Son of Frankenstein
Directed by Rowland V. Lee
Written by Wyllis Cooper
1939/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing; Netflix rental
[box] Ygor: They hanged me once Frankenstein. They broke my neck. They said I was dead. Then they cut me down. They threw me in here, long ago. They wouldn’t bury me in holy place like churchyard. Because I stole bodies, eh they said. So, Ygor is dead! So, Dr. Frankenstein. Nobody can mend Ygor’s neck. It’s alright.[/box]
This does not measure up to the greatness of the first two Universal Frankenstein films but is entertaining and features what may be Bela Lugosi’s very best performance.
Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) arrives in the village of Frankenstein, Germany with his wife and young son to claim the legacy handed down by his father Dr. Frankenstein. The townspeople are hostile and suspicious and Police Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill), who lost his arm to the Monster (Boris Karloff) runs interference. Wolf becomes obsessed with clearing his father’s name and establishing his father’s greatness as a creator of life.
Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant Ygor (Bela Lugosi) was hanged for body snatching and pronounced dead but lived on with a broken neck. Ygor has kept the Monster, who lives on, hidden away to do his bidding in meting out revenge on the jury that condemned him.The Monster has been injured and is “sick” so Ygor enlists the help of Wolf in reanimating him. But, once awoken, the Monster obeys only Ygor …
I’m not a big Lugosi fan but I thought he did very, very well in this film – better even than his performance in Dracula. His Ygor is truly scary. Otherwise, the movie is fairly undistinguished except for the moving portrayal by Karloff of The Monster’s grief toward the end. The Atwill character shows the source of Kenneth Mars’s role in Young Frankenstein.
This was the last time Boris Karloff played the Monster in a feature film. Karloff played Dr. Gustav Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944) and Baron Frankenstein in Frankenstein – 1970 (1958).
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