“Fixing a Hole” is a new series, edited and sometimes written by Joel Bocko, whose sole purpose is to review films that have not yet been covered on Wonders in the Dark. Every month has its own theme, and October 2011 is “Universal Horror.” While Joel selected all the titles, he has assigned certain films to guest writers.
This first essay is by one such guest – a “?” in the spirit of the film being reviewed.
•
Frankenstein (1931/United States/directed by James Whale)
stars Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Dwight Frye
written by Francis Edward Faragoh, Garrett Fort, Robert Florey, John Russel, from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel and Peggy Webling’s play • photographed by Arthur Edeson • designed by Charles D. Hall • music by Bernhard Kaun • makeup by Jack P. Pierce
The Story: On a dark and stormy night, lightning strikes, Dr. Frankenstein flips the switch, and his monstrous creation stirs – “It’s Aliiiiiiiiiiive!”
_____________
Dead Man Walkin’
Usually, I’m the first one to say that the visuals are the key. Toss out the writer. Who cares about the actors? Damn the composer and the sound men. The rulers of the roost are the ones in charge of what we see. King Director. Vice President Cinematographer. Let’s not forget about the good citizen production designers and editors. As a fine artist (I paint and draw, sculpt on occasion), I’m immediately drawn into a film by what is SEEN. My feelings about everything are informed by my eye and, more often than not, the story and the characters are secondary to what the visuals can do to me. For me, it’s the visual world a movie can create, more than anything, which grabs me.
Visuals. This is my connection, my relationship with film that almost acts like a direct blood line in a personal heritage. I feel that I am tied directly to film because I CAN create visual art. My connection to film is a tether because I know what (slightly) the artist (director) goes through during his creative process (and, if it’s a true vision, you can bet your last nickel that it’s full of blood and sweat and neurosis). I look at film the same way many look at paintings or sculpture in an art museum or gallery presentation and allow the visual to stir me from the outside into the inner parts of my mind and soul. I have rallied behind recent films like Road to Perdition and Minority Report and Boogie Nights and sang their praises because, beyond everything else, their visuals are what made them transportive experiences. I cheer for the film that can take me to another place and time and this can only be truly done by what is seen. These worlds can be from times forgotten long ago or, perhaps, from places only found in the imagination and taking place a million light years away.
James Whale’s Frankenstein has always been a personal favorite of mine since I was a little boy. In a series of three films from Universal Pictures and based (somewhat) on the writings of Mary Shelley in what is now an iconic tale, I always found this first of the crop to be the ultimate shocker of the bunch. However, where I’ll sing the praises of the writing for Bride of Frankenstein (heralded by most as the best of the series) and cheer its plot and every twist of the story, I find it hard to say the same for the first. I’ll go out of my way to point out one amazing set design after another or drool over the cinematography of Son of Frankenstein as it’s got visuals to spare (it is most absolutely the best looking of the three). However, Frankenstein, which is mediocre in both writing and visual flourish compared to the others, is still the best.
Now that I think about it… There really is not one element that would usually cause me to love a film in Frankenstein. I mean, nothing. Nada. Zip. ZILTCH!
So, what is it about this film?
Frankenstein is that rare movie that harbors, for me anyway, one of those miraculous, benchmark performances that just bowls over the viewer and makes other actors envious. As the monster of the piece, Boris Karloff is, simply, perfection. It’s a performance that not only defines a single film and makes it stand out bigger and stronger than others, but presents itself as one of the exemplary examples in the art of acting that sees a character take over every fiber within the body and soul of the person giving the performance. When I think of the great, singular achievements in screen acting of the 1930’s (in fact, really, the whole of cinema history), then Karloff’s turn as the cadaver brought back to life immediately springs to mind.
At once intimidating, then touching, Karloff infuses the character with both the physical lumbering motion of an entity weighed down by his own strength and towering mass and the kind of curious innocence associated with very young children that are experiencing things, they will later take for granted, for the very first time. Physically, there is a sense of great weight to the performance, like sandbags strapped to his back and shoulders and that, in itself, informs his slow, labored and clumsy movement. The monster moves like one would think that very first alligator did when it crawled out of the primordial soup millions of years ago and stepped, shakily, up on its hind legs and began to walk away from the shore as an early human being. It’s the movement of a curious child that lunges forward toward what it’s after even though the feet aren’t seasoned to follow suit and move as fast as the rest of the body (Karloff worked extensively with his costumer/make-up designer Jack Pierce and, among other things, put 15 pound weights in each shoe to help weigh his feet down, making each step look laborious). In his facial inflections are the cautious tics of one trying to decipher the present moment as something pleasant or something sour. When fire is introduced, his expressions turn to the deepest violent fright and that informs the body and the movements as well. He reacts to the burning flame like a deer running from the dogs of a hunt and his physical and facial inflections are bolts and thrashes of fear filled pain and panic.
Another true part of the brilliance of the performance is the character’s immense emoting of curiosity. Karloff so perfectly infuses gentleness into his hand movements when pulling the petals off a daisy stem in his moment with the little girl by the pond that you forget this is just an actor in a costume and some very heavy make-up. In these moments you really believe it’s a being who is trying to recreate, for himself, the same kind of innocent whimsy that attracted him to the smile of this little child. You can see, in the way he crouches next to her and slowly inches his way closer to her, that he sees her as his mentor, someone with answers to his many inner questions, in what is beautiful about a life that has just begun for him.
As a horror film performance, it is one of a half dozen masterworks. As the monster allows his lack of knowledge to guide him through this world of new sensations, his reactions become more brutish and violent the more he finds out that the world isn’t all daisies and songs and little girls that sing them. He reacts with the explosions of a wild animal forced into a corner.
Finally, though, it’s the eyes.
Curtained with heavy lids that look like thick window shades, the eyes are ALWAYS empty. His moments of first consciousness as he awakes from the electrical storm that is his birth see his eyes relay an uneasy knowledge to the viewer that there is nothing behind them. There are no memories of a past life, of loved ones or experience. Those eyes, as seen in an extreme close up as he sits erect upon the laboratory table for the first time, show us that any thoughts coming into his mind are only those of the present and its through those eyes that we realize this is what the dead would look like if it had really risen from the grave. I don’t know, but there’s something in that stare that Karloff seems to be in through the entire running time of this film that suggests the newfound experiences of early man. It’s almost neanderthal in its primitive curiosity and darting movement, and it’s completely frightening. It’s the queasy feeling you get when you think back to the moment of your birth. You can’t remember it at all, except in fleeting, disorganized flash images, and it feels utterly bizarre.
I could say a lot about the tightness of James Whale’s direction and his beautiful use of hand-held camera in some of the early moments. I could say that there’s an impressive sense of dread in the completely silent passages and the restraint that composer Bernhard Kaun shows to add to the tension is truly miraculous. BUT…
It’s all, truly, in the performance.
Frankenstein is one of those films that speak directly to my soul because of one gargantuan element. Karloff’s performance is one of such striking and frightening believability that it over-rides just about every other interesting thing in a movie filled with interesting things. It’s an acting tour-de-force that is assured a place in cinema history because of his titanic attention to detail and his total immersion into the character.
I can think of many an actor or actress that was so good in a role that you believe they were born to play it. It’s almost as if God had chosen this one thing for them to accomplish in life. I think of the tears in the eyes of Renee Falconetti in Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc. Memories of Cagney’s crooked grin as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy immediately come to mind. Could anyone aside from James Stewart play George Bailey, all alone and praying to God at that bridge on that snowy Christmas Eve, in Carpa’s It’s a Wonderful Life?
We’re devastated by the death of MacMurphy because Jack Nicholson made him our best buddy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
I think of a nervous young man faced with the loneliness of his mind and the memories of his past that force his actions as played by Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock’s Psycho.
There have been many in the past, and a few recently. These are performances that transcend from being just that, a performance, and ask you to believe that what you are seeing is the real deal. Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver is real and he bears no resemblance to the man named Robert DeNiro that’s playing him. Daniel Plainview is about as perfectly realized a person, warts, arrogance, misanthropy and all, in There Will Be Blood, that there is no sign of the great Daniel Day-Lewis in there, somewhere, creating him for us all to experience.
So, too, is Karloff’s creation in Frankenstein. It’s a piece of perfection without words spoken and just pure heart and instinct guiding him. He is a child, in the body of an automaton, looking for some sign to tell him where he came from and where he should move next.
Thinking about his performance that way, the way we all should, the way he intended us to, makes the character created by him all the more frightening…
And REAL.
Brrrrrrrrrrrr….
James Whale really had a great eye for talent.
Dennis Polifroni
September 19, 2011
Dennis Polifroni is a longtime contributor to Wonders in the Dark. His other pieces can be found on his author page.
Dennis, I’ve always felt that Frankenstein’s stylistic primitivism works in its favor. Not only does it focus us on Karloff above all, but it also allows the film to retain a feeling of immediacy that the next two Frankensteins, for all their virtues, lack. You can watch this one and really feel as if nothing like this has ever happened before, on film as well as in life. There’s a starkness to it that Whale never recaptured and wasn’t really interested in recapturing.
Karloff really gives three different performances in his outings as he grapples with writers and directors’ changing interepretations of the Monster and asserts his own. All three performances are great, from the first film’s brutal infant to the sequel’s nearly-redemptive neediness to his weary “sick” Monster in Son, with its climactic scream of grief over Igor’s death. But you certainly don’t overrate his work in the first film, where Whale’s bam-bam-bam sequence of cuts from long shot to close up is arguably the greatest introduction to a character ever. It’s primitive and it definitely isn’t invisible direction but that in-your-face presentation of Karloff exemplifies Frankenstein’s unique wild magic.
Yes, SAMUEL…
I do agree that there is a primitive immediacy to the film both in the visuals and the story structure. However, this piece was really written about my impressions of the film going back to it that first time I saw it at a horror film Saturday matinee when I was just a little kid. Sure, there’s atmosphere to spare and a starkness to the story but, as a 7 year-old, the only thing I could focus on was Karloffs creation. From the first moment he moves I had my hands to my eyes and I always kept a look out for the shadowed places in the rooms on the screen to see if he was lurking somewhere unseen.
I played down some of the more obvious contributions that, rightfully, get praised when others critique this film. My main focus was, and I hope I brought this out in the essay, to bring a sense of the wonder this performance had on me when I saw it through the eyes of a young child.
The memories I have of that first showing have remained with me ever since…
I can’t help but agree here in everything that has been written, well done! This is my favorite of the series, easily, and James Whale may be the best director Universal horror ever had. But now I want you to divert to this man:
http://cinemassacre.com/2011/10/01/frankenstein-2/
Please watch the video and marvel at his level of fanatism.
JAIME-
Yeah, this one IS my favorite of the three…
But, my affection for SON OF FRANKENSTEIN is almost as unbound as it is for this original. The art and set design on SON are a miracle of art-deco fused with German expressionism and there’s just something really tilted about trying to figure out the dynamics of Frankensteins house that akin to trying to figure out the layout of Rick’s CAFE AMERICAN in Casablanca (you can’t do it as hard as you try).
The other reason that SON get big points with me is two-fold.
1. The in-jokes are absolutely hysterical (when the monster presents himself to Frankenstein, Igor introduces him as “my friend”, smiles and pats him on the back. Laughing, Igor (played perfectly by Bela Lugosi) states: “HE DOES THINGS FOR ME” and the hidden homosexual refrences come spilling out to the point where I’m laughing so hard I could cry.
2. Sam and I have been big fans of SON and he and I have watched it together many times. The time, though, that made one particular showing of the film extra special, was about 15 years ago. I was having dinner at Sams and while Lucille was in the kitchen cooking. Sam and I were watching the film the living room with a then 2 year old, diapered Melanie (Sam’s oldest and like my own daughter) sitting between us. I remember, vividly, how that sweet little girl laughed and reacted to US as we laughed and reacted to the film. All of Sam’s kids are nuts for horror and monster movies and I’d like to think that part of that love for them had its seed planted that day.
Matter of fact, I spend pretty much every Wednesday with Sams kids watching horror or monster movies and it’s really like reliving my youth. Of course, they’re far more brave than I was then and their sensabilities are far more hardened to things I would turn away from (“Psycho” Dan could probably watch actual amputations and mutter the word “kewl” under his breath. He’s got nerves of steel). I look at horror films, and my time spent watching it with them, as a way of looking back and remembering who I used to be…
Wow, those are some memories Dennis, I’ve been a recent discoverer of Universal horror, as well as championing almost all of their films due to their akin sense to construction and fun. I agree that the visual style of Son surpases the likes of the original 1931 movie or even the sequel Bride (but those miniature people, while silly, are extremely well done), but there’s something about the lenght of the movie that doesn’t convince me, it seems like most of the non monster time is filler and doesn’t add much to the suspense (even if the first half is a glorious perfect running clock).
A gun to my head, if I had to rate the Frankenstein Universal series, I’d go with:
1. Frankenstein (1931)
2. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
3. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
4. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
5. House of Frankenstein (1944)
6. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
7. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
8. House of Dracula (1945)
Curious this topic appears, as I just finished reviewing all 8 films (minus 1931 and 1935, which were reviewed earlier) in my blog in the last six days, and starting tomorrow I’ll review every Hammer horror Dracula film, so I’m quite busy these days! But it’s so much fun to see the movies the same day you review them.
I’m in charge of one of these installments as well, I won’t tell which movie, but still, they are two movies and there’ll be controversy.
Unlike Jaime above, I cannot agree with everything written in this wonderful piece lol. If we toss out the writer than we probably have a shitty movie. I’m a visual guy as well, who loves the art of cinematography, but a great script is absolutely necessary for most films (unless we are watching avant garde stuff like Emak-Bakia or Ballet Mecanique) to be successful. House Of Bamboo is one recently seen example that would bear this truth out. I know Dennis is exaggerating mostly, and stressing the power of observation and optical wonder to excite him. I definitely sympathize with his belief, that what is informed by the eye is a huge key to cinema.
I also love that he is tackling this Universal classic, that surprisingly has never been covered on the site. I actually love Frankenstein more than Bride Of Frankenstein, as the sequel always felt jokey and Una O’ Connor irks me immensely. Still with the towering presence of Ernest Thesiger, Bride is a worthy sequel. Dr Pretorius steals the whole picture actually. Frankenstein is clearly a more primitive feature in many respects than the followup, but the film feels more like a genuine horror entry overall. I enjoy the fact that the camp elements in the sequel are generally missing in the original. I was obsessed with Universal films at one point, and watched all of them many times. I’ve mostly prevented myself from making lists after the noir countdown, but I must indulge myself with this one. Lets keep it in the sound era…
1. The Old Dark House (this for me is the perfect blend of horror and comedy)
2. The Black Cat
3. Frankenstein
4. The Mummy
5. Bride Of Frankenstein
6. The Invisible Man
7. The Wolfman
8. Son Of Frankenstein
9. Murders In The Rue Morgue
10. Dracula’s Daughter
11. The Raven
12. Werewolf Of London
13. Dracula
14. Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein
15. Son Of Dracula
16. Tower Of London
17. Creature From The Black Lagoon
18. The Ghost Of Frankenstein
19. Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman
20. House Of Frankenstein
21. House Of Dracula
22. The Brute Man
23. The Invisable Ray
24. Black Friday
25. The Mad Ghoul
The rest will go unlisted.
Great piece Dennis.
I agree, the film, overall is far more primitive than the sequels. I also agree that the writer really is the anchor of a film as well.
I was just sliding them aside, slightly to focus on Karloff.
I will say, though, that this film does feel more like a wild animal than the others and I heartily agree that this one has its feet planted firmly in the horror genre than any of the ones that come later. TCM ran FRANKENSTEIN just this past Monday night (they’re running horror films all night on Mondays till Halloween) and I was, once again, amazed by the raw dichotomy that Whale and company use to get the show on the road.
It really is the only one that you feel is like it’s actually happening.
I am leaving the house shortly, for the NYFF, and will return to this celebration later this afternoon. Dennis has illuminated the long appreciation and reverence of this screen classic with an exceedingly thought-provoking essay that expands the boundaries of just artistic evaluation. There is indeed a stylistic primitivism as Samuel Wilson suggests, and as Dennis corroborates, and Karloff’s conveyed a remarkable humanity in the Monster that of course was the film’s primary fascination. Like it’s immediate successor THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, this is an American masterpieve, and it’s primitive warts have always succeeded in enhancing the experience on a far more profound level than camp.
I know of Dennis’ abiding love for the Universal horror films (there are several here at the site, including myself that share it) and he has imparted a fascinating and personal connection that is an utter joy to read in the fist cinematic salvo of Joel Bocko’s welcome series on films not previously covered at the site.
It’s a Frankenstein review for beginners and for the Monster’s long time admirers. It’s a fantastic piece.
You are a very engaging writer, Dennis & I’m happy I chose you to kick off the series! (Though I see you pointedly did not adhere to the 1-page guideline
)
You’re dead-on in your assessment of Frankenstein’s appeal – Karloff’s is one of the great iconic screen performances in history. Indeed, I watch him in other films, where he’s usually excellent, and then marvel that this is the same person who played the monster. Funny how they even had to put that disclaimer at the beginning of The Old Dark House.
The Universal horror films were key to me getting into movies when I was about 7, but in an odd way – I didn’t actually see many of them until years later but there was a series of books about horror films (mostly Universal) in the school library which I read religiously. It’s ironic, actually, because as I saw the films (and I’m still catching up with some of them – after the praise lavished on Son of Frank here, I’m going to have to finally sit down to view it; I didn’t realize it was so highly regarded alongside the first two) I realized that it wasn’t the most famous ones, the ones written about in the book series, that I loved, it was the offbeat, creepy/funny ones like The Black Cat, The Old Dark House (which I just saw), and Freaks (which is admittedly more creepy than funny).
So it’s hard for me to “place” Frankenstein – I definitely prefer the sequel, but it’s such a different type of film that it’s almost like comparing apples and oranges. I have more fun watching Dracula, though Whale’s film is clearly a much better movie overall. I think Shelley’s book is probably better than any of the movies – but then there’s Karloff, so singular and strong that you have to bow down before the film no matter what.
JOEL-Unlike Allan (who is THE master of the four and five paragraph review-I bow to him on this and don’t know how he does it), my style is one that requires a big rev up before I start chopping away at the list of points I set up to cover. Now, if you wanna call this a style then call it that or call it run-off at the mouth, but I think it really comes down to me trying to set an nostaliac edge to the piece or lulling the reader towards a bigger detail that isn’t evident on the surface of the first paragraph. Basically, I use the openings to reel in the reader and unveil something they’d never expect when first starting out. Dirty trick, I know, but one that has been pretty effective for me. Is it?
Yeah, I’m not disappointed you stuck to your guns, haha. Truthfully I’d rather have the full Dennis than anything else, and that particular style is hard to compress into one page. Anyway, there’s a conversational flow to your pieces that makes concerns about economy kind of irrelevant.
SAM-Thanks for the compliment! Its a cute little piece, but nothing more than that I feel. Still, I tried to evoke a sense of importance in it that would directly tie Karloffs performance to other that dwell in the canon of screen performances done by individuals that seem to have been born to play them. As for my love of this sub-genre, I have YOU and that moment with Melanie to really thank for it. I believe that, with some films, the truest impact they make cannot be truly accounted for until they are viewed in the company of an impressionable, wide-eyed child. Its their innocent reaction that amps up the true power of a classic like this. Your children, who I consider my own, have been one of the greatest gifts ever given to my life and my time, each week, spent with them is some of the happiest I have ever had in my 45 years here on the big blue marble. I love em to death.
JAIME-I agree fully with your sentiments. However, what I find key to the lasting success and impact that these fioms have over us even today is the idea that a modern audience MUST enter them with the question of how an audience back then would have reacted to them. I find the truest pleasure in these films (and films like 33′s KING KONG) come when I strip my thinking of the preconceived notion that I’m seeing something classic and put my head in the state of a person in 1931 who would have never dreamed of seeing something like this back then. Doing it this way, I find stuff that has become commonplace by todays standards taking on a greater impact. Imagine the reaction of an audience member who had no idea what was coming when films like this, FREAKS, FANTASIA or KING KONG first premiered. Must’ve been glorious. Can you imagine the smile on James Whale’s face?
This is interesting. I was going to say we should extend the same courtesy to the present – not judging something because it’s been done “before” – yet I realize this runs directly up against my immense frustration with Hollywood’s “recycling” mindset. Really one has to strike a balance – preserving some of that “wide-eyed” wonder that draws us to the movies in the first place, yet not letting lazy hacks or cynical manipulators take advantage of it. Chidlike instead of childish, I suppose.
JOEL-But, that is my point precisely. You can look at something like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978Y or Carpenters THE THING and get qan idea of what had gone before. In the case of films like those remakes I find a sort of inversion as well. One must judge previously treaded material without any judgemental attitude, a strpped down thinking devoid of past glories, in order to fully make judgement on a retread. By deleting the film of the past from immediate memory you stand vto see more clearly the intent of the current film-maker and where he’s trying to go or the new statement he’s making. In honesty, I think both version of THE THING are pretty damned good wheras I find the dated paranoia of INVASION from the 50′s good but no match for the apocalyptic dread of Phillip Kaufmans superior remake. I like the homages, for sure, but I don’t let the memories of the past cloud an honest judgement. At least, not for me…
JOEL (Part 2)-Im not saying that a most of thrse retreads deserve, even warrant, complete concentration (you know what is a serious remake and what is just slap and dash)… However, when a serious attempt to refigure or present in a different way something from the past, we should, actually must, walk into it without a mind flooded by preconcieved criticism andnostalgia for what had worked so well before. There have been a few worthwhile ones out there. Zack Snyders remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD is one. I also deeply admired Coppola’s interpretation of DRACULA. Herzog’s reimagining of NOSFERATU is nothing short of brilliant.
Yeah there have been some great remakes of classic horror films. Like you, I think both the newer Invasion and The Thing are superior to their older versions. I will also say that Coppola’s Dracula is much better than the Browning/Lugosi movie. Universal basically remade Dracula one year later with The Mummy. Same actors, with the same basic story… except that Karl Freud made a better lyrical picture that shed the stiffness of the former film. Herzog’s Nosferatu is also a major success, that can proudly sit alongside Murnau’s original. While on average most horror remakes absolutely stink, it does seem like no other genre has been able to hit as many attempts/projects out of the park. Just look at film noir remakes… I can’t think of one newer adaptation which was more successful than what came in the past. I guess you could argue The Maltese Falcon, but the original was not made in the classic noir era.
Hi! Sam Juliano, Allan, and Dennis…
“Curtained with heavy lids that look like thick window shades, the eyes are ALWAYS empty…”
Dennis,
What a very personal, [It seems as if this review was written from one reflection Of their personal experience...I would go so far, as to say one's soul...] very interesting, very detailed, and well-written review Of a film that I’m yet to watch in it’s entirety.
I must admit that I have just watched “snippet” from this film.
Therefore, I must rectify that “slight” oversight this month Of…“All Hallow Eve.”
Once again, Thanks for sharing a very interesting [and very personal] look at Whales’ Frankenstein. [and Boris portrayal Of Frankenstein's monster]
deedee
Below Is Rare Footage Of Boris…as in Karloff from the film “Son Of Frankenstein…”
Which I just recently, re-watched thanks, to Jaime Grijalva.
[The clip is...too funny!]
Yes, Karloff’s eyes are wonderful. Their only rival, way over there in comedy-land, is Buster Keaton’s. They’re remarkably alike.
So here’s my Great Depression Dad at the Movies story: He’s a little kid, watching Frankenstein with another kid who wasn’t allowed to watch scary movies. When the Monster appears–that backwards-through-the-door shot with the sudden closeup–the other kid bolts out of the theater, never to return. Must’ve been Them There Eyes.
What’s most amazing is they always seem to be expressing something different. There’ll be a lot of Karloffs in the Universal Horror Month and in each selection the character is completely different – and the eyes consequently imply something quite different if occasionally overlapping.