A Monster Bash

Pairing mediocre comedy teams with the famous Universal monsters (or similar cut-rate fiends) used to be a reliable way for Hollywood to mingle franchises with -- if they were lucky -- only minor dilutions of the original boffo box office/fan base. Few of these early horror-comedy hybrids, however, carried through on either the grim promise of the original monsters or the antics of the comedy teams. Hideous misfires starring the (long-forgotten) Ritz Brothers, the Bowery Boys (who initially got their start not as a comedy ensemble but alongside James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces), and a handful of others were common, but towering above the ambulatory graveside dreck was the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello vehicle Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Austin Studios will host a free outdoor screening this Saturday evening of Meet Frankenstein, which, despite its singular title, also manages to cram in both Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and the Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.). Glenn Strange steps in for the original Frankenstein monster Boris Karloff, who presumably had better things to do (such as 1949's Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff). Of all the comedy-monster, mish-mashes, Meet Frankenstein is by far the best, with dim-bulb Bud and con man Lou managing some above-average shenanigans as they run afoul of Lugosi and company, who, alongside a scheming mad scientista (Lénore Aubert), want to transplant Bud's less-than-Einsteinian brain into Strange's enfeebled monster. Chaney Jr. is actually the good guy here, carnivorous lunar activities notwithstanding, and regardless of what you may recall of the Abbott and Costello storehouse of ancient gags (their mid-Fifties television show was a veritable graveyard of dead and dying comedy routines), this is one of their films that doesn't carry the reek of stale burlesque yuks. Director Charles Barton keeps the action moving, and the comedy -- including an inspired secret-door bit lifted from the Marx Brothers and later reused by Mel Brooks and god knows how many others -- is way better than you probably remember. As a precursor to everything from Peter Jackson's splatstick Dead Alive to Young Frankenstein, it may fall short of the nostalgic comedy-gold-mine status it has managed to accrue over the years, but it's still better than a poke in the heart with a sharp stick.

The Austin Film Society, the Saturday Morning Film Club, and the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow present Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein on Saturday, Oct. 26, at Austin Studios (1901 E. 51st). Costumes encouraged. Gates open at 6:15pm for prizes and games; the show starts at 7:15pm. Admission is free. Concessions will be available, but snacks are OK to bring. No glass containers.