THE HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944)

The close of 1944 brought with it the impending promise of an end to World War Two as Allied forces gradually broke the Axis stranglehold across the globe. Since the summer Western Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches of occupied France, invaded Sicily and mainland Italy and begun to weaken the Japanese dominance in the Pacific.  Back home, in the competitive battlefield of entertainment, America’s Universal Studios could not argue the same success for the marshalling of its own horror forces.

In December 1944 they decided to wring the last drops out of their monster iconography by adopting a ‘King of the Ring’ approach, combining separate horror franchises into the same movie - beginning with The House of Frankenstein directed like its follow-up House of Dracula (1945) by Erle C. Kenton. On paper (or rather poster) it looked like great value for cinemagoers’ money. Not only did you get Karloff and Lon Chaney (Jr); there was also support from B-movie notables Carradine, Zucco and the declining yet excellent Lionel Atwill on offer. Unfortunately, like many such desperate marketing attempts it became less than the sum of its parts and cheapened what was left of each element’s appeal by throwing them in together with scant respect for quality. Whilst it pays substantial homage to the Frankenstein and Wolf Man franchises, the Dracula mythology is only fleetingly covered to the film’s detriment, and the latter three actors are wasted. It could have been an even thinner gruel when one considers that the studio originally aimed to include the Mad Ghoul, Invisible Man and the Mummy as well.

Essentially The House of Frankenstein is a revenge plot in two halves motivated by the overarcing burning desire for revenge of Karloff’s Dr Gustav Niemann, a lunatic scientist who escapes from prison after a destructive thunderstorm with his hunchbacked henchman Daniel (J. Carrol Naish). He determines to avenge himself upon those officials back in his home-town of Visalia who betrayed and incarcerated him. Karloff shrewdly saw well in advance that the studio was blithely pursuing ends of diminishing returns with its horror output and had ensured he would never return to the Frankenstein series in the Monster role. As Niemann he acquits himself honourably with the disturbingly cool and deep-seated macabre authority that he’d already shown in numerous medical madman roles since the part that had shot him to overnight stardom.

Naish is also very effective as Daniel. Whilst he is physically afflicted, the part of the archetypal crippled assistant had at least evolved over the franchise beyond the mental confines of what the sadly under-used Dwight Frye was allowed to show back in 1931. Bela Lugosi had demonstrated striking new possibilities in what I believe is his greatest and most poignant characterisation as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939), replacing low intelligence with low cunning and utter subservience with quietly self-serving duty to his master. Naish initially is a compliant servant to Niemann whose mind is naïve yet fully functioning. He is a simple soul who only wants to be loved and is promised a new body by Niemann that will enable his exterior self to match his inner beauty instead of being cruelly shunned. Naish plays each scene as a dignified man of depth worthy of sympathy in spite of his appearance.

The conduit to Niemann’s success will be his brother’s time as assistant to Henry Frankenstein from whom Niemann learned everything he could for his own experimentation. He is clearly in awe of his brother’s mentor - as seen when the Jailer (Charles Wagenheim) ridicules Dr Frankenstein: “Don’t profane his name with your dirty lips!” he rages, throttling the Jailer as lightning blasts the cell walls apart, freeing him and Daniel.

This rousing start then introduces us to Zucco as the intriguing Professor Lampini, a seemingly erudite gentleman in charge of a travelling Chamber of Horrors that advertises the bones of Count Dracula amongst its lurid attractions. Niemann and Daniel hitch a ride by helping his carriages out of the rainstorm’s mud. We then get a glimpse of Zucco’s talent in bestowing a rich and possibly sinister portrayal under the right conditions, squinting behind his pipe as he outlines the veracity of his vampire headliner. However, since Niemann will brook no interference with his plans, before we can fully appreciate Lampini he is offed by the two convicts, Niemann impersonating him as they head for his intended destination of Riegelberg.

Horror fans were short-changed by the discarded promise of Zucco’s part – and he isn’t the only one so treated. What follows in Edward T. Lowe’s screenplay feels like the first of two horror movies in one and rather brutally severed in the middle just as it might have borne fruit. Niemann decides to free Dracula’s skeleton for his own servitude; the moment where Karloff poises the stake threateningly over his revived figure is held for maximum impact under Kenton’s direction.

Almost getting the point a second time is John Carradine as the Prince of Darkness whose slim physique and natural refinement is certainly more appropriate than the well-fed, blue-collar Chaney incarnation in the last sequel, 1943’s Son of Dracula. At 61, Bela Lugosi was deemed too long in the fangs to be castable any further in extensions of his breakout role. To Carradine’s credit he was able to negotiate something of Stoker’s description - the moustache – which in the novel is a fulsome white example befitting what was an elderly gentleman. Universal baulked at this augmentation, forcing the actor to trim it down to a suave modernistic version which disappointed him but suits his face rather than Chaney’s which put one in mind of a chubby Clark Gable. 

Carradine does what he can in his limited screen time, imbuing the vampire with an aristocratic demeanour and supernatural stare focused on Anne Gwynne’s Rita Hussmann. She is married to Karl Hussman (a sunny-dispositioned Peter Coe) the grand-son of one of Niemann’s targeted enemies, comedic enemy of the Marx Brothers Sig Ruman. Just as he realises who the fake Prof Lampini is, his pomposity and neck are punctured by Dracula using an artful animated bat shadow rendered by John P. Fulton. Rita is seduced by the vampire’s ring which places her mind in a supernatural netherworld “in which one may be dead and yet alive”. The plot equally struggles to gain a solid foothold - no sooner than fully established, Dracula is dispatched following a carriage chase that fatally dislodges his coffin into the emerging sun’s rays.

While we’re at it, spare a thought for Lionel Atwill who in this part of the movie barely gets a chink of the sunlight himself as the town’s Inspector Arnz.

As Rita awakens from her spell in Karl’s arms we could be forgiven for thinking it’s time to go home – but no, the baton has now been passed somewhat jarringly on to the village of Frankenstein where the second half of Niemann’s retribution will be carried out.  At the famous castle he and Daniel find an underground ice glacier where both the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster are entombed (presumably from the freezing of the flood water that engulfed them at the end of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man).

A quick fire de-frost later and a perfectly dry and human Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney) gets straight to the point: “Who are you, and why have you freed me from the ice that imprisoned the beast that lived within me?”  Lines like this don’t help his performance, noticeably stiff in this sequel especially in contrast with Karloff’s conniving subtlety. Niemann offers to transplant a new brain into him in return for Henry Frankenstein’s vital journal ‘Experiments in Life and Death’ that Talbot promptly crowbars out of a wall for him.

I may be slow on the uptake but Neimann’s planned schedule of operations is so confusing that it almost requires a flowchart to map out. He proposes to give the brain of his treacherous former assistant Ullman (Frank Reicher) to the Monster, put Talbot’s brain into the body of enemy Strauss (Michael Mark) and - I think - transplant Strauss’s brain into Talbot’s body. The last two are hazy yet the overall idea is to have the Monster be relatively smart on awakening rather than a marauding behemoth and, more fiendishly, imprison Strauss in the everlasting tormented form of werewolf Talbot.

Either way, Niemann’s evil machinations don’t take into account the repercussions caused by breaking his promises made to Talbot and Daniel about what they will be getting out of this. Daniel had faithfully served his master in return for getting the Monster’s able body. (Evidently in his scheming Niemann has not found a chapter in Henry’s playbook entitled ‘Why Double-Crossing your Assistant is a Bad Idea’.) Daniel’s gut-wrenching loss is made even worse by seeing Lawrence gradually become the beneficiary of lovesick attention from their wild-eyed gypsy travelling companion Ilonka (Elena Verdugo).

Talbot meanwhile has more pressing time concerns when he sees Niemann begin operating on the Monster before him. “The moon will be full tonight. You know what this means?” he emotes melodramatically. His hesitant romance with Ilonka does pay off in their tender exchanges where she echoes that haunting refrain from The Wolf Man from gypsy lore:

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright”.

Unwilling at first to take Talbot’s life, she eventually takes it upon herself to kill him after witnessing an excellent close-up dissolve shot of his transformation into full face fuzz.  She knows he can only die from a silver bullet “fired by the hand of someone who loves him enough to understand”. Daniel isn’t given time to jump for joy at his competitor’s demise when he comes across her (dead?) prostrate form in the woods.

Someone else who suffers from the film’s rushed greatest hits compilation sensibility is Glenn Strange in his first outing inhabiting the Monster’s bulk. A rare moment of compelling passion in the movie sees him on the receiving end of a table-strap lashing from Naish, overcome with self-pity at the unrequited devotion he gave to “The only thing I ever loved”. Strange merely gets a couple of bemused semi-smirks in before escaping the inevitable torch-bearing villagers with Niemann under-arm into the marsh. The Creature and his new stepfather sink under the quicksand, a metaphor for the weak foundation underpinning these closing films in Universal’s Second Wave of horror.