On
our third trip to the House of
Franklin-stein, Chris and Cindy
are joined by their son Andrew to
discuss his (and Chris’) favorite Universal
Monster film, 1941’s The Wolf Man!
Lon Chaney,
Jr.
gives an iconic performance as the doomed Larry
Talbot, the prodigal son who returns to his Welsh home only to stumble into
a nightmarish world of ancient folklore
and gypsy curses! When Larry intervenes to save a life, he is bitten by a
wolf, or was it a werewolf? Will
Larry convince his father, Sir John
(played by Claude Rains) of his plight in time, or is his fate sealed? It’s
Greek tragedy with rubber snouts and
yak’s fur!!!
Then
we rummage once again through our cobwebbed
longboxes and dig out Marvel Team-Up #12, featuring Spider-Man and The Werewolf by Night!
Our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler is on assignment in San Francisco when he
stumbles upon a mad (and we do mean
bat-crap crazy) plot involving Marvel’s favorite lycanthrope, Jack Russell, a handful of
mind-controlled civilians, and the mysterious magician known as Moondark! Will Spidey survive? Will the
Franklins? Listen on!
Be
sure to let us know what you think! Let your voice be heard! We’d love to read
it aloud in an upcoming episode. Drop us a line in our comments section, or
email us at supermatespodcast@gmail.com. If you're
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Chris
(aka Earth 2 Chris) co-hosts the Power Records Podcast with the esteemed Rob
Kelly over at the Fire
and Water Podcast feed!
Next time:
It’s our final trip into the House of Franklin-stein, as Chris, Cindy and
returning son Andrew dish on the modern revamp of the classic monster rally
films: 1987’s The Monster Squad! We’ll discuss Wolfman anatomy, how to
successfully redesign classic monsters, and more! Plus, one final tie-in super
hero/monster mash-up! It’s a Halloween blow-out!!!
Frank and Siskoid-style, I'm not done the episode yet, but I have a few comments:
ReplyDelete1)This episode doubles as a guest-star show and a PSA on how to teach your son how to behave around women. Now you know what I deal with every week on THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST.
2)I enjoyed Cindy's genre-appropriate response to being made fun of: "Bite me."
3)"It takes a village to raise a lycanthrope." Well, I laughed.
4)I thought we were safely out of The Logic Nebula once we got out of the synopsis, but it raises its ugly head later on. Bela the Gypsy of course should not be out working late at night, but when you live and die on a Fortune Telling-based economy, you can't leave any money on the table.
5)I like the idea re: why Bela as werewolf looks more like a wolf, in that the longer you are one, the more of your humanity you lose. That's cool.
6)The Wolf Man is probably the most iconic and perfect "Universal Monster" movie. It doesn't suffer from Browning's drab staging in DRACULA, and Whale's flights of whimsy in the two FRANKENSTEIN films, yet it's before the rot set in with the later "what the hell, they're just for kids" sequels.
7)It's amazing to think, considering how successful this film was at the box office, that there was no sequel before Wolfie got teamed up with the other monsters. Frankenstein got FOUR sequels all to himself!
8)Ma-lay-vuh. Ma-lay-vuh.
1) I think there is still hope for Andrew. Shag...not so much.
ReplyDelete2) I hear that daily. Sometimes twice daily.
3) I thought it was pretty clever myself.
4) Our show exists in the Logic Nebula. It's kind of like the Tholian Web, actually. Bela's late night business obviously has its own meal plan, so it's not so bad.
5) Makes sense to me.
6) Yeah, it's before the folks at Universal proved they really had no idea what function the brain had in the human body.
7) Good chunks of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man read like a straight Wolf Man sequel, and those are the best parts. The other parts are approaching the "House" films, unfortunately. But yeah, he deserved his own sequel. It's the dreaded "Dawn of Justice" paradox.
8) My lengthy notes are going to get even longer if I have spell everything pho-ene-tic-a-lly.
Chris