Series Saturday: Universal's Frankenstein movies

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

I’ve been a fan of the original Universal Studios Monsters franchise for as long as I can remember, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve done any kind of intentional rewatch of most of them. This year I thought, being in the midst of a pandemic and all, that maybe I’d have time to revisit most of the rest, via the Legacy Collection DVDs I’ve had for ages. For various reasons, I only got through the Frankenstein movies.

There are eight movies in the original Universal Frankenstein series (or seven, if you’re one of those folks who discounts Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein):

·         Frankenstein (1931)

·         The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

·         Son of Frankenstein (1939)

·         Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

·         Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

·         House of Frankenstein (1944)

·         House of Dracula (1945)

·         Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

The Universal Monsters “universe” was perhaps the earliest cinematic universe in terms of characters overlapping, but the attention to continuity wasn’t like it is today with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and such fare. The Frankenstein movies as a whole hold together better than some of the other sub-franchises in the UMU (I’m looking at you, sequels to Dracula!). Still, there are lots of discrepancies: in Frankenstein, Henry Frankenstein’s tower lab is some distance from Manor Frankenstein and the town it is a part of; in Bride, the tower is a lot closer, and in Son, the tower is right next door to what is now Castle Frankenstein, which overlooks the village. The interior sets of the Manor change quite a bit between Frankenstein and Bride, as well. Sometimes the same character is played by different actors across the franchise, and sometimes the same actors show up as multiple characters. I doubt many audience members at the time cared, as long as they got a good story, but I don’t think it would fly today.

For the most part, we do get solid stories with compelling characters. Although not very similar to the novel on which it is based, Frankenstein gives us Colin Clive’s brilliant performance as the obsessed and conflicted Henry Frankenstein and Boris Karloff’s poignant confused and lost Monster, supported by the always-eerie Dwight Frye as the hunchbacked assistant Fritz and the understated Edward Van Sloan as Doctor Waldman. The only weak point in the main cast, to me, is Mae Clarke as Elizabeth; her performance is a bit too “stagey” as compared to the rest of the cast (and perhaps is the reason the role was recast for Bride?). As unlike the source material as it may be, it’s still a tightly-told and well-acted tale directed by James Whale with great mood and tension throughout.

Karloff and Clive return as the Monster and his creator in The Bride of Frankenstein under Whale’s continued direction, with Elsa Lancaster as both Mary Shelley and the Bride. Valerie Hobson replaces Mae Clarke as Elizabeth. I love this movie almost as much as the original and Son, but man is the tone just all over the place. Whale can’t seem to decide if he’s making a pathos-filled character piece or a slapstick comedy. Una O’Connor’s Minnie (maid to Elizabeth? Housekeeper? I’m still unsure after multiple viewings exactly what her job is) takes up way more screen-time than comic relief should in a film like this, and O’Connor’s shrill over-the-top delivery makes almost every scene she’s in hard to watch. The scene where Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) produces his Homunculi also feels out of place, between the bawdy comedy between the Homunculi and the fact that Homunculi are never seen or mentioned again. Karloff is at his best as the Monster here, learning to talk and feel, and Clive matches him turn-for-turn as Henry grows desperate to just be done with creating life and return to his wife. If not for the Una O’Connor scenes and the Homunculi bit, Bride would be pretty perfect and perhaps even better than the original.

Son of Frankenstein, directed by Rowland V. Lee, was Karloff’s last turn as the Monster. Karloff does more acting here with his eyes than most actors do with their whole bodies, but he feels wasted. The Monster’s ability to talk is inexplicably gone. He’s not given much to do other than rampaging. Basil Rathbone takes over the lead spot as Henry’s son Wolf and does a great job as a man conflicted between forging his own path and following in his father’s footsteps. Bela Lugosi is brilliant, and almost unrecognizable, as the hunchback Ygor, stealing every scene he’s in.  Lionel Atwill makes his first appearance in the franchise as the one-armed Col. Krogh (in a scene that gets sent-up expertly by Mel Brooks in Young Frankenstein). There are still some awkward humorous moments, mostly involving Wolf and Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson)’s toddler son Peter (Donnie Dunagan), but they’re not as prevalent or as distracting as the Minnie scenes in Bride. Had the franchise ended as a trilogy, it might rank as one of the best horror trilogies ever.

Ghost of Frankenstein moves the action from the town of Frankenstein to the town of Vasaria (where it will remain for pretty much the rest of the franchise). Lugosi returns as Ygor, Lon Chaney Jr. takes over as the Monster (not much more than a weapon of destruction, although in the early scenes there’s an attempt at emotion as the Monster once again bonds with a little girl and the crowd reacts out of fear for her safety), Sir Cedric Hardwicke plays both Ludwig Frankenstein (younger son of Henry) and Henry’s ghost, Evelyn Ankers appears as Ludwig’s daughter Elsa (not to be confused with Wolf’s wife), and Lionel Atwill plays his second character in the franchise, the not-so-nice Doctor Boehmer. It’s a solid movie, building tension as the various non-Monster leads jockey for whose brain they’re going to transplant into the Monster. There’s even a bit of a return to the Monster as he was in Bride, able to speak towards the end of the movie. But it almost feels like director Erle C. Kenton and the writers are trying too hard to be surprising and sneaky. I still love it, just not as much as the previous three.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man puts Lon Chaney Jr. back where he’s best (in hair and fangs), and puts Bela Lugosi in the Monster’s make-up. A sensible move given Ygor’s brain ends up in the Monster at the end of Ghost, except that behind-the-scenes machinations removed any scene where the Monster actually speaks, so Lugosi is as wasted as Karloff felt in Son (perhaps even more so). Elsa Frankenstein is now played by Ilona Massey (with an accent the previous Elsa didn’t have), and dialogue lets us know this is Ludwig’s daughter and not Wolf’s wife. She’s the first Frankenstein featured in the franchise who isn’t a scientist and really has nothing to do with the Monster. Lionel Atwill is back as his third character in the franchise, the Mayor of Vasaria. This is far more of a Wolf Man movie than it is a Frankenstein. Sans dialogue, the Monster is a weapon of mass destruction to be unleashed and defeated.

House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula are “everything and the kitchen sink” approaches to combining several of the Universal Monsters. To this day, I’m not sure why the Mummy and the Invisible Man weren’t invited to the parties. Both movies are pretty disjointed, especially in integrating Dracula into the rest of the action. Concentrating on just the Frankenstein elements: In House of Frankenstein, Glenn Strange takes over as The Monster; Lionel Atwill plays yet another character, Inspector Arnz; there’s a new hunchback played by J. Carrol Naish; and Boris Karloff returns to the franchise as a very different mad scientist, Doctor Neimann. Karloff is brilliant and Naish is excellent, but the Monster himself just lumbers and kills and is “killed.” In House of Dracula, Strange continues as the Monster; Lionel Atwill plays character #5 in the franchise, Police Inspector Holtz; the hunchbacked assistant is a woman (Jane Adams); and the mad scientist is now Doctor Edelmann, played by Onslow Stevens (the closest the Universal Monsters franchise ever really gets to incorporated a version of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, at least until the Abbott and Costello movies). House of Dracula is again far more of a Wolf Man (and perhaps a Jekyll/Hyde or even Dracula) movie than it is a Frankenstein movie. The Monster is mostly there for mayhem, but at least the Wolf Man gets a happy ending.

There are a lot of people who don’t consider Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein as a valid part of the Frankenstein (or larger Universal Monsters) franchise. I am most emphatically not one of them. While I’m not sure where it should fit in the overall sequence (since I like to think that Larry Talbot gets to keep his Happy Ending from House of Dracula), I think it treats the monsters who appear (Bela Lugosi back as Dracula, Glenn Strange as the Monster, Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man, Lenore Aubert as the requisite “mad scientist,” and a cameo by Vincent Price as The Invisible Man) with great respect. They’re played as the serious monsters they are, not for laughs. The comedy that comes from Abbott and Costello’s reactions to the Monsters fits much better than that provided by Minnie in Bride or Peter Frankenstein in Son. And Glenn Strange actually gets to speak as the Monster! The only thing that would have made this movie more perfect would have been if Lionel Atwill had still been alive to play one more random police officer or mad scientist. Unfortunately, he’d passed away in 1946. Still, it’s a fitting end-cap to the franchise.

Except…

For my own part, I also include Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein as a coda or grace note to the franchise. I included it in this rewatch, even though it’s not in the Legacy DVDs because it was released by a different studio. Brooks and Wilder’s love for the original movies is so evident in every frame of their film. They poke fun at the original movies’ inconsistencies and quirks, while still keeping the tone and using some of the original set pieces. There’s even a theory (espoused by my good friend Chuck Loridans among others) that “Froederick” Frankenstein is actually … Peter Frederick Frankenstein, Wolf’s son! (Who would have be a bit amnesiac to not remember meeting the original Monster and a one-armed policeman as a boy, but the blond hair, the expressive eyes, the sense of wonder… it fits!)

Horror By The Day

During October, I ran #horrorbytheday on my Twitter account. Each day I picked a random horror-related topic and identified my favorite thing related to that topic. Most tweets had pictures attached as well.

I thought it might be a good idea to finally post the entire thread here, for those of you who don’t follow me on other social media, and maybe add some more detail. Feel free to weigh in with comments about your favorites for each of these topics!

October 1: Classic Horror Novel: Dracula by Bram Stoker. I don’t remember how old I was the first time I read Dracula. Probably sixth grade. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve re-read it since then (20 is probably a low estimate). There’s something about the epistolary style and the fact that we pretty much never hear directly from the title character that still pulls me in an fascinates me no matter how many times I read it, and no matter how many adaptations I experience in print and other media.

October 2: Horror Anthology (Comics): House of Mystery. As I was starting my comics-reading experience, both DC and Marvel still published a variety of genre “anthology” comics. In retrospect, HoM was my favorite; I might willingly miss issues of House of Secrets, Ghosts, The Unexpected, and the rest, but I pretty never missed an issue or skipped a story of/in HoM. And I loved how mean narrator Cain could be.

October 3: Horror Cereal: Count Chocula.  Vampires and chocolate. Need I say more?

October 4: Stephen King Novel: ‘Salem’s Lot. Thematically and structurally similar to Dracula, it’s no surprise this is also high on my list. But King’s story is not just a Stoker retelling with modern trappings, and I think that’s what makes it stand out and live such a longer life than most Dracula pastiches. I also love the various connected short stories (like “Jerusalem’s Lot” and “The Night Flier”).

October 5: TV Show: Dark Shadows. I remember rushing home from school to watch this in the afternoons, completely captivated not just by Jonathan Frid’s vampire Barnabas Collins, but also David Hedison’s Quentin (the werewolf), and all the alternate timelines, flashbacks, ghosts and such.

October 6: Edgar Allen Poe Story: The Cask of Amontillado. It’s always hard to choose between this, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat” when asked for a favorite. But most years, if I have time to re-read only one Poe story in October, this is the go-to.

October 7: Marvel Comics Horror Title: Tomb of Dracula. This should surprise absolutely no-one. I loved almost all of the Marvel horror titles of the 70s (Werewolf By Night, Son of Satan, Monster of Frankenstein, and the rest) but this one more than the others. And not only because the title character is a Dracula whose personality falls very much in line with Stoker’s creation. The moody art of Gene Colan, especially once Tom Palmer joined him as regular inker, and the deep continuity of Marv Wolfman’s story (before “decompressed storytelling” and slavish continuity were a thing for most comics), both make this a direct Dracula sequel that stands out.

October 8: Horror Comedy Movie: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. A friend and I regularly acted out the Chick-and-Wilbur scenes from this throughout high school, to the annoyance of our peers I’m sure. There’s not a bad scene or wasted punchline throughout, and it features Lugosi and Chaney in their signature roles.

October 9: Annual Reread: A Night in the Lonesome October. Roger Zelazny’s pitch-perfect tale of a mystic ritual and the players who fight for/against it, as narrated by a faithful watchdog named Snuff. So many nods to classic horror novels and tropes that even all these years later I don’t think readers have ferreted out every little nod Zelazny worked in. And it’s structured as one chapter per day for the month, which makes it easy to read with other fans via social media.

October 10: Concept Album: Alan Parsons Project “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”  Parsons’ wonderful musical working of a number of Edgar Allen Poe tales sweeps me away every time I listen to it. Not a bad track in the lot, and Orson Welles’ narrations are brilliantly incorporated.

October 11: Musical: Little Shop of Horrors. Little Shop just barely edges The Rocky Horror Show out as my favorite horror-musical. They’re both great, and in reality they probably trade the top spot depending on which one I’ve seen most recently.

October 12: DC Comics Horror Title: Night Force. After they ended Tomb of Dracula at Marvel, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan created Night Force for DC. The first run only lasted fourteen issues (recently collected in hardcover). I loved the idea that the mysterious time-traveling Baron Winters gathered teams of (sometimes unwilling) agents to battle the supernatural on his behalf. Sort of Mission: Impossible The Supernatural Team. Sadly, the sales weren’t there originally or for either of the later relaunches (both with Wolfman as writer but no input from Colan).

October 13: 60s Horror Movie: Rosemary’s Baby. The book was scary enough. The movie, with a great cast including Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon, and John Cassavetes, works with lighting and mood to keep the viewer feeling as off-kilter as Rosemary. It still haunts me.

October 14: Ghost Novel: Vintage by Steve Berman. Berman smoothly combines teen romance with the ghost hitchhiker trope for an intriguing, scary read.

October 15: Horror Poster: Chip Skelton’s “Universal Road,” as seen at the top of this post.

October 16: Lovecraftian/Mythos Series: Whyborne and Griffin by Jordan L. Hawk. Lovecraft himself may have been incredibly homophobic, which probably is what drives so many queer horror authors to play in his sandbox. Each book in this series is based on a different Mythos entity or trope, but with really engaging title characters and supporting cast and an expanding narrative that has a clear beginning and end.

October 17: Non-Traditional Vampire Novel: Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The setting is a near-future Mexico City that works hard to keep out the vampires that have overrun the rest of North America. The characters are a vampire who has made it into the city in an effort to escape her pursuers and the young man who falls for her despite what she is.

October 18: Zombie Series: Newsflesh by Mira Grant. I’m not a huge fan of zombie fiction. In fact, these may be the only zombie novels I’ve read. What I love about them is that the zombie “apocalypse” is background world-building and the zombies themselves a threat only really when manipulated as a tool. The first book is a 70s-style political thriller (think “All The President’s Men”) set against a world that has become accustomed to the presence of zombies, while the second book is an 80s-style medical thriller (think any Robin Cook novel). The third combines aspects of both with 70s-style all-star-cast disaster flicks. The ancillary short stories and novellas are equally as good and diverse.

October 19: Recent Horror Film: A Quiet Place. I rarely see movies more than once in the theater, but A Quiet Place got me to come back a second time to see if I could pick up things I knew I missed. It’s not a perfect movie (the background world-building doesn’t quite hold up if you think about it too closely), but the use of silence and muted sound pulls me in and doesn’t let go until the last frame.

October 20: Classic Horror Actor: Vincent Price. Lugosi is my favorite Dracula, Karloff my favorite Frankenstein Monster, but for overall 50s-70s horror, Price is the icon. The look, the voice, it’s all there.

October 21: Contemporary Indy Comic Series: Locke and Key. Joe Hill and Gabriel Ba’s opus checks off so many horror boxes (Lovecraft, serial killers, haunted houses, bodily possessions) and a few sf-nal boxes as well (time travel) that it can’t fall into any one category. The creators also wisely chose to keep the story finite, something I hope the upcoming Netflix series will respect.

October 22: Historical Horror Comic: Blood of the Innocent (WaRP Graphics). Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley’s mini-series pitting Count Dracula against Jack the Ripper is a classic mash-up that deserves far more attention than it seems to get. Really hoping there’s a hardcover collected edition eventually.

October 23: Recent Horror Novella: Widow’s Point by Richard Chizmar. Chizmar’s book is the novel version of a “found footage film,” and he works every angle of the trope to full effect. It managed to make me feel claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time.

October 24: Horror Magazine: The Dark. A consistently solid mix of new stories and reprints every month.

October 25: Haunted Object Novel: Paper Tigers by Damien Angelica Walters. Currently out of print. Walters’ tale of a haunted photo album and the scarred woman who turns its pages pulled me in on page one and didn’t let go.

October 26: Shakespeare Horror: Macbeth. Shakespeare didn’t write horror, you say? This one has witches, ghosts, a serial-killing King and his spouse, sleep-walking, and tons of blood. And it is my favorite Shakespeare play ever, the one for which I will never turn down a chance to see a live production.

October 27: Fairy Tale Horror: “Snow, Glass, Apples” by Neil Gaiman. Most fairy tales, if we go back far enough, are more horror than feel-good cautionary tale. Modern authors have been bringing the horror elements back and tweaking them in interesting ways. I loved Gaiman’s take on Snow White, especially as narrated by Bebe Neuwirth.

October 28: Scariest Werewolf: Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf (Hammer Studios). Chaney may be the classic, and An American Werewolf in London may have better special effects, but for whatever reason Oliver Reed’s werewolf scared me more than either, to the point of nausea. In fact, to the point that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the movie again since I was a teen.

October 29: Kaiju Film: Destroy All Monsters. I loved the giant monster movies that showed up on Saturday and Sunday afternoon television, but the one I still love above the rest is this “all-star” production (most recently rebooted/remade as “Godzilla King of Monsters”). As a kid, I could never understand why Gamora the space turtle wasn’t invited to the shindig (adult me understands they were produced by rival studios).

October 30: LGBTQ Anthology: Night Shadows.  A really wonderful mix of short stories by gay authors that roams the width and breadth of the horror genre.

October 31: Horror Franchise: Universal Studios Monsters (1930s-60s). There are those who debate whether this is a cohesive “universe” or not given the number of entries that don’t connect to others at all and given the number of re-casts for several of the principal characters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster) who do recur and given the mood-swings of the series (see the several entries involving Abbott and Costello). I fall strongly on the “cohesive universe” side regarding Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man, because there was some nominal effort made to connect certain films with those that had come before. It’s harder to link the Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the later more sci-fi-horror entries in based solely on what we see in the films, but there’s a small cottage-industry creating those links in short stories and novels. And even if they don’t all link together as a shared universe, the decades-long Universal Monsters brand is rivalled only by Hammer Studios’ output for sheer expansiveness.