Review of “Frankenstein” (1931)

    After the success of “Dracula", Universal Pictures began filming an adaptation of another famous horror novel - “Frankenstein”.  A bit of clarification here for those who are under the impression that the name Frankenstein refers to the green monster with the flattish head and bolts/electrodes in the sides of his neck - Frankenstein is the last name of the scientist who stitched together dead bodies and used his scientific discoveries to bring this creature to life.  The resultant monster is, well, “the monster” or “Frankenstein’s monster”, although the name Frankenstein is often attributed, even in subsequent films if I remember correctly, to him.
    The role of the monster was offered to Bela Lugosi, fresh from his role as Dracula, but he either turned it down or was dismissed from the project; stories seem to differ.  Director James Whale tested actor Boris Karloff (born William Henry Pratt, in England) - who had been playing small parts in films for years - for the role.  Karloff got the part.  Makeup artist Jack Pierce, with the influence of James Whale (and possibly Karloff, to a degree) designed the iconic look of the monster.  Pierce used a blue-green makeup on Karloff, as it produced a pale, sickly hue in black and white.  Mortician’s wax was used on Karloff’s eyelids to give them the heavy look.
    The film opens with a prologue, spoken by Edward Van Sloan - a sort of warning to the audience of the fearful tale that is to come.  Following this are the title and credits.  Behind some of them are revolving pictures of eyes.  When the credits for the performers come up, the role of the monster is credited with a question mark.
    The first scene is in an eerie graveyard.  Mourning people stand around a grave where a service for a dead man is apparently just being concluded.  Hiding nearby, Henry Frankenstein (played by Colin Clive) and his hunchback assistant Fritz (played by Dwight Frye), lie in wait.  After the mourners have left and the grave has been filled in, Henry and Fritz go to work digging it up again.  They remove the coffin from its resting place, and haul it along through craggy scenery on a cart.  They approach a gallows upon which a hanged man still hangs.  At Henry Frankenstein’s order, Fritz climbs up and cuts the rope.  The body falls, and Henry examines it, realizing with apparent disgust that the neck is broken and the brain will be useless.
    In the quest for a usable brain, Fritz waits outside the window of Goldstadt Medical College, where a class is taking place on the differences between the normal and criminal brains - with two brains in glass containers as illustration.  When the class has left, Fritz pries open the window and goes inside, taking the normal brain from the table, but a noise startles him and he drops it, shattering the glass and, um - Warning to People with Very Weak Stomachs - I confess the brain smashing bit got to me.  Granted it’s a disembodied brain, but still.  This part is a bit more gross/gruesome than these old movies usually were.  So I advise not eating or drinking anything while watching (that’s generally a safe policy when dealing with horror films anyway).  Though many or most of you may think I’m overreacting :).  Fritz goes back to the table and takes the abnormal brain.
    Next we are taken to a luxurious house.  Henry Frankenstein’s fiancee, Elizabeth (played by Mae Clarke), voices her concern about Henry to friend Victor Moritz (played by John Boles).  She has not seen Henry, presumably for months.  He has been away in an abandoned watch tower, working on his experiments.  Victor had seen him three weeks previously, and says his manner was very strange.  Victor decides to go to Dr. Waldman, Henry’s old medical school professor, to see if he can tell him any more about all this.  Elizabeth determines to go with him.
    At Dr. Waldman’s, Elizabeth asks the doctor why Henry left the university.  Dr. Waldman (played by Edward Van Sloan) explains that Frankenstein’s advanced researches were becoming dangerous.  He desired them to provide him with other bodies, without being “too particular” where and how they got them.  Upon being told his demands were unreasonable, Frankenstein left the university.
    A curving path leads up to the watch tower, which we see amidst a storm. Inside the tower, we see Henry at work.  Electrical machinery is set up in the tower, awaiting use upon the body that lays, partially covered with a sheet, upon a table, and endowed with the brain Fritz stole from the medical college.  Henry and Fritz prepare for “one final test”.  A knock is heard on the door.  Fritz goes down the stone staircase to send the unwelcome callers away.  The callers are Dr. Waldman, Elizabeth, and Victor.  Despite Fritz’s demand for them to go away, the knocking continues, accompanied now with shouts, which Henry hears.  At the behest of his fiancee, he lets the three in.  Victor’s assertion that he is crazy is met by Henry with brooding, glowering eyes.  “Crazy am I?  We’ll see whether I’m crazy or not.” he says.
    He brings his visitors up the stairs to the room where his experiment awaits.  He tells Dr. Waldman that he has discovered a ray.  This ray he intends to harness with his machinery and use to bring the dead body on the table to life - a body which Frankenstein stitched together from different corpses.  After a bright flash of lightning, Henry and Fritz ready the equipment.  Amid flashes of electricity and noise from the strange machinery, the table bearing the body is lifted up to a hole in the ceiling of the tower.  The electrical equipment for the film, by the way, was put together by Kenneth Strickfaden, an electrician who collected parts from different machines as a hobby.
    After the body is lowered again, Frankenstein observes its hand move.  Repeating what became one of cinema’s most famous phrases - “It’s alive!” - Henry goes from rapt but controlled excitement to wild, giddy exultation.  Drunk with power, Henry proclaims, “Now I know what it feels like to be God.”  But he is, after all, only a human, and his dangerous game of playing God will not be without dire consequences.  In a world where the discoveries of science sound much like the science fiction of yesteryear - GMO “frankenfood”, the ability to alter DNA, cloning, and so on, with scientists meddling in things that may be better left alone - “Frankenstein” remains relevant.
    “Frankenstein” benefits from some excellent acting on the part of Colin Clive and Boris Karloff.  There was so much expressiveness in their eyes.  Karloff’s performance as the childlike creature yearning for affection, yet turned to brutal monster by cruelty, is touching and poignant.  His expression and body language in one scene, as he holds out his hands and looks at Henry Frankenstein, like a child to a parent, are especially moving.  I feel I ought to also mention the great performance of Marilyn Harris.  Though not in the film very long, she was apparently a very game little child actress (I refrain from saying much more on the subject in case it may be considered a “spoiler”).
    Frankenstein’s monster - thrust into a cruel world through no wish of his own, a baby in a strong man’s body -  his violence may elicit terror, but likely mixed with sympathy.
    Until next time, when I propose to revisit 1933’s “The Invisible Man”.

Review of “Dracula” (1931)

        Pull up a comfy chair, drape yourself generously with wolf bane, and let’s visit Dracula.
        Movies hadn’t been talking all that long when Universal Pictures made their now classic version of Dracula.  For the role of Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi - tall, dark haired, with a pronounced accent and “hypnotic” eyes - was chosen.  He had played the role in the Broadway production and U.S. tour of a stage play based on Bram Stoker’s novel.  Lugosi, whose birth name was Blasko (with an accent on the o that I can’t seem to get on there properly), was born in what was then Hungary, is now Romania, and, allegedly (if I can trust my sources), was once Transylvania.
        As the credits begin, haunting music is playing (a piece from “Swan Lake”), and we see a bat with glowing eyes, and in front of it, a spider web.  After the credits, the first shot is a spectacular image of rugged mountain peaks, and a horse-drawn coach moving over a path.  The visual effect of the mountains in the background was achieved by an interesting process which involved putting the scenery for the upper portion of the picture - painted on glass - in front of the camera, and shooting it at the same time as the live action going on at the bottom of the screen, so as to create an optical illusion.  This process was also used for a few other scenes in the film.
        Inside the coach, passenger Renfield (played by Dwight Frye) bids the driver to go slower, but a fellow passenger asserts that they must reach the inn before sundown, as it is “the night of evil”.  Upon reaching the inn, Renfield instructs the porter not to take his luggage down, as he is going on to Borgo Pass.  This news is met with surprise and consternation, especially when he mentions that Count Dracula’s carriage is to meet him there at midnight.  Despite the locals warnings against vampires, Renfield insists that it’s a matter of business, and he has to go.  Before he re-enters the coach, a woman (presumably the innkeeper’s wife) gives him a crucifix for protection.
        After a shot of the Dracula castle, we see what appears to be the Castle cellar, with ominous stone pillars and coffins here and there.  One of the coffins opens and a hand emerges.  Cut to a shot of an opossum (an opossum?  In Transylvania?  Hmm).  From another coffin comes a female hand.  Then, from a tiny coffin, rather bizarrely, comes an insect of some sort.  To be fair, I think the intention was for it to appear as if the coffin were full-sized and the bug giant, but the illusion, in my opinion anyway, didn’t work.  After another shot of the female vampire, and another opossum shot, comes the compelling first shot of Dracula, wrapped in his cape, his eyes staring.
        Dracula’s carriage, with the Count himself as driver, picks up Renfield, and he is driven to Castle Dracula.  Partway there, Renfield looks out of the window and sees a bat flying over the horses.  When the carriage stops, the driver is gone.  The castle door opens, apparently by itself, and Renfield enters.  The “glass shot” effect is used again here, resulting in a magnificent picture of the high walls and foreboding interior of the crumbling castle.  Dracula descends the staircase with a candle.  And we next have a shot of armadillos.  Yes, I said armadillos.  I wonder who decided that an opossum or two, some armadillos, and a “giant” bug were the proper denizens for a vampire’s castle in Transylvania?  (Note:  Please don’t take my little fun-making at this film’s expense too much to heart).  Renfield turns and sees the figure on the stairs, who proclaims, “I am Dracula.”
        Renfield has come with the lease to a Carfax Abbey in England, ready for Dracula’s signature.  When Renfield pricks his finger on a paperclip, the sight of blood attracts Dracula, who slowly moves closer, until the sight of the crucifix causes him to turn away and cover his eyes.  Renfield proceeds to suck the scratch (Eww, I cringe when I see people do that.  Self-vampirism, lol).  Dracula leaves Renfield, but returns later to bite him.
        The two journey to England on a chartered ship, Renfield now a blood-craving madman under Dracula’s power.  The ship arrives in England, the crew all dead.  Renfield is taken to a sanitarium, and Dracula’s boxes of Transylvanian soil, one of which contains the Count, are presumably shipped to Carfax Abbey.  Dracula proceeds to enact his terrors on the unsuspecting people of England, but he finds a formidable opponent in Professor Van Helsing (played by Edward Van Sloan), a man with no little knowledge of vampires.
        Despite some stagey acting, lack of sophisticated special effects, and interesting choice of castle dwelling creatures :), “Dracula” is still a fascinating piece of cinema.  There are so many great visuals, including a giant spider web, the mirror scene, the use of fog, and the magnificently huge (and dangerous looking) staircase at the abbey.  Bela Lugosi’s performance was iconic, and his accent is still regarded and mimicked as a “vampire accent”.  After “Dracula” he was seriously typecast in horror and vampire roles, although he played Count Dracula on film only once more - in “Bud Abbot Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein”.  Dwight Frye as Renfield does, in my opinion, a wonderful and at times chilling job in his mad scenes, while remaining sympathetic.
        Dracula is, to me, one of the least sympathetic of the Universal monsters, and yet, even in him we get a glimpse, at one point, of, if not remorse, weariness with his vampiric existence.  He postulates with a slight hint of wistfulness, “To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.”, afterwards going on to observe that there are far worse things awaiting man than death.
        Well, that’s all for now.  Next up - also 1931 - “Frankenstein”.