House of Frankenstein

Frankenstein meets the Wolfman in 1943, where he played the Wolfman again.

House of Frankenstein, where he played the Wolfman again.

Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, where he once again played the Wolfman, and that was in 1948.

So he wound up playing the Wolfman quite a bit back in the day.

And so the one I decided to pick sort of ties in with my second one in a couple of different ways.

And it's really – I guess the first major universal monster mashup, and it's House of Frankenstein from 1944.

I'm going to give that brain of yours a new home in the skull of the Frankenstein monster.

The jugular vein is severed,

For sure.

All right.

So that's my black and white pick, House of Frankenstein.

Now we're moving on to color.

Yeah, I don't remember how many it was, but it was plentiful.

J. Carol Nash, who was also previously reviewed in this space when we did House of Frankenstein.

He appears here as the inspector.

Very noble character indeed, at least to my recollection, unless I'm remembering wrong.

And Michael Mark, who's using his native Russian accent rather than attempting anything even vaguely Germanic, was best known to me personally for his role as Dr. Zinthrop in the 1959 movie The Wasp Woman, which was featured on MST3K's successor project Cinematic Titanic, and which I've seen a number of times.

He actually had a lot of those kind of genre parts, though, in everything from Son of Frankenstein to The Mummy's Hand to House of Frankenstein.

The series jumps ahead a generation between Bride and Son, which is one reason why nobody's playing the same characters, all the way up through Return of the Fly and Attack of the Puppet People.

His last role was in 1969, and he passed away in 1975 at the age of 88.

The monster storms out into the night, his immediate fate unknown.

Back at the Frankenstein estate, Henry is determined to lose himself in romance with his wife, and while I don't think this is meant to be a major theme of the film, you can definitely read Mad Science as an allegory for homosexuality and Henry's determination to cure his obsession through heteronormativity, a symbolic parallel to many real-life gay men of the era who tried to dive headlong into marriage to avoid confronting the truth about their orientation.

It will absolutely be a major theme of the next movie, but we'll get to that when Bride of Frankenstein shows up on the schedule elizabeth asks if they can make the wedding soon which is delivered so ostentatiously i've heard people suggest he may have already gotten her pregnant even though i don't know when that would have happened and the two of them kiss also he's got a lit cigarette in his hand this whole time and it's just so bizarre to see him convalesce and return to health with the aid of some smooth tobacco We jump ahead to the wedding day, where the Baron Frankenstein is glowing with pride at the resumption of his family's traditions and toasting the health to a son of the House of Frankenstein, and a jolly good health to young Frankenstein, so we've got the titles of three upcoming movies right then and there.

Henry himself seems a little bit anxious at the mention of producing a son and heir, which may be a reference to Elizabeth's pre-existing pregnancy or to a case of nerves at having to perform with a woman, depending on how heteronormative you want to be with this subtext, and out in the streets we get diegetic music and dancing as the townsfolk celebrate the impending nuptials.

Dude, it's great.

I'm gonna show a bunch of cartoons, and then House of Frankenstein from 1944.

Oh, that's right.

You were just telling me about this.

... show you the print that I have.

It's just so much fun.

House of Frankenstein on 16 millimeter-

It's-

It'll do you good.

House of Frankenstein.

The House of Frankenstein.

Thank you.

Now then, now be off about your business.

The first of these had been the climax, the kind of sequel come remake of The Phantom of the Opera.

The second was far more interesting for all sorts of reasons.

Originally entitled Chamber of Horrors, House of Frankenstein was Universal throwing everything at the wall.