On a rainy evening in the Neustadt prison, Daniel, a hunchback, promises
his cellmate,
mad scientist Dr. Niemann, that when they are released, he
will work for him for free if Niemann transfers his brain into a healthy
body. Soon after, a lightning storm destroys the prison, allowing
Niemann and Daniel to escape and slip into the wagon of Professor
Lampini's Chamber of Horrors, which carries the skeleton of Dracula.
Daniel kills Lampini, after which Niemann assumes the victim's identity
and outlines his plans to find Dr. Frankenstein's records and continue
his experiments, while wreaking his revenge on Ullman, Strauss and
Hussman, the men who jailed him.
They travel to Reigelberg, where
Hussman is the burgomaster, and set up Lampini's horror show. The night
Niemann arrives, Hussman's granddaughter-in-law Rita (Anne Gwynne) convinces Hussman,
her husband Carl and police inspector Arnz to accompany her to the show.
There, Hussman scorns the Dracula exhibit, and after the curtain falls,
Niemann restores Dracula to life by removing the stake from his heart,
and sends him after Hussman. Soon after, Dracula, calling himself Baron
Latos, offers Rita, Carl and Hussman a ride home.
At their house, he
kills Hussman, hypnotizes Rita with his ring and abducts her in his
wagon, which is attached to Niemann's wagon. When Carl calls the
inspector and then chases after them, Niemann unhooks Dracula's wagon,
stranding the vampire just as the sun rises and dooming him to return to
his skeletal form. Days later, as Niemann and Daniel enter the town of
Frankenstein, Daniel falls in love with a gypsy dancer, Ilonka, and
rescues her from her brutal boss. Niemann allows her to accompany them,
and although Ilonka turns away from the sight of Daniel's hump, she
promises to be his friend.
That night, as Niemann and Daniel search the
ruins of Frankenstein's castle for his records, they find the Wolf Man
and the Monster encased in ice in a frozen cave beneath the earth. After
being thawed, the Wolf Man returns to his human form as Larry Talbot,
and helps Niemann find the records, in return for which the scientist
promises to find a new body for his brain.
They all travel to Niemann's
laboratory in Visaria, and along the way, Daniel jealously
watches Ilonka falling in love with Larry. After a few days at the laboratory,
Daniel and Larry grow impatient for Niemann, who is obsessed with
regenerating the Monster, to help them. Niemann then captures and kills
Ullman and Strauss, at the same time that Daniel spitefully informs
Ilonka that Larry is a werewolf. She runs to Larry, and after he tells
her that only a silver bullet shot by someone who loves him can end his
misery, she fashions a bullet out of her silver bracelets just as the
moon rises.
That night, the Wolf Man kills, and when the townspeople
find the remains of his victims, they form a mob and descend on the
castle, where Niemann is working on the Monster. Meanwhile, Ilonka
shoots the Wolf Man, but not until he fatally wounds her. When Daniel
finds them both dead, he blames Niemann and strangles him, waking the
Monster, who kills Daniel to protect his master. The mob enters the
castle and pushes Niemann and his monster into the bog, where they
quickly drown in the quicksand.
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Cast:
Boris Karloff
J. Carrol Nash
Lon Chaney
Anne Gwynne ...
Rita Hussman
Peter Coe
Lionel Atwill
George Zuckor
Eleana Verdugo
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Production:
Edward T. Lowe- Writer
Kurt
Siodmark- Story
Erle Kenton- Director
George Robinson- Cinematographer
Philip Cahn- Editor
John C. Fulton- Special f/x photography
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Karloff releases the Monster and Wolf Man from icy graves and sets up
a laboratory for
operations. But the Wolf Man runs amuck around the
countryside which arouses the citizens for a march on the castle, and the
destruction of the scientist and his collection of strange creatures. Anne
Gwynne is stellar as ingénue.
