As with the mid-period Friday the 13th flicks, The Ghost of Frankenstein blurs the lines between intentionally and unintentionally bad to the point where it's impossible to distinguish, so all you can do is go along for the ride. This movie is only 68 minutes long, and that's including the Colin Clive footage from the original Frankenstein cropped into the running time, ostensibly for exposition, but more nakedly just for padding. Universal clearly didn't give a shit what this movie would be, as long as it had "Frankenstein" in the title. The story is baldly preposterous, with each development as logically implausible as the last. Cedric Hardwicke plays Ludwig Frankenstein, the brother of Basil Rathbone's character from Son of Frankenstein, heretofore not referred to, but conveniently living in a nearby village. The Monster, now played by Lon Chaney, Jr., has miraculously survived his plunge into the sulphur pit, and is inadvertently brought to life when the perpetually mob-like villagers of Frankenstein decide to dynamite the haunted castle. This event follows a scene in which the villagers blaming the Frankenstein curse for their poverty and lack of tourism – they can't afford bread, but they apparently can afford dynamite. Ygor (Bela Lugosi) has also miraculously survived being shot multiple times in the last installment, so when the Monster awakes, he brings his zombie friend to Ludwig's estate so that the estranged Frankenstein can continue his filial duty by restoring the Monster's strength. Unfortunately, the Monster is arrested (?) and questioned in a courtroom before this can happen. Watching the grunting Monster be interrogated by city officials is pretty fucking hilarious. Ludwig is visited by a vision of his ghostly father, who implores him to continue the important scientific work that is the family's claim to fame. Despite his moral reservations, the Frankenstein brother is irresistably compelled to, once again, continue the nefarious experiment. This time, he's going to transplant a "good" brain into the Monster to replace the "bad" killer's brain that everyone supposes is the real problem. There's a priceless moment when the Monster urges Ludwig to use a small girl's brain, and Ludwig seems to consider it. Unfortunately for Ludwig, the brain he ends up putting into the Monster's is Ygor's! Though this deprives the audience of a Frankenstein's Monster with a 7-year-old-girl's brain, it does allow all hell to break loose, as it must in any Frankenstein film. Curiously, despite the extreme destruction that ensues, Ludwig's daughter walks away with her boyfriend at the very end—literally into the sunset. There's almost nothing genuinely good about The Ghost of Frankenstein, but it's exactly this quality that makes it my favorite of the series.
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