{"id":38355,"date":"2013-10-23T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=38355"},"modified":"2013-10-23T01:19:02","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T05:19:02","slug":"quick-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=38355","title":{"rendered":"A Quick Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AbbottandCostello\"<\/a>Guest blogger Paul Castiglia writes:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about Dracula, specifically Bela Lugosi<\/a>‘s portrayal of the character in the greatest horror-comedy of all time, 1948’s Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein<\/a>. It dawns on me that the screenplay of that film and Lugosi’s performance within it have done more to solidify Dracula’s standing among monsterdom than perhaps anything else. By that I mean that it presents the bloodthirsty count as a major player who not only can wreak havoc in his own world (as in the original Lugosi Dracula<\/a> from 1931), but is also an imposing figure on the world stage. He’s not just Dracula terrorizing Transylvania; he’s an ubelieveably formidible proponent of evil who can bring the entire world to its knees if not stopped.<\/p>\n

The Dracula of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein is akin to a James Bond villain, or a major megalomaniacal\u00a0comic book\u00a0fiend like Superman’s Lex Luthor or the Fantastic Four’s Doctor Doom. Someone who is cunning, intelligent and can have legions at his beck and call at any time\u2026and manipulate them to enact his diabolical schemes. You see this played out specifically in Mad Monster Party<\/a> and The Monster Squad<\/a> and countless films from around the globe, be it the classy Hammer horrors<\/a> from England\u00a0or the bombastic Paul Naschy<\/a> monster epics from Spain, from the slapdash cult curios like Al Adamson\u2019s Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) to the big-budget actioner Van Helsing (2004). Which is quite ironic when you take into account how many \u201cdie-hard\u201d classic monster fans despise the Abbott and Costello film as what they label the \u201cdeath knell\u201d of the Universal Monsters.<\/p>\n

The truth is, as I explored in my review of the film, the monsters were actually treated with respect and given a new lease on life via their encounters with Bud and Lou. And Dracula? He became the biggest baddie of them all in the process. He runs the show and strikes ultimate fear as the most evil of monsters, which makes the heroes\u2019 inevitable victories over him all the sweeter. Bravo, Frederic I. Rinaldo and Robert Lees (scribes behind \u201cA&C Meet Frankenstein\u201d) and bravo times ten to the irrepressible Bela \u2013 who at age 65 essayed the role of his most famous character with all the gusto (and maybe more so) that he did back in the original 1931 \u201cDracula\u201d movie (when he was merely 48)!<\/p>\n

Paul Castiglia has been writing and editing comic books and pop culture articles for 20 years.\u00a0 Among his many credits are editing the Archie Americana series of classic comic book reprints, writing comic book stories featuring classic Tex Avery animation characters,\u00a0and contributing a chapter to a book of essays on Vincent Price.\u00a0His website is <\/em>Scared Silly: Classic Hollywood Horror-Comedies<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s guest post, writer Paul Castiglia shares his views on how Dracula has been portrayed on-screen throughout the years; focusing on the brilliant (and peerless) performance of Bela Lugosi as the infamous bloodsucker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":38375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1667,1380],"coauthors":[1710],"class_list":["post-38355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-articles","tag-abbott-and-costello","tag-bela-lugosi"],"yoast_head":"\nA Quick Bite - MovieFanFare<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=38355\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Quick Bite - 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