The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

  We now come to the fourth entry in our original series.  This is where we lost Karloff as the Monster but replaced him with other Universal stablemate, Lon Chaney.

After the events of Son of Frankenstein, Ygor (Bela Lugosi) and the Monster (Lon Chaney) are forced to escape from Castle Frankenstein before a mob of villagers burns it to the ground.  Ygor decides to locate his master's second son, Ludwig (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), a preeminent brain surgeon, to make the Monster better.  This Dr. Frankenstein also wants nothing to do with his father's creation but cannot deny the urge to fix something so grievously wrong.  He determines that the problem this whole time has been the Monster's defective brain and decides to swap it out for the brain of his colleague, Dr. Kettering (Barton Yarborough), who was murdered by the Monster.  Ygor wants to put his own brain into the unstoppable body, however, and makes a deal with Frankenstein's former mentor-cum-assistant (Lionel Atwill) to secretly switch brains.  Meanwhile, a new mob is forming to once again drive the Monster and the beleaguered Frankenstein family out of town.

Aside from the many medical impossibilities presented, this is not a bad little movie.  The Monster shows some growth in a sense, by choosing a little girl from town to donate a brain, but that's probably a reaction to wanting to become innocent again and not a gender identity crisis.  Once again, he is shown to not be totally evil, just in service to evil people, like Ygor, who has come a long way from just a dim-witted assistant.