Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (which has the onscreen title Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein) is a 1948 American comedy horror film directed by Charles Barton and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It is the first of several films where the comedy duo meets classic characters from Universal's horror film stable. In this film, they encounter Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf Man, while subsequent films pair the duo with the Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Invisible Man. On a TV special in the early 1950s, the two did a sketch where they interacted with the latest original Universal Studios monster being promoted at the time, the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). The film is considered the swan song for the "Big Three" Universal horror monsters – Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster – although it does not appear to fit within the loose continuity of the earlier films.
The film was re-released in 1956 along with Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed this film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in September 2007, Readers Digest selected the movie as one of the top 100 funniest films of all time.
Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) work as railway baggage-clerks in LaMirada, Florida. When Wilbur mishandles two crates belonging to McDougal's House of Horrors museum, Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) demands that they deliver them in person so that they can be inspected by an insurance agent. McDougal boasts to Wilbur's girlfriend, Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lénore Aubert), that the crates contain "the remains of the original Count Dracula" (Bela Lugosi) and "the body of the Frankenstein Monster" (Glenn Strange).
Dracula awakens, hypnotizes Wilbur, and spirits away his own coffin (and the revived Monster) before anyone else sees them. McDougal then arrives with the insurance agent. Finding the storage crates empty, he accuses the boys of theft and has them arrested.
Mornay receives Dracula and the Monster at her island castle. Sandra is a gifted surgeon who has studied Dr. Frankenstein's notebooks, and has been posing as Wilbur's girlfriend as part of Dracula's scheme to replace the Monster's brutish brain with one more pliable — Wilbur's.
Wilbur and Chick are bailed out of jail and mistakenly believe Sandra to be their benefactor. Actually Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph), who also seems to like Wilbur, is responsible for the good deed. Joan is secretly working for the company that is processing McDougal's insurance claim, and hopes Wilbur will lead her to the missing 'exhibits'.
Meanwhile, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) has taken the apartment across the hall from Wilbur and Chick. He has tracked Dracula and the Monster from Europe, and knows them to be alive. Talbot asks the boys to help him find and destroy the villains. Wilbur is amenable to the plan, but Chick thinks both of them are crazy. Talbot's desperate insistence that he be locked in his room before moonrise impresses Chick even less. Later, when Wilbur brings over Talbot's forgotten luggage, he is stalked by the Wolf Man, and narrowly escapes without realizing he was even in danger.
The following night, Wilbur, Chick and Joan go to Sandra's castle to pick her up for a costume ball. Expecting Wilbur alone, Sandra receives the extra guests rather icily.
While the ladies powder their noses, Wilbur answers a telephone call from someone wanting to speak to a 'Dr Lejos'. It is Talbot, who informs them that they are in the "house of Dracula". Wilbur reluctantly agrees to search the castle with Chick, and soon stumbles upon an underground passageway, complete with boat and dock. Behind a secret revolving wall, Wilbur again encounters Dracula and the Monster, but escapes. Wilbur's every attempt to get Chick to witness the villains fails – thanks to the revolving wall. Meanwhile, Joan has discovered Dr Frankenstein's notebook in Sandra's bureau, while Sandra has discovered Joan's employee I.D. in her bag.
