James%20Whale

1
James Whales Frankenstein

• British Novel to Film
• Fu Jen University
• Dr. M. Connor

2
The Icon

• When people today hear the name Frankenstein
  they think of a flat-topped, green faced monster
  complete with bolts in the neck.
• Of course, this is the one of the most iconic
  images in pop culture Boris Karloff as The
  Monster in James Whales 1931 film Frankenstein,
  released by Universal Studios, the studio for
  monster movies during the 1930s.

3
A face for all time

• This creature is not at all like the creature
  Shelley describes in her novel, but it is the
  image people conjure up when they hear the name
  Frankenstein.
• And for good reason. While not totally true to
  Shelleys vision, Whales 1931 film is a work of
  art in its own right and worthy of study today.

4
The famous makeup
Boris Karloff as The Monster. Source James
Whales Frankenstein, http//members.aon.at/franke
nstein/frankenstein-universal.htm
5
A smash hit

• Frankenstein earned rave reviews and was named to
  top-ten lists in its day.
• It also made lots of money, the true benchmark of
  Hollywood success, even in 1931.
• The production cost 290,000 in Depression-era
  dollars, and earned more than 12 million.
  (Face)

6
Team Effort

• Many directors and actors were considered for the
  film before the studio settled on James Whale, a
  British stage director turned film director with
  two hit films to his credit.
• Whale, in turn, chose fellow Englishman Boris
  Karloff as the Monster.
• These two men, together with make-up specialist
  Jack Pierce, created the most iconic horror image
  of all time.

7
The team
James Whale
Jack Pierce makes up Karloff for Frankenstein.
Source Movie Maker Magazine. http//www.moviemake
r.com/issues/39/pierce.html
An older Karloff
8
Monster a collaborative effort

• Whale, who had been an artist before going into
  directing, created a number of sketches for the
  Monsters look. And Pierce threw himself into
  research.

9
Pierce on his research

• I did not depend on imagination. In 1931, before
  I did a bit of designing, I spent three months of
  research in anatomy, surgery, medicine, criminal
  history, criminology, ancient and modern burial
  customs, and electrodynamics. My anatomical
  studies taught me that there are six ways a
  surgeon can cut the skull in order to take out or
  put in a brain. I figured that Frankenstein, who
  was a scientist but no practising surgeon, would
  take the simplest surgical way. He would cut the
  top of the skull off straight across like a pot
  lid, hinge it, pop the brain in, and then clamp
  it on tight. That is the reason I decided to make
  the Monster's head square and flat like a shoe
  box and dig that big scar across his forehead
  with the metal clamps holding it together."
  (Manguel, 20-21)

10
From Andreas Rohrmosers website A Face for the
Monster The Universal Pictures
Series--Frankenstein (1931).

• Jack Pierce built an artificial square-shaped
  skull, like that of "a man whose brain had been
  taken from the head of another man" (Pierce,
  quoted from Jones 1995 37). He fixed wire clamps
  over Karloff's lips, painted his face blue-green,
  which photographed a corpse-like gray, and glued
  two electrodes to Karloff's neck. The wax on his
  eyelids was Karloff's idea. "We found the eyes
  were too bright, seemed too understanding, where
  dumb bewilderment was so essential. So I waxed my
  eyes to make them heavy, half-seeing", Karloff
  explained (quoted from Manguel 1997 20). He wore
  an undersized suit in order to make his limbs
  look longer and heavy boots weighing 13 pounds
  each in order to produce his lurching walk. The
  procedure of applying the make-up was a horrible
  experience for Karloff "I spent three-and-a-half
  hours in the make-up chair getting ready for the
  day's work. The make-up itself was quite painful,
  particularly the putty on my eyes. There were
  days when I thought I would never be able to hold
  out until the end of the day." (Jones 1995 37
  qtd)

11
No place for vanity

• Karloffs addition to the Monsters face was
  offering to remove a partial bridge (partial
  false teeth) which gave his face a sunken, hollow
  look.
• Since he didnt have any lines, this wouldnt
  affect his speech.

12
Not a fun experience!

• "The makeup took about four hours to put on I
  worked every day on the film, the film took eight
  weeks to make, and I remember one awful occasion
  when I got into the makeup shop at half past
  three in the morning, to be ready to go out on
  location. We worked in the hot sun at the edge
  of the lake, the scene with the little girl. We
  came back to the studio in the evening to have
  some supper, and we went out onto the backlot and
  I worked all night until five in the morning. I
  had the makeup on for 25 hours! That was a long
  pull. The carbon lights were dreadful. They hurt
  your eyes. The boots weighed about 16 pounds
  apiece. All told, the outfit weighed between 40
  and 45 pounds." Karloff on the experience

13
Many changes

• The screenplay for the film is credited to
  Francis Faragoh, Garret Fort, John Balderston,
  Peggy Webling, Robert Florey and John Russel.
• In fact, the writing was most done by Faragoh and
  Fort. They did not use Shelleys novel as a
  basis for their screen play, but rather based it
  on Peggy Weblings play Frankenstein An
  Adventure in the Macabre, (which was based on
  Shelleys novel, more or less) which had
  premiered in London in 1927.
• Universal bought the rights in 1930. She is
  credited as screenwriter, though the others, as
  well as Whale, had much input into the final
  script.

14
Point of view

• One of the major changes from the book was to
  remove the letters from Walton that frame the
  novel. And instead of hearing Victors story (or
  in the case of the film, Henry) through his own
  voice, we see the story happening more like a
  play in front of us. This will give us a very
  different view of the monster, Dr. Frankensteins
  actions, as well as the nature of the creature.

15
Confusing changes

• Victor Frankenstein becomes Henry Frankenstein.
• His childhood friend Henry Clavel becomes Victor
  Moritz.
• The Genevan Frankensteins are moved to a generic
  middle Europe where Frankensteins father is a
  baron and friend of the local burgomeister
  (Geneva is a French-speaking city, so there are
  no burgomeisters there).
• Elizabeth remains Elizabeth, but there is no
  inkling that Frankenstein and Elizabeth have been
  raised together.
• And of course, the time period is updated to
  something that looks like the early 1930s, but
  the local peasants tend to favor more 19th
  century dress.

16
And whats with Fritz?

• And the once solitary Dr. Frankenstein is joined
  by an accomplice, Fritz.
• Fritz has become almost iconic in his own right,
  although in many parodies, hes called Igor, a
  name that doesnt appear until the 1939 film Son
  of Frankenstein.
• In that film Bela Lugosi played Ygor, lab
  assistant to Wolf Frankenstein, son of Henry,
  played by Basil Rathbone.
• Sadly Fritz doesnt make it to the sequel, but
  his spirit lives on in the character of Karl.

17
Dwight Frye

• Fritz was played by the great character actor
  Dwight Frye.
• Whale likes his work so much that he also appears
  in Bride as Karl.

18
Eugenics

• The following comes from the website
  Frankenstein Penetrating the Secrets of
  Nature.
• Just as Shelley's story was shaped by the
  science of the day, so was Hollywood's influenced
  by some of the scientific and pseudo-scientific
  preoccupations of its day, including eugenics,
  robots, and surgical transplants.

19
And more

• Shelleys monster kills for revenge and out of
  thwarted love for its creator. But in the 1931
  version of the film, the Monster kills because
  hes been given the brain of a criminal.
  Breeding tells, according to eugenics, and that
  was the prevailing scientific theory at the time.

20
Popular science

• Eugenics is the study of the hereditary
  improvement of the human race by controlled
  selective breeding. There was much interest in
  eugenics throughout Europe and the US during the
  1920s and 30s.
• It fell in popularity after WWII as it was such a
  large part of Hilters Nazi ideology, and many
  horrific experiments were done in eugenics during
  his regime.

21
From Frankenstein Penetrating the Secrets of
Nature website.

• In the years before Universal Studios released
  Frankenstein in 1931, scientists seemed poised to
  penetrate once-sacrosanct boundaries between life
  and death, a prospect that continued both to
  trouble the intellect and thrill the imagination.
  Newspapers and magazines speculated freely about
  one day reviving the dead, achieving immortality
  through the use of artificial organs, and
  altering the genetic shape of future generations
  through eugenics. The Universal film responded to
  these themes in popular culture.

22
Contemporary science

• 1935 Article "Can Science Raise the Dead?"
• In the 1930s, American chemist Robert E. Cornish
  killed a dog with nitrogen gas, then revived it.
  Emboldened by this success, he vainly sought
  access to men executed in the chamber. These
  efforts to revive the dead got widespread press
  coverage during the 1930s.

23
What about the music?

• While modern viewers might be used to black and
  white photography, Frankenstein has often been
  criticized for its lack of a music soundtrack by
  modern writers.
• Were so used to films coming with a great
  musical soundtrack that we fail to realize that
  in 1931, background music was considered a
  throwback to the silent film era.
• Back in silent film days, an organist was hired
  by the theater to play while the film was
  running. But people watching the new form
  talkies wanted to hear every word, and didnt
  want to hear music playing.

24
Violence on screen

• And of course, the violence in the film is
  incredibly mild to modern eyes.
• In fact, the scene in which Frankenstein throws
  the little girl in the water is famous for the
  fact that in the American release, it was cut
  out. Though I have found conflicting versions of
  why this is so.

25
Censorship

• According to the Internet Movie Data Base, you
  can notice that after the monster drops Maria
  into the water, there is a rather hard cut to
  just moving water and the monsters confused
  escape.
• There was said to be close-ups of the girl
  attempting to swim before sinking under the
  water. These were deemed to grisly (and still
  would probably be today) and the scene itself was
  entirely removed ending with the monster moving
  toward her (which gave several viewers at the
  time the impression that Maria was molested and
  then killed).
• This version of the story seems to imply that the
  cuts came before the theatrical release.

26
Another version of why

• Although on first release the US federal censor
  didn't demand any cuts, several US states only
  showed edited versions of Frankenstein. In Kansas
  City the State Board of Censors demanded 32 cuts
  and in Rhode Island newspapers refused to run
  advertisements for the movie. In Britain censors
  cut out the scene where Frankenstein discovers
  Fritz's hanged body, a scene of the Monster
  threatening Elizabeth and the murder of Dr.
  Waldmann. But when Frankenstein was re-released
  in the USA in 1937 Universal were forced to cut
  the scene in which the Monster kills the little
  girl Maria - undoubtedly one of the film's key
  scenes. Movie fans had to wait until 1985 to see
  a restored version of the film including all
  previously trimmed scenes.
• Rohrmoser

27
James Whale

• Frankensteins director, James Whale, was an
  interesting fellow, and he is credited by many
  for making the Monster more human than even
  Karloff was happy about.
• James Whale was a cartoonist in London when WWI
  broke out and he served, was captured and became
  a prisoner of war.
• It was then he went into acting, and when he
  returned, he got work on the London stage.
• That brought him to Broadway, and Broadway
  brought him to Hollywood.
• Frankenstein was his third film.

28
Openly gay

• While Whale is famous in Hollywood history for
  his horror films, and is well respected for his
  non-horror work, as well, the thing he is
  probably most infamous for is his open
  homosexuality at a time when homosexuality was
  still technically illegal in most parts of the US
  as well as in Britain.

29
Is the Monster gay?

• Because of this, the Frankenstein monster is
  often viewed by critics as a statement about the
  homosexual in society. It is often argued that
  the Monster is demonized for something beyond his
  control, and is ostracised. As a homosexual,
  Whale felt sympathy for the Monsters dilemma.
• Ive read the criticism, and at times its very
  convincing. And I do know that many times in the
  past when using this film in class, Ive had
  young gay men quietly approach me after viewing
  and ask if the monster is gay. That tells me
  there must be something there subtextually if the
  question is coming up unprompted.

30
Whales final days

• Whale committed suicide in his swimming pool in
  1957 (though the suicide was covered up by
  friends and associates for years).
• Novelist Christopher Brams Father of
  Frankenstein (1996) explores the last weeks of
  Whales life, meshing together Whales memories
  of a poor childhood, service in WWI and the
  filming of the Frankenstein movies.
• Its an imaginative, well done novel, and a quick
  read, which I have occasionally used when
  teaching Frankenstein.

31
Ian McKellan as James Whale
From the film Gods and Monsters. Source
http//www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/ian_mckellen_go
ds_and_monsters_001.html
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About the film

• In 1998, it was made into the film Gods and
  Monsters starring Ian McKellan in an amazing
  performance. (It was the winner of several
  awards including the Oscar for Best Adapted
  Screenplay.)
• There was a renewal of interest in Whale after
  the film, which is still buzzing a bit today.
  Much of the current research material about Whale
  on the Internet today references this novel and
  film.
• While it is a novel, Bram did use biographical
  materials in the writing of it, but students
  should be warned that it is fiction, not a
  biography or documentary.

33
Sources

• Frankenstein Internet Movie Data Base. 20 Mar
  2005. http//imdb.com/title/tt0021884/
• Frankenstein Penetrating the Secrets of
  Nature. National Library of Medicine, National
  Institutes of Health. 12 Feb 2002. 21 Feb 2005.
  http//www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/frankenstein/frank_cell
  uloid.html
• Jones, Stephen. The Frankenstein Scrapbook The
  Complete Movie Guide to the World's Most Famous
  Monster. New York Carol, 1995.
• Manguel, Alberto. Bride of Frankenstein. London
  British Film Institute, 1997.
• Rohrmoser, Andreas. A Face for the Monster The
  Universal Pictures Series--Frankenstein (1931).
  Frankenstein Castle--The Ultimate Frankenstein
  Movie and Film Site. 22 Feb 2005
  http//members.aon.at/frankenstein/frankenstein-un
  iversal.htm