The fourth Universal Frankenstein movie has Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, the usual angry villagers, and scream queen Evelyn Ankers, but it's notable more for what it doesn't have: Boris Karloff.
Boris hung up the deadbolts and the platform shoes after making the previous Frankenstein movie, "Son Of Frankenstein". What's left is an entertaining if hectic creature-feature made on the cheap that gives old zipperneck another lap around Frankenstein Castle for cheap thrills.
The best thing in the film is Lugosi's Ygor, the hunchbacked horn-playing malcontent from "Son" who is back despite his apparent death in the earlier film. Lugosi invests Ygor with more menace and more sympathy this time, showing his character to be sweetly dependent on the comradeship of the mute monster while nursing an insane grudge against the community that has hounded him.
Lugosi was actually in more "Frankenstein" than "Dracula" movies, though he played Dracula in "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein". He played Ygor as often as Dracula on film, and perhaps found Ygor a better part for channeling his inner pathos. Watching him frantically chase the Monster, crying: "He is all that I have! Nothing else!" is to feel something beyond the limits of genre. To the extent "Ghost" works, it does because of Lugosi.
What doesn't work is the nominal lead, Cedric Hardwicke as the second son of Dr. Frankenstein. Throughout the film, whether menaced by the Monster or blackmailed by Ygor, he carries the mien of a lord who has just overheard someone break wind at a fancy dinner. Ankers and Ralph Bellamy as her suitor seem to have wandered in from a romance filming on an adjacent set. Atwill is at least menacing in a minor role, though his jealous doctor is not well integrated into the rest of the story.
I don't agree with the negative comments about Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster. He had a major challenge filling Karloff's part, and was all wrong physically for the cadaverous creature, but he still manages a serviceable performance, and rises to something more when opposite Janet Ann Gallow's little Cloestine. Unlike many child actors of this period, she manages to do more than look cute as the apple of the Monster's heart, and Chaney does a lot here with his silent stares. A nice shot captures him staring down at the child, and the viewer, his eyes so pathetic but the rest of him so menacing you don't know what to think.
Was the Monster truly bad or not? The Frankenstein films seem to go in different directions. In the first film, and in "Son", the monster is a mad killer. In "Bride" he was more a victim of intolerance. Here he's played, interestingly, somewhat in the middle. He kills people, including one hapless doctor who isn't in the Monster's way at all, but seems as unhappy about his nature as anyone else.
Ultimately, you wish director Erle C. Kenton and the screenwriters were as interested in the character of the Monster as they were in making a horror cheapie short enough for Saturday matinees. They had a chance at creating something lasting, rather than just campy and intermittently entertaining. It's not bad, just a bit soft, enough to make you think Boris took the soul of the Frankenstein films with him when he left.
Boris hung up the deadbolts and the platform shoes after making the previous Frankenstein movie, "Son Of Frankenstein". What's left is an entertaining if hectic creature-feature made on the cheap that gives old zipperneck another lap around Frankenstein Castle for cheap thrills.
The best thing in the film is Lugosi's Ygor, the hunchbacked horn-playing malcontent from "Son" who is back despite his apparent death in the earlier film. Lugosi invests Ygor with more menace and more sympathy this time, showing his character to be sweetly dependent on the comradeship of the mute monster while nursing an insane grudge against the community that has hounded him.
Lugosi was actually in more "Frankenstein" than "Dracula" movies, though he played Dracula in "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein". He played Ygor as often as Dracula on film, and perhaps found Ygor a better part for channeling his inner pathos. Watching him frantically chase the Monster, crying: "He is all that I have! Nothing else!" is to feel something beyond the limits of genre. To the extent "Ghost" works, it does because of Lugosi.
What doesn't work is the nominal lead, Cedric Hardwicke as the second son of Dr. Frankenstein. Throughout the film, whether menaced by the Monster or blackmailed by Ygor, he carries the mien of a lord who has just overheard someone break wind at a fancy dinner. Ankers and Ralph Bellamy as her suitor seem to have wandered in from a romance filming on an adjacent set. Atwill is at least menacing in a minor role, though his jealous doctor is not well integrated into the rest of the story.
I don't agree with the negative comments about Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster. He had a major challenge filling Karloff's part, and was all wrong physically for the cadaverous creature, but he still manages a serviceable performance, and rises to something more when opposite Janet Ann Gallow's little Cloestine. Unlike many child actors of this period, she manages to do more than look cute as the apple of the Monster's heart, and Chaney does a lot here with his silent stares. A nice shot captures him staring down at the child, and the viewer, his eyes so pathetic but the rest of him so menacing you don't know what to think.
Was the Monster truly bad or not? The Frankenstein films seem to go in different directions. In the first film, and in "Son", the monster is a mad killer. In "Bride" he was more a victim of intolerance. Here he's played, interestingly, somewhat in the middle. He kills people, including one hapless doctor who isn't in the Monster's way at all, but seems as unhappy about his nature as anyone else.
Ultimately, you wish director Erle C. Kenton and the screenwriters were as interested in the character of the Monster as they were in making a horror cheapie short enough for Saturday matinees. They had a chance at creating something lasting, rather than just campy and intermittently entertaining. It's not bad, just a bit soft, enough to make you think Boris took the soul of the Frankenstein films with him when he left.