Ghost Of Frankenstein

The Frankenstein Franchise was starting to lose steam by this fourth outing, but it is nonetheless magnificent hokum. Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) was part of Universal's production-line wartime output. Oddly, the picture completely overlooks the fact that the village of Frankenstein and the castle were in the Nazi heartlands and takes no opportunity to make the kind of heavy-handed propaganda that marks the Universal Sherlock Holmes pictures of the same era.

Released on Friday 13th, the movie was something of a gamble for Universal. Karloff had given up playing monsters to take on the roles of mad scientists better suited to his advancing years. Basil Rathbone, the Son of the third film and by the time of this picture firmly identified as Sherlock Holmes, is safely long gone and this time the younger Frankenstein sibling played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke is getting the grief from the Monster and his villainous mate Ygor.

The role of the Monster was taken by the man who had inherited Karloff's crown as Universal's Master Monster. Lon Chaney Jr had not initially taken after his father, the creator of some of the most chilling silent horrors including The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom Of The Opera. His father had actively discouraged him from becoming an actor, packing him off to business college. However, after Senior's death in 1930, the young Creighton Tull Chaney was lured by the smell of the greasepaint into trying an acting career. Success was anything but overnight. Up to 1939, he played bit parts - usually heavies - in a number of westerns, finally conceding to pressure and changing his name to Lon Chaney Jr in 1937. His big break came in 1939 when Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men moved from Broadway to Los Angeles. Original actor Broderick Crawford left the production to start a movie career and Chaney won the role of hulking simpleton Lennie. The role was the defining role for Chaney and one way or another would follow him through his entire movie career.

In spite of being apparently shot dead at the end of Son, Ygor (Bela Lugosi) has survived that and the dynamiting of the castle. He digs the Monster out of the sulphur pit which has fortunately cooled down and solidified, and the two set off for Vasaria to seek out Ludwig Von Frankenstein.

Doctor of the Mind Ludwig is intent on dismantling the Monster by dissection until a visitation by the ghost of his father (obviously the one of the title), persuades him to try to fix matters. The problem is that wonky brain originally fitted in the first picture - the abnormal one. Ludwig knows that fellow doctor Kettering has recently carked it and has an excellent learned brain going spare. Unfortunately, Ludwig's assistant (the creepy Lionel Atwill) is in cahoots with Ygor and when the Monster wakes after the operation, he speaks with Lugosi's thick, gutteral accent…

Video and Audio
Made in Academy format 1.33:1 and presented here the same way. The picture is very pleasing for a movie that's 66 years old. The sound is a bit reedy and fuzzy, but that's to be expected.

Extras
Subtitles.