Universal Frankenstein Trilogy

Welcome back everyone to “Halloween Month,” where there will not be that many reviews this time around, but expect one at the beginning and end of the week. Let’s get the month started with the Universal Frankenstein movies, starting with the 1931 classic, “Frankenstein.”

Adapted and updated from Mary Shelley’s story, Dr. Frankenstein puts together a being from dead human tissue, only to reject it after he is successful. Mistreated by (almost) a variety of, the ‘monster’ becomes an angry outcast tracked down by the city.

Kim Newman stated in her review, “The most important horror movie ever made, with Boris Karloff joining the immortals as the flat-headed, big-booted, sad-eyed monster - whom director James Whale made a resonant figure by dressing him up like one of the scarred WWI veterans then on the skids all over America.” Colin Clive’s fearful mad scientist and Dwight Frye’s hunchbacked brain-dropper work together on making the monster, but the innocent turns vicious when mistreated by all and a variety of.

Besides Karloff’s still-sympathizing ‘monster,’ the film gives wonderful Gothic sets, a great laboratory, Whale’s covertly camp scaffold humor, a torch-lit peasant mob and many other images that are remembered to this day.

Special note: the digitally remastered version has a thundercrack over the often-censored “Now I know what it feels to be God” line, but is otherwise completely restored, complete with footage not seen for many years where the monster accidentally drowns a little girl.

Beautiful photography, a sad story, and iconic moments from beginning to end, this film needs to be seen by all.

What followed was a sequel that a lot of people want to say is superior, “Bride of Frankenstein,” released in 1935.

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon that a popular film will get some type of sequel. In 1931, when James Whale’s “Frankenstein” was hitting it large with box office records and establishing Universal Studios as a huge company, the rules didn’t really apply. The studio wasn’t really sure how this laconic British director had made such a massive, groundbreaking horror movie at all. Since he was evidently hitting it large with “The Invisible Man” and “The Old Dark House,” the studio let him have full reign with the sequel as he wanted.

“Bride of Frankenstein” is a great movie, even today. Phelim O’Neill stated in his review, “It flits between the classical and the gutter, the camp and the serious in a manner that's hard to pin down.” Boris Karloff reprises the role of the monster, this time with dialogue (audiences would not have expected less), and Colin Clive returns as the Doctor, recast by Whale for his unique “hysterical quality,” even though his alcoholism got worse.

O’Neill noted, “What the audience wouldn't or couldn't have anticipated was Ernest Thesiger's wonderfully fey and flamboyant Dr Septimus Pretorius (the studio wanted – but didn't get – Claude Rains), and his experimental royal family of homunculi, and Elsa Lanchester in her vertical hairdo, complete with bleached lightning bolts.” Whale gave audiences what they wanted, even if they didn’t know it themselves.

The trilogy came to an end with “Son of Frankenstein,” released in 1939, which people still praise, but not as much as the first two. Wolf Frankenstein, son of Victor (Basil Rathbone), returns to Vasaria with his wife Elsa (Josephone Hutchinson) and little son Peter (Donnie Dunagan) to claim his rightful estate. He meets trouble from the villagers, but successfully gets his family into the castle. Then Ygor, played by Bela Lugosi, appears, a wanted murderer who survived the scaffold and now haunts the Frankenstein ruins. Glenn Erickson said in his review, “He gloatingly reveals the inert but intact body of the Monster (Boris Karloff), and goads Wolf into reviving it.” Frankenstein fils becomes excited about this, not knowing that Ygor wants to use the monster to settle the problem with the jury that convicted him.

This first non-James Whale Frankenstein film has a lot going for it, other than its amazing cast. The impressive art direction takes advantage of the better look and film stocks available since the last movie came out four years prior. Erickson said, “The combination sulphur pit - laboratory is splendidly atmospheric, with its steam and dark lighting. The cracked-egg appearance of the lab exterior (a nice matte painting) is also unique.”

The story this time around is pretty straightforward, not really going up to the chilling heights of the last movie, by managing its own kind of insanity. Erickson said, “Lugosi's Ygor character has a creepy pied-piper quality and interacts well with Karloff's monster. After the speaking, active monster of the previous film, Karloff's mute and slow-witted interpretation this time around has disappointed a lot of Universal fans; from this point on the Monster would almost always be portrayed as a hulking automaton.” However, the level of emotions and expression hasn’t really left. Karloff just slanted his playing to match the script’s new style.

Erickson said, “The closest I have to knowledge of how these pictures were received when new, comes from my mother, who remembers her first date being to go see this movie with a reissue of Dracula. At age 16 she was terrified and hasn't cared to see a horror film since. What they saw in 1939 was perhaps the last Universal Horror film intended to have real gravity instead of being a popcorn movie. Rathbone's dialogue is so well written and delivered, you'd think the gobbledegook he was spouting about internal medicine were real.” Ygor’s relationship with the Monster has some weight instead of being filler between action scenes, and the time and effort are given to emotional little setpieces such as when the nanny notices that the door to the nursery is closing by itself, very slowly.

The first movie is the most classic, the second movie is the most emotional, and the third movie is most well-written, but you can debate about that. I can’t decide which one of these I like the most, so let’s just say this trilogy is a three-way tie. These are three of my favorite films and I can’t do these films justice, so just watch these movies to know.

There is my first review, look out Friday for the next installment of this year’s “Halloween Month.”