-Devdutt Trivedi
James Whale’s Frankenstein is perhaps the best known horror film alongside Tod Browning’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both the films were completed in the same year and are equally influential positions in molding American popular culture. Frankenstein, adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel (1818) was much closer to Peggy Webling’s play version of the book.
Shelley’s novel was influential in shaping a Freudian understanding of early twentieth century modernity after the completion of the war. The text was influential in processing Freudian studies of cinema and was first adapted in 1910 by the original inventor of cinema, Thomas Edison, after play interpretations of the text were rampant since 1830.
The casting of the film played an important process in creating the unique eeriness of this B-horror masterpiece. Initially, Bela Lugosi was offered the role of the monster, but refused on the grounds that his character would not speak (though he eventually played the role in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)). Lugosi also insisted on creating his own makeup for the Monster, but his design was rejected. According to film historian Richard J. Anobile, Lugosi was originally offered the role of Dr. Frankenstein by original director Robert Florey, but Carl Laemmle insisted that Lugosi play the monster, which can be verified in test footage of Lugosi in Monster make-up was filmed by Florey on the set of Dracula (1931). Soon after, Florey was replaced by James Whale as director, and Lugosi was replaced by Karloff. According to certain critics, Lugosi was chosen after the success of Dracula, but dropped out when he realized that the monster had no lines. The actors originally considered for the cast included Leslie Howard as Henry Frankenstein and Bette Davis as Elizabeth. Director James Whale insisted on Colin Clive for the role of Henry.According to Internet Movie Database (Imdb) John Carradine earlier turned down the part of the Monster because he considered himself ‘too highly trained’ to be reduced to playing monsters. The ‘Monster’ in this film does not physically resemble Mary Shelley's character.
According to Imdb, It was make-up artist Jack P. Pierce who came up with innovations such as the Monster's flat head, the bolts through the neck, the droopy eyelids, and the poorly-fitted suit. Any future Frankenstein film that features any of these physical abnormalities is taking its inspiration from Pierce's make-up work. The monster make-up design by Jack P. Pierce is under copyright to Universal until the year 2026, and licensed presently by Universal Studios Licensing, Inc.
Carl Laemmle Jr. offered James Whale a list of more than 30 film adaptations he could direct and Whale picked this one. Whale said he did so because he wanted to get away from the war pictures with which he had so far been associated. Ironically, James Whale is now, by far, best-remembered for his horror films.
After the first trial screening, Universal Studios felt the need to soften the impact of this early horror film. Edward Van Sloan, who has a small role as Frankenstein's precise
university professor, begins Frankenstein with an introduction warning the faint of heart to exit the theatre. An early version of this warning message was written by John Huston who went on to become amongst the most important Hollywood directors of the ‘40s and ‘50s. The film was like a lot of other B-films shot on the set of another film; that of Universal’s The Cat and the Canary (1927) produced four years earlier.
Although Gilles Deleuze does not study the film in all its depth in, his remarkable studies on cinema, Cinema 1: The Movement Image and Cinema 2: The Time Image, he does refer to its ability to produce an intensity of non-organic life through somnambulists, golems and zombies (as in Frankenstein), in the Bergsonian sense (Time and Free Will), with reference to the matter in the image (Matter and Memory). The film is a Deleuzean discourse in the sense that it links a creation of the brain, that of the monster, with the materiality of the frame. This materiality of the frame predates the James Bond films, particularly the early Sean Connery films, in their ability to create Deleuzean ‘intensity’ through crammed sets.
The performances by Boris Karloff, which Berardinelli states ‘represents some of the best work done by Karloff in his long, uneven career’, carries the film along with the over-the top performance by Colin Clive which was typical of early sound films, with actors borrowing from their silent film acting technique. Frankenstein ‘stands out as the stronger movie’ when compared to Dracula because of Karloff’s performance and Whale’s exceptional direction. The film found its rather mediocre sequel in Bride of Frankenstein (1932) and a number of other sequels including Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) which missed the zany energy of the original.
References
Internet Movie Database
James Berardinelli
Brian Koller
Variety