Elena Verdugo | Through the Shattered Lens

House of Frankenstein opens in a prison. Dr. Gustav Neimann (Boris Karloff), the bother of one of Baron Frankenstein’s assistants, has been convicted of robbing graves and attempting to carry on the Baron’s work. Dr. Neimann’s faithful assistant is the hunchback, Daniel (J. Carroll Naish). Daniel is loyal to Neimann because Neimann has promised to someday place Daniel’s brain in a stronger body.

When a sudden earthquake allows Neimann and Daniel to escape, they waste no time in getting revenge on Neimann’s enemies. First, they murder a traveling showman named Prof. Lampini (George Zucco) and steal both his identity and his mobile horror exhibit. Included in the exhibit is a coffin that Lampini claimed held the skeleton of Dracula. (There’s even a stake sticking out of the skeleton’s chest.) When Neimann returns to his original hometown, he removes the stake from the skeleton so that he might use it on the Burgomaster, Hussman (Sig Ruman). The skeleton transforms into Dracula (John Carradine). Because he is relieved to have been brought back to life, Dracula does not attack Neimann but instead agrees to help Neimann get revenge on Hussman in return for Neimann looking after his coffin. Dracula soon learns that he should have thought twice before trusting either Neimann or Daniel.

Neimann moves on, stopping off at Frankenstein’s village and recovering the bodies of both Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange) and Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) from the frozen chamber in which they were trapped at the end of Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man. Revived from suspended animation, Larry immediately starts whining about how much his life sucks. (I love The Wolf Man but subsequent films turned Larry into the whiniest of the Universal monsters.) Neimann promises to put Larry’s brain in a new body if he helps to revive the Monster. Larry agrees. Meanwhile, Daniel falls in love with a gypsy girl named Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) while Ilonka falls in love with Larry. Daniel wants Neimann to put his brain in Larry’s body, Larry won’t stop whining about the approaching full moon, and the villagers are getting suspicious!

House of Frankenstein has never been a favorite of critics or horror historians and the film does have its share of flaws. For instance, though it would have been fun to see Bela Lugosi return to his signature role, John Carradine seems like ideal casting for Dracula. Unfortunately, Dracula is only in the film for about ten minutes and he comes to an end that really doesn’t feel worthy of a character of his stature. The film reduces Larry Talbot to just being a dumb lug who won’t stop feeling sorry for himself. Finally, Glenn Strange has the right physique for the Monster but, much as with John Carradine, he is underused.

That said, I still enjoyed House of Frankenstein. A lot of that is because of Boris Karloff, who brings a lot of sly humor to his performance as the mad scientist. (That said, Karloff himself later said that he did the role solely for the money and was bored with the whole thing.) J. Carroll Naish turns Daniel into a rather sympathetic henchman, one who is so desperate to be “normal” that he’s willfully blinded himself to the fact that Neiman really doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. (In many ways, he’s the equivalent of the hapless characters that Michael Ripper later played for Hammer Films.) Finally, Elena Verdugo brings a lot of life to the stock role of the dancing gypsy girl who falls in love with Larry Talbot despite the fact that Larry is kind of a dumb lug.

For a modern viewer, the main appeal of House of Frankenstein is that it is one of the original Universal horror films, even if it came out long after the first Dracula and Frankenstein films. As such, it has all the things that we associate with and love about those films. There’s a ruined castle. There’s angry villagers. The cast is full of Universal horror mainstays, including Lionel Atwell and Anne Gwynne. And, yes, the film features a mob descending on the castle with torches. Flaws and all, House of Frankenstein is an enjoyable time capsule. It’s a horror film from a far more innocent age and it’s one that remains a fun watch.

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Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1973’s The Alpha Caper! It can be viewed on YouTube!

After years of faithful service and hard work, parole officer Mark Forbes (Henry Fonda) is on the verge of mandatory retirement. He’s spent his entire career playing by the rules and taking orders and helping recently released criminals go straight. For all of his service, all he’s gets is a small party and a cheap retirement gift.

Still, Mark is on the job when he gets a call that one of his parolees, Harry (Noah Beery, Jr.), is currently in the middle of a stand-off with the cops. Mark goes to the crime scene, where he discovers that Harry was trying to rob a warehouse full of weapons. He also discovers that Harry is dying, as the result of being shot by the police. Before Harry passes, he tells Mark that he and three other ex-cons were plotting to steal a shipment of gold bars.

Mark decides to carry out Harry’s plan. Working with Mitch (Leonard Nimoy), Tudor (Larry Hagman), and Scat (James McEachin), Mark comes up with a plan to rob the armored cars that are going to be transporting the gold. While Tudor and Scat are quick to join up with Mark, Mitch is a bit more hesitant. In the end, though, they all decide to work together. The plan they come up with is a clever one but its main strength is that it’s being spearheaded by Mark, a man who no one would ever expect to commit a crime. No one but his colleague and friend, Lee (John Marley), that is.

I watched The Alpha Caper last night, with my friend Phil, Janeen, and Spiro. To be honest, I selected the film because the title led me to suspect that it would be a science fiction film of some sort. I was a little surprised when it turned out to be a crime thriller but I was even more surprised by just how good the film itself turned out to be. Cleverly plotted and well-acted by the entire cast (and featuring a scruffy Leonard Nimoy playing a role that’s about as far from the coldly logical Mr. Spock as one can get), The Alpha Caper is an entertaining crime film but it’s also surprisingly poignant. Mark is someone who feels that he’s lived his entire life without taking a single risk and, as a result, he has nothing to show for it. He compares his situation to the mythical Kilroy of “Kilroy was Here” graffiti fame. Kilroy will always be remembered, even though no one is really sure who he was. Mark fears that he’s destined to be forgotten. The robbery is Mark’s way of announcing that “Mark Forbes was here.” The film ends on a surprisingly touching, if rather bittersweet, note.

The Alpha Caper originally aired on ABC on October 6th, 1973. It was apparently meant to be a pilot for an anthology show that would be called Crime. The series wasn’t picked up but, two years later, The Alpha Caper was theatrically released in Italy. Today, it can be seen on YouTube. Like Mark Forbes and Kilroy, the film has not been forgotten.