Under the Radar DVD of the Week: 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is:

“Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”

On its 100^th anniversary, Universal Pictures is re-releasing several gems from its vaults, and one of these is an inspired teaming of the studio’s classic monster crew with the baggy-pants burlesque veterans Bud Abbot and Lou Costello. “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (due out on DVD Tuesday) is the first and best of several slapstick monster movies featuring the comics and the creepers.

The 1948 comedy deftly combines two lucrative franchises – Bud and Lou’s bumbling buddy routine, featuring Costello’s stammering, stumbling, scaredy-cat persona, and the stable of Universal monsters featuring the lumbering title goon (Glenn Strange), bloodthirsty Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the howling Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) and even a brief appearance by the Invisible Man (Vincent Price).

Abbott and Costello appear as inept railroad baggage clerks who are assigned to deliver two large crates to MacDougal’s House of Horrors. Inside are the Frankenstein monster and Count Dracula. When the two creatures escape, Bud and Lou give chase. But to complicate matters, Lou’s beautiful girlfriend (Lenore Aubert) is really a mad scientist who schemes to implant her boyfriend’s simpleton brain into the Frankenstein monster. Naturally, as the saying goes, comic chaos ensues.