Films were very theatrical in the 1930s, as cinema was still trying to shrug off its origins in live theatre. But some films choose to embrace this. The opening of Frankenstein has someone enter, through a stage curtain, to deliver a warning to the audience about the themes of the film they are about to watch, on behalf of the film’s producer Carl Laemmle.
The credits manage to slightly annoy me, as the story is credits to “Mrs Percy B Shelley” rather than Mary Shelley. I know there’s a formal thing there, but it doesn’t make it less wrong. Especially for a text that’s so foundational as Frankenstein. To diminish the role of the woman who practically created an entire genre, as well as one of the best known stories of the last two centuries, seem impolite.
While we’re on the credits, I have to point out that the previous tape ended with The James Whale Problem, and here’s a film directed by (a different) James Whale.
Sorry, one last note on the credits. In the list of characters and performers,The Monster was credited simply as “?”. I can’t remember offhand whether Boris Karloff was a famous actor before this, and this was a way to keep the mystery of the monster, but the after the movie, he would be indelibly associated with the role. I think, on the sequel, he was credited as ‘Karloff’ which, oddly, means he was an even bigger star than if they’d used his whole name.
The film opens with a funeral. During the service, nobody falls into the grave, but fear not, because watching from afar is Frankenstein and his assistant, waiting to steal the corpse. So someone does, as the law requires, end up in the grave in one way or another. “He’s just resting, waiting for a new life to come.”
It’s their lucky night, as they also find a fresh corpse, hanged from gallows. But his neck is broken so his brain is useless.
Here we see the original dramatisation of one of the classic Frankenstein beats, as his assistant goes to collect the ‘perfect specimen’ of a normal brain, but drops the jar when he’s startled, so he has to go back and pick up the Abnormal brain, a scene later parodied in Young Frankenstein. “That was his name – Abby Normal.”
Colin Clive does make a convincingly unhinged Frankenstein. And of course, just as his experiment is ready to start, he gets visitors, worried about him. It’s always the way, like when people always ring up when Doctor Who is starting.
Frankenstein’s lab is great, everything alive with sparks of electricity. I believe Mel Brooks used some of these original set pieces in Young Frankenstein.
After the creation scene, witnessed by Frankenstein’s old teacher, his fiancée and a family friend, there’s the oddest scene where his fiancée and friend are talking to his father, and the thing they most seem worried about is the impending wedding. Even the Burgermeister turns up to ask when the wedding will happen, because the village has been preparing, Frankenstein being the son of the Baron, so it’s like a Royal Wedding. People seem OK with the fact that Frankenstein has reanimated a body made up of lots of bits of dead body.
The first view of the ‘Monster’ himself is equally low key. Frankenstein and his teacher are discussing the implications of the experiment, with lots of talk along the lines that “there are some things man was not meant to know” when the Monster just comes up the stairs, and, in an awkward bit of staging, stands at the door with his back to us, then turns around.
However, the design of the makeup is worth the wait. Truly iconic work by Jack Pierce which stands as the only acceptable representation of Frankenstein’s Monster. The flat head, the heavy brow, and the electrodes on the neck (which are often replaced with bolts). It’s genius.
But the Monster isn’t placid for long. Frankenstein’s assistant Fritz (not Igor, sadly) frightens him with a lit torch, and he reacts violently. They take this as a sign of inherent violence, rather than fear of fire, and sedate him. But then, when Frankenstein’s teach is examining him on the talbe, the monster wakes up and throttles him.
But Frankenstein is now suddenly keen for his wedding to happen. What could go wrong?
The Monster is loose, and the first person he encounters is a little girl playing by the lake. They throw flowers onto the lake and watch them float, but when they run out of flowers, and the Monster picks up the girl and throws her in, a scene that was apparently very shocking at the time.
Meanwhile, the villagers are enjoying their folk dancing.
Somehow, the Monster finds himself over at the Frankenstein house, despite him never having been there, and there being a massive wedding party going on in the village. But he gets there, and of course he terrorises Frankenstein’s bride.
And then the father of the drowned little girl arrives.
The happy villagers soon turn onto an ugly mob. And Frankenstein seems to be leading them, since the monster menaced his bride too.
It all ends with the Monster trapped in a burning windmill.
After this, recording switches to a segment from Entertainment Tonight, about the Super Mario Bros movie. Bob Hoskins is contractually saying nice things about it.
John Leguizamo is almost typecasting for Luigi.
There’s also a piece on Jurassic Park. It features Sam Neill
And Jeff Goldblum
After this, recording switches again. There’s a Sky Movies ident, but no clue what that film was, then there’s some stuff from on the German satellite channels. Some rather pathetic soft-core porn, I’m afraid. Come on, I was young and single.
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