Welcome to Zombie Strains, the podcast where we watch every zombie movie ever produced. Yes, all of them. How many is that? The current total is more than 600, and we will try to watch them in order of release date, with a few flash forwards for fun. We look forward to watching zombie cinema evolve and become what it is today. I'm John, and I'm joined by my co-host Andy and our producer Brad. Join us for this journey to see which of us makes it to the end alive. Hello, producer Brad. Hello, Andy.

Hey, John. Hey, Brad.

Good morning.

I think the lesson for this week is that if we complain enough about something, Brad will give us a good version of the thing we're complaining about. We've been complaining about these horror comedies and how not funny they are. So he is having us watch an actual funny one even if it's not about zombies today.

Yeah.

Although in the film, they do say the living dead.

They do say the living dead. So that brings us to what film are we watching? We are watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. This was an enjoyable movie for me, Andy. Maybe you have a different perspective, but I think I learned a lot about horror comedies from this time, from this movie. Also, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that producer Brad, Abbott and Costello are one of his favorites. So I think that's part of the motivation here. One more thing before we start.

The other motivation was Andy hadn't seen this film.

Andy had not seen it, and I had not seen it in a long time, and I was reminded of it in delightful ways. But the other thing I'll say is, if you're listening to this podcast, and you know producer Brad is a big fan of Abbott and Costello, that means you've been listening a lot and we would appreciate it if you rated us in your podcast app of choice, and if you're not already a subscriber, if you would subscribe, that would really make our day. So having said that, let's get rolling here. Where should we start?

Well, we usually take a minute here to mention any content warnings. I didn't really note anything upsetting or disturbing in this film. Is there anything that I missed, John, that we ought to mention up front?

I don't think so. We don't have any clips on it. It's got some old school sexism, right? It's Abbott and Costello having a conversation about sharing the girls. It's pretty mild, but it's the 1940s. I could see that triggering somebody today, so I just thought I'd throw that out there. But honestly, nothing really.

Okay. Well, then, hey, Brad, I know you've been waiting to do this for quite a while, so take it away, Brad.

Well, I try to make these segments not too long because I want to spend more time discussing the film, but the people involved with this film have a lot of interesting stories. We have Communism and the Red Scare. We have University of Michigan Football. We have True Crime. We have a Kickstarter campaign, and we have errors by the New York Times.

Okay. Wow.

Just a warning, this will take longer than normal. Okay. So Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein opened on June 15th, 1948. The big movies of the year included The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Amlet, which won the best picture, Johnny Belinda, Joan of Arc, and I Remember Mama. There weren't many horror films in 1948. There were three from America, The Amazing Mr. X, The Creeper, and Night has a Thousand Eyes. And there were three British horror films, House of Darkness, The Monkey's Paw, and Night Comes Too Soon. But Abbott and Costello had two other movies released in 1948. The News Hangs High and Mexican Hayride.

I just have a question. I know they had a TV show, but how many Abbott and Costello movies were there? Where does this fall in the timeline?

There were 36, and their first film was 1940, and this is 1948. So I think we're about halfway through.

And this is not your favorite one, though you like this one a lot. Your favorite is Still Follow That Ghost, correct?

Hold That Ghost.

Hold That Ghost, okay. All right, sorry to interrupt.

That's all right. That's a great title for a movie.

Well, if you like this film, you definitely should watch that one. Okay, so the film was directed by Charles Barton. He started his career in the silent era as an actor, but moved behind the camera by 1927. He was the assistant director on the 1927 film Wings, which was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. And then in 1933, he won the first Academy Award for Assistant Director. Seven different people won the award that year, and it looks like there was a winner for each studio. And this award was last given in 1938, so it was a very short-lived award, and kind of doesn't seem like it's in line with the other awards they give out.

I do have one random piece of trivia about the first Academy Awards.

Uh-oh, okay.

It was at dinner, and everyone was invited. The presenter and MC was Douglas Fairbanks. He presented all the awards, and it took about 20 minutes.

Is that a comment or a criticism?

A little of both.

So in 1941, Barton directed a movie called Harmon of Michigan, which starred University of Michigan football star and 1940 Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon. Tom Harmon is also the father of Mark Harmon, who started NCIS.

Go Blue.

Carry on.

Barton directed nine Abbott & Costello movies. He also directed Disney's The Shaggy Dog. And if you watched any syndicated television in the 70s, you saw his work as director of 106 episodes of Family Affair and 90 episodes of Dennis the Menace. We're building this guy as a good comedy director.

Yeah, I agree.

The script started off titled The Brain of Frankenstein. Five different writers were involved in writing the screenplay. Oscar Brodny, Bertram Milhauser, Robert Lees, Frederick Rinaldi and John Grant. The first pass was by Brodny. The second pass was by Milhauser. Neither received official credit. The credited writers are Robert Lees, Frederick Rinaldi and John Grant. Lees and Rinaldi are best known for writing seven Abbott & Costello movies, including, as you mentioned John, my favorite, Hold That Ghost. By the 1950s, both were caught up in the Red Scare and were named by actor Sterling Hayden as communist. Robert Lees was summoned to Washington to appear before the House on American Activities Committee. During questioning, he was asked to denounce his writing partner by name. I'll read directly from an account by Lees' cousin of what happened. The committee asked, do you know Rinaldo? Lees responded, who? Your partner. I know my partner, yes. His name is, I believe that is public information, sir. And his name, the one next to mine on the script. So, at the committee, he basically did an Abbott & Costello routine.

That's awesome. You're taking a risk here, unleashing Andy and I on the Red Square and Congressional hearings, but we're going to let it pass and let you continue.

One of the reasons I brought this up is because this is 1948 and it only intensifies after this. And we're going to see how that affects zombie movies and the fear in the country.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it was bigger than anybody really thinks today, but anyway.

Both writers were blackballed. Lees continued to write under aliases, but his career was never the same. And one of his last credits was to write an episode of the new Scooby and Scrappy Doo show in 1983.

Wow.

And I thought that kind of tied back into all of our discussions on how these films are very Scooby Doo.

Yeah, totally.

Yes. This one included.

Robert Lees died in 2004 in a horrific murder. A homeless man broke into his house and decapitated him.

Goodness.

The killer went next door and killed the neighbor, and the killer was caught the next day and was convicted and is serving two life sentences.

Wow.

Renardl didn't have any credits after 1952, and there isn't a Wikipedia page for him, so it would appear blacklisting ended his career. He died in 1992. Now, John Grant, the third writer, he knew Abbott and Costello before they were a team, and he is the one who suggested they team up. He became their head writer and wrote material for them for radio and film. He would add gags and jokes to the scripts that they were appearing in. During the Red Scare, Costello wanted all his employees to sign loyalty oaths. Grant refused and was fired, but when subsequent scripts weren't as funny, he was then rehired.

Interesting.

Now, Frank Skinner scored the movie. He has over 600 credits as a composer or stock music composer. He also has five Academy Award nominations. And I looked to see if the soundtrack is available to listen to, and it's not. However, last summer in 2024, there was a Kickstarter that raised money to record the score with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Wow.

And in March of 2025, the backers started to receive their digital and CD copies of this recording.

Wow. Looking at these credits, I think we're also moving to a time where we still have a couple people in these credits that were born in the 1800s. And I think we've only got a couple movies left where that's the case.

So now let's talk about the cast. Abbott and Costello met in the early 1930s. At that time, Costello was working as a comic at Burlesque Theaters, and Abbott was producing and performing as a straight man. They didn't start working together until 1936. In 1938, they became regulars on the Kate Smith Hour, which was one of the top rated radio shows. In 1940, they appeared in their first movie, One Night in the Tropics. They weren't the stars of the film, but Universal noticed their performance and signed them to a two-picture deal. Their first film, Buck Privates, was a big hit, earning $10 million on a budget of $180,000.

Wow.

They made 36 movies together between 1940 and 1956. They were the number one box office stars of 1942. They were top 10 stars eight times between 1941 and 1952. They made $100,000 per movie and $20,000 per week for their radio show, which is a lot of money back then.

That is a lot of money.

And as a sign of their popularity, in 1942, they did a month-long tour selling war bonds and raised $85 million.

Wow. That's a lot of money.

They split up in 1957 and Costello died two years later in 1959. And Abbott died in 1974. Lon Chaney Jr., who plays the wolfman Lawrence Talbot, is the son of Lon Chaney, the silent movie star known as the Man of a Thousand Faces. Some of Lon Chaney Sr.'s famous roles were The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Have you ever seen the picture of him as The Phantom?

I have. And I guess I didn't know, since Lon Chaney later uses just Lon Chaney, I honestly didn't know the distinction. I feel like a dummy.

Well, what happened was Lon Chaney Jr. didn't start acting until after his father's death and he started under his given name Creighton Chaney. But by 1935, the studios wanted to bill him as Lon Chaney Jr. And then in the 40s, Universal dropped the junior and he was only Lon Chaney, including on this film, the poster says Lon Chaney and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Yeah, I was confused and now I get it.

That was intent of the studio. His first major role was as Lenny in the 1939 film adaptation of Mice and Men.

I saw that. I thought that was a different role for the guy who plays the Wolfman.

And in 1941, he starred for the first time as Larry Talbot in The Wolfman. And later he did supporting roles in the 50s and a few Roger Corman movies in the 60s and he died in 1973. Bela Lugosi plays Dracula. This is Lugosi's fourth appearance in our podcast and we saw him in White Zombie, Bowery at Midnight and Voodoo Man. This was Lugosi's last big budget A film. After this, he appeared in only low budget B movies. And here's a fun fact. Lugosi only played Dracula twice. Once in the original 1931 Dracula and then in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Interesting.

He did play vampires in two other films, but as Dracula only twice.

Interesting, because we have seen all these movies and they keep dressing him up like Dracula. You know, there's a lot of tuxedos and white ties and stuff. So I find that shocking, but interesting.

Glenn Strange plays the monster. He was a six foot four inch actor and he played the monster three times on film. The other two films are House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. He was in over 300 movies and TV shows. Aside from the monster, he is best remembered as the bartender Sam Noonan in 200 episodes of Gunsmoke. When Boris Karloff died in 1969, the New York Times ran a photo of the Frankenstein monster with the obit, but the photo wasn't of Karloff, it was of Strange.

I was going to ask, A, why couldn't they get Boris Karloff? B, did he care? And C, now I want to know how many times he played Frankenstein, but that's another story.

A, I think they were interested in getting him to do it. B, he was not interested because he did care. He loved the character a lot. He didn't want to do anything that made the character a comedy.

Okay.

I'm stuck on 200 episodes of Gunsmoke. How many?

It was on for 20 plus years.

It was on for 25 years.

By like year 23, how do you think the plots are doing on Gunsmoke?

I think they're the same and nobody minds. Literally, it was a soap opera but a Western. I've heard actors talk about being on Gunsmoke. When you would get on Gunsmoke, you would sign a deal for a season. You would have to appear twice as different characters. It's how they controlled their budget. It was like a machine for 20 years.

Well, stay tuned for our next podcast where we watch every episode of Gunsmoke.

There are more than 200.

As soon as we finish this one.

Strange only did 200. He died in production, so it carried on without him.

That would be about 400 episodes. I'd have to do the math, but at least, because it's 20 times 20.

Somewhere in that range.

For each season. Yeah, so it's 5 or 600.

So the old bit ran in 69 with the wrong photo, and in 87, they ran the photo again with the wrong credit, as Karloff would have was strange. And again, the same reader wrote in to say, hey, you guys made the mistake 20 is a part, can't you get it right?

Amazing.

And there's an article online where the York Times admitted it, and so you can read about that. I'll put it in the show notes.

Can I just comment that that person who wrote that same letter twice is the kind of person we're looking for, is a listener.

Let's hope she's still alive.

Please, I hope.

Lenore Arbaer plays Dr. Sandra Mornay. She was also in Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. And spoilers for the film, Vincent Price plays the Invisible Man. This is his second time playing the Invisible Man. The first was in 1940 in the film, The Invisible Man Returns, the sequel to the original 1933 movie starring Claude Rains. Most people know Price today for the narration to Michael Jackson's thriller. Maybe not people listen to this podcast, but the culture at large. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein was a hit. Box Office Mojo lists the earnings at $4.8 million on a $680,000 budget. That all reminds you again that it's hard to find accurate box office figures for this era. As an example, The Numbers, another site that tracks box office results, doesn't even have Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein in their database. Universal heavily promoted the film, including sending out Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange to make appearances in their monster costumes. And they paid Boris Karloff to be photographed standing in front of an Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein poster at a New York theater and pointing at the monster. This movie had more promotional support than any of the other movies we have seen. It was also added to the National Registry of Films in 2001, which means it was deemed culturally, historically and aesthetically significant. And this is the first film we've watched that's included on the registry.

Interesting. So Owanga, the UCLA film department considered it all of those things, but not the National Registry.

I'm going to double check right now.

OK. Because I remember UCLA added it to their archive because it was like they considered it significant, but that could be a different thing.

Yeah, it's not showing up.

OK. Interesting. So I'm fascinated by this for a number of reasons. Wow.

OK. So hey, before we get into our discussion, John, let's take a second and talk about what was going on in the world in 1948 when this movie came out. A lot was happening. We've already mentioned that the Red Scare was underway. I think this is the year of the Berlin Airlift, the House Un-American Activities Committee broadcast live on TV this year.

Led by, this is somebody we will probably talk about a lot over the next few movies, Joe McCarthy.

Indeed.

Has an interesting history, which we will not get into because we're not a history podcast.

Well, yeah, we've already heard how that influenced a lot of the people involved with this film, which is that's fascinating stuff to me.

I will add that it's not for lack of trying to make this a history film. Thank you.

Fair enough.

Yeah. Gandhi was assassinated this year and President Truman won a surprise election against Dewey and also signed the Marshall Plan. I think the big picture here is the Cold War is really getting underway this year.

Yeah. One trivia on the trivia. Some newspapers actually printed headlines that said Dewey defeats Truman, and had to retract them and reprint their papers.

Yes. Hey, I know that we all want to jump into this movie, but while we have an expert on Abbott and Costello, Brad, I'm hoping you can answer a couple of general questions for me, because I'm really pretty new to Abbott and Costello. I was wondering, could you explain their relationship, maybe timeline-wise and influence-wise to some of the other big acts like this? Like I think Laurel and Hardy in The Three Stooges. Are these all part of the same comedy tradition? Are they all coexisting?

Laurel and Hardy were before them. I don't know if it's in the 20s or the 30s. When you say I'm an expert, I would say I'm a lover of Abbott and Costello.

I would say he's an enthusiast.

While watching this film, I realize I've watched them over and over and over, but I've never taken the time to go digging into them. So it was kind of fun to do some research. The Three Stooges did mostly shorts. I don't know that they did full features like Abbott and Costello. So I think that's the difference between the two.

Is this vaudeville? Is that the type of comedy that this is or is this something different?

They started off in burlesque theaters, which had strippers and other things going on. So they were that kind of live entertainment. Vaudeville, my understanding is it was a little more family friendly, that it was more like variety and it obviously didn't have the women dancers present.

And I guess my other good question was, is there a term for this sort of a straight man goofy sidekick type of comedy? And when was this the heyday of that sort of comedy routine?

Well, I know Laurel and Hardy, I mean, isn't one of their taglines another fine mess you got me into. So they have a straight man and a sidekick. So I think that I don't know the history of comedy to know. I think in my mind from watching these every Sunday morning as a kid, these are the prototypes, but clearly there's always a first before everything you think of. So there were people before them who did this, but they were so successful in the 40s that for a lot of people, they were the comedy team that you watched.

They defined it. You know what this got me thinking about, and I just want to make one more point and then we'll get into the movie, is comedy teams or comedy duos? They're one of the most famous ones. And I was trying to think of ones today or through time, because there certainly are. The only one I could think of today that I think is significant that people would recognize as a duo was Tina Fey and Amy Proler. Like they do award shows together. They've done movies together. I think they're on a comedy tour right now together. And there had been like other ones.

David Spade, Chris Farley did several movies.

Yeah, I would consider them a comedy duo.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. And yes.

Oh, interesting. So yeah, there are some. And so I'm just curious about the sort of evolution. They seem to be less long lived than in old times, but also nobody's making 36 movies in 10 years. So, you know, that's another difference, I think.

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing, John. I mean, obviously there are some great comic to us out there, but at some point it seems like the focus kind of shifted on to individual comics, right?

Yeah.

And you don't have, yeah, you just don't have as many movies where it's a comic team. I mean, I guess I could be wrong. I'm also not an expert.

Well, right after Abbott & Costello, you have Martin & Lewis.

That's true.

So they take over and they become pop box office stars. And so the question is after them, is there anyone who takes a mantle from them? And from the top of my head, I can't think of anyone.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we did watch a movie. That movie is called, just to remind everybody, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. And do you want to do initial thoughts or do you want... Let me summarize the plot of this movie and then we can do initial thoughts and talk about different scenes that we liked. So sort of approaching from the sort of traditional 3-act structure. We first meet, and for people who can visualize Abbott & Costello in their heads, Budd Abbott is the taller straight man. He's not particularly tall, but he's the taller, thinner man. He's the straight man. He's the grumpy one. Lou Costello is the physical comedian, the shorter one. He is the funny man. He's the one who always gets into trouble. So it starts with that, and I think the plot of many of their movies begins with they work together doing some menial job. In this movie, they work together as sort of baggage handlers at a package office. I think it's supposed to be like the post office. Abbott's name is Chick, and Costello's name is Wilbur.

I know you're just doing your summary. This is my first big surprise for this movie. I didn't realize that I thought Abbott and Costello were their fictional character names. Is that weird that their names are in the title of the film, or is that a normal practice?

That's a sign of how big they are as stars. In fact, what I read was the studio chief didn't like the original title, The Brain of Frankenstein, it made him nauseous. And so they thought by putting Abbott and Costello's name at the top would serve two purposes, marketing and it lessened the blow of The Brain of Frankenstein. So it's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Yes. Okay. I propose as a group here, we just refer to them as Abbott and Costello.

Yes. So my notes are just for Abbott and Costello.

So Abbott and Costello start as baggage handlers, and as they're working as baggage handlers, they get a phone call, it's complicated, but there's a man named McDougall who runs McDougall's House of Horrors. Is it McDougall's? I think so.

McDougall, yes.

And he has two crates that are very expensive that he wants to get right away, delivered to his House of Horrors. And he says inside them is the remains of the original Dracula, and the other one has the remains of Frankenstein's monster. So the first act is really them delivering the crates and getting up to hijinks in this warehouse. In the second act, Lon Chaney, who plays Talbot, aka the Wolfman, comes to town and tries to convince Abbott and Costello that these crates, now that they're delivered, pose a great threat because they're going to be unleashed and they have to be stopped. It's the real Dracula, it's the real Frankenstein's monster. And he, as the Wolfman, for some reason, is obsessed with stopping them from being unleashed. So the second act is really about getting, setting up the plot where they try to stop these monsters. There is a character, Sandra, who is sweet on Abbott, but we find, or excuse me, who's sweet on Costello, but we find out that's only because she wants to steal his brain to put in Frankenstein's monster. We are also introduced to Miss Raymond, who is an insurance investigator, who's insuring the loss of these crates, because in the course of act one, Dracula and Frankenstein have escaped. Then the last part of the movie is Costello getting kidnapped multiple times by Dracula and Sandra, and Miss Raymond, who've been mesmerized by Dracula, and them having hijinks and escaping from their clutches.

I really enjoy this one, but if it felt like there were maybe too many characters in this movie, I would agree with you on there. By the time the second femme fatale was introduced, I was like, what is going on here?

I would just add, a question, why are they kidnapping Costello?

I don't know, that's the funniest thing.

Oh, no, no, this is a good one. So they're kidnapping Costello because Dracula wants to revive Frankenstein's monster as a slave under his control. But he doesn't want to repeat Dr. Frankenstein's mistake, which was allowing the monster to have free will and thus the ability to rebel. So he needs a brain that is stupid and simple minded. And so like a running gag through the movie is that everyone, as soon as they meet Costello is like, oh, yes, this will work. This will be perfect.

This will be perfect. Okay. I for some reason thought that they were doing it because they thought it would be a good choice. But now I understand why they wanted it. So first of all, I would like to say every time, I've told multiple people were doing this movie and they're like, wait, is Frankenstein a zombie? And I'm like, no, Frankenstein is a golem. And I think you've created the distinction between golem and zombie right there. When you create a golem, whether it's the golem of Prague or Frankenstein's monster, they have independent action. You sort of unleash them on the world to do whatever and you hope they do whatever you wanted them to do. Zombies, inherent to zombiedom is mindlessness, which though the creature cannot speak, it is not mindless. It does have agency and can do stuff. So I just wanted to say that. Yep, I agree. Okay, so let's get started because I loved the start of this movie. I loved a lot about this movie. Can we just start at the beginning? So they're in this package office and there's multiple hijinks going on. There's a plot point I want to bring in here. But what I love about this and I think the first thing I learned is when we were comparing it to like Zombies on Broadway, the difference between those two guys and these two guys, like I don't want to dismiss Budd Abbott, but Luke Costello is a genuine physical comedic genius. The slapstick and stuff they set up here and execute made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. Am I overstating it?

No, not at all. This opening scene in the mail room or whatever is my favorite in the movie. It has my favorite physical gag as well, and it's all Costello.

I think this is where a lot of people sometimes, I think Jackie Chan has said this, and I don't know if it's his words or somebody else's, but I think it's just like Lou Costello is kind of an inspiration for him. You can see it here. There's a scene where he's standing on top of a 12-foot crate that contains the Frankenstein monster, and it's rocking back and forth, and he rides it down to the ground and just barely escapes. There's a lot of stuff that I sure couldn't even be insured today, risks that Costello takes with stuff dropping on him.

Yeah, there's no way we'll be able to describe all the pratfalls, but it's just unending. That crate bit was my favorite visual gag in the movie. He's standing on top of the crates and they're tilting, but he's remaining upright on them. It's very hard to describe. He's clearly being supported by some device or something, but it looks so weird. And you would never see it in a movie today about somebody stumbling over a bunch of crates. But it's worth just watching the scene, I think.

Yeah.

I would add that when Costello got the script, he didn't want to do it. He didn't think it was that funny. So what's written on the page is not necessarily what we see in the film. A lot of it is just what he does and what the director, what they set up so that shows you how great he is.

So the first gag is this older woman comes wanting a bag and Abbott sends him out to get it and he yanks it out of the pile, and the entire pile collapses on him and he falls down and it's hilarious. Then Abbott walks up and says, get out from under there and get back to work. That's the dynamic of them. Costello does something, is horribly injured, and Abbott's like, what are you doing lying around? So that's a big dynamic. But we do have a plot point in here. One of the character I didn't introduce is Mr. McDougall. Would you like to introduce us to Mr. McDougall, Andy?

Yeah. Mr. McDougall, he owns McDougall's House of Horrors, which is a horror museum that we're going to learn a lot more about shortly. He is this very high strung, impatient, angry guy. He's paid a lot of money to have the remains of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster ship. And so he is furious with Abbott and Costello when he gets to the mail room. Then he basically finds they've been manhandling the crates in comic fashion. And he's so upset that for insurance reasons, he demands that they personally deliver, that they're going to have to personally deliver the crates to the House of Horrors.

And in this, we meet two other characters, Sandra, who is who is both Costello's love interest and actually a mad scientist at the same time. We'll get into that later. But Sandra and McDougall have this conversation that sets up the whole plot of the whole movie.

Do you know what I've got in there, miss?

Haven't the slightest idea.

Just the greatest attraction the House of Horrors ever had, that's all. One of them is a coffin containing the remains of the original Count Dracula, and the other is the body of the Frankenstein monster. Guess that combination is enough to scare the panther. I mean, shirt right off your back, ain't it?

I don't scare easily.

Well, neither do I, where money is concerned. I got them dirt cheap. European agent, pick my name right out of thin air.

Very interesting.

Yeah.

Mr. McDougall.

So yeah, there he sets it up. Like clearly, somebody is plotting to unleash Dracula and Frankenstein's monster on the United States and has tricked this guy McDougall into doing it because he thinks he's just getting the remains.

Yes. During this scene, the Wolfman calls the, tries to call them to warn them not to, he doesn't get his message through because partway through the conversation. John, you want to describe this scene?

Well, the moon comes out and he turns into the Wolfman. And it's actually a very funny exchange where when Costello finally gets to the phone, he has turned into the Wolfman and he's snarling and barking in the background. And Costello is getting more and more irritated with him and starts barking back. It's just very funny. So, I mean, I'm happy to get right to the warehouse because this is actually my favorite set piece of the movie is the bits in this warehouse.

Yeah, you bet. I just have one comment about Costello. And again, this is me not knowing a lot about this type of comedy. But I think these days, we have to some extent lost our appreciation of how funny it is when a good comedian just makes weird noises. And I'm sure we'll get into that later in this film. But a lot of Costello's humor is just making, is whooping and gibbering and just flailing around. And I find it's just genuinely entertaining. And it made me think that that's something we've kind of lost. I think you see it in some modern actors like Jim Carrey. But almost nobody, I can't think of anyone today in movies that is just doing weird frantic noises. Does that make sense?

It does. The one example, the one counter example, and he's not as big as Costello, I will give you is, I think you should leave. Like he is frequently doing bizarre things like closing a door in the wrong direction or shouting at the drive. So I would describe most comedy today in movies as sort of naturalistic situational comedy, right? Like the comedy arises from an awkward situation, you sort of have this dawning realization that it's going to be bad. And that's funny. But it doesn't come from people sort of hamming it up and creating their own comic situations in the way that these movies do. And I agree, like this is really funny. We just don't, some stand-up comics might do this a little bit, you know, but like, but not in movies, not actors in films.

Well, Costello, I think also all of his characters were children in a man's body. Which allows him to make those noises believably too, to the audience.

Yes, I agree. He's very silly all the time and it makes me laugh.

Well, yeah, take us to the House of Horrors warehouse then, John.

So they go, they've got to go to McDougall's House of Horrors. They back up. And I just wanted to highlight one thing right out of the gate. So they back up, they've got a truck with crates in it. Abbott tosses Costello the key and says, open it up. And this is one of my favorite comic bits that Costello does. And he does it not all the time. He sort of saves it for the right moment, but he opens the House of Horrors and lightning flashes. And you get this scene of like all these gruesome reenactments. There's like an executioner with an ax. And there's like a man with a butcher's knife, you know, about to stab his wife and all these terrifying things. And Costello makes this, maybe it's because it's so counter to what he normally does. He makes this face of like sadness and resignation, like here's my lot in life. And it just makes me laugh every time. It's not big. It's actually his probably most subtle joke, but he's just like, oh God. Like, you know, you could see it on his face. And I just think it's hilarious. And obviously he tells Chick Abbott that he's scared. And they have this exchange that sort of sets up the House of Horrors.

Come on, you afraidy cat. These things can't harm you. They're made out of wax. You know, people pay McDougal cash to come in here and get scared. I'm cheating them. I'm getting scared for nothing.

Yeah. So I just want to include that because it's, it's, it's very much like we were saying, like the weird noises and stuff like that shout and everything. And yeah, absolutely. So I don't know if we want to go through it beat by beat because it's very long and protracted. But what happens to poor Costello where he's, well, he's in here. Who does he meet?

Well, he meets Dracula. So yeah, you said long and protracted. And I had the same note about this scene. So there is this extended scene where, for various reasons, Costello is left alone in the room with Dracula's coffin, while Abbott is in a different room. And, and Costello will see something weird, like Dracula will start to open the coffin. And Costello will freak out and call for Abbott to come back in, but when Abbott comes back in, of course, the coffin is closed. It's that routine we've seen already in a number of these movies. They do this gag four times in a row, like where Abbott leaves the room, Dracula starts opening the coffin, Costello screams, Abbott comes running back in and it's... I was just amazed. I was just amazed that they... Then there's a similar version of the scene that happens with Frankenstein's crate. I was just amazed at how much mileage they got out of it. But I was mostly amazed that I was still laughing four times into this gag. What did you think?

I think that's right and I think that's why Abbott and Costello were special. Because if it had been the guys from Zombies on Broadway doing this, we would be sitting here talking about how unfunny and tedious it was. But his ability to do those childish things and act really big and be strange. At one point, he gets hypnotized by Dracula. Well, Dracula is waking up Frankenstein's monster and he's got to pretend to be hypnotized as they escape. It could be really tedious with another actor. Here, it's just really funny. Again, it's all down to Costello being a goofball.

Yeah. Plot-wise, what happens here is basically just that Dracula emerges from this coffin. He revives Frankenstein's monster with a little bit of kind of some sparking bolts and a little bit of mad science. It is funny to me to see. I know this is a comedy. It is unusual to see Dracula in a movie with mad science in it because they don't feel like the same genre.

Right. He is actually a mad scientist to some extent. Later, he is using mad scientist machinery and stuff.

Isn't his alter ego name in this doctor or something?

Yeah. He is a doctor in this movie and I've forgotten his name, but he introduces when he is not Dracula. He does appear as his alter ego and that is as a doctor from Europe. Long story short, after much hijinks, Dracula awakens Frankenstein's monster, escapes. Then Mr. McDougall shows up and calls the police.

Is Frankenstein's monster carrying Dracula's coffin?

Yes. Frankenstein's monster is carrying Dracula's coffin. Then McDougall comes, he shouts some more and they arrest Abbott and Costello. That's the end of the first center act of this movie. We've set up the pieces, Abbott and Costello have been in trouble, Dracula is loose, Frankenstein's monster is loose. Then we get to the next part, which is Dracula going to this castle, where we find out that Costello's love interest, Sandra, is actually the mad scientist who lives in the castle.

This was quite a twist.

Which I thought was funny.

Yes.

Yes. It was quite a twist. What happens is, in part of the plot of this movie, is there's two beautiful women. They both pretend to have affection for Costello, and they both have ulterior motives and they are not really interested in him. One is this mad scientist, Sandra, and the other is a Miss Raymond, who's an insurance investigator.

Yeah. We should talk about Joan Raymond a little bit. Yeah. Running through the rest of the film is McDougall wants to recover the bodies for insurance because they're his property, and so the insurance company has sent Joan Raymond, an investigator, to try and track down the bodies. It's a little confusing to describe, but yeah, like you say, John.

I think the easiest way to say is he wants the insurance money, and the insurance company doesn't want to pay, so they sent an investigator to find out what happened.

Yes.

There you go. Very well. Sandra, secretly the mad scientist, who is working with Dracula, is pretending to love Costello, and Joan Raymond, the insurance investigator, decides that the best way to figure out what Abbott and Costello did with those crates is to pretend to be in love with Costello. There's an awful lot of, this middle section of the movie has an awful lot of shenanigans around the fact that both of these beautiful women profess to be in love with Costello, and many jokes are made about Costello's, how implausible that is.

Yes.

And how frustrated Abbott is that neither one is interested in him.

Yes, correct, correct. But we do get the next part of our plot here. So what happens is Dracula and Frankenstein's monster go to this castle, and apparently Dracula knows Sandra, the mad scientist, and they have this conversation, which tells you what Dracula wants from her.

Restore the monster for me and you shall have anything you wish.

In that case, we better start as soon as possible. It's dangerous to leave you in this weakened condition.

Have you mastered Dr. Frankenstein's notebook?

Let me get my hand on a scalpel again and you shall see.

And about the brain, I don't want to repeat Frankenstein's mistake and revive the vicious unmanageable brute. This time the monster must have no will of his own. No fiendish intellect to oppose his master.

Bear my dear count, I believe I have exceeded your fondest wishes.

So what she's saying there, and I think this is what you're alluding to earlier, is the fondest wishes are she's going to get Costello's brain for him.

Yes. So she's got an accent now here when she's not in her innocent love interest role. Later in the movie, Dracula suggests that she is wanted over in Europe for evil science basically.

Yeah. I'll just move through some plot points here. So Talbot, the Wolfman, arrives in the United States. Talbot apparently has, it's like Andy, if you knew you were going to, let's say you knew you would fall asleep at nine o'clock, every time there was a full moon, you probably wouldn't get in the car, would you? You'd probably stay home, but not Talbot. Talbot, every time Talbot goes anywhere, he's like, the moon is almost out. Lock me in a room. This happens throughout the movie.

Yes. He's very bad at managing his whatever, his illness, his lycanthropy. He is surprised. First of all, I lost all track of time in this movie because a full moon was appearing about every seven minutes in this film. Yeah. It's very funny, but it is pretty funny. Every time something important is going to happen, the full moon appears and Talbot turns into the wolfman.

In this case, the comedy bit they have is, he asks Costello to lock him in a room. They've met, he's like, I don't have time to explain, but lock me in my room and take the key. Costello keeps thinking of dumb reasons to go in there. Oh, he forgot his suitcase. Oh, I stole this apple. I should take it back. There's just all these scenes of the wolfman about to get him and Costello being totally oblivious and escaping. Again, it's just another physical comedy bit. There's almost no dialogue here. It's just like near misses and funny Pratt Falls and that kind of stuff. So, the next morning, they go into Talbot's room, the wolfman's room, and it's trashed and Talbot tells them what happened.

Last night, I went through another of my horrible experiences. Years ago, I was bitten by a werewolf. Ever since when the full moon rises, I turn into a wolf myself.

Oh, pal, that's all right. I'm sort of a wolf myself.

And here I thought that you were the only one that would believe me, that you were the one that knew that I spoke the truth. You have seen the living dead. I came all the way from Europe because Dracula and the monster must be destroyed.

Yes. So there's the other part of our plot. Now, I will say, Andy, we were concerned to think that because it's called Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, that they wouldn't call the monster the monster, but they do.

Yes.

So, you know, just everybody calm down there. They do refer to them as the monster, not as Frankenstein.

Speaking of the title, I mean, they really spend more time interacting with Dracula and the Wolf Band than they do with Frankenstein. So I question the title a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's only because the plot point is to have Costello's brain in Frankenstein. So I think that's why they do it. But yeah, I agree.

So yeah, so the big plot thing that's happening at this point is that there's a masquerade ball coming up that night or the next night. Basically, all of these characters are going to go, but there's a lot of shenanigans because Costello has these two women, and he ends up making a date with both women at the masquerade ball. And there's a lot of milling around in this part of the film that I lost track of what was going on. The gist of all of this is that Abbott and Costello are going to go pick up Sandra from her castle, and then head over to the masquerade ball. But Joan, who is again professing to be in love with Costello so she can find out what happened to the crates, kind of insists on going with them. And Costello winds up having made dates with both women at the ball. So Abbott, Costello, Sandra, and Joan all wind up at Sandra's castle, where of course Dracula is, and then an additional character, John, I don't know if you want to go into him. He's a little bit of a side character, but they all show up at this creepy castle. And for the next segment of the film. You want to take over, John?

Yeah. So there is this actor who plays Dr. Stevens, Charles Bradstreet, which is a name I kind of remember. I don't know if we're going to see him. He doesn't have a ton of credits, but he's basically like the, he's an assistant doctor. I'm not quite sure what he's doing here other than to be like a handsome guy in a movie.

Yeah. He's like Sandra and Dracula have seemed to have kind of hired him to set up to prepare for the Frankenstein brain transfer process. But he doesn't know what he's really doing. It's a little weird. I didn't totally understand why this character was in the film.

The other part that happens here, well, the women go to get their costumes on and they don't say what the costumes are, but they are immediately friends, though of course Sandra wants to get rid of Joan immediately so there's a little tension between them.

There's a neat scene where they just size each other up. It's really funny.

Yeah. They go to get ready in their costumes. Meanwhile, Joan is poking around. She finds Dr. Frankenstein's notes. Sandra is trying to figure out how to get rid of her. But while they're doing that, Abbott and Costello go to investigate the castle because they know something's not right.

Actually, they get a phone call at the castle from Talbot saying, Dracula and Frankenstein are there. Search the castle for them.

Right. Abbott doesn't believe it.

Yeah. Abbott insists that they do it to prove that it's all just a lie.

Then in classic horror comedy, high-jinks, scooby-doo fashion, every time Abbott looks in a door, it's a broom closet. Every time Costello looks in the door, it steps down to a dark dungeon or something. They go around, they have high-jinks. There's a wonderful bit, I think, with the flipping wall, the old flipping wall joke.

Yeah. Can I pause you for a minute? Because I want to talk about two gags. One, a joke I really laughed at is Costello opens a door, and he sees it opens onto this vast underground dungeon area, and he quickly closes it and he says to Abbott, it's a broom closet. That made me laugh.

Yeah, and it's also funny because Abbott is standing there holding a broom because he's actually looking in the broom closet.

Yes. This flipping door gag is pretty good. It made me think of, they do this exact same gag in the Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

Yes.

It's just a great gag. It's like a secret door that swivels around. Just imagine all the different ways that you can, the monsters are on one side and Abbott and Costello are on the other, and they keep flipping around.

It's very common. Yes. They keep flipping around and Costello invariably gets trapped with the monsters. But at one point, he flips around. Abbott hasn't seen this, Costello has. I just wanted to pull out a little bit of what Andy was talking about, like the over-the-top comedy. So Abbott basically says, what is a matter with you? And this is how Costello responds. It may sound like we're crazy, but all he's doing is just hamming it up and being unable to speak. So scared he can't speak. And that's how he presents it. And I started laughing again just listening to it. I'm not even watching it. You know what I mean?

I watched this with my 16 year old who saw it when he was little. And he kept laughing, but he kept also in the same time commenting. It was kind of dumb. So I think he was surprised. It was making him laugh, but he enjoyed it too.

Yeah, I wonder if a lot of the physical comedy that were in these kind of films has been sort of taken over by America's Funniest Home Videos or whatever, but that's a conversation for another time. Yeah, for sure. So I don't even know how they get out of here. They end up going to this ball, right?

Yeah, a lot of shenanigans take place. They explore around this dungeon, and the joke is that they end up getting chased around by Frankenstein's monster and Dracula down there. But they all just emerge back out and decide to go to the ball. It's kind of weird.

They dust off their ties. Yeah, I mean, I think this movie is best thought of as a bunch of set pieces for these two. Yes, exactly.

So the plot is just secondary. The next big scene is they're heading to the mall.

There's a lot going on. I don't really want to go into the plot of the ball. But the gist is at various points, Dracula has mesmerized both Sandra and Joan. Sandra before the ball and Joan, I think, during the ball.

He did not mesmerize Sandra.

Oh, what did he do? He just convinced her?

Yeah.

Oh, right. That's right. So Dracula bites Sandra and mesmerizes Joan. So they're both sort of his creatures. And there's just a lot of hijinks here. Before the hijinks really get going, Sandra lures Costello out into the courtyard, out of the dance that they're at, the masquerade ball. Because just to remind everybody, Sandra wants his brain for Frankenstein's monster.

And she's been bitten by Dracula.

And she's been bitten by Dracula. So here's the exchange they have.

Sandra, there's something strange about you.

You're not yourself.

Is there anything I can do to help?

Yes. I want you to go away with me to the island.

Just me and you?

Yes.

I want to be the only one in your life. I want to be part of you. I want to be in your blood.

I think I know what you mean. Wouldn't you want a prettier fella than me?

No, I want no one but you. You are so full-blooded, so round, so firm.

So fully packed.

That's good. So round. That's correct.

So fully packed. So there is much hijinks, and I don't think we need to go into it.

I lost track of what was happening with the hijinks. There's this big chase through the jungle.

Yes.

Yeah, it's total chaos.

The Wolfman becomes the Wolfman again, and chases Costello, and then Joan gets captured. But the result of all of this is Sandra and Joan and Costello are taken back to the island as prisoners, and they're going to prepare Costello for an operation where they remove his brain. So we start Act III with Costello in a yoke, like an old-fashioned yoke with his head and his arms trapped, and they're about to conduct experiments on him. Did you want to say anything else about this or should we?

Yeah, John, I just wanted to note, we get a full-blown mad science flair run incongruously by Dracula. But there are all sorts of- I don't know what the terms for it are, but all those little bolts of electricity are flying and zapping all over the place.

Tesla coils and yes, all that kind of stuff.

Whatever your mind conjures up when you think of a mad science lab, it's this one.

Then as they're getting- so they're preparing to do this operation on Costello. And this is sort of my last fun bit, but it sort of also wraps up the plot. Even though the movie has a little ways to go, they lay out how this movie is going to end. And Costello is very sad that Sandra has him in this position. And this is what she says to him.

Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. Thank you. Soon, instead of being short and chubby, you'll be big and tall and as strong as an ox. And furthermore, you'll live forever and never grow old.

Oh, Sandra.

You still love me.

But Sandra, how are you going to do all these things?

By a simple operation. I shall remove your brain and put it in his body.

You're going to take my brain and put it in Junior's body?

Yes.

Ha ha! For a minute, I didn't know how you were going to do it.

That's good.

And again, just the fact that he points to Frankenstein's monster and calls him Junior also is very funny. So yeah, and the movie proceeds from here. Abbott comes to rescue them. Dr. Stevens comes to rescue them. They rescue Joan. The Wolfman changes into the Wolfman again. I don't know how much you want to get into this, but they chase each other around inside this castle for a good 10, 15 minutes.

It's just a long sequence of hijinks and chases and Costello getting captured again. And I did make one funny note here. Basically, the Wolfman and Dracula get into it.

Yeah. I was curious about this.

They are chasing each other around. And there's a very funny moment where you see Dracula fending off the Wolfman with a chair.

Yes.

And it's just such a non-Dracula sort of thing to do.

But did you see how else he fended the Wolfman off that calls back to the Frozen Dead or calls forward to the Frozen Dead?

No. What did he do?

He throws flower pots.

Oh, that's right.

There's a very funny scene where I think the Wolfman and Dracula are on either side of Costello who is like strapped down to this hospital gurney, and they're pushing Costello at each other. It's hard to describe that. It's total chaos. It's very, yeah, people running all over the place.

Just to set up gags. At one point, they quote unquote barricaded door against Frankenstein's monster, but they're on the wrong side and the door opens out, so it opens and they're just standing on this bed, and Frankenstein's monster tries to grab them. Just a bunch of stuff like that. It's funny.

There is one thing I almost gasped out loud at this. At one point, Frankenstein's monster grabs Sandra, and I didn't know what was going to happen. I was wondering, is he going to turn Sandra into the bride of Frankenstein or something? But Frankenstein's monster chucks Sandra through a window, did you?

Yes! And then, yeah, that was crazy. And then the wolfman and Dracula take each other out. I think Dracula is standing on a balcony, and the wolfman just jumps off the balcony holding him.

Yeah, he tackles Dracula into the river below.

Now, the scene with the monster and Sandra, there's a story to that. When he picks her up, he throws her through the window, but their first attempt, the safety glass didn't break, and she bounced back. And Glenn Strange, as the monster went to catch her, he tripped and broke his ankle.

Oh, God.

So he was out of commission for a day or so while they managed that. And Lon Chaney then fills in as the monster for one scene. So when the monster then turns and comes towards Costello on the gurney, that's Lon Chaney as the monster.

Interesting.

Okay.

I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

It is. Well, all of that suffering paid off in a pretty funny scene, I think.

Yeah. All that happens, I think Joan and Dr. Stevens are safe. Abbott and Costello end up in a boat, and Costello wags his finger at Abbott and says, the next time I tell you I've seen something, you better believe me that I've seen it. And Abbott says, don't worry, the monster is gone, the wolf man is gone, Dracula is gone, there's nothing more that can hurt us. And then we get our endpoint, which is a cigarette being lit in mid-air, and you hear Vincent Price's voice say, hello, I'm the Invisible Man, and they dive in the water. And that's the end.

And yeah.

So, initial reactions, Andy, I found this movie delightful. Like, to my modern brain, like by the third act when they were doing the chases and stuff, I think I started to find a little tedious, but I think there was so much genuine humor for me, especially in that first scene at the baggage handlings place, in the second scene at the house of whores. I just laughed and laughed and really enjoyed it.

I agree. There was almost too much plot in this movie. I enjoyed every time they set up a good gag or a good exchange, and I almost didn't need all of these characters and all of these plots and changing locations and stuff. I think I would have been happier with just a less. It's a strangely complicated film as far as the plot goes.

It reminds me of the Ghostbreakers in that way. That was the other one where we were like, we're not going to explain all this to you. There's just a lot going on here.

Yeah. Really enjoyable. I wanted to mention, we didn't talk about the special effects in this movie, but there are a couple of cool special effects around Dracula transforming into a bat. Yes.

He does that a number of times.

They do some combination of animation and some stop motion. I don't know the terms for it.

I think there's some dissolves.

Yeah. It looks pretty good, I think. There were a couple times where it looked kind of laughable, but in a way that I thought fit the vibe of the movie.

I agree. There's a moment where Dracula is in a bat form, is looking through a window at Dr. Stevens. That was kind of laughably bad.

Yes.

But I did enjoy the transitions.

Did you like the Wolfman transitions?

Those seemed more familiar to me. They were just fades. Not as much, but maybe because I've seen too many, that done too many times.

I didn't know before doing research on this how they do that.

How do they do it?

They put a plate of glass in front of the camera for the very first one, and they mark where the face, the eyes, and the mouth are. Then they film, then he goes off and gets makeup, and he comes back and they line them up with the glass. With the silver they put on there, they remove the glass film, and then they repeat that.

Interesting, I guess I hadn't thought how hard it would be for him to maintain that position and get the makeup on.

It's done pretty well.

Yeah, so what do we think, Andy? Not a zombie movie.

Not really a zombie movie. I wondered if vampire bitten Sandra behaves like a zombie. But I mean, she's clearly a vampire or a vampire spawn or something. I was looking for things I might be able to justify calling a zombie in this movie. I don't really think that we have any. We talked about Frankenstein's monster. I do think that the various people that Dracula mesmerizes do behave like the old voodoo zombies that we've seen in previous movies, but I don't think that we are supposed to read them as zombies.

No, but I will say this is a bit of a stretch, but here's what I will say. The idea of the zombie and the brain becomes super important. We saw it first with Revenge of the Zombies with John Carradine, and I think that the whole brain transfer thing is here because of the original Frankenstein movie, but that doesn't mean it can't be part of the thread about how brains became so important to zombies. You know what I mean? I'm very pedantic, and I make a distinction that Frankenstein is not a zombie, he's a golem. But to people like seeing this movie and being inspired for a future movie, they think brain, undead, corpse, that distinction is probably less important. Yes.

These topics are all swirling around in relation to each other, and I think it'll just take someone like Romero to grab the pieces and pull them into something coherent.

I think this movie also highlights that the zombie films missed something. They could have gone a different direction than they did. This movie has four actors who are known for single signature creatures that they played.

Yes.

And in the zombie films, there isn't that. We did have Darby Jones, who twice was a zombie, and he was pretty much the only zombie. But other than that, zombies are nameless. They're part of a group. But there was a moment with Darby Jones where it could have been that the zombie is a single force and there's a single actor known for playing it. But it didn't happen.

That's interesting.

Yeah, you're right. There is no iconic zombie in the way that there's an iconic vampire Frankenstein stuff.

Yeah, they're sort of namelessness and their lack of individuality is sort of their calling card. You know what I mean? So interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.

So hey, John, this is not a zombie movie in quite the way that the rest of the films we watched in this podcast are. But let's still go through our wrap up questions where we talk about how this movie stacks up against some of your zombie pillars and other things. So is there a hero party in this movie, John?

I think so. I think Abbott and Costello, Talbot is the wolf man, oddly, and-

And Joan and Steven, I think.

And constitute a hero party. I wouldn't say Sandra is part of that hero party.

Right, right. And how does the party do? How many survive?

Of those, everyone but Talbot, though I suspect that he'll live to chase Dracula another day.

Yes, I agree.

But yeah.

Is there a zombie horde in this movie?

There is not. If there is a zombie, it's Frankenstein's monster and he is not a horde.

Yeah. If there weren't zombies in this movie, we didn't see any new zombies strains or anything like that. But do you see anything in this movie, any firsts that seem important for zombie movies?

The only thing I can think of is that Frankenstein's monster is destroyed by fire and he mindlessly walks into it. But I don't really think that's it. I was surprised by that because he's supposed to be afraid of fire, but the fire gets set behind him and he walks into it willingly and is burned and dies there.

Yeah.

So I don't know that that's new, but that's the only thing that comes to mind about it.

Yeah. Okay. Well, then that brings us to the four pillars of the zombie genre. Is there an apocalypse in this movie?

No, but we're given the impression that things could go bad if Dracula and Frankenstein's monster are allowed to leave.

Is there a contagion in this movie?

No, it's just vampire stuff, right?

Yes. On this topic, though, did you notice that towards the end of the movie, when vampire Sandra is getting ready to perform the brain transplant operation, she puts on a face mask. So I don't know if you're a vampire, do you need to follow you? Okay. Are there tough moral choices in this movie?

No, I think, again, it's just bad. It's mad scientists making bad moral choices. So that's different.

Lastly, do we have loved ones turning against you?

We actually do. I don't think Sandra really loved Costello, but there is a moment where it's clear to him, we played a clip of it, where he says, you're not yourself and it's clear that she has turned against him.

He thinks she loves him.

Yes, he does.

Yes. That was a surprisingly effective scene for being in the middle of this very silly movie. Yes. I agree with you.

I was impressed by the performance of the woman who played Sandra, Lenore Aubert. She doesn't have a ton of credits, but I thought she was good and convincing because she has the most complex role. She pretends to be in love with Costello, and then it turns out she's a mad scientist, and then she gets bitten by a vampire and has to do his bidding. She actually has a little different thing she has to do here.

Yeah. There's a neat scene with her and Dracula where their wills clash, and he is able to overcome her, but she puts in a good performance.

Well, what I would say is that she is too strong for him to influence, so he has to bite her. That's why she's the only person he bites in this movie, because he has to to get his way. Other people he can mesmerize or whatever, but not Sandra.

All right, John, did the movie poster sell this movie accurately?

Well, as the movie poster depicts cartoony Abbott and Costello with cutouts of their photographed faces running from all these monsters all the time, I would say yes.

I agree. I don't know if you noticed in the opening credits, which are animated, they show a bunch of movie monsters sauntering around, and one of them is the Bride of Frankenstein. And so I was waiting for the Bride of Frankenstein to make an appearance in this movie and she did not.

Sadly not. And I was actually flipping through the movie just because I watched it like a week ago this morning. And the beginning has two coffins that get open by Frankenstein's monster that have skeletons in them. And the skeletons scream and run about and then they explode and their bones fall into the title of the movie. And what I didn't realize that was Abbott and Costello's skeletons. I didn't realize that the first time through.

The original dress for this film had both Claris the Mummy and Alucard, which is Dracula's son, which is Dracula spelled backwards.

I did not know that.

I didn't either.

Neither of you guys have played the Castlevania video games. I can see Alucard. No, I know. Okay. So John, would you and I survive in this not quite zombie world?

Andy, if Costello can survive all this, I have to believe that we can.

Which one of you is Bud and which one of you is Lou?

I don't know. I don't know. Neither of us, I'm sorry, Andy, are as funny as Lou Costello.

Yeah, it's okay. No offense.

I think we might be a couple of Buds here.

All right. Hey, do we recommend this movie to listeners of this podcast and lovers of zombie films?

For zombie film, I'm going to say no, but it is enjoyable to watch. I had fun watching it and I legitimately laughed out loud on multiple occasions.

Yeah, I agree. I don't think you will learn much or anything about zombie films from this movie, except maybe a little indirectly, but it's worth watching on its own.

It's fun. Agreed.

All right. Time for the scariest part of the episode. It's when Brad reveals to us what is coming next.

I got to believe, I feel like Brad is doing this sequentially, chronologically, but I also have a sense that if we enjoyed a movie, that does not bode well for our next movie.

Well, we did go out of sequence to see this. We had to jump to 1948. We need to go back two years to 1946. We're going to see Valley of the Zombies, and here's your poster.

I know nothing about this movie.

The Valley of the Zombies. It's a little different looking poster here.

Who do we have here? Roberts Livingston, Adrian Booth. I don't know any of these names.

All right. So we have, so the central thing on this poster is a hooded figure. Is he holding a knife? What is that?

He's holding a knife that has a skull on the palm.

Okay. Yep. There is, and then kind of glowering down at him in a maybe a slightly mesmerism sort of way, is a sinister looking guy in a hat.

Yes. Both of those things are painted. They're illustrations.

In the bottom right corner, we have what I assume are the two star, the two leads. Yep. Man and woman looking up in fear at the creepy knife-wielding figure.

Or the mesmerist. There's thunder and lightning in the background too. It is a Republic picture. We've seen Republic pictures. They're notoriously low budget, I think. I'm curious. It looks like an actual horror movie.

It does.

It does not seem zombie to me.

Like, you know, that knife-wielding figure looks like, I mean, it evokes like the guy from the Scream movies or something.

Yes. And he's got a bowler hat on, which is kind of funny and sinister looking. So, I'm curious. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. I hope you enjoyed our little detour into an actually funny movie. And now we're back to the dread seriousness of Valley of the Zombies next episode. Thanks, everyone. You've been listening to Zombie Strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast app of choice. Tell a friend. Follow us on Instagram at Zombie Strains. All of this helps like minded people find the show. See you next time.