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Frankenstein (1931) Directed by James Whale

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Frankenstein (1931) Directed by James Whale This is the Face You See By Fearless Young Orphan Frankenstein (1931) Directed by James Whale I saw it: June 29, 2010 Why haven’t I seen it yet? Aha! Gotcha this time. I have seen it . it’s just that I was probably about eight years old and I didn’t have a clear memory of it. I remember watching this on television with my mother; I do not think it frightened me but I was very worried about the monster. That much hasn’t changed. Frank Watching this was an unusual experience, because the movie’s imagery and the story itself are so ingrained in our pop culture that: 1. Discounting my hazy childhood memories, I really had already seen most of it; and 2. I was obviously plagued with false memories about many things that occurred. Obviously I can’t distinguish from where a lot of my Frankenstein-related memories are coming. So this was an experience in memory clarification. I don’t know if I can fairly review a movie that has so much mental baggage attached to it. I found it very entertaining, certainly, but probably for completely different reasons from its contemporary audience. Those poor kids weren’t used to seeing movies much, I guess, and maybe the monster was frightening and maybe the ideas were shocking, but this is old hat now. The monster looks like an ill man who needs some sunlight and affection, and the current ethics of science are posing questions to us that make something like “is it ethical to reanimate dead tissue?” seem morally akin to, “is it okay to re-use a postage stamp if it’s not cancelled?” I have not read the original novel and don’t really plan on it; I have the feeling that it’s one of those old books that has a great idea but an unbearable narrative (I’m looking at you, Melville). I’m just looking at this from the point of view of the movie, and what the movie is saying. Guess what. I’m going to clarify the plot, not because I think y’all are stupid, but because you might be like me, and remember more than was actually there. In this movie, Henry Frankenstein (an oily, undead-looking Colin Clive) and his lurching little assistant Fritz (already a difference; I thought it was Victor Frankenstein and Igor) are swiping fresh bodies from graveyards and nooses. Henry is using these bodies for parts; why he needs to assemble a whole new body from parts is not explained. Fritz is sent to the medical school to get a brain, and in a scene that I honestly thought was just in the Mel Brooks’ spoof Young Frankenstein, he actually does drop the brain labeled “normal” and replace it with a brain labeled “abnormal.” I kid you not. Meanwhile in a manor house nearby, the beautiful Elizabeth (spooky-eyed Mae Clarke) confides to her friend Victor (eh . now he’s Victor?) that she’s concerned about her fiancé Henry. He’s acting like a spaz, is why, locking himself away in a watchtower and writing her these weird-ass letters about experiments. The girl just wants to get married. There is an etiquette to these things! Henry is the son of Baron Frankenstein, and both Elizabeth and all the peasants in the Frankenstein district are itchin’ for a hitchin’. So Victor and Elizabeth go retrieve one of Henry’s medical school professors, Dr. Waldman, and the three of them go to the watchtower to give Henry an intervention. What follows is the justifiably famous laboratory scene. During a violent thunderstorm, Frankenstein brings his creature to life. It is a great movie moment, well-known by us all, iconic of the “mad scientist in his laboratory.” This is a glorious scene of special effects, fantastic overacting and palpable tension, punctuated by that pervasive, earth-shaking thunder. I had this all turned around in my head, though, remembering only the high points and forgetting the order of things, forgetting most particularly that the whole scene takes place with Elizabeth, Victor and Waldman as its distressed audience, and that the experiment actually works the first time out. At the end of it all there’s a moving corpse-monster on the table and the main concern of our cast members seems to be that Henry needs to calm the hell down. I agree that he shouts a lot. Everybody back then was very concerned about remaining calm, lest they ruin their health. People having nervous breakdowns needed to take to their beds and recuperate. Things don’t go well for the monster. As lab assistants go, Fritz is just the worst. Waldman stays on at the watchtower and observes as Henry tries to interact with the monster, who has come into the world with the ability to clomp around, stand and sit on command, and be interested in sparkly things. Hey, I too like sparkly things. Very distracting, indeed. Fritz seems to think it’s fun to jab flaming torches at the monster, and Henry tells him “cut it See? All the jabbing? Wouldn’t you go wreak havoc too, out,” without being convincing at all. if you got jabbed with fire? Fritz keeps right on a’jabbing. The monster doesn’t like fire! Well neither do I, not when it’s being jabbed in my face. So it should come as no surprise that pretty soon, our monster has had about enough to this fire- jabbing, sitting-and-standing, weird-ass watchtower and he kills Fritz. They blame the abnormal brain for this behavior, not the fire-jabbing, which is a miscalculation, I think. Anyway Henry and Waldman drug the monster and tie him down, and Henry displays the kind of chickenshit behavior that is fairly typical of mad scientists: he runs home to his daddy and his girlfriend, feeling all freaked out and sad, and leaves Waldman to kill the monster. Damn lazy nobility. Waldman botches the job. The monster escapes. Some days later, on Henry and Elizabeth’s wedding day, the entire village is celebrating. The whole feel of the movie is rather charmingly anachronistic. You’ve got mad scientists and grave robbers and the fairly sophisticated Elizabeth, mixed in with this old-world world of peasants in lederhosen. Meanwhile, the monster is stumbling through the countryside and happens upon a little cutie pie named Maria, and in the movie’s second famous scene, there is a misunderstanding about the buoyancy of little girls and Maria manages to be drowned in water that is probably shallow enough for her to stand in. Well, that’s nitpicking from me. Actually it’s a tragic and poignant moment because the monster is really just trying to make a friend, and once again he’s delighted by sparkly things (well who isn’t!). He regrets what he’s done and is confused things like cause-and-effect. Boris Karloff honestly does a great job with this part. He engages our sympathies completely. It is his performance, in fact, that assures I cannot view this as a horror movie. Instead, it’s a psychological drama about the cavalier attitude we take toward the things we create, without regard to consequences. It is pointedly (in fact, spookily) valid in the present day, when we have the technology to create life and artificial intelligence. If there is a monster here, it’s Henry Frankenstein, who is not only short-sighted about his work but is a pathetic wuss in the aftermath, behaving like a whiny spoiled child when confronted with his own mess. He never mans up, not even in the sequel. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Next comes the only scene in the film that was incongruous: the monster climbs into Elizabeth’s window and chases her around the bedroom. When she faints (everybody in the olden days was a fainter) he leaves. The only purpose this scene serves is for audience shock value, and if they really were as naïve as is rumored, I’m sure there were plenty of gasps and shrieks from the audience as Elizabeth flutters around in a tizzy while the monster is in incomprehensible pursuit. If I had to bet, I’d say he was only interested in her shiny wedding dress. And once again I was unable to get Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein out of my head, considering that “You’ve got some broad shoulders there, Mr. Assertive. Did I mention Henry and I particular outcome of the monster catching up with are just good friends?” Frankenstein’s fiancé. With a man as limp and useless as Henry in her life, Elizabeth might not be too sorry to have this big, aggressive brute catch up to her. He doesn’t, though. He leaves and tromps into the woods, and soon is pursued by a number of mobs with torches and dogs. One such mob is led by Henry. I am not sure if Henry has actually told anyone that he’s the dumbass who made the monster and then forgot to properly dispose of him. But the crowd is incensed over the death of poor little Maria and they’re out for blood. Henry manages to get himself caught by the monster who drags him into a windmill on a hilltop. The monster flings Henry from the roof, and Henry has a pretty bad, rather hilarious fall that lands him on a windmill blade and then dumps him on the ground, and though you’d figure it at least broke most of his ribs and he is mistaken for dead at least twice, he will nonetheless recover from this in time to make a jerk of himself in the sequel.
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