Son of Frankenstein. Directed by Rowland V. Lee, starring Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson, and Donnie Dunagan. Universal, 1939.
Karloff’s last time in the getup—which this time includes a fleece vest, presumably supplied by goatherd Lugosi—found him unconscious on the operating table for most of the picture, which persuaded him to bow out before the Monster became absolutely comatose, as he nearly did in the five productions to follow. Rathbone, as Frankenstein’s firstborn son, is manic enough for both Clive and little brother Hardwicke (neither of whom appear in this one), especially when playing darts and exchanging verbal barbs with police prefect Atwill and his wooden arm. Toddler Dunagan’s adorable, which is his purpose, no doubt gleefully anticipating a fat part in Grandson of Frankenstein. Atwill and Rathbone would have run away with the whole thing if Ygor weren’t on hand, in a characterization that might have netted Lugosi an Oscar had the Academy taken horror pictures seriously. (Admittedly, the competition was fierce this year, which included Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.)
**
2. Tributes
Ed Wood. Directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, and Bill Murray. Touchstone, 1994.
Runaway entertainment, hilarious and moving by turns, and arguably the best movie about heartless Hollywood after Sunset Boulevard (1950). Depp is a giddy force of nature in this biopic as Edward D. Wood, who contrary to popular opinion wasn’t the worst director of all time (I nominate Robert Altman, with Nashville his Plan 9 from Outer Space), but was certainly the most clueless. Martin Landau plays Bela Lugosi in his pathetic extremity, Depp the desperate Orson Welles wannabe who befriends the faded star and makes him the focus of his celluloid atrocities. Murray was never better, Jones surpasses his Austrian emperor in Amadeus, and the re-enactments of Wood’s canon of schlock are sublimely cheesy. Landau earned an Oscar for his unflinching portrayal; another went to makeup artist Rick Baker for matching him so well to the original that authentic close-up footage of Lugosi in White Zombie (1932) is shown undoctored. This gem has done more to resurrect a forgotten icon’s reputation than any dozen comebacks.
Gods and Monsters. Directed by Bill Condon, starring Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, Lolita Davidovich, David Dukes, and Kevin J. O’Connor. Lions Gate, 1998.
Condon won an Oscar for adapting Christopher Bram’s novel Father of Frankenstein, but McKellen and Fraser proved up to the challenge as the haunted James Whale and his naive confidant; the late Dukes is extremely effective in a critically undervalued performance as Whale’s former lover. Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, and Ernest Thesiger (Clive and Thesiger in flashback) are perfect physical matches in casting, and Redgrave received honors for playing against type as Whale’s put-upon Greek chorus of a housekeeper. The usually reliable Leonard Maltin reviewed the movie as “Exceptional (if entirely fictional),” but evidently he was unfamiliar with James Curtis’ Whale biography, which appeared about the same time as the film.
(Tip: Next time you host a Halloween party, consider screening Ed Wood and Gods and Monsters back-to-back with E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a supernatural take on the filming of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent Nosferatu, with John Malkovich as the brilliant European director and an unrecognizable Willem Dafoe as the sinister Max Schreck.)
Young Frankenstein. Directed by Mel Brooks, starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, and Kenneth Mars. 20th Century Fox, 1974.
Wilder, it’s said, sat nearly on Brooks’s head to curb his reckless genius and preserve the integrity of Wilder’s script. If so, he’s to be commended for this spot-on affectionate satire of the first three Frankensteins (with a dash of King Kong during the theater scene; and don’t forget to watch for Ghost of Frankenstein’s Ralph Bellamy in the audience). Everyone is wonderful, and it’s with great difficulty that one picks out a particular highlight, but that would have to be Brooks and Wilder’s hysterical take on the scene in the blind hermit’s (Gene Hackman’s) hut from Bride. Is it just me, or do I hear phantom chuckling from Karloff, Lugosi, Dwight Frye, and company every time I screen it?
(Tip: This one is best enjoyed after watching Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein in close succession.)
**
AUTHOR’S NOTES
1. Fun-Ereal Fact
Two films in this sub-genre drew their titles from lines spoken in the first: both Young Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein from Baron Frankenstein’s (Frederick Kerr’s) toast in the final scene. Hammer Films’s Curse of Frankenstein (1957) was inspired by a villager’s cry in Ghost of Frankenstein.
**
2. Steams Like Old Times
Steampunk is one of the lighter-hearted youth movements of recent years. Part rebellion against Cyber Age technology, part dress-up, it celebrates the visual contrast of massive moving metal parts glistening with oil with the proper dress, genteel manners, and strict mores of Victorian society. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, so there is little to be found upon the subject between covers. Ironically, one must turn to its bête noir, the Internet, for further information. (But then, hasn’t mankind managed to create its own Frankenstein’s Monster in the form of the microchip?)
**
3. Frankenstein Meets Dracula
Bela Lugosi’s test as the Monster in Frankenstein is no novelist’s invention. It was shot under Robert Florey’s direction in June 1931, and was by all accounts terrible, drawing derisive laughter from Carl Laemmle, Jr., when Lugosi’s close-up was screened. Although rumored to have been destroyed, it resurfaced (perhaps) thirty years ago in a trade-paper advertisement in Los Angeles, only to vanish once again. In view of the fact that the only poster known to exist promoting Lugosi as the star sold at auction recently for six figures, it’s anyone’s guess what those two reels would bring.
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