FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF-MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 411, 9 May 1947, Page 12

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF-MAN

(Universal)

‘| BIS ‘just isn’t worth taking seriously-and I was glad to notice that the audience didn’t. From the initial

appearance of the Wolf-Man in a Welsh graveyard to the finale in which the "Titans of Terror clash in mortal combat" (vide advyts.); they

greeted this insult to the intelligence with the good-natured contempt which it deserves. They laughed instead of shuddering whenever Lon Chaney turned into a wolf before their very eyes and sliced a few jugulars; they hooted with joy when Frankenstcin’s Monster (just a hulk of his former self) turned up among the ruins and greeted Wolfie like a long-lost brother; and they were properly derisive about the scientific goings-on in the cellar. But what really warmed my heart was the reaction of some members of the audience to the sight of the heroine in a revealing nightdress; they saluted her in a way which suggested that they must themselves be changing into wolves before our very ears. On the other hand, it was distressing to me to encounter in a film of this type such once-famous and talented players as Lionel Atwill. Ilona Massey and, especially, that grand old artist, Maria Ouspenskaya. Surely they have deserved better of Hollywood than to be superannuated among the Shades, the Spooks, and the Monsters in this lowest category of cinema entertainment. What a fate for an actress like Maria Ouspenskaya! I am not so concerned, however, about Lon Chaney, the everlasting Wolf-Man, though even he once gave promise (in Of Mice and Men) of being a good actor and not just a nightmare. Like the character he portrays, Lon Chaney seems condemned by his father’s name to play the monster for evermore, but probably manages to make a_ good enough living out of sprouting whiskers and tusks whenever the moon is full.