THE UNVERISAL HORROR CLASSICS Any time of the year, I occasionally take a look at one of my favorite buys: a 4 Disc collection of the 4 (scratch, 5) classics from the early days of Universal Horror films. However, since our own Cinefiles have reviewed these in the past (and the subject matter often comes up with this subject), I’ll talk about my own thoughts over these films. What’s great about these is that, alongside the films themselves, each disc has documentary and great historian commentaries, which give additional fun facts about these movies. #2--FRANKENSTEIN Daring to create a living man from parts taken from dead bodies, Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) could definitely be called insane (at least for those witnessing the experiment). The experiment works, however, bringing to life a lumbering giant (Boris Karloff) who is mistreated and ultimately escapes from the laboratory tower. Having killed a little girl by accident, the creature is hunted down until he comes face to face once more with his creator. Directed by British director James Whale, FRANKENSTEIN is easily where the whole Universal horror style officially was established (the setbound villages, the artificially engaging production designs, and the great character actor personas). For me, FRANKENSTEIN is often my favorite go-to of classic horror (the novel itself is very poetic, which is surprising on first reading when many are used to the whole science fiction/scary monster clichés); it’s not only my favorite, but often the background I reference whenever I write horror (even going so far as to recreate my own FS legend with my book BORNE OF FRANKENSTEIN). Karloff, much like Lugosi before him, is wonderfully cast in a largely silent role. His first scenes are eerie, yet child-like. Yet, even with Karloff, my personal favorite performance from the first FRANKENSTEIN is, in fact, Colin Clive as the brilliant and clearly unstable Dr. Henry Frankenstein. I just love the off-kilter passion Clive brought to his performance, which is only made even greater by the great lines he has. Mae Clarke is fairly good as his fiancée Elizabeth, but her material dries up around the third act where she’s given very little to do. DRACULA alumni players Edward Van Sloane & Dwight Frye bring their talent to FRANKENSTEIN (one as Henry’s medical mentor, and the latter as the hunchback assistant; albeit his name is Fritz and not Igor, as brought to much confusion due to Mel Brooks’ great homage). However, while I love FRANKENSTEIN’s look and performances, the biggest problem I have with it is the sudden drop of sympathy towards the monster and it becomes a more straight forward antagonist near the third act. It probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the monster’s sympathy hadn’t been so depicted in the early scenes (one tragic scene involves the accidental drowning of a little girl; which was often cut out during the film’s original theatrical run). Despite that, FRANKENSTEIN proves a great hit even today. Where Lugosi is often imitated as Dracula, the look designed by makeup artist Jack Pierce always comes to mind whenever the name Frankenstein is spoken. It also proved one of the most influential films over the decades, and remains a beautiful piece of gothic horror.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:08:23 +0000
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