Yes, I know this movie is silly and simple and dated, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid. This is a great film for any classic-horror lover, and it's a fun Halloween movie to watch with the family.

Rather than make the monsters jokes in this, they are their usual terrifying selves, with the jokes going around them. The last of the great Universal films featuring any of their classic monsters - there wouldn't be as good a horror comedy until Shaun of the Dead.

Copyright 8 September 1949 (in notice: 1948) by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York release at Loew's Criterion: 28 July 1948. U.S. release: July 1948. U.K. release (through J. Arthur Rank's General Film Distributors): 7 November 1949. Australian release: 25 November 1948. U.S. length: 83 minutes. U.K. length: 79 minutes. Australian length: 5,642 feet. 63 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE GHOSTS.SYNOPSIS: Two bungling shipping clerks (helped? by the Wolf Man) tangle with Count Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster.NOTES: Negative cost: $800,000. Some sources cite the U.S. running time as 92 minutes. This is incorrect. The TV print which seems in every way complete runs 83 minutes. The film was cut in both the U.K. and Australia by their Film Censors, both of whom also insisted on the title change. "Frankenstein" was a dirty word in Australia in 1948 as all so-called "Horror films" at that time were completely banned. COMMENT: It's amazing how few contemporary critics appreciated Abbott and Costello. They were generally dismissed with a sneer. The fact that some of their films had quite novel plots ("The Little Giant", "The Time of Their Lives") as well as a high level of verbal and visual wit was usually overlooked or disregarded. Abbott and Costello were irredeemably "lowbrow". Even at the conclusion of an otherwise favorable review of "Meet Frankenstein", a contemporary critic, Lionel Collier, can sum up that the comedians provide plenty of entertainment "if you are unsophisticated enough to enjoy them."Fortunately, very few movie-goers took any notice at all of critics back in the 1940's. "Meet Frankenstein" actually restored Abbott and Costello's flagging careers, putting them right back with the top ten money-making stars.Today "Meet Frankenstein" is justly regarded as one of their best films — if not their masterpiece. For once director Charles T. Barton (a longtime friend and former assistant of William A. Wellman) has really risen to the occasion, handling both the comedy and the horror so effectively as to rouse the ire of both the U.K. and Australian censors. Exactly twenty minutes were lopped from Australian prints. "Meet Frankenstein" must hold the record for the most mutilated Hollywood film ever put into Australian theatrical release.Today, many critics regard "Meet Frankenstein" as one of the best satires on horror movies ever made. I agree!Production values are absolutely first-class. It is not only Barton's deft direction that keeps the laughs and the thrills coming at a marvelous pace, but the skilled film editing, atmospheric photography, creepy sets, and the mood-enhancing music score by Frank Skinne. Abd even by today's standards, the make-up and special effects are often stunning.For another fascinating Abbott and Costello offering, I recommend "Hold That Ghost".

Baggage handlers Chick (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur (Lou Costello) are instructed to deliver and unpack two crates containing the coffin of Count Dracula and the body of Frankenstein's monster, which are destined to be attractions at a museum of horrors. While they are at work, the vampire rises from his coffin and reactivates the monster, much to the dismay of Wilbur, who has trouble convincing his friend of what he has seen.Meanwhile, Wilbur's girlfriend Sandra (Lenore Aubert) is preparing a special surprise for her beau: she intends to transplant the hapless fellow's brain into Frankenstein's monster, having made a dastardly deal with Dracula. Fortunately for the chubby chap, lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) is on hand to help defeat the Count and his lumbering lackey.I recall enjoying Abbot and Costello's movies as a kid, and I'm a long-time fan of Universal's classic horrors. I hadn't seen this film for the best part of four decades and was keen to see if it was as entertaining as I remembered. The answer is, I am sad to say, far from a resounding yes.Abbot and Costello's comedic antics obviously amused the younger me, but as an adult I found their routines rather dated and laboured, with quite a few of the scenes repeated ad nauseum. Chick's constant berating of his simple 'friend' Wilbur is difficult to find funny, although not hard to understand since Wilbur's constant blubbering and screeching rapidly gets on the nerves.Of course, the comic duo are not the film's only attraction: the film features a lovely animated credits sequence, a few decent special effects, and some welcome eye candy in the form of the lovely Aubert and the equally delightful Jane Randolph as insurance inspector Joan Raymond. Then there's the little matter of it's trio of classic monsters—but while it's nice to see Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) together again, this silly caper simply doesn't do them justice, the creatures proving so inept that they can't even catch a bumbling buffoon like Lou Costello. It's an unfitting swan song for these classic scary characters.5/10, purely for the sake of nostalgia.