(Corona-) Summer of Terror- The Bride of Frankenstein

    The 1931 Frankenstein film was very different from Mary Shelley's novel, removing, among other changes, a subplot where the monster forces Dr. Frankenstein to make him a mate, which the latter complies with, until he doesn't. This would form the basis for the sequel to the film, which was conceived during the previews of the first film. Indeed, the ending was changed to have Dr. Frankenstein live specifically so that he could return for a sequel. Initially, however, James Whale didn't want to do a sequel, having had a falling out with Boris Karloff during the production of the film The Old Dark House and feeling that he had done all he could with the concept. Ultimately, he agreed to make the film in exchange for Universal backing his project One More River. Whale was dissatisfied by the scripts offered, including a treatment by Robert Florey, and gave the script to John L. Balderston. Balderston was the one who centered the film on the subplot, making it about the "Bride of Frankenstein" and even wrote a prologue with Mary Shelley herself. Whale, still dissatisfied, pushed the script to William J. Hurlbut and Edmund Pearson, who polished the final script. Karloff and Colin Clive returned, with Valerie Hobson replacing Mae Clarke in the role of Elizabeth Frankenstein. Whale's old friend Ernest Thesiger plays the villain Dr. Pretorius. In the titular role of the Bride was Elsa Lancaster. Born to a bohemian artistic family in London, Lancaster studied dance in Paris under Isadora Duncan, before returning to England and starting a number of venues to pursue theatre and cabaret. Eventually, she started appearing in small scale productions in Britain with her husband Charles Laughton, eventually accompanying him to Hollywood. Laughton managed to carve out a niche for himself, including in The Old Dark House. She had returned to London when Whale offered her the role. She based her signature hiss on swans in Regent's Park, London. Jack P. Pierce and Kenneth Strickfadden return in their roles, with Pierce's original make-up modified slightly to allow the monster to speak (an element Karloff was vehemently against).  Pierce also designed the Bride with Whale, basing it off the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. A very young Billy Barty was prominently featured before his scenes were cut. Released on April 20th, 1935, the film would garner critical acclaim, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest sequels ever made. 

    The film begins with a prologue featuring Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Elsa Lancaster) stuck in Byron's villa in Switzerland during a thunderstorm in 1815. Byron and Shelley praise Mary's tale of Frankenstein, and ask that she continue with the story. She agrees, and begins the story: shortly after the events of the first film, Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) emerges from the wreckage of the windmill burned in the original and begins to wander. Meanwhile, Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) recovers back in the village with his bride Elizabeth (Valerie Dobson) by his side. They're approached by Frankenstein's old teacher Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), who really wants Frankenstein to help him with his own life creation experiments. Eventually, as Frankenstein tries to survive paranoid villagers (including befriending a hermit (OP Heggie)), Pretorius' begins his grandiose scheme: To create a bride. For the Monster. 

    Again, the highlight of the film is Karloff's performance. There's a lot more instances of his physicality and his innocence, conveyed well by Karloff's own movement. For all his opposition to the monster talking, he manages to do the voice well, making that aspect of the character as iconic as it is. Elsa Lancaster does well in her brief appearances as both Mary Shelley and the Bride. Her performance at the end is really good, especially at showing the fear that the creation has at the world around her. Her hissing is very precise, and she makes an impression even though she only appears in the last ten minutes. Dr. Pretorius is very fun in his giddiness, the way Claude Rains was in Invisible Man. I like that the film continues to show the monster as sympathetic, continually despised and misunderstood despite only making mistakes. It really makes the film tragic, as the monster is rejected by all aspects of society, including his creator, the villagers, and even the bride crafted specifically for him. There's been speculation of a queer subtext, given the director and some of the actors and the camp factor of the film. Personally, I think if there is such a subtext, it's in the Creature being besieged by a society that mistrusts and hates him, finding solace only in the relationship he forges with the Blind Hermit. 

    The opening is a little slow, and a bit confusing, especially when Dr. Pretorius arrives and shows the homunculi he created. While the make-up in this film is iconic, I kind of prefer the ones from the original. It looked a lot more natural and this makes Karloff's face look bloated. It doesn't feel right. 

     As with the first one, this is something of a quintessential American horror movie or even quintessential American film. Beyond the horror genre, this has been homaged or referenced so many times, that it's hard to not to at least know of its existence. Even Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein utilizes the imagery and menace that this film had pioneered. In that sense, it's almost required viewing for that reason. Helps that it is really, really good in its own right. 

    I feared this would happen. Yes, unfortunately, I have to take this into September. Like everyone else, it's just been a hard year for me, and writing these tends to be a more intensive form because of the research. Hopefully, I will be able to finish by mid-September. Anyway, next time, we will look at Werewolf of London. 

Summer of Terror- The Universal Monsters: Frankenstein

     Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus needs no introduction. Not its origins in the electric experiments conducted by Luigi Galvani, showing that electricity can induce movement in dead limbs, nor the real Castle Frankenstein, where alchemist  Johann Conrad Dippel did experiments on human bodies. Not how Shelley conceived it while stuck in a Swiss cabin with future husband Percy and poet Lord Byron. Nor its place as the first work of modern science fiction and horror. I suppose let's begin with adaptations. Frankenstein started being adapted into plays during Shelley's lifetime, with 1823's Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein being the first, followed by The Man and the Monster! in 1826 and Frankenstein; Or The Model Man in 1849. In 1887, a musical adaptation, Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim was made. As film came into prominence, film adaptations also followed. In 1910, J. Searle Dawley wrote and directed the first, a short adaptation for Thomas Edison and his film studio. Life without Soul in 1915 and Italian adaptation The Monster of Frankenstein  (both lost) followed. The story of this film begins in 1924, with another stage adaptation by British playwright Peggy Webling, commissioned by Hamilton Deane, who made the stage adaptation of Dracula made into the 1931 film. Notably, the monster (unnamed in the Shelley novel) was named Frankenstein after its creator. With Dracula's towering success, Universal purchased the rights to John L. Balderston's (who also produced the successful Broadway version of Deane's Dracula) unproduced Broadway version of Webling's play. (Ultimately, said version never made it to stage). Bela Lugosi originally wanted to be Victor Frankenstein, but was relegated to being the monster. In the original version with director Robert Florey at the helm, Lugosi's monster would be simple killing machine, a charaterization Lugosi resented and eventually led to his and Florey's ouster. In their place was  James Whale  a successful British stage director, who had recently made the transition to film as director and an unknown minor character actor named Boris Karloff as the monster. Boris Karloff, despite the name, was not in fact another Eastern European refugee. In fact, he was an Englishman, born William Henry Pratt, from a diplomatic family (his maternal great aunt was Anna Leonowens, most famous for being the subject of The King and I). Pratt would change his name to Boris Karloff when he became an actor to avoid embarrassing his family (Accounts vary on where he got the name). After years in Canadian and American acting troupes, he would eventually make his way to Hollywood, where his relatively darker skin complexion (owing to some Indian ancestry) would cast him in minor ethnic roles throughout the silent era. Whale purportedly cast Karloff because of his intimidating size. The supporting cast was rounded out: Colin Clive (who had appeared in Whale's production of the play as Journey's End and it's 1930 adaptation) as Henry (not Victor) Frankenstein, Mae Clarke (who appeared opposite James Cagney in The Public Enemy earlier that year) as Henry's love interest Elizabeth Lavenza, and Dracula's Edward van Sloan and Dwight Frye as Dr. Frankenstein's mentor Dr. Waldman and his hunchback assistant Fritz respectively. Set designer Kenneth Strickfaden would design the iconic set describing the creature's creation (including a Tesla coil from none other than Nikola Tesla himself), which was used in later films. The iconic make-up of the creature was done by Jack P. Pierce, and was so evocative that Universal trademarked it (which it still holds) and has been associated with the character since. Released on November 21st, 1931, Frankenstein would be a commercial and critical success, and is now regarded as an iconic piece of American cinema. 

    In some nondescript place in Central Europe in some nondescript time, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) dig up recently buried corpses for a project to create a living being from the parts of dead bodies, but needs a brain. He sends Fritz to steal a healthy brain from his teacher Dr. Waldman (Edward van Sloan), but Fritz screws up and brings a criminal brain meant for comparison. Henry's fiancee Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) and friend Victor Mortiz (John Boles), along with Dr. Waldman, find Henry about to perform his act: using lightning to bring his Creature (Boris Karloff) to life...

    The best thing about the film definitely is Karloff as the creature. The performance is incredible. He manages to have unique mannerisms, the way he moves his arms, his expressions, his grunts, the way he moves, all helps create a very convincing portrayal of the monster as very sympathetic and misunderstood. He can be intimidating, but the film shows very well how the monster is constantly besieged and misunderstood by people. Karloff's performance as the Monster really makes the film work in the way it intend, and is really the main thing that is most memorable, especially the iconic scene  with the little girl. Not to say the rest of the film is very well done. Strickfaden's sets are very meticulous, with a German impressionist look to the architecture and a very haunting look to the electrical equipment in Dr. Frankenstein's office. The cinematography is also very well done, with some very well done long shots and overviews which increase the drama of each scene. I liked that the film took full advantage of its relatively short running time and  told the story it intended to tell well, and with very few interruptions. 

     That said, there were some scenes towards the end celebrating Frankenstein and Elizabeth's wedding, that felt a bit like padding. Or was the studio trying to do big celebration scenes like in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It ultimately felt superfluous except to establish the crowd which later hunts down Frankenstein. The short length probably makes this worse. And like Dracula, the film just sort of stops rather than have a proper conclusion, though this at least feels like the film should've ended at this point. 

     One might call this the quitessential American horror film. Every horror film that followed either followed at least parts of the precedents it set or rejected it. Even early New Horror film Targets relied on the intimidating power of Boris Karloff's performance. So, I think it's worth a watch on that ground. It's also really quite good and affecting in its own right, with the stand out being Karloff's performance and the large scope of the story. So, it's definitely worth a watch. 

    Next comes the first original property with The Mummy.