| See also:
Frankenstein movies after 1950 Home pages: The Greatest Literature of All Time Movies of the Greatest Literature
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(1931 DVD)
(1948 DVD) |
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Our favourite monster More than 100 movies about Frankenstein have been produced in various languages. But the version that has to be considered classic is the one that gave us the flat-topped, big-headed monster with the neck bolts, padded shoulders, and the vocabulary consisting of two words, "Arrrrr" and "ARRRRRR!". That's the 1931 Boris Karloff Frankenstein of course.
I know, I know, Frankenstein is the name of the man who creates the monster, not the monster itself. But millions of kids around the world who scream "It's Frankenstein!" are enjoying their fear of a monster, not of a lab-coated doctor. This is thanks to Karloff's portrayal of the creature that stole the movie named Frankenstein and established the association in the public mind for at least the rest of the century. Poor Colin Clive, who played the doctor with outlandish panache, is known only as the character who screamed "It's alive! It's alive!" in the 1931 film and again in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. Clive did however originate a dubiously iconic figure of his own in these two films—the mad scientist—who would also become a Hollywood staple.
A better monster This actually improves on the novel in my view. I never quite accepted Shelley's idea that the creature was stitched together in a small room, and then just got up and walked away. And the film is so much more dramatic. The whole animation sequence, directed by James Whale, has seldom been equalled as a cinematic experience—it's impossible now to imagine how it must have thrilled audiences in the 1930s, long before computer graphics took over Hollywood special effects. Other plot points from the novel are also left out or changed. The monster doesn't learn to speak (another improvement on Shelley). He kills not out of an innate savagery but because he is misunderstood. Without dialogue and through mounds of makeup, Karloff conveys a confused, well-intentioned but ultimately doomed creature. While the book concerns a being without a civilizing soul and condemns the arrogance of man for trying to create life, the film to a surprising degree enlists our sympathy on the side of the creature and condemns those ignorant people who attack it out of fear. One other iconic horror-film figure is created in Frankenstein, the sycophantic hunchbacked lab assistant. Here he's named Fritz, portrayed with panache by Dwight Frye, who had been so memorable as the insane Renfeld in Dracula and who would appear as minor characters in subsequent Frankenstein and other horror flicks.
Mary's monster
This imagined tale actually picks up some of the previously missing elements of Shelley's original novel, such as the monster learning to speak and asking Frankenstein to make a woman for him. It is also a more elaborate story than the first Frankenstein movie with obviously more money spent on its sets and actors, and with some sophisticated camera work. At times it does veer into old-fashioned Hollywood melodrama, particularly concerning Dr. Frankenstein and his fiancée (whom we really don't care about), but Karloff is most affecting as the supposed monster and veteran British actor Ernest Thesiger steals several scenes as the sinister Pretorius.
A chip off the old blockhead
And another chip Apart from a few early scenes of the villagers once again attacking the castle where the monster is kept and the monster escaping alongside Ygor, the atmosphere is leeched out of this film with its bright lighting and unimaginative camera work. Suspense is supplied by some already clichéd shots of scary shadows cast on walls by lightning, shadows that don't really match what's casting them. The "ghost" of the title, by the way, comes from some cheesy scenes of Henry Frankenstein (obviously not Colin Clive) appearing to his second son, exhorting him to give the monster a new brain.
The monster mash Anyway, this is more a Wolf Man movie than a Frankenstein flick, as the monster comes in only about halfway through. Larry Talbot (the Wolf Man when the moon is not full) digs it out of ice to lead him to Dr. Frankenstein's diary which he thinks will give him the secret to ending his own eternal misery. Along the way he recruits yet another obsessed scientist and Frankenstein's granddaughter (daughter of one of the Frankenstein Jrs.—I couldn't tell you which one). It all climaxes with crackling experiments in a castle, a mob of fearful villagers, and a showdown between monsters—curtailed by a watery deluge. I understand for Wolf Maniacs, this movie is a decent sequel but for Frankensteinians it's a bust. Nonetheless it did okay at the box office.
The monster meet and greet They continued this reunion (minus Karloff) in House of Dracula the following year. ARRRH-Haha — Eric |
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© Copyright 2005–2009 Eric McMillan. All rights reserved.
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