Those people wincing their way through Clarke’s plummy, pseudo-British accents in Frankenstein might have a tough time recognising Myra the prostitute of Waterloo Bridge, or the pathetic Molly Malloy of The Front Page, or the gravel-voiced, pajama-clad B-girl on the receiving end of Jimmy Cagney’s grapefruit of The Public Enemy. You can understand why all this was left in the script – and you can easily imagine the impact it must have had upon the stage – but for all its iconic value, this sequence is easily the silliest in the whole film. In 1927, yet another interpretation, this one penned by Peggy Webling, was presented upon the British stage by producer-actor Hamilton Deane, who chose for himself the juicy role of the Creature.

And then, having mysteriously “intuited” which was Frankenstein’s house, made its way there, distracted everyone else in the house and broken in, the Creature simply goes away once it has made Elizabeth faint. The point at which this film most closely resembles the novel from which its story was drawn is their mutual conception of Frankenstein himself, who is certainly not mad, but rather suffers from a tragic mixture of overweening ambition and weakness of character.The assistant was messing around in the lab and switched the brain they were using with a deceased criminal’s brain. Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. Near the castle was an old watchtower where Henry Frankenstein conducted a series of bizarre experiments in the late 19th century that ruined the family legacy, making the name Frankenstein synonymous with monsters and horror. The Jesuits gradually left the university as it sought to change with the times, until the university finally had become so secular that the greatest influence in Ingolstadt was Adam Weishaupt, founder of the secret society of the Illuminati. Henry agrees to let his friends observe and explains his scientific theories as his creation comes to life.

Young Frankenstein’s setting commences in New York where a neurosurgeon by the name of Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder), lives. Bette Davis was the next to go, her casting vetoed by Carl Laemmle Sr, who found the young actress distinctly unsexy. And it is the transformation of those peasants late in the film that provides the film’s comic highlight.

Looking for a quick way to capitalise upon the huge and unexpected success of Dracula, Universal Studios made the obvious move and put into production an adaptation of Frankenstein. In the novel Frankenstein, Shelley uses the theme of nature to show how it is like the characters of the story and how it affects the characters. Re-watching this film for the umpteenth time, but perhaps studying it for the first time, I found myself particularly struck by two of Frankenstein’s recurrent motifs. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.

Fritz reluctantly obeys, but upon examining the body, Frankenstein rejects it in disgust, commenting that they will have to get a brain from somewhere else. The first of numerous sequels to the 1931 Frankenstein were Universal's The Bride of Frankenstein (see above), again directed by James Whale and starring Clive and Karloff; and Son of Frankenstein (see below), directed by Rowland V. This entry was posted in Science fiction and tagged 1930s, artificial life, Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Francis Edwards Faragoh, Frederick Kerr, Garrett Fort, Horror, James Whale, John Boles, John L. Shelley’s tried to addresses the above controversy and showed how science and modern technology is sometimes wrong.

Created from many different parts, the monster was never given a chance to be seen as anything other than a science project. Legends abound about Lugosi’s early make-up tests for the role, which claim that he was photographed wearing an ungainly headpiece that seems to have been modelled upon Paul Wegener’s appearance in the 1920 version of Der Golem.

It was decreed that they could not execute him a second time, and they were forced to set Ygor free. He is a professor at Ingolstadt University who specializes in chemistry and is a mentor of Victor Frankenstein. yet nevertheless carrying burning torches (as all good mobs would do in dozens of films afterwards), and wielding farm implements rather than guns. Following this event, Ygor began living in the ruins of Frankenstein Castle and became known as a local oddity.In the presence of Henry’s friends: Victor, Elizabeth, and Professor Waldman, Henry brought his monster to life in the memorable scene where he exclaims, “It’s alive! When Frankenstein was re-issued thirteen years after its initial success, Shelley, by then beaten down by the tragedy of her life and attempting a shaky rapprochement with her still-hostile family, undertook a conciliatory re-editing her work, putting far more emphasis upon the religious implications of Frankenstein’s transgressions.