THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN / SON OF FRANKENSTEIN
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THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN / SON OF FRANKENSTEIN

That said, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN still stands as one of the strongest of the Universal monster movies - a stylish, eerie and oddly mannered finale to the triumvirate of Karloff's FRANKENSTEIN films. After SON, the series would slide into lower quality rush jobs and monster mashes that, while loads of fun, were a far cry from the carefully crafted original classics.

SON takes place decades after its predecessor, as we learn that Colin Clive's Doctor Frankenstein is long dead. His son, however, Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone), has recently returned to his home village with his wife and young son (Josephine Hutchinson and Donnie Dunagan). A scientist in his own right, Wolf and his family are not welcomed by the local townsfolk, to say the least. His father's awful creation, The Monster, is generally believed to have been destroyed years earlier, but a rash of mysterious murders have many less than convinced, including police Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill). Krogh knows about The Monster firsthand, having had his arm torn off by the thing when he was just a boy.

While settling into Frankenstein castle, Wolf quickly learns that a ghastly fellow called Ygor (Bela Lugosi) has been inhabiting the castle grounds in the years since he improbably survived being hanged for the crime of body snatching. Ygor, insane and deformed by his broken neck that has healed improperly since the hanging, is a monster in his own right, though he proves truly dangerous when he reveals to Wolf that not only is The Monster still alive, but it is now under his command. The creature is a mere semblance of the version seen in BRIDE though, having lost the ability to talk or reason on any real level after being severely injured since the last film. Wolf, victim of the old Frankenstein curse, decides to return the creature to health for the benefit of science, and in order to vindicate his father's name. But, of course, Ygor has got plans of his own, and old Wolf's not really playing with a full deck either for that matter. Can you say "rampage"?

Karloff's Monster spends half the film comatose, but even in that state he cuts an imposing figure, and while the creature has taken one step forward but two steps back since BRIDE losing the ability to speak that had been acquired in that film Karloff nonetheless finds the opportunity to emote and scare simultaneously, providing a memorable finish to his run in the role he created. More scary, though, is Lugosi's Ygor. Unlike the misguided Monster, Ygor is a cold-blooded killer, and an imposing force in his own right. The suave, handsome Dracula that most equate with Lugosi is nowhere to be found here, as the actor is hidden under make-up and a wig, while utilizing stiff body language to great effect.

Basil Rathbone isn't as insane as Colin Clive's Doctor Frankenstein before him, but he's just as eccentric. As the situation around Wolf begins to go awry, Rathbone's behavior becomes increasingly paranoid and odd, as does his interaction with Lionel Atwill's Krogh. The result is a subtle humor that elevates director Rowland V. Lee's film above the sequels that were still to come. Ditto the high-end production values and truly classy and strange set design (by Jack Otterson).

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN brought about a renaissance of the horror film, which had gone out of style during the latter half of the '30s. Some attribute this to a growing fear of war among Americans, but whatever the reason, SON wound up grossing huge amounts of money for Universal, assuring the many sequels still to come.

Too bad then that the studio took the low road with the next film, THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN. The first indication of this is the movie's running time: whereas SON clocked in at a hardy hour and 40 minutes, GHOST barely makes it past the hour mark at 68 minutes and that's including the use of stock footage culled from earlier entries.

Karloff was gone, doing theater in New York, and so it fell to Universal's heir apparent horror star of the '40s Lon Chaney Jr. to fill the over-sized shoes of the Frankenstein Monster. He'd already played The Wolf Man and would try his hand at just about every major Universal monster soon enough. But Chaney's would prove to be a particularly lifeless, hulking Monster, proof that Karloff's absence would be a hindrance to the continued adventures of the character.

Seemingly taking place soon after the events of the previous film, the village folk decide to destroy the castle of Frankenstein once and for all, with a mind to ridding their town of the Frankenstein "curse." They do just that, but not before inadvertently freeing The Monster from the now-dry sulfur pool that it had seemingly been killed in at the climax of SON. Together with an equally, if somewhat more inexplicably, resurrected Ygor (Lugosi again), The Monster escapes to the countryside, fleeing the townsfolk.

Ygor and his Monster seek out yet another son of the original Doctor Frankenstein, this time played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke. This son, Ludwig, specializes in "diseases of the mind," and though he claims to have done his best to escape the legacy of Frankenstein, moving to a new village and living by the straight and narrow, the fact that he apparently lives within walking distance of his father's old digs hardly seems like a genuine attempt to overcome the past.

When Ludwig meets the fruits of his father's (and brother's) labors, his first impulse is to dissect The Monster. But the ghost of the title of the original Doctor Frankenstein pays his son a visit and insists that he "cure" the creature once and for all. Whether this is actually a ghost, or rather a manifestation of the hereditary Frankenstein madness, is unclear though one tends to think the latter. Either way, Ludwig is soon hard at work at that dirty family business though this time the plan is to replace The Monster's brain with a "healthy" one. Unfortunately, Ygor is scheming with Ludwig's nasty partner Doctor Bohmer (Lionel Atwill, back again in a new role) to have his brain put into the creature. Needless to say, things do not work out for any of the above parties.

Erle C. Kenton directed GHOST, and his comedy background (he got his start working for Mack Sennett) is obvious at times here, as when the creature finds itself on trial, and even in the semi-spectacular scene when The Monster allows himself to be struck by lightning in order to recharge his batteries, so to speak. Kenton would go on to helm two more sequels, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA.

The film is fun for its kind, but it's obvious that Universal was not giving their monster films the A-level treatment anymore. Visually, GHOST is uninspired, and the plot isn't particularly interesting or compelling (aside from a wacky finale where The Monster finally regains the ability to speak, however briefly). It is the strong cast that really holds the film together (including Universal regular Evelyn Ankers as a Frankenstein granddaughter), but from this point forward the monster movies were going to be providing diminishing returns.

This is another entry in Universal's recent slate of double-feature monster discs, though why 1942's THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN receives billing over the earlier (1939) SON OF FRANKENSTEIN is unclear. Lacking the special features that made the first two batches of monster discs so great, this DVD only contains production notes, cast and filmmaker bios, and a trailer for GHOST. Doesn't matter much, though, because Classic Monster fans are going to be snatching these discs up anyway.