Slab Happy

By bolt lightning the giant's enabled
This most frightening science is fabled
Though poor Larry is known
For how hairy he's grown
Both their might by some guy has been tabled.

Lon Chaney Jr and Béla Lugosi star as the Wolf Man the Monster, with lesser lights Ilona Massey as Baroness Frankenstein, and Patric Knowles as Dr. Mannering, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). So long, Meets, here comes House of Frankenstein (1944). Title by happy-go-lucky David Cairns.

Line Break Time

I've grown cranky, my head has an ache
Mind a blank, I'll drop dead with no break
By strange monsters compounded
Put upon and surrounded
How much Franken-Wolf dread can I take?



Lon Chaney Jr and Béla Lugosi struggle through Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943).

We're taking a short breather. Rest assured that we'll be back soon to continue our chronological exhumation and dissection of the Universal Frankenstein series.

Watery Grave Misdemeanor

He was dead for a spell, then revived
Of a head that works well was deprived
Though deep waters deter him
And they ought to inter him
This incredible fellow survived.

At the end of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the monster was engulfed in a flooding castle, and he must be thawed (again) in the next film in the series, House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944): Boris Karloff is vengeance driven Dr. Gustav Niemann (center), J. Carrol Naish is the romantic hunchback Daniel (right), and Glenn Strange is the slumbering Monster. We will visit House when we return. Title by water boy David Cairns.

Bleak Preview

The edit was not very kind
Never said that the monster was blind
So Lugosi looked daft
And at shows people laughed
Misled he was out of his mind.

Surly Hack and David Cairns

Béla Lugosi plays The Monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943).

Vision Quest-ion?

Has old Frankie impaired, blurry vision?
He stares blankly since surgeon's incision
Creature's storming about
Reaching gormlessly out
Cause he can't bear incurring collision.

David Cairns

The Monster's arms-stretched stagger was the result of blindness, a condition left unexplained in the final edit; Béla Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

Splash of the Titans

This fear feature's no thrill double-threat
Their big "meet" just a chill tête-à-tête
The pair barely engage
In a scary rampage
And they're beat when a spill gets them wet.

The Monster and the Wolf Man (Béla Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr) are washed away by a dam bursting in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943).

Strange Bad Fellows

It's a scare-fest to pique curiosity
But it's bare of technique and ferocity
With no battle balletic
It's just flat and pathetic
When they pair a furred freak and monstrosity.

Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) and the Monster (Béla Lugosi) watch the pyrotechnics in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). It isn't strange at all that this was titled by David Cairns.

Chortle Combat

Their big battle royale is a dud
Mad as hatters, they fail to draw blood
It's no duel to the death
With the duo's last breath
More a spat where they flail, then a flood.

The Monster (Béla Lugosi) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr) knock over the lab equipment in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

Street Fright

With a shriek, boys and goils start to run
A big freak comes and spoils all the fun
As he lumbers about
Townsfolk stumble and shout,
"That unspeakable son of a Hun!"


The Monster (Béla Lugosi) interrupts the Festival of the New Wine in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943).

Grisliness as Usual

There's Talbot's per usual frown
Monster ailing, reduced to a clown
It's a shambles, the worst
But the dam someone's burst
And the fallible twosome should drown.


Béla Lugosi is the Monster, and Lon Chaney Jr is the Wolf Man, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943). Rex Evans is Vaszec, the villager who plants the dynamite. As usual, the title is by David Cairns.

The Life Without Soul of the Party

Someone sings and he fears he's upstaged
The song rings in his ears -- he's enraged!
Interrupt him, dear sir,
He'll erupt and grow fur,
Like a thing which should clearly be caged.

In what has to be the most unintentionally funny moment in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) goes ballistic and grabs the festival singer (Adia Kuznetzoff). Title by party animal David Cairns.

Early to Dead, Early to Rise

Lid pulled off, and the garlic displaced,
Larry's coffin two varlets defaced
When the moon filters in
Fur will soon cover skin,
And with paw and a snarl they're embraced.


Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) reaches for a duo of grave robbers (Tom Stevenson and Cyril Delevanti) in the moody opening sequence of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Roy William Neill; 1943).

Sequel Rites

They're a motley and menacing pair
Misbegotten, they're sentenced to scare
But there isn't the room
In one script, I assume
For both monsters to get a fair share.



With Lon Chaney Jr's Wolf Man the star of the show, the Monster and Béla Lugosi get short shrift in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Title by rite-minded David Cairns.