Son of Frankenstein is a 1939 American horror film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Near the castle lives Ygor (Bela Lugosi), a crazed blacksmith whose neck was broken in an unsuccessful hanging attempt.

The screenplay written by Willis Cooper was initially rejected and early script drafts included only the characters that would be used in the final film.

Production was delayed until November 9 due to inclement weather and other problems, and filming was completed on January 5, 1939, with a final cost of $420,000.

Wolf wants to redeem Henry's reputation but finds this will be more difficult than he thought after encountering hostility from the villagers, who resent him for the destruction wreaked by his father's Monster years before.

Wolf's only other friend is local police Inspector Krogh, who wears an artificial arm because Frankenstein's creature ripped off his real one when he was a child.

While investigating Henry's castle, Wolf meets Ygor, a blacksmith who survived being hanged for grave-robbing and has a deformed neck as a result.

[5] According to the press release, Lorre had turned down the offer as he had stopped working in horror films to become Mr. Moto and "did not want to risk being 'on another meanie'".

[8] Director Rowland V. Lee said his crew let Lugosi "work on the characterization; the interpretation he gave us was imaginative and totally unexpected ... when we finished shooting, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he stole the show.

[11] Wyllis Cooper, the creator of the radio show Lights Out, submitted an original screenplay for Son of Frankenstein that was initially rejected.

[5] This screenplay, which was dated October 20, 1938, involved Wolf, his wife Else and their young son Erwin arriving at Castle Frankenstein to claim their inheritance.

[12] Production of Son of Frankenstein began on October 17, 1938, but filming was delayed until November 9 due to Lee's dissatisfaction with Cooper's screenplay.

[13] The lack of a completed script led to actors receiving freshly written pages minutes before scenes were set up to be filmed.

[10][14] In the November 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter, Universal announced the staff working on the cutting and scoring of Son of Frankenstein had been doubled to meet its scheduled release date.

Brown and Charles Previn respectively - alerted their staff about the possibility of working until the New Year holiday to meet the shipping date of the first 20 prints of the film.

[14] Dunagan said the film took a toll on Karloff, that the monster make-up "was punishing him" due to its weight, and that "when we got through with that movie, my sense was that he did not like that role.

[15] The first-weekend revenue in Los Angeles, Boston and Richmond exceeded those of previous Universal film openings in those three cities.

[17] In late 1957, a television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures put together a package of Universal's films and screened them in a series called Shock Theater across the United States.

[18][19] In 1987, Universal/MCA found an uncut print of Son of Frankenstein and debated whether to release it or the more familiar edited version on home video.

[21] Gary Don Rhodes wrote that Son of Frankenstein received "stronger reviews than generally met other horror films".

[15] Among contemporary reviews, The Hollywood Reporter said the film was "a knockout of its type of production, acting and effects" because Lee's direction "keeps a chillingly sombre mood, and the grim humor that's in it, he handles very well indeed".

[22] The Motion Picture Herald said the film "is a masterpiece in the demonstration of how production settings and effects can be made assets emphasizing literary melodrama".

[23] Kate Cameron of The New York Daily News said Lee "created an eerie atmosphere for the story and he has put into the working out of the plot enough horror to send the chills and shivers racing up and down the spectators' backs".

[4][27] Jim Hoberman of The Village Voice in 2011 praised Lugosi's performance as Ygor, writing he "pretty much steals the movie in his last really juicy role".

[29] In the book The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies (2018), Kim Newman said Lugosi was in "his finest screen role", while Atwill and Rathbone made up for the lack of the British presence director James Whale had.

[30] Less positive reviews mentioned Whale's absence as the film's director; Phil Edwards in Starburst in the early 1980s said Son of Frankenstein is "not particularly novel and the somewhat hackneyed story points the way to the sad direction which later Universal horrors would follow".