In looking in some small regard into older films made in the United States, we wanted to look into some of the early features at Universal Studios. Highly ranked as the James Whale directed movie Frankenstein (1931) is in the 43 Universal Classic Monster Movies by Rotten Tomatoes, we wanted to take this moment to share our review of a favorite movie of good Matt Lynn Digital broheim, Airport Friend.
James Whale directs the film Frankenstein as an introduction to the stable of Universal Classic Monster Movies, introducing with Dracula (1931) a uniquely new subject matter and tone of cinema new in America in the horror film genre. Beginning with a warning of the movie’s themes of life and death, the movie aimed, in its own words, to thrill, to shock, even to horrify the audience. Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Dwight Frye as Fritz, the two men acting to create life from the recently dead, would take steps to make this happen.
The storyline in the movie does not follow the story of the book Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. We receive instead the creation of the Monster, as portrayed by Boris Karloff, with the wonderfully sweet then horrifying turn taken with the character Little Maria. The tragedy of the turn speaks to a core question in the book by Shelley, though takes us through strikingly different means.
The groundwork for introducing the Monster begins, first, through the education of would be doctors by Dr. Waldman, as portrayed by Edward Van Sloan. The question of the mental health of the Monster is introduced through specimen samples of an average human and a criminal human brain, with an accident with the first not dissuading the Fritz from letting Frankenstein’s Monster be created with criminal tendencies.
Henry’s fiancée Elizabeth Lavenza, as portrayed by Mae Clarke, converses with their mutual friend Victor Mortiz in the interval leading to the marriage of Lavenza and Henry. Victor and Elizabeth include Dr. Waldman in their deliberations, for the ambitions around life and death that drive Henry and Fritz are a mystery. Waldman reveals Henry’s ambition, the group witnessing the moment that life is raised in the Monster. It is in the moments that pass that seriously escalations against the innocence of the Monster occurred that Fritz, Henry, Waldman, Elizabeth, Victor or even Baron Frankenstein, Henry’s father, cannot counteract.
The pace at which the film Frankenstein raises the stakes of the Monster’s crimes are staggering. The moral clarity of the mad doctor in Shelley‘s book rings through in the outrage stirred in the villagers out to punish the Monster. The apparent ambivalence of Henry Frankenstein to the death his creation cost in creation as well as in the immediate aftermath of bringing it to life offers a clear sense for how the film aimed to land on thrilling, shocking, and horrifying the film’s audience. In that the film stirred these feelings, I grant James Whale‘s Frankenstein 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Matt Lynn Digital 