Ygor: “The lightning. It is good for you! Your father was Frankenstein, but your mother was the lightning!”
After three ultra successful films, the Frankenstein franchise was met with the task of replacing its key piece in Boris Karloff. . . who had a scheduling conflict and chose Arsenic and Old Lace (the play that would turn into the iconic movie just two years later) over another sequel – of which he was tiring of doing. Deciding upon another one of their monster masters as a replacement, Lon Chaney Jr. took up the mantle and became the Monster in The Ghost of Frankenstein (celebrating its 80th anniversary this 2022).
Though this is where a dip in creativity, nuance, and horror is noticed, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t a lot of fun. Taking place almost immediately after 1939’s Son of Frankenstein, director Erle C. Kenton reintroduces us to poor Ygor (Bela Lugosi), who was riddled with bullets and suffered a broken neck. . . but he simply won’t die. Now, he just sits patiently by the sulfur pits that have swallowed up his only friend, the Frankenstein Monster (Chaney Jr.).
This mucky result is not good enough for the villagers though, and they decide that they must blow up the castle to rid all memory of the horrors of the evil doctor and his deadly creation. Instead of achieving their goal, they release the giant from what was his entrapped resting place, allowing the pair to flee to some safety in the countryside.
With Ygor spouting questionable lines about how sulfur and lighting are so good for his friend (see the quotation that opened the review), this is the type of silly fun that should be expected. Deciding that the best course of action is to track down the second son of the maniacal doctor, Ludwig (Cedric Hardwicke), Ygor hopes that he will be able to rejuvenate the weakened Monster.
Instead, what they find is a village (much like the last one) that immediately despises them. . . outside of the cutest young girl you’ll ever see (Janet Ann Gallow) – who forms a warm bond with the Monster – even after he swats two people to their death who get in the way of him trying to return her lost ball.
With the town desperate for help, they turn to Ludwig – who runs a place for the mentally insane. Forced to come face to face with the torturous family legacy that has long haunted him, he attempts to hide it from his daughter, Elsa (Evelyn Ankers), and his future prosecutor son-in-law, Erik Ernst (Ralph Bellamy), while looking to correct things by replacing the Monster’s brain with a new one from someone known for their intellect and scientific prowess.
Of course, Ygor has other ideas. . . hoping that he can unify with his best friend – becoming the Monster himself. Will Ludwig be able to right the wrongs of his family name? Could the manipulative Ygor use Ludwig’s associate, the demoted Doctor Theodore Bohmer (Lionel Atwill), for his own sordid plans? Might the Monster have his own twisted idea?
Pieced together from several writers, it is almost immediately noticeable that they are not working with a crisp, flowing script. The dialogue can be rather weak, mostly saved by strong performances from an outstanding all-star cast. Though Chaney could never replace Karloff, he still has a certain pathos, especially in his scenes with the young girl. His size was also a big bonus. Standing six three and weighing two twenty, once donned up, he lumbered in at six nine, two eighty-four. And Kenton didn’t miss any opportunity to demonstrate this – the camera often angled up at him, Chaney would have to crouch under doors and could even touch the ceiling of many of the dungeon passageways. . . in perfect juxtaposition to everyone, including the sloped, even hunched Ygor. It is also worth noting that Dwight Frye (the original Renfield in Dracula and Fritz in Frankenstein) has a cameo as one of the castle destroying villagers at the beginning of the film (he is also shown in flashbacks of the original movie).
A fun, frivolous sequel to the three Karloff led classics, The Ghost of Frankenstein might be more inadvertently funny than it is scary, but that’s part of its charm. Featuring a stellar cast, solid direction, and iconic characters, it might lumber along a bit, but it always stays on its size twenty feet. Lastly, it is also worth noting that the ghost mentioned in the title is the original Doctor Frankenstein (played by Hardwicke as well – as Colin Clive had died five years previously at the young age of thirty-seven) – though it is a figment of his son’s imagination and only appears onscreen for less than two minutes. So, don’t wait too Lon to see this Universal monster clash, as the Italians would say, it’s quite Bela – though perhaps that’s the Hungarian spelling.