PICTURE OF THE DAY:  FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE PHANTOM, or DAD, CAN I HAVE THE KEYS TO THE CAR?

 

Here’s a fun image from the blog site Classic Movie Monsters located at http://classicmoviemonsters.blogspot.com/2013/05/father-son.html.

 

In this manipulated image, we see the Frankenstein Monster (Lon Chaney, Jr.) paying a visit to the Phantom of the Opera (Lon Chaney, Sr.) in the balcony of a theater, presumably the opera house haunted by the Phantom.

 

Of course, the joke here is that obviously Chaney Sr. and Chaney Jr. were father and son, and so it’s fun to see these two actors with their monstrous creations in the same shot.  Of course, I would have preferred an image of Chaney Jr.’s most famous creation, the Wolf Man, rather than one of his worst, the Frankenstein Monster.

 

So, why this combination of images?  Since I didn’t create it, I don’t know for sure, but I can wager a guess.  In the movie THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942), the Frankenstein film in which Chaney Jr. played the Monster, the son of Dr. Frankenstein (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) is visited by the ghost of his father who urges him not to destroy the Monster but to carry on with his experiments in the hope of perfecting the creature.

 

With this in mind, perhaps the son, Chaney Jr. as the Frankenstein Monster, is also visited by the ghost of his father, Chaney Sr. as the Phantom.  But, what might the Phantom’s message be?  What might the father be telling the son?  Perhaps, “Hang up the square headed make-up and get back to playing the furry guy with the sharp teeth.”  Good advice, dad!

 

Or for those of us who like to dream and imagine and get inside the heads of their favorite movie monsters, perhaps this is an image of the Frankenstein Monster, having eluded his manipulative companion Ygor (Bela Lugosi) for a few minutes, finding himself inside an abandoned opera house, and as he explores the ghostly grounds, he is perplexed by the strange image which has embedded itself inside his mind, that of a horrifying looking maniac of a man in love with a woman named Christine, an elusive phantom who for some reason calls out to him with the words, “My son,” and the advice, “Don’t ever let them catch you.”

 

The Monster then utters, “Father.”

 

Fade to black.

 

Enjoy!

 

—-Michael