The Ghost of Frankenstein

Mm-hmm.

He played the monster and ghost of Frankenstein.

So he did a run as Frankenstein once in a film.

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

together a telescope, and then he starts peeking through the telescope and immediately locks in on a woman's bedroom in town.

And that's where we come into Evelyn Akers.

He winds up to go see her later on, and she was in Ghost of Frankenstein as Elsa Frankenstein.

She was Claire Cultsworth in Son of Dracula.

Kind of had rotating actors playing different monsters.

Because Lon Chaney plays the Frankenstein monster in Ghost of Frankenstein, I think.

Yes.

And then he gets a kick at Dracula here.

Well, don't worry.

It gets worse in The Ghost of Frankenstein, because unlike the title would, would suggest, there's no fucking ghost.

It's a metaphor for the ghosts, uh, what...

You, you said it.

But after appearing in The Wolf Man, her career took a decidedly different turn.

Following this movie, Universal took the decision to make her their queen of horror movies, and Ankers found herself appearing in Hold That Ghost, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mad Ghoul, Son of Dracula, and countless more horror movies in which her screams could be heard so often that she soon found herself being referred to as Queen of the Screamers.

[growls] [screams]

She also appeared in the first Sherlock Holmes film for Universal, 1942's Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, which reunited Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce after their two movies at Fox in 1939.

Not just because there's moonlight.

Although moonlight becomes you so.

Keen to revive their biggest horror cash cow, but unable to secure the services of Boris Karloff for the part, Universal turned to their new horror star to play the monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein.

There's a curse upon this village.

Uh, you get Frankenstein in 4K, Bride of Frankenstein in 4K.

But you also get Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, both movies on their own 4K disc.

And I don't know if those movies have had 4K releases before this or not.

Uh, let me know in the comments if they have or haven't, if you know.

And they had not quite run out of things to do certainly with, with Frankenstein just yet.

Uh, because in '42 they put out The Ghost of Frankenstein.

This is not one I have seen in full, but I, I went ahead and pulled up the ending and watched it prior to coming in here, and I read about the plot.

Basically, this film continues the Son of Frankenstein plot line where we get, um, we get a, we get another Dr. Frankenstein in the mix.

Because then comes today's film, 1943's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

This is a movie that comes in and, um, [laughs] serves as a sequel of sorts to the previous two films.

Uh, though it's a lot easier, I would argue, to pick up the pieces of the Ghost of Frankenstein than it is to pick up the pieces of The Wolf Man because The Wolf Man comes to a pretty, um, uh, satisfying, gloomy close with, in a way, superstition triumphing over logic.

And we have the character of Larry Talbot, uh, the Wolf Man, uh, beaten to death with a silver cane by his own father.

Yeah.

Oh, I also there's there's there's five movies because there's also the Ghost of Frankenstein and the House of Frankenstein.

I just haven't seen those two.

I've only seen Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein.

And then he becomes Igor after that.

So in Son of Frankenstein, he is first called Igor, and he is played by Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein, who plays Igor.

And he plays him both in Son of Frankenstein and The Ghost of Frankenstein, which is funny because he is killed in Son of Frankenstein, but he's so back in Ghost of Frankenstein.

What do you think is the narrative purpose of having Igor as a character?

[laughs]

That's a weird composite character of, like, something that Bela Lugosi did in Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein.

But he wasn't a hunchback in that either.

He, like, had a broken neck from, like, being hung, and he was the antagonist.

Yeah.

It gets me really curious that we sh- you know, when we eventually do Frankenstein 3 and 4, which is what I'm gonna call the original vers- or, you know, Son of Frankenstein and, you know-

...

I'm now at five out of five for him with horror.

And the other ones being Island of Lost Souls, House and Ghost of Frankenstein, as well as House of Dracula and now this.

So we have an assistant director here of Melville Shire.

He has done this for 77 films as well.