A Study in Classic Horror- FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

I know I’ve already heaped a great deal of praise on Boris Karloff in these reviews, and I’m probably going to do a bit more here, but at least in Frankenstein we come to a film with an ensemble of memorable performances. I’ve found something to enjoy about every single movie I’ve reviewed so far, but so often in the old classics the casting is very uneven. Often they seem to be built around one or two stars that steal the production while many of the other actors practically sleepwalk through their roles. Not to say this cast is perfect. Mae Clarke, as Elizabeth, is kind of generic, and John Boles, as Victor Moritz, could have easily been written out completely without having much affect on the story, but there are so many other memorable performances it’s easy to overlook the weak links in the cast.

Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein is practically the consummate mad scientist. (I say “practically”, because he is due to be outdone in the sequel, but it’s too soon to get into that.) It’s a wonder that Elizabeth doesn’t break off their engagement on the spot when she, Victor and Dr. Walderman find him ranting about his experiment. His vanity is such that the second his sanity is questioned he insists the three witness the birth of his creature when seconds before he wanted to keep it a secret. Clive is almost over the top, and by the time he’s shouting “He’s alive!” and “Now I know what it feels like to be God!” he’s borderline orgasmic. Sure it seems a bit campy by today’s standards, but I’ll bet there’s many a scientist who’s had a major breakthrough that can relate to Henry’s excitement.

Other great performances: Frederick Kerr, who endows Baron Frankenstein with the demeanor of an old British colonel; Edward Van Sloan, who seems to have been relegated to the role of German mentor in many Universal monster films; the underrated actor Dwight Frye as Fritz, Henry’s sadistic hunchbacked assistant, and of course Marilyn Harris as poor doomed Maria.

And then there’s Karloff, far from his first role, this was the one that made him a star, even if he was billed simply as “?” in the opening credits. Like Chaney’s Phantom, this is another case where I wish I could witness the character’s reveal the way audiences did in 1931. It’s easy to credit Jack P. Pierce’s iconic makeup design for making the Monster memorable, but it’s Karloff’s performance that makes him menacing one moment then childlike and sympathetic the next. One need only look to one of the film’s most famous scenes to know that this role was more than stumbling around and growling. The scene between the Monster and little Maria may be one of the most finely crafted scenes in the whole Universal Horror canon. It is the one moment in the film when the Monster experiences any joy. He plays Maria’s floating flower game with the enthusiasm of an amused toddler, which is what makes the scene’s outcome so much more tragic. Yes, you feel terrible for the fate of the little girl, but you also feel for the Monster and his lack of understanding of what he’s done. Curiously, the scene was censored for years, instead of ending with Maria being tossed in the water and the Monster running away confused, it ended with him grabbing her as she screams “You’re hurting me.” Leaving Maria’s fate to the audience’s imagination made it seem worse than was originally intended and probably made it harder to sympathize with the Monster, especially later on as her near catatonic father carries her limp body through the village streets.

Much of why the film works so well is probably due to the director, James Whale. Whale took on the film because he wanted to break free of the war films he’d become associated with, and ironically today he is best remembered for his horror films. Some of Whale’s trademarks are already apparent here, such as his dark sense of humor and his affection for older British character actors, like Kerr, in this case.

Now, I can’t ignore the fact that the story bears little resemblance to Mary Shelley’s novel. In the film Dr. Frankenstein shuns his creature when he beings to show violent tendencies, in the novel it’s merely because he’s ugly. In the novel, the Monster learns to speak and therefore articulates his misery, while the film only gives us precious glimpses at why we should sympathize with him. (Hats off to Karloff and Whale for making it work.) In fact, I’d say Dr. Frankenstein is the bigger monster in Shelley’s book, which was probably her comment on how superficial people can be. The movie seems far more concerned with entertaining than making a statement. I’m not criticizing here, I’m just observing. I love both works for different reasons. The two have become intertwined; the scarred creature with the flattened head and electrodes in his neck has become the image of Shelley’s Creature in our collective subconscious. I’m sure that’s how most people imagine the Creature when they read the novel, even if they’ve never seen the movie. One work manages to fuel interest for the other.

This week’s supporting features:

Bosko in the Looney Tunes short Congo Jazz (1930)

The Our Gang short When the Wind Blows (1930)

Next week’s film:

The Inner Sanctum mystery Calling Dr. Death (1943) starring Lon Chaney Jr., Patricia Morison and J. Carrol Naish

A Study in Classic Horror- THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

As I prepared to watch The Phantom of the Opera, I realized I had a conundrum on my hands. The DVD set I purchased contained two different cuts of the film. One was the original 1925 version; the second was a restoration of the 1929 version which featured new footage, sound and some color, which to choose? So, I looked to the internet for advice. The majority recommended the 1929 version, but those that preferred the 1925 made a strong case for it. I tried to imagine having only seen the special editions of the Star Wars movies without having ever seen the originals, and I just couldn’t, so I decided the best approach was to watch both versions, and I’m glad I did.

For future viewings, I wish I could somehow combine what I liked best about the two. There’s no arguing that with the restoration, the later cut certainly looks better, yet some of the revisions are rather awkward. I could have done without the dubbed over dialogue. I don’t know how much of the original cast was brought in to add vocals, but it doesn’t matter when they can’t possibly sync up with the mouth movements (if any) onscreen. Worst of all, as Lon Chaney was contracted to a different studio when the revisions were made, a different actor is heard when the Phantom speaks, and I don’t particularly care to see Chaney’s performance tarnished by someone else’s. On the plus side for the later version, the rearrangement of some scenes makes them work better dramatically, for example: the murder of a stagehand occurs much later in the ’29 than in the ’25, and as this death is the catalyst for the mob in the film’s climax, the flow of murder to mob is more organic than the broken up series of events in the ’25. Best of all visually, is the early Technicolor sequence, particularly the scene where the young lovers plot their flight from Paris on the roof of the Opera House unaware of the disguised Phantom watching from above as his bright red cloak flaps in the breeze against the night sky.

There is a third way you can watch the film in this set. There’s an alternate orchestral score, written more recently, to accompany the ’29 version. This replaces the entire soundtrack and therefore eliminates the clunky dialogue, but it also eliminates the operatic performances that were added. Ideally, I would want to keep the singing, but lose the dialogue, but that’s not possible. I guess there’s no perfect way of watching the film, so I guess in the future I will settle for the ’29 cut with the newer score.

But those are just my thoughts on the edition of the film, on to the film itself. Phantom is one of those films I wish I could experience the way the original audiences did. The scale of the film itself is a remarkable for the time it was made in with its enormous sets and hundreds of extras, but most of all I wish I could feel the thrill the early audiences felt when Mary Philbin unmasks the Phantom to reveal Lon Chaney’s grotesque make-up. When promoting the film, Universal kept Chaney’s make-up a secret, (see the trailer in my previous entry) so when that mask came off people were seeing it for the first time. I remember seeing that clip when I was very young and finding it frightening, but by then photos of the Phantom were in wide circulation. I’m sure little compares with the impact the unmasking had on those first audiences.

A great performance by Chaney is adequately supported by Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry as Christine and Raoul. Arthur Edmund Carewe as the mysterious secret policeman Ledoux is another notable performance. There’s a bit of gasping for breath as Kerry and Carewe find themselves ensnared in some of the Phantom’s death traps.

Oh, and since I’ve often discussed clichés: according to Michael Mallory’s Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror, this film marks the first use of the angry mob, which would become a horror movie staple.

This week’s supporting features:

Bugs Bunny in Herr Meets Hare (1945)

The Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930)

Next week’s film:

Frankenstein (1931) starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Dwight Frye and Mae Clarke