Frankenstein (1931 film)

Frankenstein
Theatrical re-release poster
Directed by	James Whale
Produced by	Carl Laemmle, Jr.
Written by	Novel: Mary Shelley Play: Peggy Webling Adaptation: John L. Balderston Screenplay: Francis Edward Faragoh Garrett Fort Uncredited: Robert Florey John Russell
Based on	Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Starring	Colin Clive Mae Clarke John Boles Boris Karloff
Music by	Bernhard Kaun
Cinematography	Arthur Edeson
Editing by	Clarence Kolster Maurice Pivar
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	November 21, 1931 (1931-11-21)
Running time	71 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Frankenstein is a 1931 pre-Code horror monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling, which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley. The film stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff and features Dwight Frye and Edward van Sloan. The Webling play was adapted by John L. Balderston and the screenplay written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort with uncredited contributions from Robert Florey and John Russell. The make-up artist was Jack Pierce.

Plot

Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), an ardent young scientist, and his devoted assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye), a hunchback, piece together a human body, the parts of which have been secretly collected from various sources. Frankenstein's consuming desire is to create human life through various electrical devices which he has perfected.

Elizabeth Lavenza (Mae Clarke), his fiancée, is worried to distraction over his peculiar actions. She cannot understand why he secludes himself in an abandoned watch tower, which he has equipped as a laboratory, refusing to see anyone. She and her friend, Victor Moritz (John Boles), go to Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan), his old medical professor, and ask Dr. Waldman's help in reclaiming the young scientist from his absorbing experiments. Waldman tells them that Frankenstein has been working on creating life. Elizabeth, intent on rescuing Frankenstein, arrives just as Henry is making his final tests. He tells them to watch, claiming to have discovered the ray that brought life into the world. They all watch Frankenstein and the hunchback as they raise the dead creature on an operating table, high into the room, toward an opening at the top of the laboratory. Then a terrific crash of thunder, the crackling of Frankenstein's electric machines, and the hand of Frankenstein's monster (Boris Karloff) begins to move. This causes Frankenstein to shout the film's most famous line, 'It's alive!'

Through Fritz dropping a normal brain he was stealing and choosing another (abnormal) one, a criminal brain was secured for Frankenstein's experiments, which results in the monster knowing only hate, horror and murder. The manufactured monster, despite its grotesque form, initially appears not to be a malevolent beast but a simple, innocent creation. Frankenstein welcomes it into his laboratory and asks his creation to sit, which it does. He then opens up the roof, causing the monster to reach out towards the sunlight. Fritz, however, enters with a flaming torch, which frightens the monster. Its fright is mistaken by Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman as an attempt to attack them, and so it is taken to the dungeon where it is chained. Thinking that it is not fit for society and will wreak havoc at any chance, they leave the monster locked up, where Fritz antagonizes it with a torch. As Henry and Dr. Waldman consider the fate of the monster, they hear a shriek from the dungeon. Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman rush in to find the monster has strangled Fritz. The monster makes a lunge at the two but they escape the dungeon, locking the monster inside. Realizing that the creature must be destroyed, Henry prepares an injection of a powerful drug and the two conspire to release the monster and inject it as it attacks. When the door is unlocked the creature emerges and lunges at Frankenstein as Dr. Waldman injects the drug into the creature's back. The monster knocks Dr. Waldman to the floor and has nearly killed Henry when the drug takes effect, and he falls to the floor unconscious.

Henry leaves to prepare for his wedding while Dr. Waldman conducts an examination of the unconscious creature. As he is preparing to begin dissecting it, the creature awakens and strangles him. It escapes from the tower and wanders through the landscape. It then has a short encounter with a farmer's young daughter, Maria (Marilyn Harris), who asks him to play a game with her in which they playfully toss flowers into a lake and watch them float. The monster enjoys the game, but when they run out of flowers, tragedy occurs. Due to his defective brain, the monster thinks Maria (unable to swim) will float as well as the flowers, so he picks her up and throws her into the lake, and the girl drowns. Realizing he has made a terrible mistake, the monster walks away feeling troubled and remorseful. This drowning scene is one of the most controversial in the film, with a long history of censorship.

With preparations for the wedding completed, Frankenstein is once again himself and serenely happy with Elizabeth. They are to marry as soon as Dr. Waldman arrives. Victor rushes in, saying that the Doctor has been found strangled in his operating room. Frankenstein suspects the monster. A chilling scream convinces him that the monster is in the house. When the searchers arrive, they find Elizabeth unconscious on the bed. The monster has escaped. He is intent only upon destroying Frankenstein.

Meanwhile, Maria's father arrives, carrying the body of his daughter. He says she was murdered, and an enraged band of peasants search the surrounding country for the monster. They are split into three groups, Frankenstein leading one into the mountains. He becomes separated from the band and is discovered by the monster who, after the two stare each other down for a curious moment, attacks him. After a struggle, in which Frankenstein's torch fails to save him, the monster knocks Frankenstein unconscious and carries him off to the old mill. The peasants hear his cries and follow. Upon reaching the mill, they find the monster has climbed to the very top, dragging Frankenstein with him. In a burst of rage, he hurls the young scientist to the ground. His fall is broken by the vanes of the windmill, saving him from instant death. Some of the villagers hurry him to his home while the others remain to burn the mill and destroy the entrapped monster.

Later, back at Castle Frankenstein, Frankenstein's father, Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr) celebrates the wedding of his recovered son with a toast to a future grandchild.

Difference from film and book

There are more differences between the movie and book than there are similarities. This is because the movie is largely based on the 1920s play by Peggy Webling rather than the original Shelley text.

A notable difference between the book and film is the monster's lack of speech. In Shelley's book, the creature taught himself to read with books of classic literature such as Milton's Paradise Lost. The creature learns to speak clearly, in what appears in the novel as Early Modern English, because of the texts he has found to learn from while in hiding. In the 1931 film, the creature is completely mute except for grunts and growls. (In the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein, Karloff's monster learns some speech, but is inexplicably mute again in Son of Frankenstein, four years later.)

In Shelley's novel Frankenstein's Monster had got his head cut because of Frankenstein's need to put the brain in his creation, not by an axe. He also, unlike the movie, had long hair, a round head, rags for clothes, decaying skin, and no bolts on the sides of his throat.

In Mary Shelley's original novel, the creature's savage behavior is his conscious decision against his maltreatment and neglect because of his inhuman appearance, whereas in the 1931 film adaptation strongly implies that his condition is largely due to the mistake made by Frankenstein's assistant Fritz, who provides a "Criminal Brain" to be used for the creature. One of the film's most famous scenes, in which the Monster tosses a little girl into a river, is the obverse of a scene in the novel in which he rescues a girl from drowning, only to be shot in the arm by her father.

The deformed (hunchbacked) assistants of the first two films are not characters derived from the novel. In the original text, Frankenstein creates his monster in solitude without servants.

In the novel, how Frankenstein builds the creature is only obscurely described, references being made to a long slow process born from a combination of new scientific principles and ancient alchemical lore. The movies, however, precisely depict the methodology by which their version of the monster is created, showing Frankenstein robbing graves of the recently dead and using the organs and body parts to reconstruct a new human body. This process culminates with the harnessing of a lightning bolt to awaken the creature, a scene famously depicted with great spectacle in the 1931 film. Despite their at best limited presence in the original novel (emphasized by Frankenstein's three brushoffs of the question), the idea of the patchwork body of dead flesh and massive discharges of electricity being key to the genesis of the monster have become commonly associated with the Frankenstein story.

Another part of the book that is entirely unmentioned in the movie is the Monster's request that Frankenstein make a female companion for him. The Monster threatens Frankenstein, and Frankenstein submits and begins to create another creature. Halfway through the procedure, Frankenstein is overcome with guilt and destroys his work, saying that he would not form another being as hideous and demonic as the first one. This enrages the Monster and causes him to vow that he will be with Frankenstein on his wedding night. Much of this material is dealt with in Bride of Frankenstein.

In the novel, Frankenstein's name is Victor, not Henry (Henry Clerval was the name of Victor's best friend) and he is not a doctor, but rather a college student of numerous sciences. Elizabeth is murdered by the Monster on her wedding night. The Monster also murders Henry Clerval and Victor's young brother William, and the family maid, Justine, hangs for the crime. In addition, Justine's surname—Moritz—is given to the film adaptation's character, Victor, who is unrelated to the Victor of the novel.

In the novel, Victor's father dies heartbroken after Elizabeth's murder and Victor begins his pursuit of the monster, which eventually leads to his death from an illness aboard a boat en route to the North Pole. The Monster, finding Victor dead, vows to travel to the Pole and commit suicide, although it is not revealed if he does so.

Cast

• Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein
• Mae Clarke as Elizabeth Lavenza
• John Boles as Victor Moritz
• Boris Karloff (billed as "?") as The Monster
• Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Waldman
• Frederick Kerr as Baron Frankenstein
• Dwight Frye as Fritz
• Lionel Belmore as Herr Vogel, the Burgomaster
• Marilyn Harris as Little Maria

Production

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The film begins with Edward Van Sloan stepping from behind a curtain and delivering a "friendly warning" before the opening credits:

We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation – life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even – horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to – uh, well, we warned you.

In the opening credits, Karloff is unbilled, with only a question mark being used in place of his name. This is a nod to a tradition of theatrical adaptations billing the monster without a name. Universal had not revealed in advance who was playing the monster and had not released any pictures of the monster in order to conceal his appearance.^{[citation needed]} Karloff's name is revealed in the closing credits, which otherwise duplicate the credits from the opening under the principle that "A Good Cast Is Worth Repeating."

There was controversy around this point originally, as some part of the management of Universal built up the suspense of who was playing the creature to gather interest in the film as Bela Lugosi was still largely thought to be performing the role of the creature up until the time of the film's release. Some papers were erroneously still listing Lugosi as the performer. Some were coming to see if Lugosi had changed his mind and recanted about starring in the film, despite some published statements to the contrary, most notably the still-famous "electric beam eyes" poster, which still credited Lugosi as the monster and showed the creature without the now-famous flat head, neck-bolt makeup (created by Universal Studios make-up artist Jack Pierce. Pierce also created Lon Chaney's Wolf Man make-up and Karloff's Mummy make-up as well). Others state it was because the film would cause the ruin of the performer in the role and wanted to minimize said actor's liability,^{[citation needed]} for the original film went against the censor boards of the day.

Bela Lugosi was originally set to star as the monster. After several disastrous make-up tests, the Dracula star left the project. Although this is often regarded as one of the worst decisions of Lugosi's career, in actuality, the part that Lugosi was offered was not the same character that Karloff eventually played. The character in the Florey script was simply a killing machine without a touch of human interest or pathos, reportedly causing Lugosi to complain, "I was a star in my country and I will not be a scarecrow over here!" However, the decision may not have been Lugosi's in any case, since recent evidence suggests that he was kicked off the project, along with director Robert Florey. Ironically, Lugosi would later go on to play the monster in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man a decade later, when his career was in decline and only after Lon Chaney, Jr. complained bitterly about the possibility of him doing double work through trick photography to appear as both the Wolfman and the Monster in the film for about the same pay rate. Chaney had already appeared as the Monster in the previous Frankenstein film Ghost of Frankenstein, directly succeeding Boris Karloff in the role.

The 1931 "Lugosi as Frankenstein's Monster" promo poster, without the now famous flat head makeup

As was the custom at the time, only the main cast and crew were listed in the credits. Additionally, however, a number of other actors who worked on the project were or became familiar to fans of the Universal horror films. These included Frederick Kerr as the old Baron Frankenstein, Henry's father; Lionel Belmore as Herr Vogel, the Bürgermeister; Marilyn Harris as Little Maria, the girl the monster accidentally kills; and Michael Mark as Ludwig, Maria's father.

Jack Pierce was the makeup artist who designed the now-iconic "flat head" look for Karloff's monster, although Whale's contribution in the form of sketches remains a controversy, and who was actually responsible for the idea of the look will probably always be a mystery.

Kenneth Strickfaden designed the electrical effects used in the "creation scene." So successful were they that such effects came to be considered an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving the Frankenstein Monster. Accordingly, the equipment used to produce them has come to be referred to in fan circles as "Strickfadens." It appears that Strickfaden managed to secure the use of at least one Tesla Coil built by the then-aged Nikola Tesla himself. According to this same source, Strickfaden also doubled for Karloff in the electrical "birth" scene, as Karloff was deathly afraid of being electrocuted from the live voltage on the stage.

There is no musical soundtrack in the film, except for the opening and closing credits.

The film opened in New York City at the Mayfair Theatre on December 4, 1931, and grossed $53,000 in one week.

Censorship history

The scene in which the monster throws the little girl into the lake and accidentally drowns her has long been controversial. Upon its original 1931 release, the second part of this scene was cut by state censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York. Those states also objected to a line they considered blasphemous, one that occurred during Frankenstein's exuberance when he first learns that his creature is alive. The original line was: "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!" Kansas requested the cutting of 32 scenes, which, if removed, would have halved the length of the film. Jason Joy of the Studio Relations Committee sent censor representative Joseph Breen to urge them to reconsider. Eventually, an edited version was released in Kansas.

As with many Pre-Code films that were reissued after strict enforcement of the Production Code in 1934, Universal made cuts from the master negative.

• Frankenstein's line, "Now I know what it feels like to be God!", was obliterated by a clap of thunder on the soundtrack.^{[citation needed]}
• Some footage of Frankenstein's assistant Fritz taking sadistic glee in scaring the monster by waving a lit torch near him while the monster is shackled in chains.^{[citation needed]}
• Close up of needle injection was removed.^{[citation needed]}
• In the scene of the monster and the little girl tossing flowers into the lake, the second part of the scene was cut, beginning at the moment he extends his hands to pick her up.^{[citation needed]}

These censored scenes were not shown for decades; in 1986, MCA-Universal restored the shots of Fritz tormenting the Monster, the close up of the needle injection and Maria being thrown in the water, while the full "Now I know what it feels like to be God!" line would not be fully restored until 1999.^{[citation needed]}

Reception

Mordaunt Hall gave Frankenstein a very positive review and said that the film "aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings." "[T]here is no denying that it is far and away the most effective thing of its kind. Beside it "Dracula" is tame and, incidentally, "Dracula" was produced by the same firm [...]"

Frankenstein has received acclaim from critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1931, as well as one of the greatest movies of all time. It holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2004, The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.

Frankenstein also received recognition from the American Film Institute. It was named the 87th greatest movie of all time on 100 Years... 100 Movies. The line "It's alive! It's alive!" was ranked as the 49th greatest movie quote in American cinema. The film was on the ballot for several of AFI's 100 series lists, including AFI's 10 Top 10 for the sci-fi category, 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), and twice on 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains for both Dr. Henry Frankenstein and the Monster in the villains category.

The film was ranked number 56 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies. It was also ranked number 27 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Additionally, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 14th scariest film ever made.

Sequels and parodies

Frankenstein was followed by a string of sequels, beginning with Bride of Frankenstein (1935), in which Elsa Lanchester plays the Monster's bride.

The next sequel, 1939's Son of Frankenstein, was made, like all those that followed, without Whale or Clive (who had died in 1937). This film also featured Karloff's last full film performance as the Monster. Son of Frankenstein featured Basil Rathbone as Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, and Lionel Atwill as Inspector Krogh.

The Ghost of Frankenstein was released in 1942. The movie features Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Monster, taking over from Boris Karloff, who played the role in the first three films of the series, and Bela Lugosi in his second appearance as the demented Ygor.

The fifth installment, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was released in 1943, directed by Roy William Neill, and starring Bela Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster. This is also the sequel to The Wolf Man, with Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man. Karloff returned to the series, but not the role, in the 1944 followup, House of Frankenstein, which also featured Chaney, and adds Dracula and a Hunchback for good measure.

Many of the subsequent films which featured Frankenstein's monster demote the creature to a robotic henchman in someone else's plots, such as in its final Universal film appearance in the deliberately farcical Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Karloff would return to the wearing of the makeup and to the role of the Monster one last time in an episode of the TV show Route 66 in the early 1960s.

The popular 1960s TV show, The Munsters, depicts the family's father Herman as Frankenstein's monster, who married Count Dracula's daughter. The make-up for Herman is based on the make-up of Boris Karloff.

Mel Brooks's comedy Young Frankenstein parodied elements of the first three Universal Frankenstein movies. Brooks also recreated the movie into a musical of the same name.

Universal film company's 2004 film Van Helsing also featured the Frankenstein creature.

A short film, Frankenthumb, is a comedy spoof created using only thumbs.

Several characters in the film The Nightmare Before Christmas are modeled after the characters from Frankenstein, namely Dr. Finklestein and Sally.

Frankenstein's assistant

Although Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant is often referred to as "Igor" in descriptions of the films, this is incorrect. In both Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein has an assistant who is played both times by Dwight Frye who is crippled. In the original 1931 film the character is named "Fritz" who is hunchbacked and walks with the aid of a small cane. In Bride of Frankenstein, Frye plays "Karl" a murderer who stands upright but has a lumbering metal brace on both legs that can be heard clicking loudly with every step. Both characters would be killed by Karloff's monster in their respective films. It was not until Son of Frankenstein that a character called "Ygor" first appears (here played by Bela Lugosi and revived by Lugosi in the Ghost of Frankenstein after his apparent murder in Son of Frankenstein). This character — a deranged blacksmith whose neck and back are broken and twisted due to a botched hanging — befriends the monster and later helps Dr. Wolf Frankenstein, leading to the "hunchbacked assistant" called "Igor" commonly associated with Frankenstein in pop culture.

See also

• Universal Monsters
• Universal Horror
• The Spirit of the Beehive
• Boris Karloff filmography
• Pre-Code Hollywood

Sources

• Doherty, Thomas Patrick. Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press 1999. ISBN 0-231-11094-4
• Vieira, Mark A., Sin in Soft Focus. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2003. ISBN 0-8109-8228-5

External links

• Frankenstein (1931) at DBCult Film Institute
• Frankenstein (1931 film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Frankenstein (1931 film) at Rotten Tomatoes
• Frankenstein (1931 film) at the TCM Movie Database
• Frankenstein (1931 film) at AllRovi
• More Than the Sum of Its Parts: The Making of Frankenstein by Stephen Jacobs at Creativescreenwriting.com