Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein is controversial film among horror flick purists: would it have been kinder to have let the classic Universal monsters be, rather than trot them out one last time to prop up the sagging big-screen careers of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello?
I beg to differ. House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula were such lousy, weak, boring, cheap efforts that bringing the monsters back one more time, even in a self-parody, was a relative kindness to them.
Think about it. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein had a healthy budget, especially in comparison to the House of movies, and the horror elements involving the monsters are played straight, thus making the monsters actually threatening for the first time in years. They also make great straight men for Bud and Lou, who play bumbling shipping guys who wind up hauling the bodies of Dracula (played for the second and last time by Bela Lugosi, who gets one last shred of dignity before spending his remaining years in Ed Wood films) and the Frankenstein Monster (once again played by large, lurching Glenn Strange).
It's all a plot by Dracula to find a new brain for Frankie--and believe it or not, Lou's the leading candidate to donate! Larry Talbot (who else but Lon Chaney Jr.?) shows up to help foil the plan, but of course he shows up on a night with a full moon, damn the luck....
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein is no more logical and pays no more attention to continuity than any of the other Universal horror films. There are all sorts of questions one could ask here: Wasn't Larry Talbot cured in House of Dracula? Didn't Dracula die (again) in that same movie? How come Dracula's reflection can be seen in the mirror? So what if Drac and Wolfie fall into the ocean at the end--vampires and werewolves aren't hurt by water, are they? And just how many times can you burn the Frankenstein Monster to death before you figure out that it just doesn't work?
You can beat this movie up as much as you want for its lack of fealty to logic or legend, but the fact remains that it's still a good deal of fun. The horror and comedy balance one another nicely, and the monsters are treated with more respect and admiration than they'd been in a long, long time. And while you can ask for a better end for the Universal stable of monsters, you probably couldn't get one. So live with this--it's better than what came before it by a long shot.
(NOTES: Chaney plays the Monster again briefly late in the movie, standing in for Strange, who had been injured during filming and couldn't perform. And the voice of Vincent Price is heard at the very end of the movie, chiming in as the Invisible Man.)
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