ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN was a ground-breaking boxoffice-buster which helped to revive two of Universal's most popular franchises -both of which were running out of steam before someone had the brilliant idea of combining both properties into a single film. The results still impress. Bud and Lou play baggage clerks who find themselves handling crates containing the remains of Dracula and the Frankenstein monster. Lou is the only one who sees that the monsters are still alive, but nobody will believe him. Until, that is, Larry Talbot hits town, hot on Dracula's trail. This is just a wonderful film. The monsters are in top form and Bud and Lou are in their prime. Very strong script holds everything together, with the funny men being funny and the monsters playing it straight. The film was so successful that it kicked off a whole series of Abbott and Costello monster films. It was more or less remade outright in later decades by the Mexicans and the Turks (and I think even the Egyptians) to star their own top comics! Bela Lugosi plays Count Dracula on film for only the second time, but he's still at the top of his game. Sadly, his eternal youth was just about to run out on him. Recently, a series of books has been penned, in which Bela Lugosi and Lou Costello find themselves involved in murder mysteries on the Universal backlot!
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