After the relative box office success of the earlier "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man", Universal clearly realised there was more mileage in their horror series by combining the various elements.
The promise of Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster all interacting in one adventure is a mouth-watering prospect for any horror fan, but in reality it doesn't happen here.
The big flaw of "The House Of Frankenstein" is its structure: it is essentially two different tales, linked by Boris Karloff's central character of Doctor Niemann, the latest in a seemingly endless line of scientists with a habit of putting brain transplant surgery ahead of moral ethics on their list of priorities.
After a nice intro sequence which establishes the characters of Niemann and his hunchbacked friend Daniel (J Carrol Naish), we then see the pair escape their prison and rather fortuitously stumble upon a travelling show which just so happens to contain Dracula's corpse. Even though we were led to believe that Dracula's corpse was burned (in the film "Dracula's Daughter"), Niemann has no trouble restoring the vampire to undead life in the form of the suave John Carradine, whose tall, gaunt appearance lends itself well to the character. We then get a rather lightweight 15 minute episode in which Dracula does his usual routine of turning into a bat and sucking blood from innocent people at the behest of Niemann who has some old scores to settle. When Dracula finds himself being chased by an angry mob, Niemann leaves him to his fate and then goes on to the next town and the next adventure, which finds him discovering the frozen bodies of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster.
So begins the movie proper and the characters' motives all come into play. Niemann wants revenge on those who incarcerated him and plans to do so by putting their brains into the bodies of the monsters he has just revived. Daniel has fallen for a Gypsy girl, Ilonka, who likes him but finds his physical appearance distasteful, so he wants to be given a new body. The ideal choice, he feels, would be the body of cursed werewolf Larry Talbot (once more played by Lon Chaney Jr, who conveys the burden of his affliction superbly) since Ilonka is smitten by him. Talbot only wants Niemann to put him out of his misery permanently so that he can finally escape the curse of being a werewolf.
The love triangle between Daniel, Ilonka and Talbot is probably the closest this film comes to having a meaningful plot and whilst it's handled competently, it's all rather too rushed for it have any depth, a knock-on effect from having too many elements in the one film and from devoting a quarter of the movie to an unrelated Dracula storyline. Whilst Talbot as a character plays a significant part in the proceedings, his alter ego the Wolf Man has very little to do and is barely seen. And if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned the Frankenstein Monster much yet, that's because the same is true of him. From his introduction half way through the film he lies dormant on a bench in a laboratory, and only springs into life 5 minutes from the end. He doesn't encounter Dracula, he doesn't encounter the Wolf Man... But he does encounter yet another mob of torch-bearing villagers (see most of his previous film appearances).
All in all, House Of Frankenstein oddly chooses to circumnavigate its biggest selling points. With so many interesting characters and actors in the film (including Lionel Atwill, George Zucco in regrettably small roles), a better storyline giving the monsters more involvement might not only have paid dividends, it could have re-ignited the whole Universal monster series. As it is, it's more of a Boris Karloff-as-a-mad-scientist film. Not a bad thing, as Karloff is always interesting to watch, but definitely a missed opportunity.
The promise of Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster all interacting in one adventure is a mouth-watering prospect for any horror fan, but in reality it doesn't happen here.
The big flaw of "The House Of Frankenstein" is its structure: it is essentially two different tales, linked by Boris Karloff's central character of Doctor Niemann, the latest in a seemingly endless line of scientists with a habit of putting brain transplant surgery ahead of moral ethics on their list of priorities.
After a nice intro sequence which establishes the characters of Niemann and his hunchbacked friend Daniel (J Carrol Naish), we then see the pair escape their prison and rather fortuitously stumble upon a travelling show which just so happens to contain Dracula's corpse. Even though we were led to believe that Dracula's corpse was burned (in the film "Dracula's Daughter"), Niemann has no trouble restoring the vampire to undead life in the form of the suave John Carradine, whose tall, gaunt appearance lends itself well to the character. We then get a rather lightweight 15 minute episode in which Dracula does his usual routine of turning into a bat and sucking blood from innocent people at the behest of Niemann who has some old scores to settle. When Dracula finds himself being chased by an angry mob, Niemann leaves him to his fate and then goes on to the next town and the next adventure, which finds him discovering the frozen bodies of the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster.
So begins the movie proper and the characters' motives all come into play. Niemann wants revenge on those who incarcerated him and plans to do so by putting their brains into the bodies of the monsters he has just revived. Daniel has fallen for a Gypsy girl, Ilonka, who likes him but finds his physical appearance distasteful, so he wants to be given a new body. The ideal choice, he feels, would be the body of cursed werewolf Larry Talbot (once more played by Lon Chaney Jr, who conveys the burden of his affliction superbly) since Ilonka is smitten by him. Talbot only wants Niemann to put him out of his misery permanently so that he can finally escape the curse of being a werewolf.
The love triangle between Daniel, Ilonka and Talbot is probably the closest this film comes to having a meaningful plot and whilst it's handled competently, it's all rather too rushed for it have any depth, a knock-on effect from having too many elements in the one film and from devoting a quarter of the movie to an unrelated Dracula storyline. Whilst Talbot as a character plays a significant part in the proceedings, his alter ego the Wolf Man has very little to do and is barely seen. And if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned the Frankenstein Monster much yet, that's because the same is true of him. From his introduction half way through the film he lies dormant on a bench in a laboratory, and only springs into life 5 minutes from the end. He doesn't encounter Dracula, he doesn't encounter the Wolf Man... But he does encounter yet another mob of torch-bearing villagers (see most of his previous film appearances).
All in all, House Of Frankenstein oddly chooses to circumnavigate its biggest selling points. With so many interesting characters and actors in the film (including Lionel Atwill, George Zucco in regrettably small roles), a better storyline giving the monsters more involvement might not only have paid dividends, it could have re-ignited the whole Universal monster series. As it is, it's more of a Boris Karloff-as-a-mad-scientist film. Not a bad thing, as Karloff is always interesting to watch, but definitely a missed opportunity.