Scary Movies: Ghost of Frankenstein

At the end of the third movie, Son of Frankenstein, the son of the original doctor, Wolf von Frankenstein had shot Ygor and the monster had fallen into a pit of molten sulfur. As this movie opens, it’s some months or years later, and the people of village Frankenstein are accosting their mayor, claiming the village is cursed. The mayor counters that Igor and the monster are dead, but some villagers claim they have heard Ygor playing his hornpipe at the old Frankenstein castle, trying to wake the Monster. The mayor decides it would cause no harm to blow up the abandoned castle, and allows the villages to haul up explosives.

It turns out Ygor is still alive, and when the villagers appear with torches and explosives, he begins pushing large rocks off the roof to try to smash them. But they manage to break into the castle and light the fuses, and Igor is trapped inside by falling rubble. Ironically, it’s those very explosives that crack open the hardened sulfur pit, and the Monster emerges, although he’s greatly weakened.

Ygor and the Monster flee the village into the open country and get caught in a thunderstorm. Lightning strikes the Monster and makes him temporarily stronger. Ygor conceives the idea of finding Wolf von Frankenstein’s brother, Ludwig, who runs a practice for treating brain diseases in the town of Visaria, where he resides with his beautiful daughter, Elsa. Ludwig and his two assistants, Dr. Kettering and Dr. Bohmer, have just pioneered a ground-breaking operation: the whole brain transplant. (Since Ludwig has never been mentioned before in the series, this brings up the question of just how many mad scientist siblings this family has hidden away in quaint German towns?)

In Visaria, the monster kills two men who try to obstruct him when he’s fetching a lost ball for a little girl, and he’s put in chains in the courthouse. Ygor goes to Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein and asks him to help the Monster get his strength back. The doctor refuses so Ygor goes back to the courthouse, where the Monster has broken his chains. Ygor leads him to Dr. Frankenstein’s mansion, where the Monster attacks Elsa and kills one of Frankenstein’s assistants, Dr. Kettering. Dr. Frankenstein knocks them all out with gas, and straps the Monster to a gurney, planning to dissect him for research, which appalls Dr. Bohmer.

While in his laboratory, Dr. Frankenstein is visited by the ghost of his father, who implores him not to destroy his life’s work, and suggests putting replacing the Monster’s criminal brain with a good one. Dr. Frankenstein decides to use Dr. Kettering’s brain for the purpose. Later, Ygor visits Dr. Bohmer and convinces him that they should transplant Ygor‘s brain into the monster, and Ygor will then help him take Dr. Frankenstein’s place as head of the practice. (I guess that’s the plan? It’s a little unclear to me what Dr. Bohmer actually thinks he’s going to get out of this.) Meanwhile, the Monster has sought out and found the little girl he tried to help earlier and carries her to Frankenstein’s house.

When the girl’s father discovers his daughter is missing, he knows just who took her, and riles up a hostile mob to descent on the Frankenstein residence. (If you’re a fan of torch-bearing mobs, this is the movie for you, as this is the second such scene in the movie.) The public prosecutor, who also happens to be Elsa’s fiance, convinces the mob to hold off while he tries to get Dr. Frankenstein to surrender the monster.

Too late, for Dr. Frankenstein is inside, already conducting the operating to transplant the new brain, which he thinks is Dr. Kettering’s but is actually Ygor’s, into the Monster. Will he succeed before the mob loses its patience and burns the place down? Will the Monster be revived, but with Ygor’s wily and evil mind in charge? Will the little girl survive? How about Elsa? These and other questions are answered in brisk but hackneyed fashion by the close of the film.

Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
Story/Plot/Characters— It’s a Universal movie, so the acting is good, the script is coherent, the pacing is brisk. It’s not that the film isn’t well-made. It’s that it all seems so pointless. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, and every time there’s a chance to try something new, the script yanks us back to the same old cliches that may have been thrilling in the first movie, but by now are too well-worn to be entertaining.

I was getting excited when Ygor and the Monster left village Frankenstein and headed out into the countryside. A road movie with Ygor and the Monster, what a brilliant idea! Can you imagine how fun a movie like that would be? Think of the adventures they could have! They could encounter a traveling carnival, a doomsday cult, a village of Munchkins, I don’t know. But instead they just go to Visaria, a small, superstitious German town exactly like the one they just left, even to the point of having its own Dr. Frankenstein. Why did they bother leaving in the first place?

Or later, when Ludwig Frankenstein unknowingly transplants Ygor’s brain into the Monster’s body. Now we had the chance for true horror. What diabolical plans would Ygor get up to? Would he take over the whole town, set up a harem, build an army, maybe try to create an empire? But instead, we have the usual defeat of the Monster in a way that I won’t spoil, except to say it’s really lame. (2 points)
Special Effects— By this time, we have seen the monster before, and his make-up is no longer amazing, especially since it’s on Lon Cheney, Jr. (This point is brought home in a flashback from the first movie when we see Boris Karloff as the monster, and it’s clearly not the same person as the current Monster. Why would the producers do this?) We have seen laboratories, and there is nothing new about Ludwig’s compared to his brother’s or father’s. We have seen enraged mobs and burning castles. All done as well the special effects at the time allowed, and all done just as well or better in earlier movies. (.5 points)
Scariness— Perhaps if you’re five years old and have never before seen a Frankenstein movie there are a couple of mildly frightening scenes, but for anybody else, not scary in the least. (O points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— Fog, medieval German towns, dreary castles, and so forth. It’s atmosphere in the service of nothing. (.5 points)
Total=3 points (Avoid)

A serviceable Frankenstein movie that disappointingly, almost resolutely, shows us absolutely nothing new–not characters, settings, or plot developments. Consider how in Bride of Frankenstein, while still following the overall plot template, there were all sorts of novel, weird details, like Dr. Pretorious and the tiny people he keeps in jars, or the freaky Bride herself. Or in Son of Frankenstein, which was overall no great shakes, but at least introduced Ygor and his spooky hornpipe. But there is just no reason to watch this one rather than one of the earlier, better films.