Эбботт пен Костелло Франкенштейнмен кездеседі

1948 American horror comedy film directed by Charles Barton

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a 1948 American horror comedy film directed by Charles Barton. The film features Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) who has become partners with Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), as Dracula requires a "simple, pliable" brain to reactivate Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange). Dracula discovers that the "ideal" brain belongs to Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) who is wooed by Mornay to the operating table, despite the warnings of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.). The film was developed and began being made against the wishes of Abbott and Costello, with Costello specifically not liking the script. The film was made under difficulty according to director Barton who found Abbott and Costello often absent or not working on the set. On the film's release, it was one of Universal Internationals' biggest films of the year and led to several follow up films involving Abbott and Costello meeting other horror film actors and creatures. The film was well received by trade papers and West Coast American critics on its release but received poor reviews in New York. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry and later placed in at number 56 on the list of the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest American Movies".

Larry Talbot makes an urgent phone call to a railway station in Florida, where Chick Young and Wilbur Grey work as baggage clerks. Talbot tries to warn Wilbur of a shipment due to arrive for "McDougal's House of Horrors". However, before he finishes, the moon rises and Talbot transforms into a werewolf, causing Wilbur to think the call is a prank. Meanwhile, McDougal demands the crates be personally delivered to his wax museum. Chick and Wilbur deliver the crates after hours. They open the first one and find Dracula's coffin. When Chick leaves the room to retrieve the second crate, Wilbur reads the Dracula legend, and the coffin suddenly opens, and Dracula sneaks out. Wilbur is so frightened he can barely articulate his call for help. When Chick returns, he refuses to believe the story. The boys open the second crate, and Chick goes to greet McDougal. Dracula hypnotizes Wilbur, finds Frankenstein's Monster in the second crate, and reanimates him. Both leave, and McDougal finds the crates empty and has Wilbur and Chick arrested. That night, Dr. Sandra Mornay welcomes Dracula and the Monster to her island castle. Sandra has seduced Wilbur as part of Dracula's plan to give the monster a more obedient brain. Meanwhile, Wilbur and Chick are bailed out of jail by Joan Raymond, an undercover insurance investigator who feigns love for Wilbur, hoping to gain information. Wilbur invites Joan to a masquerade ball that evening. Talbot takes the apartment across the hall from Wilbur and Chick and asks them to help him find and destroy Dracula and the Monster. Wilbur agrees, but Chick remains skeptical. Wilbur, Chick and Joan go to Sandra's castle to pick her up for the ball. Wilbur answers a telephone call from Talbot, who informs them that they are in fact in the "House of Dracula". Wilbur reluctantly agrees to search the castle and soon stumbles upon a basement staircase, where he has a few close encounters with the monsters. Meanwhile, Joan discovers Dr. Frankenstein's notebook in Sandra's desk, and Sandra finds an Insurance Investigator ID in Joan's purse. Dracula, under the alias of Dr. Lajos, introduces himself to Joan and the boys. Also working at the castle and attending the ball is the naïve Professor Stevens, who questions some of the specialized equipment that has arrived. After Wilbur says that he was in the basement, Sandra feigns a headache and tells the others to attend the ball without her. In private, Sandra admits to Dracula that she feels they are not safe to conduct the experiment. Dracula then turns her into a vampire. At the masquerade ball, Talbot accuses Lajos of being Dracula, but no one takes him seriously. Joan soon disappears. Sandra lures Wilbur into the woods and attempts to bite him, but fails. While looking for Joan, Talbot becomes the Wolfman and attacks McDougal. Since Chick's costume is a wolf, McDougal accuses Chick, who escapes and witnesses Dracula hypnotizing Wilbur. Chick is also hypnotized and rendered helpless, while Dracula and Sandra bring Wilbur, Stevens, and Joan back to the castle. The next morning, Chick and Talbot meet up in the bayou and set out to rescue Wilbur and Joan. Wilbur is quickly freed, but Dracula uses hypnotism to call him back. As Sandra prepares to cut into Wilbur's brain, Talbot and Chick burst in. Chick knocks out Sandra with a chair, and Talbot tries to free Wilbur but turns into the Wolfman again. Frankenstein's Monster breaks free of his bonds—Sandra tries to control him, but he throws her out the window. After a chase through the house between Chick, Wilbur and the Monster and a face off between Dracula and The Wolf Man, Dracula transforms into a bat but is pounced on by the Wolfman, who drags the two of them to their deaths. Chick and Wilbur escape in boats; while Joan and Stevens set the pier ablaze while the Monster is standing on it, and he dies in the flames. Wilbur scolds Chick for his earlier skepticism, and Chick remarks they have nothing to fear now. The Invisible Man addresses them from the boat's thwart, and they flee the boat in terror.

On the film's release on Laserdisc, Douglas Pratt, author of The Laser Video Disc Companion described the disc as "highly sought after" as only a few hundred copies were issued (MCA DiscoVision label release among the first videodisc titles produced in 1978). It was reissued as an Encore Edition afterwards. It was first released on DVD on August 29, 2000, and was re released several times as part of different Abbott and Costello collections, The Best of Abbott and Costello Volume Three, on August 3, 2004, on October 28, 2008, as part of Abbott and Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection, and in 2015 in the Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters Collection. The film's Blu ray debut and DVD re release was on September 4, 2012, as part of Universal's 100th Anniversary series. It was also included in Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection (2014) along with seven other Universal Frankenstein films. Because this film includes characters and people featured in their own collections, it is part of the legacy collections of "Frankenstein", "Dracula", "The Wolf Man", and "The Best of Abbott and Costello".

From contemporary reviews, trade papers praised the film. A review in The Hollywood Reporter proclaimed it as a "crazy giddy show" noting that "Robert Arthur's production spells out showmanship right down the line, and Charles T. Barton's direction keeps things moving at a lively, vigorous pace". Variety echoed this praise, stating that Arthur and Barton "can chalk it up as one of the best for [Abbott and Costello]". The Los Angeles Times critic Philip K. Scheuer praised the film as "put together with enormous ingenuity. Its comic inventiveness seldom falters, yet it never seriously violates the tradition of the three celebrated creatures who are its antagonists". The review continued to be positive from other industry press papers, including Film Daily, Daily Variety, Harrison's Reports, and Motion Picture Daily. On the film's release in New York City's Lowe's Criterion Theatre, the film predominantly received negative reviews from the Manhattan critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that he found the idea of the film amusing but ultimately found the film to be an "assembly line comedy". The New York Sun found the story was a "grand idea, but it was too bad that it could have been attended by persons capable of satire rather than pie throwing comedy only". A review from New York World Telegram warned audiences that if they did not have the palette for Abbott and Costello's comedy the film would be a "painful experience". The negative response to the film in New York made a review in The Hollywood Reporter refer to the New York critics as "the "BOO geymen of Broadway". One positive mention in New York came from the New York Star, which declared that "it's heart warming to see all our favorite monsters once more, each inexorably expressing his individuality, all at the same time. It's kind of like a class reunion. They look a little older now, and a little tired. Dracula seems to creak a bit with arthritis as he emerges from his coffin these days, but his bite has lost some of its depth". From retrospective reviews, Carlos Clarens wrote about the monster rally films, such as House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula, in his book An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967) summarizing that "the sole charm of these films resides in the very proficient contract players that populated them", but by the time of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was released, the film's "unconscious parody finally gave way to deliberate spoof" and, at this point, "Universal was flogging a dead horse". A later review from Kim Newman writing for Empire described it as not one of Abbott and Costello's better films, finding they do a lot of "whining and slapping business". Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader stated similar reactions, noting that Abbott and Costello "never got the hang of the kiddie slapstick Universal assigned to them" and that the film was "probably the last of their watchable films, though it's a long way from their best". On reviewing Abbott and Costello's output at Universal in 2010, Nick Pinkerton in Sight & Sound summarized that the duo's work was an "all or nothing proposition, something you either take or leave" and that described the duo's general reception, finding them "stuck somewhere beneath Laurel and Hardy and just above, say, the Ritz Brothers."

Following the success of the film, Universal International paired Abbott and Costello in similar situations to this film. The first was Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949). This was followed by other films and pairings, including Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), and their last film for Universal: Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). The duo only made one more film, Dance with Me, Henry, which was directed by Barton and made for United Artists. Lon Chaney Jr. did not have positive things to say about the feature, later proclaiming that he "used to enjoy horror films when there was thought and sympathy involved. Then they became comedies. Abbott and Costello ruined the horror films: they made buffoons out of the monsters "

Kim Newman declared that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, unlike that of House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, set a precedent that in films where there are multiple monsters, Dracula will be their leader. This plot element would be replicated in later films such as The Monster Squad (1987), The Creeps (1997), Van Helsing (2004), Hotel Transylvania (2012) and Monster Family (2017). In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, The film is number 56 on the list of the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest American Movies".