Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: In this October episode of Weird House Cinema, we return
Speaker 2: once more to the classic universal horror pictures of yesteryear.
Speaker 2: And I picked this one in large part because it
Speaker 2: played here in Atlanta the Plaza Theater as part of
Speaker 2: the Silver Screams spook Show. And I'm a sucker for
Speaker 2: the chance to see a gorgeous looking black and white
Speaker 2: horror film in a historic theater that likely showed this
Speaker 2: movie back in nineteen forty three. It's hard to get exact,
Speaker 2: you know. I think you'd have to go in and
Speaker 2: look at newspaper clippings and so forth to figure out
Speaker 2: what exactly played there. But given that this was, you know,
Speaker 2: a major release and a popular film, there's a very
Speaker 2: good chance that played at that particular theater back in
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 3: If I had a time machine, Yeah, to see the
Speaker 3: either excitement or disappointment on the children's faces when we
Speaker 3: get to the closing credits.
Speaker 2: That's true. I mean the children who are wanting the
Speaker 2: monster mash that this movie offers up. Yeah, they're they're
Speaker 2: gonna have to wait a little bit. There's not a
Speaker 2: lot of mashing at first.
Speaker 3: So do we say what the movie is yet? It's
Speaker 3: nineteen forty three's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, one of the
Speaker 3: great later universal horror sequels.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and note it is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not versus the Wolfman battles the Wolfman.
Speaker 2: They meet. They're setting them up with each other. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like my Dinner with Andre sort of situation,
Speaker 2: or at least that's what he could seem to imply.
Speaker 2: So Yet to be clear, this is not generally considered
Speaker 2: among the best Universal Studios monster pictures, but it is,
Speaker 2: I believe, the first major film in which a monster
Speaker 2: from one movie meets, fights, or teams up with the
Speaker 2: monster from another film. This sort of monster mash has
Speaker 2: become just a staple of monster films, and this is
Speaker 2: where the tradition seems to kick off, Like Frankenstein Meets
Speaker 2: the Wolfman shambles so that mathra versus Godzilla can run
Speaker 2: later on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, or Freddy versus Jason for that matter. I
Speaker 3: mean it started a long tradition, and this does seem
Speaker 3: to be the first big one. So yeah, my opinion
Speaker 3: is that while this movie is not the best of
Speaker 3: the best for Universal, it does not rise to the
Speaker 3: level of like the really exquisite Frank sequels like Bride
Speaker 3: and Sun, which are both great. If you think about
Speaker 3: it as something like a late Universal B movie, it's
Speaker 3: a pretty excellent example. And I love the atmosphere and
Speaker 3: the use of eerie sets, particularly there's one at the
Speaker 3: beginning that's like this wind swept cemetery and the opening
Speaker 3: grave robbing scene. I also really love the model and
Speaker 3: miniature work with the castle at the end, and the
Speaker 3: you know, the blowing up of the dam and the
Speaker 3: flood and all that. I love lun Cheney Junior's tortured performance.
Speaker 3: It's big and emotional and sometimes funny and often you know,
Speaker 3: quite empathic. And the monster mash stuff. The fight at
Speaker 3: the end, while quite brief, is a treat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I look forward to discussing that sequence.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it is a lot of fun. Like we
Speaker 2: were talking about this off, Mike, I rewatch were actually
Speaker 2: for me, I watched for the first time in full
Speaker 2: The Wolfman in preparation for this because I don't think
Speaker 2: I'd ever watched the entire picture. And while The Wolfman
Speaker 2: the immediate predecessor, one of the two immediate predecessors to
Speaker 2: this film, while it is definitely the better movie, I
Speaker 2: don't think it would have been as fun a picture
Speaker 2: to talk about here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: I agree. I mean this confirms a trend we have
Speaker 3: observed many times in the past, which is the quality
Speaker 3: of a Weird House episode doesn't necessarily relate to the
Speaker 3: quality of the film. Yeah, some are just great to
Speaker 3: talk about whether or not they're actually all that good.
Speaker 3: But this movie is not bad. Just the ways in
Speaker 3: which it's good are more limited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the critical reception was luke warm. I meant, I'm
Speaker 2: to understand that it was a successful movie though from
Speaker 2: a business standpoint, and it certainly inspired people. You know,
Speaker 2: just the idea alone of Wolfman meeting Frankenstein. You know,
Speaker 2: it unleashes the gate for all of these these monster
Speaker 2: mashes to come. And I've read I've actually mentioned this
Speaker 2: on the show before, but Spanish horror movie icon Paul
Speaker 2: Nashy was was particularly inspired by this motion picture. Saw
Speaker 2: it at a young age, and it inspired him to
Speaker 2: eventually become all of the Universal monsters himself, because yes,
Speaker 2: he did, at some point or another play a version
Speaker 2: of all of the main universal monsters with the with
Speaker 2: the exception of the gill Man. I don't I don't
Speaker 2: think Paul Nashi ever played a gil Man, but everybody
Speaker 2: else he definitely got in there and played all the
Speaker 2: big Gothic characters for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw, of course, he created a full universal
Speaker 3: monster mash of his own in Assignment Terror. I think
Speaker 3: that was maybe not the only time he even did
Speaker 3: that in the era. And then there's another later career
Speaker 3: one in a sleazy or nashy movie called Howl of
Speaker 3: the Devil, which is essentially a slasher film, but it
Speaker 3: involves a child imagining encounters with his deceased father who
Speaker 3: was a movie star and played all of the Universal monsters,
Speaker 3: so he gets to appear in ghostly form in the
Speaker 3: monster makeup of every one of them.
Speaker 2: So, even at a point where Spanish cinema especially was
Speaker 2: turning away from Gothic horror and embracing slashers, he still
Speaker 2: managed to shoehorn Gothic universal inspired horror into the picture anyway, Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: all right, So this is generally considered part of the
Speaker 2: Universal Monsters timeline, the Universal Frankenstein timeline. So I figured
Speaker 2: it might make sense to just break down where we
Speaker 2: are with this picture in the sequence of films. Okay, okay,
Speaker 2: So first of all, there came nineteen thirty one Frankenstein
Speaker 2: James Whale Classic Picture, yep, and then came nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: five's Bride of Frankenstein. Arguably the best of the whole series,
Speaker 2: and this is one that we covered on Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema several years back.
Speaker 3: I would say beyond arguably for me, it's not just
Speaker 3: the best of the series, it's the best Universal monster
Speaker 3: movie ever made. It's like, you can't top it. But
Speaker 3: one of the closest runners up, I think is actually
Speaker 3: the next one in the series, Son of Frankenstein from
Speaker 3: thirty nine, which is I saw for the first time
Speaker 3: when we were getting ready to cover it on the show,
Speaker 3: and I thought was way better than I would have expected,
Speaker 3: so much better than really it had any right to be.
Speaker 2: That's right. We talked about this film last year and
Speaker 2: I think it just reran this Monday of this week.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this is the film that introduced Bella Lugosi's
Speaker 2: Igor character wonderful, Yeah, which is a wonderful plotting character
Speaker 2: that becomes increasingly important before he's forgotten. Run him in
Speaker 2: just a minute. Okay, So that was thirty nine. Then
Speaker 2: came nineteen forty one's The wolf Man, which which we
Speaker 2: just alluded to that of course starred Lon Chaney Junior.
Speaker 2: He's going to reprise that role in this picture. This
Speaker 2: movie was a big hit and again is a solid
Speaker 2: moody where a wolf story that is set in Cardiff.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now at this point there's no interaction whatsoever between the
Speaker 3: Frankenstein universe and the Wolfman universe. The first Wolfman movie
Speaker 3: is a standalone film. We're just mentioning it as one
Speaker 3: of the multiple streams that feeds into Frankenstein meets the
Speaker 3: wolf Man.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I mean, nowadays we kind of know the trope
Speaker 2: right that you start doing the crossovers once you run
Speaker 2: out of things to do. And they had not quite
Speaker 2: run out of things to do, certainly with Frankenstein just yet,
Speaker 2: because in forty two they put out The Ghost of Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: This is not one I have seen in full, but
Speaker 2: I went ahead and pulled up the ending and watched
Speaker 2: it prior to coming in here, and I read about
Speaker 2: the plot. Basically, this film continues the son of Frankenstein
Speaker 2: plot line, where we get we get a we get
Speaker 2: another doctor Frankenstein in the mix. We have the monster, yeah,
Speaker 2: something like that. We have the Monster again. Confusingly, this
Speaker 2: time the monster is played by Lon Cheney Junior, who
Speaker 2: is just coming off of playing the wolf Man. And
Speaker 2: we had Bella Lagosi once more is Egor. And in
Speaker 2: this picture there's like a plot to put a new
Speaker 2: brain in the monster, and Igor, who of course has
Speaker 2: you know, is suffering from various you know, health problems
Speaker 2: at this point, manages plots to get his own brain
Speaker 2: put in the monster. So in the final moments of
Speaker 2: the film, the monster speaks in Bela Lugosi's voice and
Speaker 2: and and is talking about how he's you know, you know,
Speaker 2: seek vengeance on all his enemies and so forth. But
Speaker 2: there's been some sort of a mishap some the blood
Speaker 2: he didn't factor in the blood of the of the
Speaker 2: host and so forth, and so the man is blind,
Speaker 2: and the heroes were able to overcome the monster, and
Speaker 2: the monster burns up in the castle, or so we thought. Okay,
Speaker 2: because then comes today's film, nineteen forty three's Frankenstein Meets
Speaker 2: the wolf Man. This is a movie that comes in
Speaker 2: and serves as a sequel of sorts to the previous
Speaker 2: two films, though it's a lot easier, I would argue,
Speaker 2: to pick up the pieces of the Ghost of Frankenstein
Speaker 2: than it is to pick up the pieces of the
Speaker 2: wolf Man, because the Wolfman comes to a pretty satisfying,
Speaker 2: gloomy close in a way, superstition triumphing over logic, and
Speaker 2: we have the character of Larry Talbot, the wolf Man,
Speaker 2: beaten to death with a silver cane by his own father.
Speaker 4: It's done.
Speaker 2: It's like Highlander one done at that point. But as
Speaker 2: with Highlander one, sometimes you just got to make a
Speaker 2: sequel and you've got to just find a way to
Speaker 2: make it work on the page.
Speaker 3: This film today fits mo more comfortably as a Frankenstein
Speaker 3: sequel than it does as a Wolfman sequel.
Speaker 4: And you can.
Speaker 3: Especially tell that because of all the ways that it
Speaker 3: ignores elements of the Wolfman lore and like ret CON's
Speaker 3: things from the previous Wolfman film. And we'll talk about
Speaker 3: that more as we go on, but but yeah, it
Speaker 3: works more as a Frankenstein's sequel, but then, confusingly, we
Speaker 3: don't get to the Frankenstein stuff until halfway through the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to. I think we have to put
Speaker 2: in a lot more legwork to bring the wolf back
Speaker 2: to life. And then the wolfman is Larry Talbot, and
Speaker 2: even though he's dealing with like, you know, miraculous or
Speaker 2: infernal resurrection here, you know, he's still the most relatable
Speaker 2: human character in the picture, and therefore we spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time with him. All Right, the Frankenstein series
Speaker 2: would go three more films after this, House of Frankenstein
Speaker 2: in forty four, House of Dracula in forty five. Let's
Speaker 2: get Dracula into the mix on all this, right, sure,
Speaker 2: people were paying for it. And then finally Abd and
Speaker 2: Costello meet Frankenstein in forty eight, which kind of finishes
Speaker 2: things out on an obvious, obviously comedic level. Bella's in
Speaker 2: that as well. I believe that's his last performance as Dracula.
Speaker 2: I've never actually watched it, but I'm to understand, like
Speaker 2: you know, Bella gives it his all, and he doesn't
Speaker 2: he doesn't give into the hamminess of it. He like
Speaker 2: plays it straight.
Speaker 3: I've considered checking out House of Frankenstein for Weird House before.
Speaker 3: I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm sure i'll watch
Speaker 3: it at some point.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe we'll get to it next October.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I was thinking about how some interesting themes
Speaker 3: are brought to light by the overlap of the two
Speaker 3: characters in Frankenstein Meets the wolf Man. Something Frankenstein's Monster
Speaker 3: and the Wolfman have in common as distinct from the
Speaker 3: other universal monsters, is that they are the two monsters
Speaker 3: who both evoke pity. Both of them are dangerous. They
Speaker 3: you know, they're violent, and they kill, but neither one
Speaker 3: is consciously malicious. Larry Talbot, the character who becomes a
Speaker 3: werewolf in The Wolfman, is depicted as not in control
Speaker 3: of his actions when he transforms into the beast, so
Speaker 3: he you know, he wolfs out and then he later
Speaker 3: awakens in the morning to learn what he has done
Speaker 3: and is filled with horror and remorse, but he has
Speaker 3: no ability to stop it or control it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Larry Talbot is portrayed in both films as
Speaker 2: basically a likable guy, you know, really kind of an
Speaker 2: everyday guy. Because ultimately, you know, we have a character
Speaker 2: actor playing the role. You know, he doesn't have that
Speaker 2: kind of like sharp job leading man vibe that various
Speaker 2: other leads have. He feels very relatable and people like him,
Speaker 2: the ladies like him. He's easy going, you know, and
Speaker 2: except for the fact that he does turn into a
Speaker 2: murderous monster on a full note.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's not by his choice, right though, I
Speaker 3: do recall in the original wolf Man is something about
Speaker 3: he's like really really trying to date a lady who's
Speaker 3: already engaged something like that. But you know, maybe that's
Speaker 3: a more minor character flaw here. So that's Larry Talbot
Speaker 3: very sympathetic, you know, pitiable character even though he's a monster.
Speaker 3: It's not his fault. Meanwhile, Frankenstein's creature is it seems
Speaker 3: very much also not his fault. He has reanimated against
Speaker 3: his own will. As he says at the end of
Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein, we be long dead, like he recognizes
Speaker 3: that he should not be and he comes into the
Speaker 3: world as an innocent only harming people at first by
Speaker 3: accident and then later out of desperation and rage after
Speaker 3: being persecuted. And so you could contrast this with the
Speaker 3: other universal horror villains of the era, such as Dracula,
Speaker 3: The Mummy, the Invisible Man, which are all much more
Speaker 3: vicious and devilish. I think it's an interesting choice. The
Speaker 3: first ever monster mash film decided to combine the two
Speaker 3: monsters that don't want to be monsters and would live
Speaker 3: in peace if they could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, even when you listen Dracula,
Speaker 2: the Mummy and the Invisible Man, like the Invisible Man
Speaker 2: is kind of the most evil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like some megalomaniac.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean at least Dracula and the Mummy they
Speaker 2: have undead status, like they're not completely human anymore. But
Speaker 2: the Invisible Man is just a man who has made
Speaker 2: himself invisible. And uh, and I mean that's I think
Speaker 2: that's ultimately as part of why he's so fascinating. It's
Speaker 2: the whole idea, like if if I were invisible as well,
Speaker 2: would I become if I had some sort of a
Speaker 2: power that was brought upon me, would it change me like.
Speaker 4: This as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one asks the question what would you do
Speaker 3: if you could get away with anything?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again this movie is also interesting and just
Speaker 2: how you forced the whole concept basically is because both
Speaker 2: titular monsters had effectively been killed off in their previous film,
Speaker 2: the movie has to first really put in the work
Speaker 2: to not only bring one of them back to life,
Speaker 2: but bring them both back to life, get them in
Speaker 2: the same plot, in the same place at the same time,
Speaker 2: arrange the plot so that they have to meet, they
Speaker 2: have to essentially work together, and the plot entails the
Speaker 2: resurrection of one monster to kill the other essentially, And
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss, by the end of the film, you'll
Speaker 2: be wondering what really came of any of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, by the end of the film, I was very
Speaker 3: fuzzy on what exactly the mechanics were, Why are they
Speaker 3: training the energies from one monster? What exactly is the
Speaker 3: doctor trying to do? We know there's what he says
Speaker 3: he's going to do, but then it's clear that his
Speaker 3: actual intentions are different, and I think it's never made
Speaker 3: clear really what they are. Certainly with regard to Talbot,
Speaker 3: we do get an idea of what he wants to
Speaker 3: do with regard to the monster.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And as we'll discuss, even though it is
Speaker 2: cinematically treated as a victory at the end, I really
Speaker 2: have some serious questions about whether there was any victory
Speaker 2: at all, but we'll come back to all that.
Speaker 3: Also, one thing I just have to mention at the
Speaker 3: top here is the main character of the wolfman in
Speaker 3: this movie. His name is Larry Talbot. I think it's
Speaker 3: almost certain that at least once in this episode I'm
Speaker 3: going to accidentally call him Lyle Talbot, which is the
Speaker 3: name of a prolific mid twentieth century American actor. The
Speaker 3: reason I would Sayle Talbot is that I'm aware of
Speaker 3: him because he ended up repeatedly collaborating with ed Wood
Speaker 3: by virtue of the fact that Talbot, by his own admission,
Speaker 3: never once in his entire career, turned down a job offer.
Speaker 3: So if you've got a movie, he'll be in it.
Speaker 2: All right, Joe, do you have an elevator pitch for
Speaker 2: this one?
Speaker 3: It is, can't medical science find a way to kill me?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What's a guy got to do to get dead? Around here?
Speaker 2: All right, let's listen to some of that trailer audio.
Speaker 4: But he doesn't understand there's a curse upon me. I
Speaker 4: changed into a wolf. Listen to the movie. I saw
Speaker 4: my father become obsessed plankings collar he died a horrible
Speaker 4: there's no deeps order storm after her. She would come
Speaker 4: in to by Oscar. Why should we treat it so fancy?
Speaker 4: She's a Frankenstein, all right?
Speaker 2: If you want to go watch Frankenstein Meets the wolf Man,
Speaker 2: well it's widely available wherever you get your Universal Studios
Speaker 2: Monster movies. You want to watch them, uh streaming, you
Speaker 2: want to watch them and on on Blu ray, on DVD, VHS,
Speaker 2: laser disc, what have you. There is a way out there.
Speaker 2: This is This one has been released so many in
Speaker 2: so many different formats. Alright, let's get into the people
Speaker 2: behind the picture here, starting with the director. This one
Speaker 2: was directed by Roy William Neil. He lived eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: seven through nineteen forty six, Irish born American film director,
Speaker 2: best remembered for this film as well as a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. He directed I
Speaker 2: Think most of them like eleven films from nineteen forty
Speaker 2: three through nineteen forty six. His other movies include nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty four's Black Moon starring Fey Ray, thirty four as
Speaker 2: the ninth Guest, and nineteen thirty five's of The Black
Speaker 2: Room starring Boris Karloff.
Speaker 3: Black Moon and the Black Room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I don't think these films are at
Speaker 2: all related, but he did direct both of them. I
Speaker 2: think well, black Moon is like a voodoo picture, all right,
Speaker 2: And the screenplay on this one is once more the
Speaker 2: word of Kurtziodnik, who lived nineteen oh two through the
Speaker 2: year two thousand. We discussed him previously on Weird House,
Speaker 2: as he wrote the screenplay for nineteen forty six's The
Speaker 2: Beast with Five Fingers, as well as another movie.
Speaker 3: Oh Creature with the Adam Brain.
Speaker 2: That's right. So, Siodnc was a German born novelist, screenwriter,
Speaker 2: and director who left Germany for first first for the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom and then for the United States due to
Speaker 2: concerns over rising anti Semitism under the Nazis. His German
Speaker 2: output was already pretty successful prior to this, including a
Speaker 2: sci fi film that I haven't seen, but it involves
Speaker 2: a sort of an aircraft carrier base titled FP One
Speaker 2: Doesn't Answer. And he did British war thrillers and some comedies,
Speaker 2: and then he struck it big with his nineteen forty
Speaker 2: one screenplay for The Invisible Man Returns and his original
Speaker 2: screenplay for forty one's The Wolfman. He went on to
Speaker 2: write tons of screenplays, let's say, including this one, also
Speaker 2: a nineteen forty three film titled Oh.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize what you were getting at for a second,
Speaker 3: I walked with a zombie. So Rocky went in on
Speaker 3: two songs for two so Odmac scripts.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. I mean, this guy was prolific,
Speaker 2: Son of Dracula in forty three, House of Frankenstein in
Speaker 2: forty four, and many more. He also wrote the nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two sci fi novel Donovan's Brain, which has been
Speaker 2: adapted three different times as The Lady in The Monster
Speaker 2: in forty four, Donovan's Brain in fifty three, and The
Speaker 2: Brain in sixty two. Now, I found it notable that
Speaker 2: multiple films based on his work or screenplays that he
Speaker 2: wrote for motion pictures concern mind or brain transference, most
Speaker 2: famously Donovan's Brain in its various adaptations, but also nineteen
Speaker 2: forties Black Friday, which by the way, stars Karloff and
Speaker 2: Lagosi and I think is otherwise like a crime thriller,
Speaker 2: but it has brain or mind transference in it. And
Speaker 2: then in nineteen seventy film titled House Memory. And the
Speaker 2: really interesting part about Frankenstein meets the Wolfman is that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't be able to guess this from watching the film,
Speaker 2: but this movie was also supposed to feature a mind
Speaker 2: or brain transference plot as.
Speaker 3: Well, between who between Frankenstein and the Wolfman or somebody else.
Speaker 2: No, no, So it's this would not be original to
Speaker 2: this picture, but it's picking up the pieces from the
Speaker 2: end of nineteen forty twos The Ghost of Frankenstein, in
Speaker 2: which again Lugosi's Igor manages to get his own brain
Speaker 2: transplant planted into the body of the monster again played
Speaker 2: in that film by Lyncheney Junior, before the castle gets
Speaker 2: burned up. So in this film, the monster, who will
Speaker 2: now be played by Lugosi was originally had dialogue spoken
Speaker 2: by Lagosi, because it's not just Frankenstein's monster, It is
Speaker 2: supposed to be Igor's brain in the monster's body, and
Speaker 2: so he would have been he was blind. That's why
Speaker 2: in this film we'll see Frankenstein's monster walking with arms outstretched,
Speaker 2: which became kind of like a cartoon stereotype or trope
Speaker 2: of Frankenstein's monster, and that's where it comes from. This film,
Speaker 2: but you would know this from the film because they
Speaker 2: don't mention the blindness. They certainly don't mention the Egor's
Speaker 2: brain plot, like that's just completely removed along with all
Speaker 2: of Lugosi's dialogue.
Speaker 3: That would make sense, and that would also kind of
Speaker 3: spoil some of the themes I was talking about if
Speaker 3: they had stuck with the Egor's brain thing, though, I
Speaker 3: guess you could still assume that they just don't discuss
Speaker 3: it in this movie, because so I was talking about
Speaker 3: how Frankenstein is essentially an innocent but Egor is not
Speaker 3: an Igor is a malicious, sadistic killer. In fact, it's
Speaker 3: part of his character and son of Frankenstein that he
Speaker 3: was already once hanged for his crimes but survived the hanging,
Speaker 3: putting him in a kind of legal limbo where he
Speaker 3: couldn't be punished again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we're obviously we're speculating here about a
Speaker 2: version of the film that didn't survive. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe Egor is more to be pitied in this film
Speaker 2: because he's kind of like really written himself into a
Speaker 2: corner here and it's like, oh, well, I'm stuck in
Speaker 2: the body of a blind monster that apparently can't die either.
Speaker 3: But as you said, apart from the fact that the
Speaker 3: monster in this film is being played by Bella Lagosi,
Speaker 3: there's nothing about it that would indicate it his ego
Speaker 3: or like, he never identifies with the igor and the
Speaker 3: characters don't discuss this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, You've got to.
Speaker 2: You have to have read about that or heard about
Speaker 2: that somewhere else. It is not It is not a
Speaker 2: part of the picture experience here, Okay, all right. Lon
Speaker 2: Chaney Junior once more, yeah, plays Lawrence Talbot The Wolfman.
Speaker 2: Ln Chaney Junior lived nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: second generation horror film icon, son of the legendary Ln Cheney.
Speaker 2: Lon Chaney himself lived eighteen eighty three through nineteen thirty.
Speaker 2: The Man of a Thousand Faces right across four decades
Speaker 2: of cinema, Lon Chaney Junior's role as Larry Talbot the
Speaker 2: wolf Man easily his most famous role and one that
Speaker 2: in many ways just ends up defining his career. In
Speaker 2: many ways, you could even argue I would say that
Speaker 2: Lawn Cheney Junior becomes more famous than his father. I mean,
Speaker 2: he is the guy mentioned in where Wolves of London
Speaker 2: after all, he and he is one of the like
Speaker 2: the Key, he's on the Mount rushmore of Universal monsters.
Speaker 2: You know, he is the Wolfman now and forever.
Speaker 4: That's right. It is not a woo.
Speaker 3: I saw Lawn Chaney Senior walking with the Queen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to take anything away from lawn Chaney Senior's career,
Speaker 2: obviously a very important figure in his own era, but
Speaker 2: I would say overall, more people are going to be
Speaker 2: familiar with Lawn Chaney Junior. So he apparently had a
Speaker 2: pretty rough childhood. He was discouraged from entering show business
Speaker 2: by his father and instead went into business, only to
Speaker 2: begin his own acting career after his father's death from
Speaker 2: throat cancer. At first, he acted under his own name
Speaker 2: and steadily got larger parts and serials and action movies.
Speaker 2: He also did stunt work to pay the bills, and
Speaker 2: after some bigger independent roles in the mid thirties, ultimately
Speaker 2: Universal Studios signs him and they say, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to sign it to this contract. We're going
Speaker 2: to put you in some movies. But what about what
Speaker 2: about let's go ahead and call you Lawn Cheney Junior.
Speaker 2: Because that is not his birth name birth name actually
Speaker 2: frightened Toll Cheney, and so his earlier appearances he's builled
Speaker 2: as such, but universal is like, nope, you're the son
Speaker 2: of Lawn Cheney. You're Lawn Cheney junior. Okay. So at
Speaker 2: this point he begins appearing in all manner of films.
Speaker 2: He even plays Lenny in a nineteen thirty nine adaptation
Speaker 2: of Mice and Men. But he didn't actually act in
Speaker 2: a horror film until nineteen forty one, when he appear
Speaker 2: in Man Made Monster and of course The Wolfman, and
Speaker 2: this film's the Wolfman's success and legendary status. This propels
Speaker 2: him into a horror icon territory pretty quickly, with subsequent
Speaker 2: horror films including well The Ghost of Frankenstein, which we've mentioned,
Speaker 2: in which he plays the monster. Nineteen forty two is
Speaker 2: The Mummy's Tomb, in which he plays the Mummy. Then
Speaker 2: he's back for Frankenstein meets Wolfman. Then he's in Son
Speaker 2: of Dracula in forty three, playing Count Alocard. I guess
Speaker 2: is Dracula junr.
Speaker 3: He does not have vampire energy.
Speaker 2: He doesn't. He really has a great like I say,
Speaker 2: I watched part of Ghost of Frankenstein. And he has
Speaker 2: a great Frankenstein's monster face. You know, he's a big guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so you know, he really embodies the monster rather well,
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss. I think a lot. Eve embodies the
Speaker 2: monster far better than Bela Lagosi.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let's see, he played more mummies in two nineteen forty
Speaker 2: four movies, The Mummies Ghost and The Mummies Curse. Let's
Speaker 2: see forty four's House of Frankenstein as Larry Talbot once more,
Speaker 2: forty five's House of Dracula Talbot again. And then he's
Speaker 2: also in forty eight's Avid in Costello Meet Frankenstein. I
Speaker 2: think he's just built as the wolfman in that, but
Speaker 2: I guess it's less important who the wolfman is. And
Speaker 2: of course that's the final movie in the classic universal
Speaker 2: Frankenstein series. And from here list goes on, but a
Speaker 2: few notable horror entries meant to mention include nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: nine's The Alligator People.
Speaker 3: Oh, Alligator Person's in the Bog and Fog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, another Rocky ericson reference. Another one is nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three's The Haunted Palace.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've got that one on disc, but I haven't
Speaker 3: watched it yet. The is Corman Poe is Vincent Price
Speaker 3: in that one he.
Speaker 2: Is, Yes, he plays Charles dexter Ward. This is the
Speaker 2: one that is they're giving it the Poe treatment, call
Speaker 2: it Edgar Allen Poe's The Haunted Palace, but it's actually
Speaker 2: to some extent based on an HP Lovecraft story. That's
Speaker 2: fun case of Charles dexter Ward. Yeah, let's see. Then
Speaker 2: there's a sixty seven's Hillbilly's in a Haunted House, which
Speaker 2: I think I watched the riff version of that, and oh,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seven Spider Baby. If you haven't seen this one,
Speaker 2: this is a great proto Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, directed
Speaker 2: by Jack Hill. He plays the patriarch of like a
Speaker 2: you know, like a killer hillbilly family, but with some
Speaker 2: interesting twists, basically like their two daughters, in particular, one
Speaker 2: of which likes to play spider Uh.
Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 4: It's good.
Speaker 2: I recommend it. I think I watched that one on
Speaker 2: Criterion Channel. Other films of note, just to pull out
Speaker 2: another couple these are non horror films, but he was
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty two is High Noon, and also nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight's The Defiant Ones. So again, this is a
Speaker 2: ridiculous movie in so many ways, but Lon Chaney Junior's
Speaker 2: performance is Larry Talbot Tragic Cursed where wolf turned wandering
Speaker 2: immortal seeking death is easily the most commanding performance in
Speaker 2: the picture, and it gives us, weirdly, the most relatable
Speaker 2: character despite his very unrelatable circumstances. Like again, clearly a
Speaker 2: gifted character actor, you know, charismatic and relatable, and we
Speaker 2: get to see him employ all of his talents in
Speaker 2: a lead role here quite nicely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, despite the fact that, as you say, his main
Speaker 3: character struggle is h I can't get death in me.
Speaker 3: But he is really good in the role. And I
Speaker 3: can't remember if you already mentioned this. I apologize, but
Speaker 3: I think it is strange that I was reading he
Speaker 3: was originally when they're planning to make this movie, they
Speaker 3: were originally going to have him play both roles, Frankenstein's
Speaker 3: Monster and the wolf Man, and then they were like,
Speaker 3: and no, that would be too difficult, So maybe he'll
Speaker 3: just play Frankenstein's Monster because he had done that also,
Speaker 3: and goes to Frankenstein and then they were like, oh no,
Speaker 3: he'll just be the wolf Man. So this was like
Speaker 3: the third option for who Lonchani Junior would be in
Speaker 3: the film.
Speaker 2: I think it's the right choice, though, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: you can't have I mean, he's the only guy who
Speaker 2: can play Larry Talbot, so it had to be. Now,
Speaker 2: if he played the monster as well, I mean, that
Speaker 2: could have worked. But again, setting up this film, the
Speaker 2: whole idea was that the monster would speak with Belo
Speaker 2: Lagosi's voice. So what if the monster was played by
Speaker 2: Bela Lagosi? Like on paper, that makes sense?
Speaker 3: Oh, should we talk about Bella Agosi?
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, we're already talking about him. Let's let's talk
Speaker 2: about Bella. So yeah, Belo Lagos, we've talked about him
Speaker 2: multiple times in the show already, with eighteen eighty two
Speaker 2: through nineteen fifty six here playing the role or a
Speaker 2: version of it that he allegedly passed on back in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one. I'm not sure if there's one hundred
Speaker 2: percent certainty on any of this. You know, help film
Speaker 2: mythmaking goes and you know, one person says one thing,
Speaker 2: one says the other, but the story generally goes that.
Speaker 2: Writing high on the success of Dracula, he wanted the
Speaker 2: part of Frankenstein doctor Frankenstein for himself, and he didn't
Speaker 2: want to play a mute monster as the monster appeared
Speaker 2: in the script at that time, and so it just
Speaker 2: didn't come together.
Speaker 3: So when you say frankenzein, he wanted to play the
Speaker 3: doctor the creator, Okay, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that speaking role. And you know, I think at
Speaker 2: the time the story is that he considered the monster
Speaker 2: part beneath his abilities.
Speaker 4: You know, I.
Speaker 3: Adore Bella Legosi, but somehow I think this is one
Speaker 3: of the weakest performances of his that I've seen something about.
Speaker 3: He seems to have not found his them or ever
Speaker 3: landed on the right posture as the Frankenstein Monster here.
Speaker 3: And this really makes me appreciate all the more how
Speaker 3: extraordinary Boris Karloff's performance is. Carloff in the role is not,
Speaker 3: to quote the film ed would all grunting and makeup.
Speaker 3: He's bringing a lot of He's bringing a lot to
Speaker 3: the performance, and you really appreciate it when you see
Speaker 3: somebody else, even as somebody as wonderful of an actor
Speaker 3: as Bella Legosi, try to do the role and I
Speaker 3: think sort of fail. Worth flagging again however, that despite
Speaker 3: his turn as the Monster being a low point, I
Speaker 3: think Bella still did play one of the best villains
Speaker 3: ever in the Frankenstein universe. I mean, there's actually a
Speaker 3: lot of great competition because you got Septimus Pretorious and
Speaker 3: Bride that's all time great villain. But right up there
Speaker 3: with Septimus Pretorious is Bella Leegosi as Igor and son
Speaker 3: of Frankenstein. Again, one of my favorite Universal films and
Speaker 3: my favorite role in that film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with all that I can. Granted, again,
Speaker 2: we don't get to see the performance and the character
Speaker 2: here as it was originally intended, the Igor Monster. But yeah,
Speaker 2: Lugosi's Monster just always feels awkward to me in this picture.
Speaker 2: It's just nothing. It just doesn't click for me for
Speaker 2: some reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does have some great moments in close up
Speaker 3: on his face, that is true. Yeah, I'll give him that,
Speaker 3: but the full physicality of the performance doesn't quite work.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's look at some of we've covered the
Speaker 2: big hitters here. Let's talk about some of the supporting
Speaker 2: human roles here. So we do have a descendant of
Speaker 2: Frankenstein a showing back up and this is the character
Speaker 2: Baroness Else of Frankenstein, and she is played by Ilona Massey,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen ten through nineteen seventy four Hungarian American, film,
Speaker 2: stage and radio performer, best remembered for this film. It
Speaker 2: would seem her only true horror movie, but she also
Speaker 2: starred in nineteen forty two's Invisible Agent. This was a
Speaker 2: comedy thriller in which the Invisible Man's grandson battles Nazis.
Speaker 2: Peter Lorrie co starred in it, but that alone has
Speaker 2: not been enough to get me to watch it just yet.
Speaker 3: That is an interesting premise.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like, Yeah, I don't know horror comedies of this era,
Speaker 2: I'm weary of.
Speaker 3: It's not her fault. I would blame it more on
Speaker 3: the writing, but I would say her presence in this
Speaker 3: film is largely curious. She is often kind of standing
Speaker 3: around in a scene where you would think she would
Speaker 3: be having more of a reaction to what's going on,
Speaker 3: but she doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like, especially since she is the Frankenstein
Speaker 2: character in this picture, I wanted her to be more
Speaker 2: involved in everything. I guess she feels a little more
Speaker 2: passive than she could have been, Like she's not strapping
Speaker 2: on the goggles herself if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3: I mean she does go at the end in like
Speaker 3: sort of short circuit all the machinery and that lab.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's basically the one moment like that.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, her role in this movie seems to be just
Speaker 2: to light up the screen as a porcelain starlet. Like
Speaker 2: she's always wearing like white and she has like basically
Speaker 2: white hair, super white skin, so she amid all the
Speaker 2: gloom and the grayness. It really feels like she's almost
Speaker 2: has like an angelic presence despite being a Frankenstein. And yeah,
Speaker 2: she also another important role she has is to be
Speaker 2: physically carried around like an unconscious bride by the monster.
Speaker 2: At one point, this is teased on the poster, and
Speaker 2: for once, we actually get it in the film. As
Speaker 2: we've discussed many times, there's so many movies where the
Speaker 2: poster art features the monster carrying a woman around and
Speaker 2: it doesn't actually happen. Here, we get it Monster Bridle
Speaker 2: carry certified.
Speaker 3: That is true true advertising in this case. She also
Speaker 3: this character does indirectly contribute one of the most unintentionally
Speaker 3: funny moments of the movie, and it's when Lon Chaney
Speaker 3: Junior is digging through the burned remnants of the ruined
Speaker 3: Frankenstein Castle, and he identifies a new lead in his
Speaker 3: detective work by finding the glamour photo of Ilona Massey
Speaker 3: autographed as like elsa Frankenstein to my father, but it's
Speaker 3: like a Hollywood photo, like posing in a sequin dress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's see other supporting characters. We have
Speaker 2: Patrick Knowles playing doctor frank mannering. I mean, he's more
Speaker 2: than supporting this is he's an important.
Speaker 3: Character, major in terms of plot developments, but also feels
Speaker 3: very much like a rando who wandered into the story,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, in a way, shouldn't the baroness be doing
Speaker 2: all the things that he's doing. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 2: she would if she were a male character. But yeah,
Speaker 2: they're just switching it up and they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the female character can't actually be the mad scientist.
Speaker 3: It would have been a lot better if she had been.
Speaker 3: That could have worked, but instead, no, we have this
Speaker 3: character like, oh, remember this random guy who didn't really
Speaker 3: make an impression from the first act. He's going to
Speaker 3: do some mad science now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the actor here. He lived nineteen eleven through
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five. He'd previously appeared in The Wolfman, though
Speaker 2: in a different role. He also played Will Scarlett in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty eight's The Adventures of Robin Hood, so he
Speaker 2: was a certified swashbuckler. His other credits include nineteen forty
Speaker 2: one's How Green Was My Valley, nineteen forty two is
Speaker 2: the Strange Case of Doctor RX Prescription, Okay, and then
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three is Terror in the Wax Museum.
Speaker 3: Okay. He's very smooth in this film. Do you notice
Speaker 3: how smooth his skin is? Extreme babyface?
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. Let's see Lionel app while is
Speaker 2: back in this one. He's in a number of these
Speaker 2: universal horror movies, this time in a more reduced role.
Speaker 2: He played the inspector and son of Frankenstein, you know,
Speaker 2: with he had the artificial arm and had got to
Speaker 2: really eat up up fairly ample screen time and had
Speaker 2: some great scenes. Here he plays the mayor, so he
Speaker 2: has much less to do. But by god, Lionel Atwell
Speaker 2: is going to act his heart out in any scene
Speaker 2: you get him in, so he really chews it up,
Speaker 2: and there's there are a few scenes where he's standing
Speaker 2: amid other villagers kind of looking up at things occurring,
Speaker 2: like Castle's exploding and whatnot. And he's the most animated
Speaker 2: of the bunch.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, which is also in contrast to the way
Speaker 3: this character is written, who is just the calming voice
Speaker 3: of reason as other goings on are happening. Like He'll
Speaker 3: literally be in scenes where he's standing there as other
Speaker 3: characters are discussing the planning of a terrorist plot and
Speaker 3: he's just like, Oh, you don't mean any of what
Speaker 3: you're saying, and then he walks away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he Yeah, he was. He was in a
Speaker 2: bunch of these old films and was a numerous Frankenstein movies.
Speaker 2: In fact, he was in Ghost of Frankenstein previously. I
Speaker 2: believe I could be mistaken here, but I think he
Speaker 2: is the doctor that ends up betraying Frankenstein by helping
Speaker 2: Igor put his brain in the monster.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well, I would like to see lionel atwill
Speaker 3: do more villain roles, so I'm gonna have to check
Speaker 3: out Ghosts next.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very interested based on all of the crazy
Speaker 2: choices it seems to make. Yeah, all right, let's see
Speaker 2: other We also have another like returning player from the
Speaker 2: Universal Horror franchise. Dwight Frye is back. Dwight fry you
Speaker 2: remember played Renfield opposite Lugosi and Dracula and pops up
Speaker 2: in bit sometimes almost invisible roles in other pictures. Here
Speaker 2: he plays a character named Rudy who's just kind of
Speaker 2: one of the vocal townspeople.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, he's a he's a villager. It feels almost
Speaker 3: like a cameo. He's only got a few lines, but.
Speaker 2: When he when he does speak though, he has that
Speaker 2: that signature Dwight fry kind of live wire energy.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I really like him.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 2: We have another returning actor reprising her role as the
Speaker 2: wise roma woman Maleva. We have Maria Ospinskaya who lived
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy six through nineteen forty nine. She played this
Speaker 2: character in The Wolfman. Russian actress who started out in
Speaker 2: silent film and then late in her career played a
Speaker 2: lot of older woman roles in Hollywood. Two time Academy
Speaker 2: Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress for nineteen thirty seven's
Speaker 2: Dodsworth and nineteen forty's Love Affair. Her only other horror
Speaker 2: film was nineteen forty two's The Mystery of Marie Roget
Speaker 2: which I've not read the original story. This is an
Speaker 2: Edgar Allan Poe story, a sequel to the Murders in
Speaker 2: the Room Morgue. Does it have gorillas in it? I
Speaker 2: don't know. I would hope like doing a Dracula sequel
Speaker 2: without vampires, right, yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: One more character. This is another film has a number
Speaker 2: of these. The character is not much, seems to be
Speaker 2: just the background side character, but ends up being very
Speaker 2: pivotal to the plot. Yeah, and that is the character Vazik,
Speaker 2: the Innkeeper, played by Rex Evans who lived nineteen oh
Speaker 2: three through nineteen sixty nine. This guy, I was in
Speaker 2: various films at the time. A heavyset actor did a
Speaker 2: lot of heavy set character roles. Played Hermann Goring in
Speaker 2: the nineteen forty three anti Axis Powers comedy Nazi Nuisance.
Speaker 3: I could see that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I think it's one that was like positioning
Speaker 2: the leaders of the Axis Powers is like three stooges.
Speaker 2: I am not putting this on the watch list, but
Speaker 2: interesting connection for this actor. His other credits, though, include
Speaker 2: nineteen forties The Philadelphia Story, nineteen forties The Invisible Man,
Speaker 2: returns and Hitchcock's Suspicion in nineteen forty one. All right,
Speaker 2: I'll just mention in passing that Jack P. Pierce, the
Speaker 2: monster makeup Master, returns once more to do the makeup.
Speaker 2: Here he worked on nineteen twenty eight's The Man Who Laughs,
Speaker 2: thirty one's Dracula, thirty two is The Mummy, thirty three
Speaker 2: is The Invisible Man, forty one's The Wolfman, and and
Speaker 2: so forth. So you know everything, all the makeup looks
Speaker 2: pretty darn good, especially the Wolfman makeup, as we'll discuss,
Speaker 2: and then the music comes to us from Hans Jay
Speaker 2: Salter born eighteen ninety six died in nineteen ninety four
Speaker 2: Austrian American film composer. His most celebrated scores or scores
Speaker 2: that he worked on include The Wolfman from forty one,
Speaker 2: Scarlett Street from forty five, and he's also he's not credited,
Speaker 2: but he's one of like three different uncredited composers on
Speaker 2: The Creature from the Black Lagoon from fifty four. He's
Speaker 2: one of these composers who is Oftentimes he's either uncredited
Speaker 2: or he's one of two or three different composers whose
Speaker 2: work was used and sometimes it's stock music, but he
Speaker 2: himself was a six time Oscar nominee himself.
Speaker 3: All right, are you ready to talk about the plot?
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: So the title in opening credits play over a chemistry
Speaker 3: laboratory set with a bunch of bubbling flasks and beakers
Speaker 3: pouring fog all over the table. And I think this
Speaker 3: opening imagery feels like an odd fit for most of
Speaker 3: the runtime of the film, because while unrestrained scientific research
Speaker 3: is a major theme of the original Frankenstein series, it
Speaker 3: does not really become a major theme of this movie
Speaker 3: until the very end, until like right at the end.
Speaker 3: The first half is all wolfman stuff and there's very
Speaker 3: little laboratory work until the climax.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like like a glass with the dry
Speaker 2: eyes in it, you know, getting the smoking like you
Speaker 2: want to reach up and grab it off the screen
Speaker 2: and take a sip.
Speaker 3: It does look nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the action opens on a lonely cemetery at night.
Speaker 3: And I said this earlier, but I love this opening set.
Speaker 3: The atmosphere is wonderful. There's a bright full moon and
Speaker 3: banks of mist pour across the sky down on the ground.
Speaker 3: We can see. It must be late autumn or winter,
Speaker 3: because the trees and the shrubs are bare, they've got
Speaker 3: black limbs casting shadows in the moonlight. The cemetery is
Speaker 3: surrounded by this ancient tumble down all of stone, which
Speaker 3: has wrought iron spikes and marble ornaments on top. And
Speaker 3: then on one of these gateside flourishes there is a
Speaker 3: raven perch just cawing, so the wind rattles the tree
Speaker 3: branches and it blows these little dead leaves through the
Speaker 3: air like confetti, and we see a bronze placard on
Speaker 3: the stone gate engraved with the words here rest the
Speaker 3: Dead of Lenwelly and Lenwlly viewers would probably remember at
Speaker 3: the time this movie came out is the fictional village
Speaker 3: in Wales that is the setting of The Wolf Man,
Speaker 3: and I think later became the setting of a bunch
Speaker 3: of horror stories and films. So up the hillside path
Speaker 3: to the cemetery come two men. They're both kind of
Speaker 3: leaning and staggering as they walk. One carries a lantern,
Speaker 3: the other a shovel. These guys do not feel like
Speaker 3: the first string of the grave robbing team. They seem
Speaker 3: a little incompetent, but perhaps under the influence and they
Speaker 3: approach a big old as a liam in the cemetery
Speaker 3: bearing the name Talbot.
Speaker 2: Well, you know they're not robbing graves because things were
Speaker 2: working out well for them elsewhere in life.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now we've sort of already covered this, but just
Speaker 3: to get the backstory straight again, Talbot is the name
Speaker 3: of the family. In the original film The wolf Man,
Speaker 3: the main character played by Lon Chaney Junior is Larry
Speaker 3: Talbot who comes back to visit his ancestral estate in
Speaker 3: Wales after being away for many years. He gets bitten
Speaker 3: I think, on the chest one night by a werewolf
Speaker 3: and the curse is transferred to him. You know, you
Speaker 3: probably know the general lightline of the story from there.
Speaker 3: Wakes up in the morning, what have I done? But
Speaker 3: worth noting is that at the end of The Wolfman,
Speaker 3: Larry Talbot is dead, dead, dead, beaten to death with
Speaker 3: a silver headed cane by his own father played by
Speaker 3: Claude Rains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's sad, it's grim. And again this is
Speaker 2: not a moment that leaves you wondering, I wonder what
Speaker 2: will happen to Larry Talbot all these adventures continue, No,
Speaker 2: it seems done.
Speaker 3: So the two grave robbers climb through the transom over
Speaker 3: the door to the mausoleum. They head inside and they
Speaker 3: surveyed the tombs, eventually coming to the one they're looking for.
Speaker 3: The shorter grave robber reads the inscription out loud, saying,
Speaker 3: Lawrence Stewart Talbot, who died at the youthful age of
Speaker 3: thirty one. R ip ooh man. When viewing this, this
Speaker 3: is really one of those I am older than Homer
Speaker 3: Simpson moments. Larry Talbot does not read as younger than
Speaker 3: I am now to be fair Lawn Cheney Junior was
Speaker 3: a bit older than the character, but still younger than me.
Speaker 3: Wild Wow, I assume many people your age, my age,
Speaker 3: or anywhere in between, we have a similar reaction. Just
Speaker 3: he seems like a more mature fellow. Yes, it was
Speaker 3: a different time anyway. So the grave robberies here crack
Speaker 3: the vault with a chisel while discussing what they're looking for.
Speaker 3: Room around the village is that Talbot buried with a
Speaker 3: big wad of cash, a gold watch and a ring,
Speaker 3: And they say it's a sin to bury good money
Speaker 3: when it could help people. The taller one says, what
Speaker 3: do you think it'll look like after so many years,
Speaker 3: and the other one says, just bones in an empty skull.
Speaker 3: So the lid pops open and they peer inside, and
Speaker 3: the body appears to be covered in some kind of
Speaker 3: dried herb. They pull like crispy branches of this herb
Speaker 3: off the body, and one of them recognizes what it is.
Speaker 3: It is wolf spain. Then the lead grave robber freezes
Speaker 3: as if startled, and he begins to recite a poem
Speaker 3: he knows by heart. Even a man who's pure at
Speaker 3: heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf.
Speaker 3: When the wolf Spain blooms and the moon is full
Speaker 3: and bright, the face of the body lying in the
Speaker 3: tomb is then uncovered, and it is clearly not just
Speaker 3: bones in an empty skull. The body is fleshy and quick.
Speaker 3: One of the robbers mutters that he looks to be
Speaker 3: merely sleeping, and despite this, the smaller thief gets to work.
Speaker 3: He lifts Talbot's dead hand and wrenches a ring from
Speaker 3: his finger, observing it in the moonlight to see that
Speaker 3: it's made of gold. But then suddenly Talbot stirs and
Speaker 3: we see his long fingernails, which they press on nails
Speaker 3: aren't they. He's got sharp, long fingernails, revealing he is
Speaker 3: not dead, and he reaches up with one hand and
Speaker 3: snatches the arm of the smaller thief. Note that at
Speaker 3: this point he is fully human looking. There's no wolfman
Speaker 3: makeup in this scene except for we see the long nails,
Speaker 3: and the thief cries for help. He drops his lantern
Speaker 3: into the ground that starts a fire. The second grave
Speaker 3: robber panics and abandons his partner, escaping through the transom,
Speaker 3: over the door and running away through the graveyard while
Speaker 3: the wind shakes the trees, and I think, okay, good start,
Speaker 3: strong opening scene. The writing and the acting don't especially sing,
Speaker 3: but they're good enough, and the set design and cinematography
Speaker 3: are wonderful, so it's a really good mood at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love this sequence, And it was ultimately rather rather
Speaker 2: a revelation concerning other werewolf films that I've seen that
Speaker 2: you know, all were clearly influenced by this and The
Speaker 2: wolf Man on one level. I mentioned Paul Nashy earlier,
Speaker 2: and we previously discussed nineteen eighties Night of the Werewolf
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. This movie basically opens the same
Speaker 2: way grave robbers come to the tomb, this time of
Speaker 2: Voldemar Leninski Nashi's werewolf character. They're going to rob the grave,
Speaker 2: but when they open it up, werewolf gets them. Though
Speaker 2: in the Nashy picture, the werewolf is already like fully transformed,
Speaker 2: and it's a good bit more terrifying, you know.
Speaker 3: Is riping in wolf mode?
Speaker 2: Yes, And then this scene also solves another puzzle from
Speaker 2: another werewolf film, and that is why does a werewolf
Speaker 2: emerge from a casket? In nineteen sixty five Sola Loba,
Speaker 2: in my opinion and anyway, excellent female werewolf film from Mexico,
Speaker 2: we see the werewolf arising fully transformed out of a casket.
Speaker 2: And in that episode we were discussing and we're like,
Speaker 2: why is she getting out of a casket? And I
Speaker 2: think this is probably the reason because that movie, like
Speaker 2: a lot of werewolf movies, was inspired by Frankenstein meets
Speaker 2: the Wolf Man.
Speaker 3: That does make a lot of sense because typically the
Speaker 3: werewolf is not understood as an undead type of character,
Speaker 3: so why would it be coming out of a grave.
Speaker 4: It's not dead.
Speaker 3: This is a living person who transforms. But yeah, if
Speaker 3: it's a callback to this scene where the werewolf has
Speaker 3: been assumed dead and lying, you know, laying. I think
Speaker 3: the implication is that all of the wolf spain piled
Speaker 3: up on top of him is some kind of talisman
Speaker 3: that has like suppressed his power and kept him down there.
Speaker 3: Did you read it the same way?
Speaker 2: I guess so. Yeah, Like, you know, one of the
Speaker 2: big problems with the plot of this picture is that, yeah,
Speaker 2: Talbot is like, I wish I could die. There's got
Speaker 2: to be a way to me die. And despite the
Speaker 2: fact that he very clearly died in the first film,
Speaker 2: and we had, you know, lore that established that werewolves
Speaker 2: could die, and then it also just seems like, isn't
Speaker 2: this something you could maybe manage, like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: shackle yourself whenever there's a full moon, or you have
Speaker 2: somebody lay a bunch of wolf'spine on you and you
Speaker 2: can just kind of like cry o sleep through the
Speaker 2: full moons. Like it seems like there might be another
Speaker 2: way forward here.
Speaker 3: It really does, but the film it just elides these details.
Speaker 3: Don't worry about that. Yeah, you know, we got we
Speaker 3: got a plot to persist a film.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, what happens next is we cut to a
Speaker 3: nearby city. I didn't know where this was at first,
Speaker 3: but I think this is supposed to be already in Cardiff,
Speaker 3: in you know, the big city in Wales, where a
Speaker 3: policeman is patrolling an empty street at night and he
Speaker 3: comes across the unconscious body of Lon Chaney Junior, collapsed
Speaker 3: on the cobblestones with a gaping head wound. And then
Speaker 3: we cut to some time later in a hospital where
Speaker 3: Talbot is recovering in bed with bandages around his head.
Speaker 3: His surgeon, a doctor Mannering played by again a very
Speaker 3: baby faced Patrick Knowles, enters the ward accompanied by a
Speaker 3: police inspector named Owen. They are informed that not only
Speaker 3: is the patient recovering well from surgery, he is already
Speaker 3: conscious and talking, and this is quite unexpected given the
Speaker 3: severity of his head wound and the procedure required to
Speaker 3: fix it. So the doctor and the inspector go to
Speaker 3: see him. Talbot's awake, but at this point very soft
Speaker 3: spoken and tentative. He says that he feels no pain
Speaker 3: at the moment, but he's confused. He doesn't know where
Speaker 3: he is, and to his distress, he doesn't remember how
Speaker 3: he got there. Talbot gives them his name, and the
Speaker 3: doctor and inspector leave to go see what they can
Speaker 3: find out. So Owen phones police in Llanwelly to inquire
Speaker 3: about Lawrence Talbot and they inform him with certainty that yes,
Speaker 3: Lawrence Talbot is from Lanwelli, but he is also dead.
Speaker 3: He died four years ago, so it was supposed to
Speaker 3: be four years since the events of the first film. Also,
Speaker 3: I will say that the inside of the land Welly
Speaker 3: police station does not look like a police station, looks
Speaker 3: like a beer hall. It's got these stone arches, long
Speaker 3: tables and big roaring fireplace. And then one of the
Speaker 3: policemen is pumping air into the tire of a bicycle
Speaker 3: in the middle of the room. Seems like outdoor work.
Speaker 3: But yeah, anyway, of course, Inspector Owen concludes that Talbot
Speaker 3: is an impostor, but doctor Mannering convinces the police to
Speaker 3: hold off on interrogating him any further, you know, until
Speaker 3: he's recovered. But unfortunately before that can happen. There is
Speaker 3: a full moon.
Speaker 2: Something about the pacing and the sense of time in
Speaker 2: this film, but it feels like there are roughly four
Speaker 2: full moons a week in the universe of Frankenstein Mee's
Speaker 2: the Wolfman.
Speaker 3: Full moons are constantly happening and randomly.
Speaker 2: You don't know when's going to occur. You can't possibly
Speaker 2: prepare for them.
Speaker 3: That does seem like part of the plot. You don't
Speaker 3: know when it will be a full moon, which is
Speaker 3: not how it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Larry's like, oh, geez, when's the next full moon.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, it's right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Talbot is lying in his hospital bed and the
Speaker 3: moonlight falls on him through a large window at the
Speaker 3: end of the room. His eyes go glassy, and then
Speaker 3: as he lies there in his bed staring into space,
Speaker 3: we begin to see the changes. And this is the
Speaker 3: classic Wolfman transformation, where a sequence of different shots fade
Speaker 3: into one another, and in each one he has more
Speaker 3: of the wolfman makeup applied, so he quickly grows a beard.
Speaker 3: The beard creeps in from his jaw toward the center
Speaker 3: of his face until his head and face are fully
Speaker 3: covered in dark hair, his teeth turned into piercing canines.
Speaker 3: His nose becomes somewhat canine too, though to be clear,
Speaker 3: this is not the long snout kind of where wolf makeup.
Speaker 3: We've talked about these differences in other episodes in the past,
Speaker 3: but the wolfman makeup is relatively humanoid, flat faced, just
Speaker 3: with lots of hair, claws and fangs.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think I've probably said this before, but yeah,
Speaker 2: on with snouted were wolves, I don't okay anymore. It's
Speaker 2: it's the wolfman slash wolf woman. Look, that's what I'm into.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's what I like to see. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: the makeup here looks incredible. I mean, you could maybe
Speaker 2: critique it and say, well, maybe the nose looks a
Speaker 2: little peaky there's but you still can't take much away
Speaker 2: from it. It is the classic wolf man.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 2: All other wolfman's, wolf men and wolf women wolf people
Speaker 2: exist in the shadow of this creation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One more note I want to add about this transformation
Speaker 2: scene is that we've all seen sloppy versions of this
Speaker 2: effect or I don't know if your cinematic diet is
Speaker 2: like us, you've seen sloppy versions of this kind of transformation.
Speaker 2: But it's really smooth here, looks great. And one thing
Speaker 2: that was pointed out by Shane Morton at the Silver
Speaker 2: Scream Spook Show is that the pillow that his head
Speaker 2: is on for the transformation was made out of porcelain,
Speaker 2: because you know, you have to like film stop apply makeup,
Speaker 2: film stop, apply makeup, and you can't have the pillow
Speaker 2: changing underneath lawn Cheney Junior's head. So you have a
Speaker 2: porcelain pillow there behind his head, which wow, I thought
Speaker 2: was very fascinating.
Speaker 3: That's a good solution. I wouldn't have guessed that by
Speaker 3: looking at it. Yeah, But once the transformation is complete,
Speaker 3: we see the Wolfman on the loose in Cardiff, tearing
Speaker 3: through the city streets in the dark, sort of doing
Speaker 3: parkourp yeah, yeah, jumping up on top of crates and
Speaker 3: these cotton bales piled up in the street. He attacks
Speaker 3: a policeman, snarling and grabbing him by the throat, and
Speaker 3: then we can see in shadow as the Wolfman drags
Speaker 3: the body away down an alley.
Speaker 2: He's really scary and intimidating, looking the same as in
Speaker 2: The Wolfman. I saw this film with my family and
Speaker 2: afterwards my wife was asking me. She's like, do you
Speaker 2: think people who saw this movie originally, if they were
Speaker 2: they scared by it? Did they find this particular film scary?
Speaker 2: And I don't know. There's some based on some aspects
Speaker 2: of the plot, I could see an argument for it
Speaker 2: being not that scary, but I don't know these thnes
Speaker 2: with the wolf I think hold up really well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the later stuff, especially the big climax,
Speaker 3: by that point, it doesn't feel like it's supposed to
Speaker 3: be scary. That's like fun mode. At this point it
Speaker 3: has turned into Godzilla versus King Kong.
Speaker 2: Once the monsters are fighting each other, you're safe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: It's like, yes, right, have them fight each other and
Speaker 2: I will slip out the back.
Speaker 3: So the next morning, the hospital staff find Talbot lying
Speaker 3: face down sideways on his bed. He's kind of dirty,
Speaker 3: his hair is must bandages are missing missing, and the
Speaker 3: window is hanging open. And he suddenly awakes and asks
Speaker 3: Mannering his doctor to call the police. He says, because
Speaker 3: I am a murderer. So Talbot has no control over
Speaker 3: his actions when he is in wolf mode. And I
Speaker 3: think there is some question about whether he remembers anything
Speaker 3: when he wakes up. I recall from the original Wolfman.
Speaker 3: Rob correct me if I'm wrong that he does not
Speaker 3: remember anything when he wakes up. But maybe what's going
Speaker 3: on here is he's just putting the pieces together based
Speaker 3: on what happened in the first movie, not based on
Speaker 3: memories of the previous night.
Speaker 2: He has a lot to figure out here. Yeah, what
Speaker 2: you know, Like, even if he is remembering, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm a were wolf, he has to he's probably thinking,
Speaker 2: didn't I die? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So anyway, they call up Inspector Owen, but Mannering convinces
Speaker 3: he or he tries to convince Talbot that he is
Speaker 3: not a murderer. He says, true, there was a constable
Speaker 3: killed last night, but that was several streets away, and
Speaker 3: he was killed by a wild animal. Talbot says, that's
Speaker 3: just it, I turn into an animal.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 2: I did laugh at that line.
Speaker 4: That was great.
Speaker 2: Nothing on his delivery, but the line itself was pretty funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Mannering explains it all away. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not a murderer. You're suffering from a delusion. So
Speaker 3: what's a guy got to do to get arrested for
Speaker 3: murder around here? Anyway? When Owen arrives, Talbot desperately recaps
Speaker 3: the major events of the first film. He was bitten
Speaker 3: by a wolf on the chest, though it wasn't a wolf,
Speaker 3: it was a man, a were wolf. Talbot killed the
Speaker 3: original werewolf in a fight. He beat it to death
Speaker 3: with the silver cane, but then he began himself to
Speaker 3: transform at night and roam Hill and Dale in a
Speaker 3: bloodthirsty rage beyond his control. And then he says, ask Maleva,
Speaker 3: you know she'll tell you this is again a character
Speaker 3: from the first movie. It is the mother of the
Speaker 3: werewolf played by Bella Lagosi that turned Talbot, and she's
Speaker 3: going to be back in the sequel. And I think
Speaker 3: the werewolf character in the first movie is not only
Speaker 3: played by Bella Lagosi, but is named Bella.
Speaker 2: Yes you're correct, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: Then Talbot gets really bad news. Owen says, come on,
Speaker 3: tell us your real name. You can't be Lawrence Talbot.
Speaker 3: He died four years ago, and this leads Talbot to
Speaker 3: realize that he has the curse of immortality because he
Speaker 3: is a werewolf. He cannot die now. I recall several
Speaker 3: reviewers saying that the movie This movie has serious plot
Speaker 3: holes or at least inconsistency and premises that were not
Speaker 3: really reconciled with the events of the previous films. Unless
Speaker 3: I'm missing something, this does seem to be the big one,
Speaker 3: or at least a major one. It is clearly established
Speaker 3: in The wolf Man that you can kill a were
Speaker 3: wolf you need a silver weapon. Not only is this
Speaker 3: said by the characters, it actually happens multiple times in
Speaker 3: the film. The premise is proven.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like there are multiple places in The wolf Man
Speaker 2: where he's like, I just killed a wolf and they're like, no,
Speaker 2: you kill a were wolf? Like, yes, you can kill werewolf,
Speaker 2: otherwise there'd be like six of them in this movie.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah. But then a major theme of this movie
Speaker 3: is that there is no known way to kill a
Speaker 3: were wolf. There is no way to do it, and
Speaker 3: Talbot's desperation at the discovery that he cannot die is
Speaker 3: what sends him on the collision course with Frankenstein, with
Speaker 3: the Frankenstein lineage. So this is so big that it
Speaker 3: feels like it can't just be an oversight. It seems
Speaker 3: like the sequel appears to have deliberately chose and to
Speaker 3: ignore a major plot device established in the first movie
Speaker 3: for the sake of character pathos. You know, the hopeless
Speaker 3: frustration of Talbot's search for a way to die, that's
Speaker 3: like the main emotion in the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess, on one hand, I come
Speaker 2: back to Highlander. One is that when a movie wraps
Speaker 2: up so succinctly, you have to break something in order
Speaker 2: to make a sequel work. And maybe that's what's going on.
Speaker 2: But also, I mean, in turn, like, what is the
Speaker 2: most interesting choice in bringing this character back? There's an
Speaker 2: argument to be made that I mean, we're talking about it.
Speaker 2: This is you're turning him into a sort of another
Speaker 2: iconic creature of fantasy, like the undying wanderer, someone who
Speaker 2: maybe wanted well, not in Talbot's case, but in the
Speaker 2: mythic sense, it's sometimes someone who wanted to live forever
Speaker 2: and then realizes that that was a ridiculous wish and
Speaker 2: now they wish they could take it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, but Talbot is purely pitiable and tragic,
Speaker 3: like he didn't ask for this, It just happened to
Speaker 3: him by accident, terrible fate.
Speaker 2: But it fitting that he should be facing all this
Speaker 2: confusion and existential dread, because it's very much the nature
Speaker 2: of the character and the Wolfman as well.
Speaker 3: Right, So Talbot is put in a straight jacket and
Speaker 3: carried away by orderlies. He's fighting all the way, and
Speaker 3: then Mannerling and the Inspector have this bizarre exchange that
Speaker 3: I can't really decode. They go back to his office
Speaker 3: and Owen says, you mean to say that Talbot actually
Speaker 3: experienced that murder last night? And then this is what
Speaker 3: Mannering says, I'm afraid. So people with brain and injuries
Speaker 3: sometimes develop super normal mental powers that are quite extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Certainly he got up and opened the window. The borderline
Speaker 3: between delusion and reality is very narrow. Sometimes a patient
Speaker 3: may unknowingly overstep that line. So what is he alleging happened?
Speaker 2: I can't help but think this is sort of plot
Speaker 2: artifact from the first film, because the first film, I'm
Speaker 2: to understand that the odd mix the wolfman's grip originally
Speaker 2: left it rather vague as to whether we were dealing
Speaker 2: with an actual monster or just purely clinical leacanthropy. So
Speaker 2: somebody who thought they were turning into a wolf and
Speaker 2: you know, was maybe murdering even thinking they were a wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but then they change it and they realized no, like,
Speaker 2: moviegoers want to see a wolf man and we're going
Speaker 2: to give it to them. But the film still plays
Speaker 2: with this idea a bit, this sort of logic and
Speaker 2: superstition butting heads about what's occurring. So this just seems
Speaker 2: like maybe another callback to that theme.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so Mannering clearly thinks that Talbot is a
Speaker 3: clinical lichnthrow by man under the delusion that he is
Speaker 3: a wolf. But it sounds like he's implying here that
Speaker 3: that also gives him supernatural powers.
Speaker 2: Why not.
Speaker 3: Anyway, the inspector and the doctor decide to take a
Speaker 3: road trip up to Landwelly to figure out more about
Speaker 3: Talbot's backstory. So they go to the family mausoleum and
Speaker 3: the cemetery from the opening scene, and they find that
Speaker 3: the door has been broken down from the inside. They
Speaker 3: also find Talbot's coffin empty and the body of a
Speaker 3: local vagrant lying on the floor of the crypt, dead
Speaker 3: by way of a severed jugular. They also hear stories
Speaker 3: from the local constable about a wild animal who killed
Speaker 3: many people in these parts four years ago. They say,
Speaker 3: you know, bit through their throats, drained their blood. John
Speaker 3: Talbot thought he killed it one night, attacked it in
Speaker 3: the dark, But it was his son. He killed, poor
Speaker 3: mister Larry. And so the local police showed them a
Speaker 3: show our two characters. Here a photo of Lawrence Talbot
Speaker 3: and Wow he sure does look a lot like our
Speaker 3: licanthrope in Cardiff, and then Owen says, of course it's
Speaker 3: not the same.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: If it were, I'd be off me top. So Owen
Speaker 3: and Mannering make a plan to bring the landwelly constable
Speaker 3: back to Cardiff to see if he can positively id
Speaker 3: their patient. But when the doctor calls the hospital, he
Speaker 3: learns that Talbot tore off his straight jacket in the
Speaker 3: night and escaped. Oh no, we have loose Talbot and
Speaker 3: they say, tore off his straight jacket. How bit right
Speaker 3: through it with his teeth.
Speaker 2: Did not wolf proof.
Speaker 3: So sometime later we rejoined Talbot as he wanders into
Speaker 3: a Romani camp dressed like a vagabond with a wide
Speaker 3: brimmed hat. He is looking for Maliva, the wise old
Speaker 3: woman from the first movie. Maliva was the mother of Bella,
Speaker 3: the original werewolf who turned to Talbot and then was
Speaker 3: killed by Talbot. Both Bella and Meliva were in the
Speaker 3: first film, Divulgers of Lore. So I think Talbot is
Speaker 3: here hoping to find answers, primarily to find out how
Speaker 3: he can be cured, or more likely, how he can
Speaker 3: just die. So he meets with Maliva and she receives
Speaker 3: him with sympathy. He says, Maliva, here, I still carry
Speaker 3: the sign of the pentagon, the mark of the werewolf.
Speaker 3: I kill people. When the moon is full, I turn
Speaker 3: into a wolf. But unfortunately, she says that she has
Speaker 3: no power to help him. She doesn't seem to know
Speaker 3: of a way that he can die. But she says
Speaker 3: that she will join him and take care of him
Speaker 3: as she would her own son. And while she doesn't
Speaker 3: have the power to help him, she knows of a
Speaker 3: man who might. And here we get dumb, dumb, dumb.
Speaker 3: Nobody says the name Frankenstein yet, but that should be
Speaker 3: the audience. They're out there thinking, oh, is she talking
Speaker 3: about Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: That's quick note on pinograms, though, if you like pentagrams,
Speaker 2: watch The Wolf Man because they talk about pentagrams a lot.
Speaker 3: Though it's am I wrong in remembering that in the
Speaker 3: first Wolfman, it's not the wolf the werewolf who has
Speaker 3: the pinogram. Isn't it his victims who have the pinogram
Speaker 3: emblazoned on them?
Speaker 2: Well, then you also have the pinogram on the cane.
Speaker 2: Like the cane has this big round part that has
Speaker 2: the pentagram on it. And then the wolf's head, so
Speaker 2: it looks like like like a golf club, and in fact,
Speaker 2: Talbot makes a joke when he first handles the cane
Speaker 2: and pretends to play little golf with it.
Speaker 3: So Maliva is part of the team now and she
Speaker 3: is going to lead him to a village in the Alps.
Speaker 3: It's a place called Visaria, the village in the shadow
Speaker 3: of the ruined castle Frankenstein. They sort of on the
Speaker 3: way there, they go on a wagon road trip through Europe,
Speaker 3: and we see a bunch of still photos of different towns.
Speaker 3: But Talbot and Meliva when they get to Visaria, they
Speaker 3: visit the local inn and tavern to ask about doctor Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: But of course this gets them a quite frosty reception,
Speaker 3: particularly from Vazik, the innkeeper, a large bespectacled man with
Speaker 3: a handlebar mustache. I watched this with Rachel and she
Speaker 3: was calling him Teddy Brosevelt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when we first meet it, it seems like
Speaker 2: a real nice guy. You know, he's bringing around the beer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a popular place.
Speaker 3: But no, he reacts unpleasantly when they ask him about Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: He leads them to the window and points out at
Speaker 3: the crumbling castle. We see that it is nestled in
Speaker 3: a mountain ravine next to a rushing river, just downstream
Speaker 3: from a large dam, and Vazik says coldly, there that
Speaker 3: is his burial place. The fire destroyed him and all
Speaker 3: of his misdeeds. He didn't die any too soon for us.
Speaker 3: We all wish that he had never been born. What
Speaker 3: did you want with him? And Maliva here says that
Speaker 3: she heard he was a great doctor and that he
Speaker 3: could help people that other doctors couldn't cure. Is that
Speaker 3: part of the Frankenstein story. I don't remember anything about that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: And it seems it's a reasonable suspicion that, hey, he
Speaker 2: was doing like amazing godlike things. What if uh, we
Speaker 2: looked at that research again, maybe we could find something
Speaker 2: helpful in there.
Speaker 3: It seems like part of the prep for his treatment
Speaker 3: is he'd have to go ahead and kill you before
Speaker 3: he could resurrect you. Right, yeah, anyway, Vazik scoffs at
Speaker 3: this idea as well. He says that murder is all
Speaker 3: that frank Stein brought to the people of Visaria. They
Speaker 3: say he harbored a monster at his house, a fowl
Speaker 3: being created by black magic and.
Speaker 2: He was also a job creator, though I think he
Speaker 2: is being a little unfair.
Speaker 3: The news that Frankenstein is dead hits Talbot very hard.
Speaker 3: He collapses into a chair. He's like, ah, this was
Speaker 3: my only hope. And then Vazig tries to throw them
Speaker 3: out of the bar. He doesn't want to serve anyone
Speaker 3: who would be asking about the mad doctor, and this
Speaker 3: leads to a confrontation. Talbot shouts at him on the
Speaker 3: way out, so they seem to be developing enmity for
Speaker 3: one another. Afterwards, Maliva and Talbot ride their wagon up
Speaker 3: the mountain pass and Talbot says, now I must go
Speaker 3: on living. There's no hope for me to die. And
Speaker 3: then oh, surpriseful movement just comes out of nowhere. When
Speaker 3: Talbot begins the transformation, he jumps off the wagon and
Speaker 3: runs into the woods as the change takes hold. So
Speaker 3: while on a wolf Ram page, he kills a young
Speaker 3: woman of the village, and then we later this all
Speaker 3: happens very fast, and then we later see the villagers
Speaker 3: they formed this mournful procession in the streets. Vazak is
Speaker 3: carrying the woman's dead body and the locals begin to
Speaker 3: talk about who could have done this. Could it be
Speaker 3: Frankenstein's monster returned? They say, no, the monster is long dead.
Speaker 3: An animal bit her to death, and then Dwight Fry says,
Speaker 3: what animals are there around here that can kill people?
Speaker 3: And a wolf howls in the distance. They say, a wolf,
Speaker 3: a wolf that's his cries, So they form a posse,
Speaker 3: you know, pitchforks torches, the classic Frankenstein posse.
Speaker 2: They've done this a few times before, soiliar quickly, Yeah,
Speaker 2: familiar with the procedure.
Speaker 3: Angry mob torches and pitchforks guns this time, and they
Speaker 3: go out into the woods hunting the beast. They pursue
Speaker 3: the wolfman through the forest in the dark, shooting him
Speaker 3: and driving him into the ruins of the castle, and
Speaker 3: eventually the wolfman, wounded, stumbles and falls into an underground
Speaker 3: cavern filled with ice and snow, but there's no snow
Speaker 3: on the surface. I was confused about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it feels like we're almost in a magical
Speaker 2: land at this point, but it looks really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The villagers also capture Maliva and they take her back
Speaker 3: to town for interrogation. So later Talbot awakes in this
Speaker 3: snowy cavern with tattered clothes. He's back in human form,
Speaker 3: and he searches around and then finds, tucked away in
Speaker 3: a corner of the space what looks like a great
Speaker 3: translucent window made of ice under a stone arch. He
Speaker 3: begins to kind of chip at it. He bashes through
Speaker 3: the ice with a rock, and then behind it he
Speaker 3: finds the frozen, unconscious body of Frankenstein's monster. But of
Speaker 3: course it is not Karloff. It's Bella Legosi in the
Speaker 3: Karloff makeup.
Speaker 2: Great sequence here with the breaking ice, I did.
Speaker 3: Like this, yeah, And so with the ice broken away,
Speaker 3: the monster begins to stir and regain consciousness, so Talbot
Speaker 3: thinks his prayers may be answered. We see Talbot in
Speaker 3: the monster wandering through the room of the castle together.
Speaker 3: I didn't get this at first, but part of the
Speaker 3: reason that the monster is walking the way he is
Speaker 3: is that he's supposed to be blind. I don't think
Speaker 3: any characters say this.
Speaker 2: Right, And then originally he's supposed to speak, So this
Speaker 2: is like a true team up at this point, Like
Speaker 2: I don't know, Talbot's saying, like, hey, monster, you want
Speaker 2: to come with me and maybe we can help each
Speaker 2: other out and the Monster's like, yeah, let's get out
Speaker 2: of here. This place sucks.
Speaker 3: But I think the producers found the dialogue lines of
Speaker 3: the monster laughable, so they removed them from the film.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what I've read, so Talbot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Talbot leads the monster by hand, asking the monster
Speaker 3: to show him where he can find doctor Frankenstein's notes
Speaker 3: and diaries, something that will explain how to kill a werewolf,
Speaker 3: I guess. So the monster tries to show him a
Speaker 3: secret hiding place behind a bookshelf, but the safe inside
Speaker 3: doesn't contain any use anything useful. I don't know how
Speaker 3: Talbot determines that these papers are not useful. He just
Speaker 3: dumps them out really quick and he's like, it's not here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you looking for? Why would it stand out?
Speaker 3: So yeah, and Talbot is filled with despair, but in
Speaker 3: the safe he finds this is the part where he
Speaker 3: finds an autographed Hollywood Glamour photo of Alona Massey and
Speaker 3: it's it's signed Elsa Frankenstein, it says, to my father,
Speaker 3: So great news.
Speaker 2: There is a there is a surviving Frankenstein and she's hot.
Speaker 3: She's a movie star. Yeah, to my father, I made
Speaker 3: it big in Hollywood, signed Elsa. But okay, here's a
Speaker 3: new angle. Maybe doctor Frankenstein's living descendant, his daughter, Elsa,
Speaker 3: will know how to help them. So Talbot makes contact
Speaker 3: with her by deception. He poses as an investor looking
Speaker 3: to buy the castle, and this gets him a meeting
Speaker 3: with Elsa. In this part of the film, we also
Speaker 3: get to know the mayor of Visaria, played by Lionel Atwill,
Speaker 3: who is acts like he's sort of also Elsa's lawyer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to wear a number of hats in
Speaker 2: this town, you know.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Elsa wants to be free of the memories of what
Speaker 3: her father did, and she is eager to sell the
Speaker 3: estate and put it all behind her, but she hasn't
Speaker 3: been able to find a buyer, so the prospect is tempting.
Speaker 3: But when they sit down together, Talbot reveals his true
Speaker 3: intentions that he simply wanted to meet with her to
Speaker 3: talk about something, and this was the only way. I
Speaker 3: have to say, I would have expected her to be
Speaker 3: more annoyed about this deception, but she takes it rather well,
Speaker 3: at least at first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this would be a huge red flag. I
Speaker 2: need to get away from this individual who just totally
Speaker 2: misrepresented themselves and is not actually interested in the business
Speaker 2: proposal that was presented to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but when he reveals that what he really wants
Speaker 3: is the records of her father's research on the subject
Speaker 3: of life and death, she turns cold. At that point,
Speaker 3: she says she doesn't have any records and if she did,
Speaker 3: she would have destroyed them long ago. She says, her
Speaker 3: father was a great scientist, but everything he created brought
Speaker 3: unhappiness and terror. So it seems like we're at an impasse.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean we can't party a little bit
Speaker 3: because outside music is playing. The mayor comes in and says, oh,
Speaker 3: it's the Festival of the New Wine here at the village,
Speaker 3: and the mayor convinces Elsa and Talbot to stay for
Speaker 3: the evening's festivities. Basically, he sets them up on a date.
Speaker 2: Basically this is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man, because we
Speaker 2: we get actual Frankenstein, not Frankenstein's monster, meeting Larry Talbot
Speaker 2: who is the wolf Man, and yeah, they essentially go
Speaker 2: on a date.
Speaker 3: Also at the wine festival that night, we are treated
Speaker 3: to a musical number, which I think is wonderful. It's
Speaker 3: I looked this up to see if this is a
Speaker 3: traditional song. If it is, I couldn't find evidence of that,
Speaker 3: but maybe I didn't look hard enough. In the one
Speaker 3: like YouTube rip of it I found it was just
Speaker 3: called the Song of the New Wine. Farroh la far
Speaker 3: aw lee. It's a rousing tune.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they have a good time.
Speaker 3: Here, come one and all and sing a song farroh
Speaker 3: la far a lee for life is short but death
Speaker 3: is long. Farroh la farrow lee. There'll be no music
Speaker 3: in the tomb, sing with joy and down with gloom
Speaker 3: tonight the new Wine is in bloom farro farro far
Speaker 3: so low. And then also you remember the part the
Speaker 3: song gets some sick burns in on Vasik, the innkeeper.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The singer goes up to him, and the verse he
Speaker 3: sings for him is I guess he's freestyling because he's
Speaker 3: just making up verses about the people around in the square.
Speaker 3: He goes up to Vasik and says, his barrel bellies
Speaker 3: dipper lipped for drinking wine. He's well equipped, but where's
Speaker 3: his chest? It must have slipped farroh la farah lee.
Speaker 4: Darn yeah.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, when the singer makes his way over to the
Speaker 3: table where Elsa and Talbot are having their date. He
Speaker 3: sings a verse toasting to their health and happiness, and
Speaker 3: he ends on a line wishing that they may live eternally. Whoops,
Speaker 3: it's a sore subject. Talbot freaks out. He grabs the
Speaker 3: singer by the collar and screams in his face, I
Speaker 3: don't want to live eternally. Why did just say that
Speaker 3: to me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really shows his butt here. I guess you
Speaker 2: could say this is a real I think you should
Speaker 2: leave sort of moment.
Speaker 3: Exactly why'd you show that? But in the middle of
Speaker 3: this explosion of anguish, a character from earlier in the
Speaker 3: movie suddenly returns. It's doctor Mannering from the hospital in Cardiff. Like, wait,
Speaker 3: he tracked Talbot down all the way to the Alps.
Speaker 3: Doesn't he have other patients?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I guess it just seems like this case of clinical
Speaker 3: like anthropy is too interesting it is worth going on
Speaker 3: a wolf hunt across Europe.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say that his interest here is quite suspicious,
Speaker 2: and that suspicion may pay off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, There's been nothing indicated about Mannering so far that
Speaker 3: would raise eyebrows or make him think make you think
Speaker 3: that he's like overly curious about no, no, no, secrets
Speaker 3: of life and death.
Speaker 2: At this point, he feels totally like a plot convenience. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's just there to move the plot along and get
Speaker 2: us to the point where these two monsters can really
Speaker 2: do more together.
Speaker 3: In Act one, he's a complete square. Yeah, But they
Speaker 3: discuss how Mannering tracked Talbot here by following newspaper reports
Speaker 3: of wolf attacks. And by the way, Elsa is just
Speaker 3: sitting at the table listening to this, and then eventually
Speaker 3: she almost seems to get bored and she goes to
Speaker 3: dance with the mayor. So Mannering wants to put Talbot
Speaker 3: in an asylum where he can't hurt anyone, and you know,
Speaker 3: seems like a reasonable plan to me, like put you
Speaker 3: in a locked facility so that you can't escape on
Speaker 3: the full moon and harm anyone. But Talbot says, no, no,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't work. I'd only escape again. I have to die.
Speaker 3: It's the only solution. Unfortunately, it seems that's impossible unless
Speaker 3: we can find doctor Frankenstein's diary and discover the secrets
Speaker 3: of life and death.
Speaker 2: Which again feels like a huge leap it like a
Speaker 2: leap that doctor Frankenstein's discoveries would be applicable to this scenario.
Speaker 2: But that's what the whole movie is about.
Speaker 3: Now, Mannering seems skeptical but a little bit interested. He's
Speaker 3: heard of Frankenstein, he says. Doctor Frankenstein's ex experiments were
Speaker 3: considered rather extraordinary. Medical science never recognized them. Meanwhile, by
Speaker 3: the way, Vasak, the innkeeper, is listening in on them,
Speaker 3: scheming this conflict here is unjammed by a monster ex machina.
Speaker 3: Suddenly out of nowhere and for no given reason, Frankenstein's
Speaker 3: monster comes wandering into the town square, and everybody starts
Speaker 3: screaming and running away from the new wine festival. So
Speaker 3: Talbot saves the day by getting the monster onto a
Speaker 3: horse drawn cart full of wine barrels, and then he
Speaker 3: drives them away from the crowd. Farroh la far a lee.
Speaker 3: But I guess importantly, doctor Mannering here witnesses the monster,
Speaker 3: and I think this somehow changes what the characters accept
Speaker 3: as reality. Did you take that as a motivating moment?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, But I have to say I was
Speaker 2: also just rather distracted by the prospect of Frankenstein's monster
Speaker 2: and the wolf Man going on adventures together on that cart.
Speaker 3: Like what happens next, Yeah, yeah, him traveling a traveling duo,
Speaker 3: and they've got plenty of wine with them.
Speaker 2: So they disguise themselves as school children. I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's so many hijinks that you could up to.
Speaker 3: After this, there is a scene in the tavern where
Speaker 3: the prominent men of the town discuss what to do next.
Speaker 3: As you might expect, Vazik is sort of the hot
Speaker 3: head of the group. He wants to storm the castle
Speaker 3: and get monster blood immediately. Also seems like he wants
Speaker 3: to maybe kill Elsa because she's a Frankenstein, but he
Speaker 3: is thwarted by the reservations of the mayor and some others.
Speaker 3: The mayor says, we've tried to kill the monster by
Speaker 3: force before. We must use our brains for once, and
Speaker 3: Vasik says brains, I'd rather depend on my fists though
Speaker 3: he's a real tough guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're all just like oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: After this, Doctor Mannering, Elsa, and Meliva all somehow end
Speaker 3: up in this big town argument scene. They're like in
Speaker 3: the room and the door. The doctor Mannering offers his
Speaker 3: opinion to the mob. He said, why would he have
Speaker 3: thoughts on this? I don't know. He says, the monster
Speaker 3: was created artificially. It must be destroyed by the same means. Artificially.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: The doctor tells them that if the people of the
Speaker 3: village trust him, he'll take care of the problem. He'll
Speaker 3: rid Visaria of this curse once and for all. And
Speaker 3: instead of being like, who is this guy, the villagers
Speaker 3: all seem to agree, Oh, yeah, okay, let's give this
Speaker 3: assignment to doctor Mannering, the doctor from Cardiff who just arrived.
Speaker 3: So it now seems kind of the gang is getting
Speaker 3: all together. Maliva elsa doctor Mannering all go up to
Speaker 3: the ruins. There they find Talbot with the monster. Talbot
Speaker 3: calms the monster and convinces the monster that the new
Speaker 3: arrivals are friends. He says, this is doctor Mannering. He's
Speaker 3: come to help you, to make you well. Now what
Speaker 3: exactly is he supposed to be doing the monster, like
Speaker 3: make him undead? It's not clear what the offer is.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I was not able to get a hold
Speaker 2: of any kind of like prior script to see like
Speaker 2: what legosis eg or monster would have been saying, like,
Speaker 2: because I feel like the answer probably can be found
Speaker 2: there if that exists. Like is he saying like, I
Speaker 2: will end your existence because you're entombed blind in the
Speaker 2: body of this monster, or I'll make you better. I'll
Speaker 2: make it so the monster can see, Like what exactly
Speaker 2: is in it for the monster here? Whether we're considering
Speaker 2: this the same monster that we had in previous films,
Speaker 2: or is this the monster egor connection that what we
Speaker 2: got at the end of House of Frankenstein, I mean
Speaker 2: goes to Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: So they all agree that the doctor will help them
Speaker 3: find a solution, and Elsa reveals that she actually does
Speaker 3: know where her father's diary is hidden. It's in a
Speaker 3: secret compartment inside the other secret compartment. Yes, so it's
Speaker 3: a book called The Secret of Life and Death Triple Secret,
Speaker 3: and then Mannering. Mannering reads out loud from the book, fascinated.
Speaker 3: He says, matter ages because it loses energy. This artificial
Speaker 3: body I have created has been charged with superhuman power
Speaker 3: so that its span of life will be extended. Its
Speaker 3: lifetime will equal the lives of more than one hundred
Speaker 3: human beings. This my creation, can never perish unless unless
Speaker 3: its energies are drained off artificially by changing the polls
Speaker 3: from plus to minus. Okay, that's the secret, all right?
Speaker 3: And then Talbot he reacts to this by saying, but
Speaker 3: that's the secret of life. What good does it do me?
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in life. I wasn't created artificially. I'm
Speaker 3: a human being. I've got real blood in my veins.
Speaker 3: What can we do to end my life? And then
Speaker 3: the doctor reads on and says, energy which cannot be
Speaker 3: destroyed can be transmitted. And this seems to mean something
Speaker 3: to Talbot. He says, well, if that's the case, then
Speaker 3: the energies from my body can be drained off also,
Speaker 3: so they formulate a plan by using doctor Frankenstein's old equipment,
Speaker 3: they can drain off the werewolf energies from Talbot by
Speaker 3: changing the poles from plus to minus, which should allow
Speaker 3: him to die.
Speaker 2: And conceivably do the same thing to the monster as well. Why, again,
Speaker 2: we come back to why is the monster necessary for
Speaker 2: this process?
Speaker 4: At this point?
Speaker 3: Unclear? I mean they promised the monster help. Meanwhile, in secret,
Speaker 3: Elsa goes up to the doctor and she says, did
Speaker 3: you mean what you said about helping the monster be well?
Speaker 3: And the Doctor's like, oh, uh no, I mustn't do that.
Speaker 3: But we could see he's developing a curiosity here. So
Speaker 3: we've got the plan in place which will lead us
Speaker 3: to the climax. So we're getting up to the final
Speaker 3: scene here, doctor mannering. He first sets about preparations. He
Speaker 3: orders a bunch of equipment to repair Frankenstein's machines. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Vazik and his crew meet in the tavern grousing about
Speaker 3: the situation. These guys are very like they remind me
Speaker 3: of Senator Walter k Powers and the brain eaters. They
Speaker 3: want action, and the mayor tries to chill them out.
Speaker 3: But Vasik, Dwight Fry and a couple of the other
Speaker 3: guys are like, eh, the Frankenstein girl, the doctor, they're
Speaker 3: all up to no good. And then frank and then Vazik,
Speaker 3: in front of everyone, describes a plan. He says, we
Speaker 3: should blow up the dam that will flood the castle
Speaker 3: and kill them all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a little domestic terrorism, That's that's all the
Speaker 2: situation calls for.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the mayor, the mayor, by the way, is sitting
Speaker 3: at the table and here's this whole plan, and his
Speaker 3: reaction is you're drunk vasik. That's why no one takes
Speaker 3: your word seriously.
Speaker 2: That'll put him in his place.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, up at the castle, a full moon is coming
Speaker 3: tonight and Talbat is impatient.
Speaker 2: This time.
Speaker 3: He does seem to know a full moon's on the way.
Speaker 4: Don't know.
Speaker 2: Finally, but he.
Speaker 3: Doesn't want to live through another night of wolf terror,
Speaker 3: and Mannering promises. He says his work is almost complete
Speaker 3: and he will be able to kill Talbot before the transformation.
Speaker 3: By the way, at what point did Mannering become convinced
Speaker 3: that Talbot was a real werewolf and not a delusional lichanthrope.
Speaker 3: Was it like when he saw Frankenstein's monster or is
Speaker 3: he even actually convinced of that at this point? Does
Speaker 3: he still think that he's not a real werewolf?
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, I assume that he bought into the werewolf
Speaker 2: thing by now. Yeah, but why Yeah, the closest we
Speaker 2: can come to is he saw, well, Frankenstein's monster is real,
Speaker 2: therefore why not were wolf?
Speaker 3: Elsa meanwhile, is working her angle on Mannering, which is
Speaker 3: destroy the monster. She's like, look, you could just lock
Speaker 3: Talbot up somewhere, but you've got to do what's really important,
Speaker 3: destroy my father's creation. And Mannering is, yeah, he's stretched
Speaker 3: thin by all of this work, but he indicates that
Speaker 3: Elsa shouldn't worry. He implies he will destroy both of
Speaker 3: the creatures tonight at the same time. Then he powers
Speaker 3: up the machines and they begin to arc with this ferocious,
Speaker 3: deafening electrical power. And then later that night we see
Speaker 3: both Talbot and the monster strapped to tables side by side,
Speaker 3: hooked up to the fantastical laboratory array, and Mannering reads
Speaker 3: from Frankenstein's notes, reading out loud, connecting the polls plus
Speaker 3: to minus will charge the energy output of the nervous system,
Speaker 3: as by connecting the minus to the minus seems utterly nonsensical.
Speaker 4: Mannering.
Speaker 3: At this point he gets a far away look in
Speaker 3: his eyes and he says to himself, I can't do it.
Speaker 3: I can't destroy Frankenstein's creation. I've got to see it
Speaker 3: at its full power.
Speaker 2: So sudden heel turn here where he's He's kind of
Speaker 2: like the parking valet in Ferris Bueler's Day Off, Ferris
Speaker 2: Bueler's Day Off, who takes the sports car and you
Speaker 2: know Garret grabs a buddy and rides it throughout the town,
Speaker 2: all over Chicago, because he's like, it would it'd be
Speaker 2: just a crime not to drive the heck out of
Speaker 2: this car. It'd be a shame a crime not to
Speaker 2: power Frankenstein's Monster up to full strength.
Speaker 3: Right, gotta take it for a spin. So he fiddles
Speaker 3: with some cables, retools the machine to juice Frankenstein's Monster
Speaker 3: to maximum frank And we see the effects of this,
Speaker 3: like the leads connected to the bolts, and the monster's
Speaker 3: neck starts smoking.
Speaker 2: In the monsters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the monster's mouth twitches with stimulation. It's like he's
Speaker 3: saying words with his lips closed. This is a good
Speaker 3: detail in Lugosi's performance, by the way, like the close
Speaker 3: ups on his face are great. Elsa is in bed
Speaker 3: for some reason. Why didn't she stay up for this?
Speaker 3: She's awakened from her bed and she comes to check
Speaker 3: out the action and the lab, and then she realizes
Speaker 3: what is happening. She shouts at Mannering, no, you're making
Speaker 3: him strong again. But Mannering doesn't stop. He's got to
Speaker 3: see him in full power. So the monster turns to
Speaker 3: look at Mannering and smiles and again this is a
Speaker 3: good Lugosi close up. Meanwhile, up at the dam we
Speaker 3: see Vaazig just planning dynamite. He's getting ready to flood
Speaker 3: the castle by himself, no crew with him. It seems
Speaker 3: kind of sad and lonely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, he's a big guy, so it took
Speaker 2: a lot for him to creep up and climb on
Speaker 2: the dam to find just the right spot to place
Speaker 2: the dynamite. But he's doing it. He is going to
Speaker 2: blow up the dam.
Speaker 3: He's on a precarious, slippery little ledge there planting this dynamite.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Again, We come back to the castle and Elsa at
Speaker 3: this point is actively trying to stop mannering. She throws
Speaker 3: a switch or something and it short circuits the machinery.
Speaker 3: Stuff explodes and you know, beams and rocks begin falling
Speaker 3: from the ceiling. But it's too late. The monster is
Speaker 3: all powered up. He is at full power, and he
Speaker 3: busts out of the straps and begins to rampage through
Speaker 3: the room. He goes after Elsa, he picks her up.
Speaker 3: She faints, of course, immediately goes unconscious, and we get
Speaker 3: the monster carrying away. Elsa's unconscious body like the poster promised.
Speaker 2: But just then.
Speaker 3: Talbot transforms into Wolfman and he comes to save the day.
Speaker 3: He attacks the monster, rescuing Elsa. I found this so
Speaker 3: confusing because I thought the whole thing about the Wolfman
Speaker 3: is that he retains none of Talbot's mind and is
Speaker 3: just a slavering beast. Why would the Wolfman form of
Speaker 3: Talbot be trying to save Elsa. That's something Talbot would do,
Speaker 3: But the Wolfman isn't Talbot anymore, That's the whole point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like the most he would do is
Speaker 2: like try to drag her away by the neck and
Speaker 2: eat her himself. Yeah, but no, he's suddenly a hero wolf.
Speaker 3: He's more like Valdemar Doninski here.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, so up at the dam of Vaaak lights the
Speaker 3: fuse on the dynamite and we see the dam is
Speaker 3: about to blow in the laboratory, the Wolfman and the
Speaker 3: Monster begin to fight. They you could out Robinnie notes
Speaker 3: on this on this matchup.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's we have to consider this is the
Speaker 2: first monster mash, so it is not going to be
Speaker 2: as advanced as as many of the later battles are
Speaker 2: going to be. Between various monsters, but it's still really good.
Speaker 2: There's some you know, throwing each other around. The werewolf's
Speaker 2: prime strategy is to try and climb on progressively higher
Speaker 2: pieces of furniture so as to leap off, like luchador
Speaker 2: style at Frankenstein's Monster, which which is a lot of
Speaker 2: fun and I don't know, you know, it's we see
Speaker 2: shades of that earlier with the world. We're always climbing
Speaker 2: on stuff. Wolfman likes to get up high like he's
Speaker 2: a goat.
Speaker 3: We saw that in Cardiff when he was running around
Speaker 3: doing parkour on the cotton bales.
Speaker 2: Yeah, keep getting higher and higher till you have some
Speaker 2: nice height come off the top rope.
Speaker 3: The monster is supposed to be a much bulkier, I think,
Speaker 3: heavyweight style fighter, So I'm imagining this is this kind
Speaker 3: of like a matchup between Andre the Giant and Mysterio Junior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, David Goliath sort of a
Speaker 2: vibe here. Yeah, each of them have their strengths and
Speaker 2: so yeah, it's a fun smack down here.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Again occurs very late in the picture and doesn't last
Speaker 2: that long. But again, we really hadn't We didn't have
Speaker 2: this before. This is a this is a first, so
Speaker 2: everything we get here is a gift.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So while the two monsters fight, Mannering and Elsa flee
Speaker 3: the laboratory and they escape the castle, do we ever
Speaker 3: see what happens with Maliva? Does she escape? Do they
Speaker 3: show show her?
Speaker 2: I'd kind of forgotten about her by this point, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I hope she's okay. Maybe she found a little boat
Speaker 2: or something. Yeah, she's a survivor. I bet she's fine.
Speaker 2: She is, But we don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think we see her at the end unless
Speaker 3: there's something I'm forgetting here. So the dam explodes, water
Speaker 3: rushes toward the castle while the monster wrestling goes on,
Speaker 3: and then finally a huge, massive water bursts through into
Speaker 3: the laboratory and we see the rushing river roy the
Speaker 3: castle entirely, every part of it is washed away in
Speaker 3: the flood. And here I love the model work. Oh
Speaker 3: and the dam and the flood and the destruction of
Speaker 3: the castle looks great. I love this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly just the end bump bump, bump, bump,
Speaker 3: bum feels extremely sudden. I am sure people in the
Speaker 3: theaters and this came out would have been been like, wait,
Speaker 3: it's over.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it feels I mean, on so many levels
Speaker 2: it feels sudden, because, first of all, we've already established
Speaker 2: that neither the Wolfman nor Frankenstein's Monster can be easily
Speaker 2: killed by conventional methods, like it was going to take
Speaker 2: mad science to do it. A flood is not going
Speaker 2: to cut it. Collapsing castle is not going to cut it.
Speaker 2: So I don't you know, I don't have any any
Speaker 2: there's no indication here that they have defeated the monsters.
Speaker 2: They just maybe washed them downstream and now they're you know,
Speaker 2: the next town's problem. And yeah, what Mannering and the
Speaker 2: Barrenness escape, But like, are are we supposed to believe
Speaker 2: that they are a magical item now because they've escaped together,
Speaker 2: because communication and relationship is very important, And there's already
Speaker 2: been a very serious betrayal with his decision to power
Speaker 2: the monster up to full strength instead of destroying.
Speaker 3: Mannering has done a serious done some serious crimes and betrayed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: been deceptive in the perpetration of these crimes now, and
Speaker 3: it seems like he's just getting away scott free. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and we and again maybe this was indicated and I
Speaker 3: just missed it. We don't know what happens to Maliva,
Speaker 3: yeah and yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the main question of this movie is will the
Speaker 3: Wolfman be able to die to you know, to to
Speaker 3: end his uh, to end his tormented eternity of immortality?
Speaker 3: And I don't think they answered that question. Like, it
Speaker 3: wasn't clear to me whether Mannering actually did anything to
Speaker 3: cure the Wolfman's immortality. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 3: all he did was push frank to full power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, and we don't even get a firm answer,
Speaker 2: Like if we'd at least gotten I mean, this would
Speaker 2: have been a more of a downer ending. But if
Speaker 2: we'd had a scene where Talbot is like, oh, I
Speaker 2: guess I'm cursed after all, I'll never die and he
Speaker 2: just wanders off, you know, into the distance like that
Speaker 2: you know, incredible hole music. Yeah, that would that would
Speaker 2: have been That would have felt more like closure. As
Speaker 2: it is, We're just like, did the movie forget how
Speaker 2: the rules that they had already established. They were just like,
Speaker 2: we gotta have we gotta end the film, folks, Sorry,
Speaker 2: people have to go home.
Speaker 3: Well that is Frankenstein meets the wolf Man they do indeed.
Speaker 2: Meet absolutely and again, you know, just despite the ridiculousness
Speaker 2: that we had some fun with here, really fun film,
Speaker 2: definitely worth checking out. I really enjoyed it. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's the again the first monster mash. It's it has
Speaker 2: almost religious significance for film fans. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and close this one up, but we'll be
Speaker 2: back later in October with more halloweeny Weird House Cinema selections.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, will remind you stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 2: Is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. And if you would like to
Speaker 2: see a list of all the movies we've covered over
Speaker 2: the years, go over to letterbox dot com look us up.
Speaker 2: Our username is weird House, and you can find a
Speaker 2: nice Weird House Cinema episode list and you can get
Speaker 2: a nice rundown on all the movies we've covered over
Speaker 2: the years. This was film number two hundred and twenty two,
Speaker 2: I believe. And sometimes you'll even get a peek ahead
Speaker 2: at what's coming up next.
Speaker 3: Here's thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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