It's interesting that Lou Costello initially was reluctant to do this movie, since it became probably the most popular and successful installment in the Abbott & Costello catalogue. It was so popular, in fact, that many of the Abbott & Costello movies to follow were along similar lines -- they would go on to meet The Mummy, The Invisible Man and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. You can sort of see where he was coming from ... horror/comedy isn't exactly a highly respected genre, although there have been several classics in it since (Young Frankenstein, An American Werewolf in London, etc).

The story starts when a couple of crates arrive in the US, to an office manned by Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello). The two of them are asked to the two crates to the their destination, a house of horrors. What they don't realise is that one crate contains Dracula's coffin and the other, the Frankenstein monster. Dracula awakens and escapes with the monster, leaving the two freight handlers to deal with the insurance company over the missing goods. But it turns out they have bigger worries -- Dracula has chosen Wilbur's brain to transplant into the Frankenstein monster in order to revive him ...

Since the Universal horror franchise had stopped taking itself seriously several years previously, it made sense that the final movie should just go the whole hog and be a comedy. As a comic team Abbott and Costello were never of the same stature of, say, "Laurel and Hardy" or "The Marx Brothers", but they do have their moments -- and a lot of them are in this movie. Abbott of course plays the straight man to Costello's blundering comedian, and it works very well with this script. They are backed up by arguably the strongest cast out of any of the Universal horror movies, with Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange and Lon Chaney Jr in their finest roles. All of the monsters are played perfectly straight, with the comedy coming from Abbott and Costello themselves.

"Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is silly and zany and very, very funny. Whether or not it can be classed as part of the Universal horror series, it is as entertaining as any of them and absolutely essential viewing.

The Wolf As this is intended as a comedy, it's understandable that they might not entirely stick with the folklore created in the previous Universal horror movies ... for example, there's one scene in which you plainly see Dracula's reflection. However, for the most part this movie does have a lot of respect for the monsters and their heritage. This differs from the earlier Universal movies in that the makeup is longer created by Jack Pierce, but has been replaced by more convinient rubber appliances, which for the most part look perfectly fine, although at times a little ... well, rubbery. There's no question that Pierce's makeup looked better, but the new makeup by no means spoils the look of the monsters. Lon Chaney Jr delivers another strong performance as the Wolf Man, which would be his last for Universal studios. He also played the Frankenstein monster in one scene when Glenn Strange broke his ankle. Seeing him on screen with Bela Lugosi as Dracula is reason enough to watch this movie. The Wolf Man is portrayed as something of a blundering idiot, his constant inability to capture and devour Wilbur being the comic relief. At the memorable climax of the movie, he has a final scuffle with Dracula, chasing him around the castle and forcing the ancient vampire to flee from his ravenous attack. Hell, there are worse ways that "The Wolf Man" could have ended his career ...

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