Frankenstein (1931 film) the deliberately farcical "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948). Though it is unrelated to the Universal series, the later "Frankenstein 1970" has the scientist Frankenstein, here played by Karloff, animate the Monster using a nuclear reactor. Although Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant is often referred to as "Igor" in descriptions of the films, he is not so called in the earliest films. In both "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein", Frankenstein has an assistant who is played both times by Dwight Frye who is crippled. In the original 1931 film the character is named "Fritz" who is hunchbacked and walks with the aid
Castle Films science-fiction and horror films, many featuring the Universal Classic Monsters "Dracula", "Frankenstein", "The Wolf Man", "The Mummy", "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", and "The Invisible Man". The series launched in 1957 and grew to 30 titles. Castle Films changed its name to Universal 8 in 1977 and experimented with longer-length films, but the era of home video brought an end to Universal's home-movie enterprise in 1984. Universal 8 dealt mostly in excerpts, but Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (founded in 1980) offered feature films in their entirety on videotape. Collectors abandoned the excerpts in favor of the complete movies. The