by a were wolf, yeah, and
you're not killed, yeah yeah, And it is balt Monster
Squad rules because we don't we don't have that dealt with.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Any takes a s inherited silver.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Inherited silver shot from a gun by a woman who
loves that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
That is not this one. That is not the universal.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I know it's not. It's not the proper one. That's
the that's a joke. That's Spanish, the ridiculous like levels
of crap that you have to deal. Okay, look, look, cluck, cluck, cluck,
it's silver you have to kill them with silver. It
can be a silver club. It can be because remember
in the original Werewolf movie, Lawrence Talbot kills Bell Lagosi
(40:27):
with a silver headed cane.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Okay, and it didn't need to be inherited because he
bought it.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
He just bought it. Yeah, it doesn't have to be inherited.
It's just you can kill wear like silver.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
I love the fact that sometimes you have to cut
the werewolf up and put in them in.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, that's not the case. It's it's that if you
don't kill them with silver and you blow them up
with dynamite or something like monster Squad, the only way
to stop him from coming back is putting him in
a whole bunch of jars. That's strippers versus werewolves. Well,
that's in strippers versus Werewolves that they have to put
all the wiggly bits in different jars so they can't
come back together. See that's I love that movie. I
(41:04):
love it.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Never mind, I'll tell that one. There's a move. There's
a show that there's four horsemen or something like that,
and the guy's putting together the one person and I'm like, okay,
you you you sit and brought and put this person
to four Corners of the Earth.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
I have no idea what you're talking about. It's an anime,
it might be I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Okay, it must be an anime because he doesn't watch those.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
So Dracula wants Costello back at the castle. So like
we get Sandra walking off with Costello and Costello gets
the brain scramblings as Sandra tries to put the Whammi
on him because Sandra's now a vampire. And we learned
that they want Costello back at the at the castle
because they want his brain because it is pliable and stupid,
(41:57):
and that they will be able to control him, unlike
the monsters like raging Brain that basically just wants to
destroy everything, which I don't get. That's the point. The
Frankenstein's monster, as originally depicted, is a child. Yes, the
brain originally was like maybe you know, a damaged brain
or a criminal's brain, it doesn't matter. It's that when
(42:18):
they brought it back normal. Yeah, when they brought him back,
it was like a new being, a new person, right,
That's basically what the girl and didn't know his own strength,
and that's the that's the problem. He was childlike, right, childlike,
why are you worried about this? The monster's just a person,
(42:45):
and technically he's already pliable because Bella, you're going up
to him and going follow me, and he does, and
he's just he's told my cousin, Yeah, yeah, done. Okay.
So anyway, we get the scene where where Abbott is
accused of attacking the Dougal as the Wolfman, Dracula turns
into a bat and chases Costello, and then Dracula takes
(43:08):
Costello and Joan to the island on a motor boat
because Dracula now knows how to drive a motor boat somehow. Yeah,
you know what, You know what, Dracula had adventures during
World War Two where he had to escape from Europe
and probably kill a whole lot of Nazis doing it.
And I'll give him a thumbs up for that. Maybe,
(43:28):
you know what. In some timeline, Dracula helped with the
evacuation of the troops from Dunkirk, and he drove that
boat back and forth at night getting troops. That is
that that that's my own head cannon. That's where he
learned how to drive a boat. And then he slaughtered
a whole bunch of Nazis doing it. That's my head cannon,
all right. So we we have Costello ends up in
(43:53):
stocks and Dracula rises out to check on Frankenstein and
seeing his energy as low, he tells sam And that like, look,
we need to get his brain back in there. Abbot
and Abbott and Talbot make it out to the to
rescue everyone, and then like, Dracula calls out through the
ether to Costello as Costellos that.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
Is great on Bela Lagosi.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, where he's just like.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
And Costello is like.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, yeah, he's he's he's he's dazed and he's trying
to fight it and he can't. So he's not stupid.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That he's so innocent that he can.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Struggle against it for a little bit. But he doesn't.
He comes back, and so they all return to the castle. Uh.
Talbot changes into the Wolfman and chases down Dracula. Dracula
turns into a bat as the Wolfman tackles him in
mid air off the balcony of a castle of the castle,
dragging a to the waves below. And I'm like, okay,
(45:04):
that's pretty cool. There is no way either one of
them is dead because none of those rocks are silver rocks.
So Talbot's coming back, and I guarantee you since Dracula
doesn't need to breathe, he's just gonna go. No, he's
just gonna go straight down to the bottom of the
sea and wait for the next nightfall, right, because Talbot's
(45:25):
still gonna be knocked out. Wolfman's still gonna get knocked
out or have it broken back or something. He's gonna
be able to get away.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
But he's gonna repair himself.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
After a while, but he's gonna let go of Dracula.
So if Dracula can't somehow get out of the water
and get away, he's just gonna go and sit down
at the bottom of the ocean until the next night
and then come back out like no, one's not either way.
Why wouldn't Dracula turn back into a person and then
just like swim to the surface and get away. Like
(45:53):
these two are not dead. Them just tumbling off a
castle is meant for people to go, Are they okay?
Of course they're okay, of course they yeah, Well it
was nineteen forty eight. So we have the other doctor
and Joan fill a bucket with gasoline.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Oh, yes, he goes put the fill his bucket up
with and it says gasoline.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
On the thing, and I'm like, So they douse the
dock that Frankenstein is on as they're as Frankenstein's like
chasing Abbot Costello to a rowboat and they've set the
dock on fire and Abbot Costello like motor out into
the water.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
But they're still hooked to the well.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
They're able to get it untied, and then Frankenstein just
like burns up in the fire and they have like
a dummy there for that, but that's fine. And then
as they're getting away, like, boy, you know, I'm I'm
glad that we're getting away with this. And then we
end up having Vincent Price have his cameo by saying, oh,
did did I come in too late? You might know
(46:53):
me as the Invisible Man, and he like lights a
cigarette and the cigarettes just floating there and Abbant Costella
jumping of the water the end. Right, that's the plot.
That's the plot. So what works The acting is actually
really good. It's actually actually very good because Abbot Costello,
while they're playing Abbot Costello just as different character names,
(47:16):
they're a charm. They're they're amazing. Bell Lagosi is a gem.
Lon Cheney Junior.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Too serious for these these.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
For Abbit Costello. Yeah, but Lon Cheney Jr. Chef's kiss again.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I don't think Lon Cheney had any problem with the two.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
No, no, but Lon Chaney Junior playing Talbot like this
tragic character even though he's in a comedy.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Holy shit, he still has those long lonely uh torre looks.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yes, fantastic. Glenn Strange as the monster again, No, lie,
well no, he does have lines, Yes, master or something
like that said he's but the acting of him just
kind of stumbling around. Glenn Strange does a very good job.
The two girls have kind of bit parts that are
a little stereotypical, but not like super offensive. They did fine,
(48:13):
So I'm putting the acting in the it works category,
like firmly in the it works category.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Doctor Stevens was just there too. Yeah, but they have
a name of a doctor where the real doctor was Sandra.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
But they refer to her as doctor and she was.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
She was in a cool surgical.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Well yeah, with the ear flaps and everything on the
surgical cap. That was super cool. No, they refer to
as doctor Mornee like Dracula even calls her doctor Mornee.
So if Dracula is respecting her and he seemingly does, okay,
that's that's pretty cool. So the pacing works, the editing works.
(49:01):
It's comedies, so of course the pacing and cuts need
to work for timing, and of course with an av
Costello movie, it does okay.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
And I always thought There's was really great because it
didn't constantly go back and back and back and back.
About the time that you're annoyed with it getting annoyed,
it stops.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So does anything not work in this not really? Not really. Uh,
it's a pretty darn good film if if you enjoy comedies,
and if you enjoy comedies and horror films, especially the
Universal Horror Film. The documentary that we watched talked about
(49:48):
horror comedies and how there just wasn't like these were
the groundbreaking horror comedies. I'm like, I agree with that.
All the abvant Costello Meats series, yes, are horror comedies.
They the mold, they did a really good job, and
they say like this wasn't really a thing. And again
until Shawna The Dead and I'm like, what, no, the
(50:10):
The The Evil Dead too is a horror comedy. Monster
Squad is a horror comedy. Like there there are things
before Shawna The Dead. Well, Shanna the Dead is fantastic,
there are things before it that are horror comedies. Okay, regardless,
(50:35):
I really like it this movie. I don't know if
there's anything else we can really say about the movie
except that we recommend it. Right.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Well, I would say this is if you wanted to
learn comedy and to learn timing of not you know,
there's a point where it gets to the edge of irritable.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
And then it stops, and it stops.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
These abit and Costello has always put it right to
that edge and then stop doing. Yeah, the thing that
they're doing to make the joke when the joke goes
into being irritable, And I would suggest anyone that's doing
movie theater or any of that to watch him. So
(51:22):
you see, there is that point you just start to
get irritated with the candle slipping, the going back and
forth through the doors, through this, and it stops the
minute that.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You start getting irritated. Yeah, which is impressive that you
know this is nineteen forty eight, like how long ago
that was made and it's still the timing of it
still still holds up. It still holds up, So we
both recommend it. Correct Yeah, okay, even as like a
horror movie. If you like the universal Horny movies, you'd
(52:02):
love this because these are like, look, it's Lon Cheney Junior,
it's Bella Logosi the only other time he plays Dracula
on screen. I would recommend it just for that because
and Bella is actually trying to act his heart out here.
Obviously he has trouble with the comedy aspect of it,
(52:22):
because he's like, I'm playing Dracula and playing this serious character,
et cetera, et cetera. But I recommend it. If I
had to give it out of ten, I give this
like a seven and a half. It's really good.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
That's mine.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
So we should leave it there. I I We're gonna
do the other abb In Costello movies at some point,
maybe next I don't know, but we will. They're a
damn joy to watch, and you know, my heart lifts
watching them. So I'm Aaron, I'm Darlene, good evening, keep
watching the Skies. At no point in your rambling, incoherent
(52:57):
response were you even close to anything that could be
considered a rational thought.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this weekn
geek dot net. You can subscribe to the podcast, browse
our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on today's topics.
If you'd like to give us some feedback, send us
an email at Feedback at this Week in Geek dot net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and
(53:24):
surrender your listenership.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We would be on a if you would join us.
Thank you for your cooperation. Good night,
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