Comments on: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein

by: paulwjm

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:43:01 +0000

Luckily I can manipulate the extent of overscan with my new equipment, James - to be honest I’ve always hated it given the surprisingly large amount of information that tends to be cropped from the image.

“However good his books are they dio a disservice to many of the more obscure films. He gives them 1 star if he has not seen them!”
That’s my main problem with many of the reviews, Rick - to even grade something that one has not seen is pretty ridiculous, however I still value the books as reference guides (that is, the facts they contain rather than the opinions).

by: James Lee

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:19:24 +0000

Yes, Meet The Mummy is meant to be seen in widescreen. Having said that, the overscan on your typical TV can make it look fairly well composed in full frame.

I really dig Jones’ anthologies such as The Mammoth Book of Zombes but I dislike him as a reviewer. It’s especially irritating in the dinosaur book where he keeps bashing non stop-motion forms of special effects as though stop motion was the be-all and end-all of dinosaurs

by: Rick

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:24:24 +0000

However good his books are they dio a disservice to many of the more obscure films. He gives them 1 star if he has not seen them!

by: paulwjm

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:08:46 +0000

…Meet the Mummy was supposed to be screened widescreen then? I wasn’t aware of that - it was made during the era of general changeover in the cinema industry but it seems hard to imagine this in anything other than Academy ratio.

I didn’t often agree with Stephen Jones’s opinions - he often ditches great films with one and a half ‘bats’ or whatever - but I couldn’t knock his research skills! I mean, his guides were certainly both anal and exhaustive (there’s probably a fine line between the two). I really can’t imagine how he dug up some of the information in his Vampire/Frankenstein/Werewolf/Dinosaur books, particularly as they were written well before the days of Google and Wikipedia’s mass popularity.

by: James Lee

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:16:04 +0000

I actually quite enjoyed The Mummy one. A pity the current DVDs are open matted, which dammages the composition and reveals the wires on some effects shots. And the UK DVD has a digital glitch early on in the film, so it’s best to get the US discs for both …Meet Frankenstein and ,,,Meet The Mummy

I remember the Stephen Jones books being ridicously anal. He counted Moby Dick and Jaws as Dinosaur films, and his Essential Monster Movie Guide was actually a checklist of which films the Classic Hollywood monsters feature in - so Doctor Who (1996) gets a mention beause it has a clip from Frankenstein but Godzilla is only worthy of mention if King Kong is in the film

by: paulwjm

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:55:02 +0000

Those were my sentiments for the Meet The Mummy film also, James - I can’t remember if I’ve ever actually seen the J&H film. You’re pretty much spot on about the balance achieved with …Meet Frankenstein. (Cal, I think “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein’s Monster” really is going a bit too far!)

“Stephen Jones insists on using the “Meet Frankenstein” moniker in all of his books”

Aha, I knew I’d seen that somewhere, Rick! I have those Stephen Jones books. I was thinking of mentioning the R1 disc, the one which John comments on, as it does have a few worthwhile extras. I do believe, however, that the transfer wasn’t so hot. The UK release is good only for its inclusion of a complete film as there are no extras otherwise.

by: James Lee

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:31:27 +0000

The actual title is Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein, a bit of a mouthfull! Meet Frankenstein just sucks as a title! And as for the box saying 1949, to make it sillier they credit Charles Bradstreet with playing a mad scientist, where in reality he plays the unknowing assistant to Dracula and the sulty Sandra!

In Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy, the credits give the two leads different names but in the actual films they are called Abbott and Costello!

I think the balance of comedy and monster action is perfect in this film. I was disapointed with the likes of Abbott And Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, where the comedy is generic slapstick, with none of the great interplay Bud and Lou were renowned for, and the horror is basic monster shennaigans.

by: Rick

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:27:02 +0000

Stephen Jones insists on using the “Meet Frankenstein” moniker in all of his books. However, it appears onscreen as A&CMF. The A&C prefix acts as both credit and title. I tend to use the onscreen title, and the year of copyright. The only exception that I can think of is the 1932 Mummy. Copyrighted 1933, but first screened to the public in December 1932. I also prefer Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General over WG; again based on the captions that appear on screen.

by: Cal

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:47:20 +0000

Well, at the risk of sounding like a smartarse, Abbott and Costello’s CHARACTERS don’t meet Frankenstein either :p .

by: John Hodson

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:11:23 +0000

The Universal R1 with commentary did drop out of print for a while, but is now back and readily available.

by: paulwjm

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:33:19 +0000

Thanks for the comments, Cal and Rick. I agree with you about the date, Rick - I’ve amended that to 1948; I actually took 1949 from the DVD packaging copyright notice but it is sometimes difficult to give a correct date with movies as they’re often made one year and released the next and things like that. I prefer to go with the date on the film itself more often than not, hence my agreement with your point. As for the title, something in me could have sworn that it was officially known as “Meet…” but had become unofficially acknowledged as “A&B Meet…”, however I’ve scoured through a few reference books and can find no evidence to support that theory, so I must concede defeat and change the title! I honestly don’t like the idea of calling it “A&B Meet…” because they don’t actually play themselves in the film but I give in - I’m amending it!

by: Rick

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:49:37 +0000

Thanks for the great review. I bought the now out of print Universal DVD with the Gregory Mank commentary and documentary on A&C versus the monsters. Well worth tracking down. By the way; the onscreen title is “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein”, and the copyright on the print is 1948.