April 19- There’s a Party at Frankenstein’s House Tonight!

Tonight at 9- while the Berwyn “Spindle” remains unsold, and some people STILL don’t believe there was an earthquake yesterday-you can see the film that marked the return of the great Boris Karloff to the Universal Studios Frankenstein franchise- as we open the doors to the sinister  “House of Frankenstein” in its final run on the Svengoolie program (back it goes into the Universal vaults and/or clutches of pay TV!)
Boris last was involved with the Frankenstein films as the Monster himself, back in “Son of Frankenstein”-but this time, he returns as an evil scientist whose own experiments in creating life (including combining human and animal parts)
have left him in prison, with cellmate Daniel- a somewhat homicidal hunchback. When nature itself provides an escape route for this dastardly duo, they happen upon a traveling
“House of Horrors” showman who claims to have the actual remains of Count Dracula- the renowned vampire- as part of his creepy collection. Boris doesn’t really care about Drac’s remains- but likes the idea of bumping off said showman and assuming his identity (pre-credit card or internet identity theft!) and having Daniel sub as his driver.  Their mission- to return to the evil doc’s home town and get revenge on all those fools who were too stupid to realize what he was trying to do for mankind (is it so wrong to put a man’s brain in a dog? I mean, really?!) Along the way, he accidentally revives Dracula (in the form of the slim and slimy John Carradine)-and heads to the ruins of one of the Frankenstein abodes, where he finds both Larry Talbot (the Wolf Man, again portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr) and the flash-frozen Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange.)Soon, they’re all cruising around causing major problems-and Boris has sinister plans for switching some brains and bodies!
The original title of this film was “the Devil’s Brood” (which I think was later used as the name of a professional wrestling tag-team!)-and has been called the original “Monster Mash” for its roster of all the major Universal monsters (except the Mummy-we’ll explain why he wasn’t used tonight on the program!)This idea of all the biggies coming together was used again for “House of Dracula” and the ever popular “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Check out both ends of the pay scale- former Frankenstein Monster Karloff earned the most money of any featured player in the cast for his role as the mad doctor- while the current Monster, Glenn Strange earned the least- a mere $500!
There’s more trivia, plus the usual Sven tomfoolery (or, should it be Frank-foolery?) in our final run of “House of Frankenstein”- which will also be showing on our sister station Me-TV at 1 am!