Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy)



A Little family gratitude for all your kind reviews
Hello All
I was just wandering through amazon and came upon this section and was just delighted to find "A&C meet Frankenstein" getting such nice compliments.
I would like to let you all know that my father Robert Lees and his writing partner and an old family friend, Freddy Rinaldo, wrote this film.
Freddy is no longer with us but my father is still, all of 92 years old, and is thrilled that after all these years you all like the film.
A little addenda:
You all must remember that A&C were essentially radio comedians,
and it was from his training in radio that Costello had the bad habit of coming unglued if he didn't consistantly get laughs from the crew for each gag each take, no matter how many takes were involved in getting a scene right.. For him the crew was a live audience, so if he didn't take the house down, he would put in another piece of business and reinvent the scene on the spot until he did - and he was very inventive! I...

Far and away the best Abbott & Costello Horror-Comedy
Lou Costello was always the master of strangulated, speechless terror, so putting Abbott & Costello in a movie with the Wolfman, Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster was inspired. Getting Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange to play the Terror Trio was just icing on the cake. This time around Bud and Lou play Chick Young and Wilbur Gray, a pair of railroad baggage clerks in LaMiranda, Florida, who have to deliver two large crates to MacDougal's House of Horrors. Inside are Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster, but of course they escape. To make things worse, Wilbur's beautiful girlfriend, Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), is really a mad scientist who wants to put Wilbur's brain in the Monster. Fortunately, Lawrence Talbot (Chaney) has arrived from Europe on the trail of the monsters.

It is rather amazing how long this film goes with Wilbur being the only one to spot the monsters. The comedy in this movie is something of a departure for the comedy team, because it...

Lugosi, Chaney Jr. and A & C at their best.
Abbott and Costello's best known and perhaps best film has them meeting Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman, then Bela Lugosi as Dracula, then Glenn Strange as Frankenstein and then. . . . The plot revolves around the idea that the perfect new brain for the Monster should be a simple one -on that's easy to control. Lou Costello's is simple enough. The slapstick begins when Bud and Lou refuse to believe Larry Talbot (Lon) is the wolfman. The best non-monster bits are variations on what Bud and Lou did in the still funny, Hold That Ghost. You will note that Dracula can be seen in mirrors and that he would not have really died from a long fall (that's not being left out in the sun or getting a stake in the heart). But who cares, this is a silly, enjoyable slapstick that gives us both Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi doing a wonderful job acting straight against the boy's antics. Glenn Strange is the Monster. Vincent Price does a cameo. (1948 - Directed by Charles Barton).

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