ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN

Original Title: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Director: Charles Barton

Writer: Frederic I. Rinaldo

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040068/

Cinemageddon Link: Deleted; deemed unsafe.

Genre: Comedy / Horror

This one's easily the best of the comic duo. First off, we have some pretty familiar characters reprising their most famous roles. Bela Lugosi dons his black cape for the last time (Dracula), Lon Chaney, Jr is still the cursed, hairy one (Lawrence Talbot, The Wolf Man) and Glenn Strange walks stiff legged again as old flat head himself (Frankenstein's Monster).

Abbott & Costello have some fine comedy bits as baggage handlers who “bite off more than they can chew” when they inadvertently become delivery boys for Dracula and the Frankenstein's Monster (for a wax museum). Of course, the joke's on them when they turn out to be real instead of Mme. Tussauds wannabes. Dracula, and a female doctor accomplice, are in want of Costello's brain for a transplant into his Frankenstein Monster's head (thus giving him a much more controllable monster). Things go wrong for our conspirators when Talbot shows up knowing all of their secrets (and harboring his own furry one to boot).

Lugosi gives one of his best (and last great) performances and the comedic duo are funnier than anything prior. The finale with Dracula and The Wolf Man battling one another (and Abbott and Costello thrown in with “Frankie”) is simply the most fun classic horror lovers could ever have.

If you have kids (or simply love great comedy and classic horror), don't miss this wonderful time with some of the most memorable horror icons of film history.

Charlie.