Directed by: Erle C. Kenton (Island of Lost Souls)
Starring: Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Bellamy, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers, Lon Chaney Jr.
In what is perhaps the greatest line of ballyhoo ever penned, the trailer for Erle C. Kenton’s The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) assures us, “Here is drama completely strange!” Unfortunately, there’s not much all that strange about it—unless you’ve never seen a Frankenstein movie. This is the movie where the once-great series drops into the realm of the B picture, but it’s a solid little B movie and the last of the Universal Frankensteins that can be taken reasonably seriously. It picks up where Son of Frankenstein (1939) leaves off—but with some not subtle rewritings. Ygor (Bela Lugosi) has somehow recovered from being pumped full of lead in the previous film. The boiling sulfur pit the Monster fell into has inexplicably hardened over. The happy villagers at the end of the preceding film have gotten all grumpy and torch-happy as villagers in these movies are wont to do and decide that dynamiting the castle—which has inexplicably changed dramatically from the Expressionist oddity of Son—will set things to rights. Well, what it really does is free the Monster from the dried sulfur (where he somehow got a different jacket and turned into Lon Chaney) so that he and Ygor can wander off to Vasaria and get Frankenstein’s heretofore unmentioned other son, Ludwig (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), fix up the rundown Monster. Naturally, things don’t go quite as planned and mayhem, murder, duplicity and brain-swapping follow. But it’s agreeable enough, thanks to solid production values, Lugosi’s amusingly wicked Ygor, Chaney’s interesting take on the Monster, and the terrific Hans J. Salter music. Just don’t expect the brilliance of the two James Whale films or the scope of Son of Frankenstein.
The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen The Ghost of Frankenstein on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 8 p.m. in the Cinema Lounge of The Carolina Asheville and will be hosted by Xpress movie critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther.
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Somewhat apropos of this, will THE SKIN I LIVE IN be coming to Asheville anytime soon? |
 Aug 30, 2011 at 4:47 PM |
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It opens in limited release on Oct. 14. It may take a while to filter down to the provinces. |
Aug 31, 2011 |
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Once more I find myself somewhat perplexed by the audience. I mean, this is not a great movie by any stretch and yet they absolutely loved it—partly, I think, because it isn’t a great movie, but just a fun, slightly silly monster show. The poster known as Tonberry confessed to me that he actually prefered it to Son of Frankenstein, but this seemed to have more to do with it being a brisk 67 minutes as opposed to the somewhat cumbersome 97 minutes of Son. |
Sep 04, 2011 |
