[Sculpt]

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman 1943

3/10 Stars


Larry Talbot was in a tomb, and some grave robbers tried to snatch his jewelry on a full moon, and the wolfman kills and gets out. Talbot is found on the side of the road, and a doctor (Mannering) tries to help him. The wolfman keeps going out and killing. Now Larry knows he can't die, but will keep killing if he doesn't get dead.

He goes to Europe and finds the old gypsy woman Maleva. She tells him they will go to Dr Frankenstein's castle to help Larry. The wolfman falls down a hole and finds the Frankenstein monster frozen in ice, and releases him. Dr F is dead. So Larry meets his daughter, Elsa, and asks for Dr F's notes. Elsa refuses. Dr. Mannering follows the trail of dead bodies and finds Larry sitting with Elsa.

And then the best part of the film, and rousing gypsy sounding town folk singing song called "Faro-la Faro-Li". It's quiet good.

Well, Larry, Elsa, Maleva & Dr Mannering all go and meet the monster, and they find the Dr F's notes. Dr Mannering reads it and decides he can flip some electrical switches and suck the negative mojo out of Larry and the monster. As the Tesla coils are howling, Dr Mannering decides it's a better idea to give the monster it's full power. No, really, they actually did that.

The monster gets full power, Larry turns into the wolfman, they scuffle for a couple mins. The monster has an easy time throwing wolfy around. Well, the townsfolk decide to blowup the damn, and it destroys the castle. The End. Just four mins over one hour long.

Sets were cool, as usual. I think the above plot speaks for itself. No character depth at all. Apparently it was a bit of a struggle to get the two creatures together, and then you get a couple mins of scuffling.

3/10 Stars

Wasted opportunity. The story could have featured a new robust Dr Frankenstein as a main character. Skip the Britain & Dr Mannering thing altogether. Maleva adopts Larry, they find Dr F. Larry and the Dr could talk life and death, and try to kill Larry. Dr F's daughter Gretchen and Larry fall in love. She begs for a cure, not death. Maleva says they can transfer the wolfism to the monster. Monster is revived, wolf and monster battle once, monster ripped to shreds. Patch up monster as they try to transfer, things don't go as planned, another battle, everything goes up in flames.