Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a 1948 American horror comedy film directed by Charles Barton. The film features Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) who has become partners with Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), as Dracula requires a "simple, pliable" brain to reactivate Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange). Dracula discovers that the "ideal" brain belongs to Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) who is wooed by Mornay to the operating table, despite the warnings of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.).
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein | |
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Directed by | Charles Barton |
Screenplay by |
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Produced by | Robert Arthur |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Charles Van Enger |
Edited by | Frank Gross |
Music by | Frank Skinner |
Production companies | Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 82 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $792,270 |
Box office | $3.2 million |
The film was developed and began being made against the wishes of Abbott and Costello, with Costello specifically not liking the script. The film was made under difficulty according to director Barton who found Abbott and Costello often absent or not working on the set. On the film's release, it was one of Universal-Internationals' biggest films of the year and led to several follow-up films involving Abbott and Costello meeting other horror film actors and creatures. The film was well received by trade papers and West Coast American critics on its release but received poor reviews in New York. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry and later placed in at number 56 on the list of the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest American Movies".