Doctor Waldman

Dr. M. Waldman is a fictional character who appears in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein and in its subsequent film versions.

In the novel, he has a fairly small part—he is Victor Frankenstein's teacher at medical school. The character inexplicably disappears from the story after Victor creates his monster. In the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein, Dr. Waldman was played by Edward Van Sloan. In Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Waldman was portrayed by John Cleese. Both film versions expand his role, making him a mentor to Victor (Henry Frankenstein in the 1931 film).

In the 1931 film version of Frankenstein, Dr. Waldman was a professor of anatomical studies at Goldstadt Medical College. Waldman had been Henry Frankenstein's favorite teacher during the aspiring young scientist's time as a student there. Although Waldman had much respect for Victor's brilliance, he became increasingly disturbed when Victor began demanding fresh bodies for his experiments in chemical galvanism and electro-biology: bodies that were not those of cats and dogs, but human beings.

Deciding that Victor had crossed the line and gone insane, Waldman spoke to the governing board of the college and had the young man kicked off campus. Deciding he'd done his part, the elderly professor thought no more about it and went back to teaching his classes as usual. And then one day, Victor's fiancé, Elizabeth, and best friend, Victor Moritz, came to the college with the news that Victor was spending all his time at his secluded laboratory.

After telling them the story of Victor's ejection from the school, he agreed to accompany them to Victor's lab to talk some sense into him. Instead, the three bore witness to Victor Frankenstein's crowning achievement: The creation of a creature he had built from parts of dead bodies sewn together, plus a brain that Victor's assistant Fritz had stolen from Waldman's classroom. Waldman tried to tell Victor that the Monster had a defective brain and was dangerous, but this fact only sunk in when the monster killed Fritz.

Suffering a nervous breakdown, Victor was taken home by Elizabeth, Henry, and his father, Baron Frankenstein. Waldman remained at the laboratory for the purposes of destroying the Monster by dissection. Although he had the creature sedated, the Monster built up an immunity to the sedatives and awoke before Waldman could begin. Seizing Waldman by the throat, he proceeded to strangle the old man to death.

(The character of Dr. Waldman would later appear in 1932's Boo!, a comedy short made by Universal, in which he is once again strangled to death by the Monster despite the narrator's attempts to warn him.)

In Branagh's 1994 version of the film, it is Dr. Waldman who teaches Victor how to re-animate dead tissue. In both films, he is killed by the monster. In the 1931 film, he is killed by the recently "born" monster. In Branagh's film, he and Victor are administering vaccines to the local townspeople, one of whom resists, and kills Dr. Waldman, and is later hanged for it. Victor uses the killer's body for the creature, and Waldman's brain.