{"id":14076,"date":"2015-12-14T20:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T00:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=14076"},"modified":"2020-08-11T18:40:54","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T22:40:54","slug":"z-view-house-of-frankenstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=14076","title":{"rendered":"Z-View: “House of Frankenstein”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

House of Frankenstein<\/strong> (1944)<\/p>\n

Director: Erle C. Kenton<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writers: Edward T. Lowe Jr.<\/strong> from a story by Curt Siodmak<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring: Boris Karloff;  Lon Chaney, Jr.; J. Carroll Naish;<\/strong> and John Carradine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Pitch: \u201cLet\u2019s make a movie with all three of our biggest stars: Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tagline: <\/strong>\u201cAll the Screen’s Titans of Terror – Together in the Greatest of All SCREEN SENSATIONS!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers\u2026<\/p>\n

Although House of Frankenstein<\/em><\/strong> promises Frankenstein, Dracula<\/strong> and the Wolf Man<\/strong> together; the promise is kept but not to the fullest extent.  While Frankenstein<\/strong> and Karloff<\/strong> are in the film, Karloff <\/strong>doesn\u2019t play the monster.  Dracula<\/strong> also stars, but isn\u2019t played by Bela Lugosi<\/strong> [who isn\u2019t even in the film], but instead by John Carradine<\/strong>.  Happily, Lon Chaney, Jr.<\/strong> does return as the Wolf Man<\/strong>, but sadly never shares any scenes with Dracula<\/strong>.  Neither does Frankenstein<\/strong> for that matter.<\/p>\n

Still, we do get one movie with the three biggest classic Universal monsters<\/strong> and that goes a long way in satisfying monster fans of all ages.<\/p>\n

Karloff<\/strong> plays the mad scientist Dr. Niemann<\/strong> who with the help of his hunchbacked <\/strong>assistant [Naish<\/strong>] escapes prison and heads toward Frankenstein\u2019s<\/strong> old stomping grounds to continue his work.  Along the way they encounter a traveling horror show that claims to have the skeletal remains of Dracula<\/strong>.  Seizing the opportunity [and the road show owner\u2019s neck], Karloff<\/strong> has his assistant kill the road show\u2019s owner so that Karloff<\/strong> can assume his identity and they can travel freely through the countryside.<\/p>\n

Before too long they\u2019ve revived Dracula<\/strong> and after a near capture by angry villagers, Karloff <\/strong>and Naish<\/strong> make their escape into the rising sun.  I\u2019ll leave it to you to figure out Dracula\u2019s<\/strong> fate.<\/p>\n

Soon enough they find the frozen remains of Frankenstein<\/strong> and the Wolf Man<\/strong>.  Once the two monsters are thawed out we\u2019re left with a battle royal of sorts.  The hunchback<\/strong> wants his brain put in Chaney\u2019s<\/strong> body (so he can woo a gypsy girl).  Karloff <\/strong>isn\u2019t too keen on that idea, not because he doesn\u2019t want a little hunchbacked werewolf<\/strong> running around, but because he has other plans for both the Frankenstein Monster<\/strong> and the Wolf Man<\/strong>.  Of course the village townsfolk come up with their own ideas on what to do with the whole monstrous crew and things really, uh, heat up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House of Frankenstein (1944) Director: Erle C. Kenton Writers: Edward T. Lowe Jr. from a story by Curt Siodmak Starring:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,53,54,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-horror","category-movies","category-z-view","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14076"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24357,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14076\/revisions\/24357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}