Who Done It? (1942)

From 1940 to 1956, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello made 36 movies together. In that sixteen year span they made one genuine classic (Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein), some very good comedies (Hold That Ghost, Pardon My Sarong,The Time of Their Lives, Who Done It?, Buck Privates), and a few forgettable movies (Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Mexican Hayride, Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff). However, it says a lot about their appeal that even their lesser movies are constantly amusing, if not particularly funny (I have a soft spot for Abbott & Costello Go to Mars). 

Who Done It? was the fourth (and last) movie Abbott and Costello made in 1942 and it is easily one of their better movies. It benefits greatly from a fine supporting cast (particularly William Bendix as a dimwitted detective and Mary Wickes as a lanky secretary) and some top notch direction by Erle C. Kenton – a gifted studio director whose best known for the horror classic Island of Lost Souls. Kenton keeps things moving at a swift pace and effectively builds tension by clouding the frame in shadows - the killer lurks about in the dark and there's always a sense that he could strike at any minute. 

I think one of the main reasons Abbott and Costello connected with World War II audiences was that they exemplified the every man; neither of them were particularly glamorous and they often began their movies working at a rather thankless job – in Who Done It?  they are a pair of soda jerks, Chick and Mervin, who work next in a drug store inside the local radio station; their true aspiration in life is to write radio mysteries.  When they learn that one of their customers, Juliet, is the secretary of Colonel Andrews, the executive director of the General Broadcasting System, Chick urges Mervin to put the moves on her in the hopes that it will lead to work. Mervin, however, proves to be no Romeo, but, thankfully, they manage to befriend Jimmy, an aspiring writer who also happens to be romantically linked to “Murder at Midnight” producer, Jane Little.  Jimmy gives them tickets to the “Murder at Midnight” broadcast, and everything seems to be looking up until Col. Andrews is murdered.  Chick and Mervin decide to solve the mysteries themselves, rather than call the police, and are confident that it will give them the national exposure that they truly deserve. When the real police show up, they naturally become the top suspects in the murder investigation.  Fortunately, Lt. Moran and his sidekick, Detective Brannigan, are dumber than Chick and Mervin – in one of the movie’s funniest moments Mervin manages to trick Brannigan into handcuffing himself.

Abbott and Costello were often paired with fairly likable juvenile leads: Richard Carlson and Evelyn Ankers in Hold That Ghost; Robert Paige and Virginia Bruce in Pardon My Sarong; and Patrick Knowles and Louise Allbritton in Who Done It?  The romantic leads tended to be stumbling blocks in the movies of other comedians; most notably, Bonnie Scotland, starring Laurel and Hardy. In that movie, not only are two romantic leads, Alan and Lorna, superfluous to the actual story, but the leading actress, June Lang, never actually meets the boys. Hell, the movie doesn’t even bother to resolve the Alan/Lorna story line.  Who Done It? is a rare instance where I wish the two juveniles would have been given more screen time.  Patric Knowles was, essentially, the poor man’s Errol Flynn, but he had a likable, easy going charm about him. Louise Allbritton was not your typical 1940s leading lady - her characters were fairly strong willed and  often carried themselves in a professional manner. In Who Done It?, Jane, rather than being a helpless damsel in distress, is rather proactive in solving the murder mystery.  It’s also refreshing that she is never put in the position of having to choose between Jimmy and her career in radio. 

Yet, despite the title and the synopsis I have laid out, the mystery is secondary to the comedy and is even forgotten about at times; there is a long stretch devoted to Mervin trying to contact the radio station after learning he has won $10,000 dollars on the radio program “Wheel of Fortune.” Every time he dials the number to the station, the operator keeps telling him, “The line is busy.”  This leads to a rather cartoonish gag in which he sprays a bottle of seltzer water in the payphone mouthpiece and it comes spurting out of the mouth piece on the other end, squirting the poor woman in the face.  If your main focus is on the murder mystery, then this scene will absolutely frustrate you – it goes on for nearly five minutes. 

Abbott and Costello were extremely popular on the radio (and later television), so it's not surprising that many of the laughs come from the dialogue. Here are some of my favorite bits: 

Detective Brannigan: (talking to a boy usher) Don’t you know it’s against the law to impersonate an officer?
Usher:  Then how do you get away with it?

Chick: (while pretending to be a detective) You know if we find the hand that fits the glove, we find the murderer.
Mervin:  (trying on the glove) And it fits me perfect.

Chick: (while Mervin is trying to contact station to claim his $10,000 prize) I’m going over here to figure out how to spend your money.

Credits
Cast:  Bud Abbott (Chick), Lou Costello (Mervin), Patric Knowles (Jimmy), Louise Allbritton (Jane), William Gargan (Lt. Lou Moran), William Bendix (Detective Brannigan), Thomas Gomez (Col. J.R. Andrews), Mary Wickes (Juliet), Don Porter (Art), Jerome Cowan (Marco).

Director: Erle C. Kenton
Screenplay: Stanley Roberts, Edmund Joseph, John Grant.
Running Time:  77 min. 

Son of Dracula (1943)

Son of Dracula is one of the most unusual entries in the Universal Monster franchise.  It was released at a time when the series became more kid friendly and usually devolved into a full out monster brawls; the franchise would end on a fairly low note with the ridiculous (but amusing) House of Dracula, in which the Wolf Man is cured of his lycanthropy, the Frankenstein Monster stumbles around for a few seconds, and Dracula, despite being the title villain, is killed off half way through the movie.  Therefore, it is genuinely surprising how sophisticated Son of Dracula is on both a technical and thematic level.

The biggest flaw (and it’s a huge one) is the casting of Lon Chaney, Jr in the role of Count Alucard. Chaney was at his best when playing blue collar simpletons, or lumbering brutes, but is completely out of his element when playing the aristocratic Alucard – he lacks the sophistication and mystique that the role desperately needs.  It is interesting to note that Chaney was only actor to play The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, and The Frankenstein Monster – no doubt this was a ploy by the studio to capitalize on the famous Chaney name and prove the Junior was just as versatile of an actor as his  prolific father.  The problem is, with the exception of Larry Talbot/ The Wolf Man, there is nothing distinguishable about Chaney’s performances in any of these movies – his portrayal as the Frankenstein Monster is adequate, but it lacks the pathos that Karloff brought to the role.  His performance as the mummy, Kharis, in The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse is so lackluster that it could have easily been played by a stuntman. The only memorable thing about Count Alucard is that he possesses super strength, which he never fully uses to his advantage – he throws Frank across a room.  Thankfully, Chaney has very little screen time (about ten minutes total) that is doesn't heavily damage the movie. If one can overlook Chaney’s awkward performance, then you will be rewarded by a genuinely interesting movie.

The movie gets a huge boast by Louise Allbritton, who is excellent as the morbid Kay – one of the more complex women in the Universal Monster series.  At first, Kay doesn’t seem to be any different from any of the other heroines the populated the franchise – she has an interest in the occult, but is happily engaged to her childhood sweet heart, Frank.  When she unexpectedly elopes with Count Alucard, we naturally assume that he has placed her under his spell and is using her to further his own goals– Alucard wants to use Kay’s family plantation for his base of operation.  We, naturally, sympathize with Frank for losing the love of his life to an absolute monster; we hope that he can wrestle Kay from the hypnotic hold that Alucard has over her. After all, Jonathan Harker, with an assist from Professor Van Helsing, was able to rescue Mina from Dracula’s satanic grip, so it is plausible that Frank, with help from Doctor Brewster, can do the same for Kay.  Our happy ending goes straight out the window when Frank accidentally kills Kay while attempting to shoot the Count with the gun – the bullets pass straight through Alucard and strike down Kay. Frank ,on the verge of insanity, confesses his crime to Dr. Brewster, the kindly town physician. Brewster goes to the plantation to check out Frank’s story and, much to his surprise, finds that Kay is very much alive. She tells Brewster that visitors will no longer be welcomed at the plantation and that she can never see Frank again. 

This is a great piece of misdirection by the filmmakers, because the audience naturally assumes that Kay is the victim in all of this and Alucard is the loathsome parasite leeching off her status in life.  However, this proves to be entirely FALSE, Kay is the loathsome parasite and it is Alucard who is being played for a sap – Kay is using him to gain immortality for her and Frank.  She explains her plan to Frank, while he is locked up in a jail cell, and convinces him that he must kill Alucard; she tells Frank the Count’s weaknesses and where to find him.  Kay turns out to be extremely ruthless in her ambition and even tells Frank that they must eliminate anyone that stands in her way - including her sister, Claire. Kay is one of the all time great femme fatales – after all, this isn’t some sleazy insurance salesman that she is duping, but the son of friggin’ Dracula. Allbritton plays the role to absolute perfection; she is vulnerable in the early scenes, but becomes a commanding presence as the movie progresses. It’s easy to believe that the savvy Alucard could fall victim to such a woman, she is pure ice.  Son of Dracula is essentially the inverse of the previous movie, Dracula’s Daughter; the latter is about a woman who desperately wants to be cured of her vampirism, while the former is about a woman who desperately wants to become a vampire.  Both movies greatly benefit from strong female leads and rather downbeat endings.

Robert Paige, as Frank, is a much more interesting than the usual romantic male leads you find in these movies. For instance, compare Paige’s Frank to David Manners’ Jonathan Harker and you will find that Paige brings far more intensity to the role than Manners.  In Dracula, Jonathan Harker is slightly annoyed that Dracula has eyes for his fiancée, Mina – but he never takes any real action. In Son of Dracula, when Frank learns that Kay has eloped with Alucard, he is seething with hatred and is willing to commit murder; Harker probably would have just shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room slightly irritated. Also, Frank nearly loses his mind after believing that he has killed Kay; she was the crux of his existence and now he has absolutely nothing. When he tells Claire and others that Kay has visited him in his jail cell, they, understandably, believe that he is just hallucinating. 

Evelyn Ankers is given the less showy role as Kay’s concerned sister, Claire. Ankers is, probably, the best known scream queen of the 1940s, and co-starred in seven movies with Lon Chaney, Jr.  It’s odd seeing her in a role that isn’t the love interest; as she was in The Wolf Man, Hold That Ghost, Ghost of Frankenstein, and in many other Universal movies.  Claire isn’t an especially interesting character, but she is at least likable and, more importantly, never grinds the movie to a halt. At least Claire takes action in the story – on the advice of Dr. Brewster, she orders the body of Kay to be cremated. Ankers was a much better actress than given credit for and gives an excellent performance in the Sherlock Holmes thriller, The Pearl of Death, as the obsequious Naomi Drake – a villainess with a penchant for disguises. She must have relished the opportunity to play an unsavory character as opposed to the glamorous goody two shoes she played in most movies. 

There are a few interesting touches that separate Son of Dracula from all the other, run of the mill, monster movies from the 1940s.  For instance, the entire middle of the movie is shown from the perspective of Doctor Brewster. At this point in the story, Kay is a vampire and Frank has been drive to madness, so Doctor Brewster becomes the audience surrogate. He is the first, and only, character to realize that Alucard is an anagram and promptly seeks out Professor Lazlo, an expert on the occult, for advice.  It is also one of the first movies, if not the first, to show a physical vampire transformation; there a few scenes where a bat changes into Count Alucard. This effect was achieved through animation and a jump cut, and, while not up to the standards of today effects, is pretty effective.  The most memorable moment is of Count Alucard hovering over a swamp and slowly approaching Kay.  

Son of Dracula is loaded with so many wonderful visuals, and interesting characters, that I believe it is a superior movie to the Tod Browning-Bela Lugosi original. Lugosi is certainly a better lead than Chaney, but once Dracula moves its setting from Transylvania to London, it turns monotonous – the direction and acting, other than Dwight Frye, is extremely lifeless.  Son of Dracula is a much more cinematic movie and goes by at a rather quick pace.  Robert Siodmak’s direction is top notch and he rarely gives the audience a moment to breathe; there is always a surprise waiting around the corner.  Son of Dracula may not be a classic, but it is easily one of the better Universal monster movies of the 1940s. 

Credits

Cast:  Lon Chaney, Jr. (Count Alucard), Louise Allbritton (Kay), Robert Paige (Frank), Evelyn Ankers (Claire), Frank Craven (Doctor Brewster), J. Edward Blomberg (Prof. Lazlo), Samuel S. Hinds (Judge Simmons), Pat Moriarty (Sheriff Dawes), Etta McDaniel (Sarah), Adeline De Walt Reynolds (Madame Zimba), George Irving (Col. Caldwell).

Director: Robert Siodmak
Screenplay: Eric Taylor. Curt Siodmak (story)
Running Time: 81 min.