editor's note: continuing with the past two weeks, here is another critical essay from Hollywood Horror and Beyond.Film Report:
James Whale’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, it could be argued, has little in common with James Whale’s Frankenstein (and, indeed, this is James Whale, not Universal’s, picture). Granted, the core of the story remains the same: Frankenstein defies the laws of man and creates a “monster” designed from cadavers and given life through electricity, but the similarities end shortly thereafter. Shelley’s is a tale of science gone awry; Whale’s a veiled commentary on persecution.
James Whale was perhaps most famous for being a homosexual at a time when it was not considered wise to be open in such matters, and his films are infused with a perspective unlike that of many horror directors, and in time would come to be identified as “camp”. With subsequent pictures The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, Whale’s wicked sense of humor grew more refined, but Frankenstein is nevertheless infused with his unique outlook on the world.
After a prologue William Castle would be proud of, Frankenstein begins proper with two title cards. Whether the art on these cards was the conception of Whale or of Carl Lammele Jr., we are unsure, but they speak some volume of what is to come. The first such image, superimposed by the film’s title, is of an ominous half-face peering above a wall, eyes casting beams below, and hideous claws outstretched. Clearly, this is meant to set about unease in the 1931 audience’s mind, but the second image is less clear. As the cast, crew, and director are identified, a series of disembodied eyeballs rotate on the screen like some hypnotist’s wheel, and in the center, a bodiless head which resembles nothing so much as Nosferatu himself, with its bald head and elongated ears and chin. This image has nothing to do with the film to come, does it?
From the outset, Whale begins toying with his audience. The camera begins on a coffin, panning up and around to a series of grieving and pious villagers, and as it moves past them, to a statue depicting Death as the Grim Reaper. Then, behind an iron fence, the hideous face of Fritz (Dwight Frye), who cannot contain his enthusiasm and must be reined in by Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), who is only just visible behind Fritz. After the funeral ends and everyone leaves, Frankenstein and Fritz dig up the body frantically, and one subtle joke passes almost unseen: as Frankenstein hurls dirt with his shovel, he quite literally throws dirt into the face of Death.
As we follow Frankenstein and Fritz along their path of grave and gallows robbing, something seems off. Clearly, this is supposed to be outdoors, but by shooting these sequences in studio, Whale creates an “unnatural” sensation using the artificial as an exaggerated version of reality (he will continue to play on expressionistic influence as we move into Frankenstein’s refuge, with high ceilings and curiously angled stairways and walls).
A major point of contention in Whale’s adaptation is the inclusion of a sequence where Fritz is dispatched to find a suitable brain for Frankenstein’s creation, culminating in his break in of the village university. Immediately preceding this, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan) lectures his students on the danger of the “abnormal” brain, and explains that the specimen on display there belonged to a brutish, violent man. When Fritz accidentally destroys the “normal” brain specimen, he is forced to take the “abnormal” sample. Some point to this is a prime example of shifting the cause of the monster’s actions later in the film, but perhaps, knowing what we know about the director, there is an alternate reasoning behind the “abnormal” brain.
Running concurrently with this is a side plot involving Henry’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Mae Clark), and her increasing concern over Frankenstein’s “experiments”. She appeals to his friend Victor (John Boles) to contact Dr. Waldman and bring some sense to Henry, who she fears is increasingly becoming distant from her. When Elizabeth, Waldman, and Victor discover Frankenstein’s “secret”, their reaction is shock. Frankenstein has created a man from the cadavers of other men, and intends to bring his creation to life using the power of a heretofore unknown ray.
The monster himself, played with nuance by Boris Karloff, is conceived in a womb of electrical pulses and birthed in a flash of lightning, to the awe of Frankenstein’s spectators, who are unsure what to make of Henry’s obsession, a being he “created with [his] own hands”. Waldman urges Frankenstein to destroy his creation, viewing it to be an aberration of God and Science, a viewpoint which, with some subtle word shifts, could mean something entirely different. (The elder figure disapproves of his protégé’s choices, and urges him to recant.)
As Frankenstein welcomes his creation into the world, Victor and Elizabeth return to Baron Frankenstein’s home, concocting a story to distract the Baron (Fredric Kerr) from the truth about his son. Here, for the first time, Whale’s sense of humor comes out through Baron Frankenstein, who is nothing so much as a cantankerous old man with disdain for authority figures and being duped. He is convinced Elizabeth is disguising Henry’s infidelity under the guise of “scientific experiments”, and that there is “another woman”, who he will root out. In a sly twist, there is, of course, no other woman, but rather another man, whom Elizabeth and Victor are willing to lie about for the sake of Henry.
We are introduced to the monster in a dimly lit room, coming through the doorway backwards, and turning around to maximize the effect of his appearance to the audience (indeed, Whale cuts to his face with three successive close-ups). The monster, however, is little more than an oversized infant, unsure of his ability to walk erect and bent in angles that seem to accentuate the set. But the monster with the “abnormal” brain is not a brute initially; in fact, he seems confused and susceptible to directions like “sit down”, and only becomes physically active in response to the sadistic torture from Fritz, who delights in tormenting him with torches.
Eventually, through conditioning, the monster becomes hostile in defending himself, killing Fritz and attacking Henry before Waldman is able to sedate him. Not coincidentally, the struggle occurs immediately before Elizabeth and Victor arrive, with The Baron in tow. Waldman hides the monster, and Henry is taken back to the village with his fiancée.
If the first act of the film is an expressionistic world of high angles and long shadows, then the second is one of stark contrast, with well lit, formal interiors and natural location shooting of villagers and forests. Henry is seen rehabilitating with Elizabeth, who seems relieved to have the man she loves come back to her, and for his part, Frankenstein is happy to be in the care of a woman. A wedding is arranged hastily by Baron Frankenstein, who frequently references his desire for Henry to have “a son”, blissfully unaware of the “abnormal” son in the laboratory.
Waldman, ever the skeptic of Frankenstein’s experimentation with humans, dies trying to dissect the creature, and the monster, free for the first time, enters the world. We see the monster interact with nature, where his rigid stature begins to loosen, but he remains in stark contrast to the “natural” world, a being of vertical angles primal grunts. He ventures closer to the village, meeting the first (and last) true stranger shortly thereafter.
Universal demanded two key alterations to the film before release (numerous local censors made more drastic changes): one, that the line “I know what if feels like to be God” be removed, at it was considered blasphemous, and two, the shortening of a scene that considerably alters the monster’s storyline. The monster, upon meeting a young girl, is amazed and curious about this strange creature, who casts no judgment upon him. In fact, she wants to play with him, and casts flowers into a nearby lake. The monster also throws his flowers into the water, and squeals in delight as they float. But he runs out of flowers, and not capable of differentiating, throws the girl into the water, accidentally drowning her. He tries to help, but only makes things worse, and panicked, flees. At least, this is what Whale shot. Universal insisted the scenes of the monster throwing her into the water and trying to save her be removed, deeming it too horrific. As a result, prior versions of the film simply have Karloff reaching for the girl, followed by a scream, and then we next see her dead in her father’s arms. The alteration renders the monster more horrific; instead of accidentally killing her, the audience has no idea what he did prior to her death, and the mob revenge is more apropos. Because of the removal of two shots, the monster goes from misunderstood and confused to brutish and violent.
Of course, the third act of the film takes curious directions which support both possible interpretations, for the monster’s actions from this point on alternate wildly from scene to scene. Elizabeth is attacked by the monster while locked inside of her room, perhaps because she stands between Frankenstein and his creation, or is it because the monster has developed a predilection for killing females?
While Elizabeth survives, Henry is convinced he must destroy his creation, and joins the mob growing outside. Armed with torches (which, although they have no notion of this, is the only thing the monster fears) the mob splits up and searches the forest, marshes, and mountain trails. After taking considerable effort to show the audience both the forest and the marshes, Whale once again takes us into the realm of the “unnatural”, returning to his false exteriors for Frankenstein’s final encounter with his doppelganger, his automaton, where both men must meet their fate.
As Henry once again comes face to face with his “experiment”, his ability to scare the monster with fire is met with failure. He is unable to exert control over his creation, and the monster overpowers him, taking an unconscious Frankenstein to a nearby windmill, as the mob closes in.
The final sequence, taking place with the monster and Frankenstein in the windmill and the angry mob outside (using a heretofore unseen battering ram to breach the door - how curiously phallic) culminates with the monster rejecting Frankenstein and throwing him to the mob below. The villagers react by setting the windmill ablaze, taking Frankenstein back to the village to recuperate, and leaving the “deviant” monster to burn in his figurative funeral pyre. Surely this is reminiscent of the practice of burning witches, also considered to be unnatural and deviant, and with little stretch of the imagination could be applied to the persecution of homosexuals.
Whale’s film, which is finally available in its uncut form, uses the Frankenstein story as a springboard to address what is perceived as unnatural by people (the villagers) and frowned on by respectable people (Dr. Waldman), but is, in the end, something a person decides to do, regardless of how much “experimentation” he or she does. The Baron Frankenstein ends the film reiterating his desire for a grandson to the “House of Frankenstein”, and with Elizabeth and Henry together, perhaps all’s well that ends well. Of course, Whale would have the last laugh with Bride of Frankenstein, but that is a different matter altogether. Perhaps the monster is not some murderous brute, but rather a confused young man who has no conception of what he is here for; condemned as “abnormal”, and punished for being only what he was created to be.
What it lacks in on-screen violence, The House on Sorority Row makes up for in story (which is seldom the case in slasher films): the graduating sorority sisters of Theta Pi decide to stay in their house for one more weekend, much to the chagrin of mentally unstable house mother Mrs. Slater. When a prank to get even with her results in Slater's death, the girls are faced with a quick decision as the party is literally heading up the driveway. Their plan to hide the body goes awry, and on top of that someone is killing off the guilty parties during the celebration. The House on Sorority Row manages to interweave all of the plot threads - plus a few I'm opting not to spoil - throughout the film, adding a palpable tension to the murders, the party, and the girls' attempt to cover up their prank.
