The Sequel Was Better? is a series of reviews looking at famous
movies with sequels that are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be
better than the original movies. Typically, sequels are a step down in
quality, acting, and/or production value. But not always. See more such
reviews here.
Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale
A doctor obsessed with creating life seals himself away in an abandoned watch tower. He collects bodies from wherever he can. His name is Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive). He is son of Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr) and fiance of Elizabeth (Mae Clarke). But the wedding is on hold while Doctor Frankenstein performs his experiments. Worried about him, his fiancee goes to the tower with a friend and the doctor's former university colleague, Doctor Waldman (Everett Sloan). They get their in time to witness Frankenstein bestowing life on the Monster (Boris Karloff). They leave a little disheartened but Waldman stays to help Frankenstein finish up and get back home. The two doctors have a hard time controlling the monster, mostly because their assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) is constantly badgering the monster. The Baron comes to visit and by that point the monster has become uncontrollable and killed Fritz. The Baron, Waldman, and Elizabeth convince the overwrought Frankenstein to go home and recuperate. Waldman promises to kill the monster painlessly. At home, wedding plans resume. On the wedding day, Waldman still hasn't return--he's been killed by the monster too. The monster shows up and attacks Elizabeth, then flees. The townsfolk get the torches and pitchforks and head out to find the monster. He's eventually chased to an abandoned windmill which is burnt down with the monster inside. Young Frankenstein and Elizabeth are married, creating a happy ending for all but the monster.
The movie is a classic and has often been imitated. A lot of the settings and plot are familiar because other films have copied them. It looks cliched only because it was the source of all those cliches. Karloff's monster has become the definitive depiction despite many movie and television retellings trying out different makeup. The horror elements are less shocking but just because they have been imitated so many times. The big reveal of the monster (which is built up over ten minutes) is less effective a century later.
Which is not to say the makeup is bad. It looks very good even today. The whole look of the film also holds up. The sets are cavernous and often dwarf the characters. Yet the sets aren't empty. The effects are practical and still look good. The camera work and visuals are very reminiscent of German expressionism as seen in
Nosferatu or
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
The acting is also impressive. Karloff gives a great silent performance as the monster. He has an innocence at the beginning that is slowly whittled away by the abuse heaped on him by Fritz and the others. Another iconic scene has the monster, after his escape from the tower, coming upon a small girl. The girl doesn't judge him for his looks or his inability to speak. She just wants a friend to play with. For a brief moment, the monster experiences human happiness. They toss flowers into the lake to make boats. When the monster runs out of flowers, he takes the next beautiful thing and tosses it into the water. He throws the girl in. She drowns and the monster flees in horror through the underbrush.
Clive's performance is good though overshadowed by Karloff. Frankenstein is not a one-dimensional mad doctor. He has blasphemous ambition (he wants to create life as God has done) but not a lot of foresight. The monster becomes less and less controllable and the doctor handles almost nothing well. No wonder he has a nervous breakdown. His sin comes back to haunt him. The doctor tries to do the right thing (destroy the monster) but his creation is more powerful than he is. Frankenstein barely survives to the end even though he's clearly more evil than the monster, who was goaded into mistrust and hostility. The doctor made many evil choices and repents the consequences more than the acts. In a less complicated story, he would have died too. He does earn some redemption but maybe not enough.
The movie is a classic for many good reasons. It's amazing how much story is packed into seventy-seven minutes. The visuals are impressive and the acting is good.
In true cash-in fashion, the story starts with the monster, who was killed in the windmill fire, surviving the windmill fire. The basement was full of water, a detail not mentioned in the first film. Dr. Frankenstein and Elizabeth (now played by Valerie Hobson) aren't married yet--he's carried to town and nursed back to health by his loving fiancee.
Before he's fully recovered, his former mentor Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) visits and wants to collaborate with Frankenstein. Pretorius has done his own experiments with creating life, though he has been growing his creations rather than sewing dead body parts together. Frankenstein is conflicted to say the least--he does not want to go back to his experiments but is very intrigued by Pretorius's offer. He goes to Pretorius's lab to see his work. Pretorius has created many miniature people that the movie plays for comic effect. Pretorius wants to try out Frankenstein's methods and, more significantly, wants Frankenstein to fulfill his work. Frankenstein has made a man, now he needs to make a female of his new race.
Meanwhile, the monster has been terrorizing the countryside, though he does save a shepherdess from drowning (maybe making up for the little girl in the first movie?). He is captured, imprisoned, and escapes through brute force. Then, in a beautiful scene, he stumbles upon a blind hermit who befriends the monster. The hermit cares from him, teaching him to speak and about good things in life like food, drink, and smoking. A random stranger discovers the monster at the hermit's cabin and the monster has to fight and flee again. He goes to a graveyard and enters a mausoleum where he discovers Pretorius grave-robbing some parts for the female. Pretorius befriends the monster in a sinister way, using him to browbeat Frankenstein into building the female. The monster demands a mate and kidnaps Elizabeth, an extra bargaining chip for Pretorius.
The action moves back to the abandoned watchtower where the monster was created. They build and give life to a female (Elsa Lanchester) who is very twitchy. Much worse, she is horrified by the monster. The monster realizes he will be alone and goes to pull a level that blows up the laboratory. Frankenstein and Elizabeth flee before the monster throws the switch that kills him, the bride, and Pretorius.
This movie is also reckoned a classic. Much like Karloff's makeup, Elsa Lanchester's bride makeup and hair has become culturally iconic. The story is more whimsical and more philosophical. Pretorius's works are played for laughs and his wickedness is gleeful and sardonic. He clearly uses everyone else for his own ends. He's also more direct about Frankenstein's work. Where Frankenstein created life to see if he could and what it would be like to be God, he doesn't go the extra step of making a race of men until goaded into it by Pretorius. Frankenstein's god-like ambition is to create a race that serves his needs, so he is very close to Pretorius's exploitation of others. Frankenstein waffles a lot, though, making it possible for him to have redemption, unlike Pretorius.
The acting is very good here too. Lanchester's give a great performance, considering what little she had to do. She is constantly looking around, bird-like, and hisses and screams at the monster. She's innocent, terrified, and terrifying. Lanchester also plays author Mary Shelley in a prologue that sets up the themes of moral responsibility and the contrast of innocence and evil. Thesiger as Pretorius is delightfully wicked, like the Doctor in
the old Lost in Space tv series, though Pretorius is much more malevolent.
The movie is not without flaws. Many bits of dialogue don't match up with the speaker's lips and clearly look and sound edited in after the fact. Una O'Connor plays the comic relief as a shrieking female servant of the Frankenstein household. Her performance is funny in parts but looks a bit dated and sexist eighty years later. They aren't big flaws, but they are there.
Both movies are classics, but is the second better than the first? Let's look at some points of comparison:
- SCRIPT--Both scripts are excellent, conveying the horror of the situation through well-drawn characters. Both movies start with prologues. The first has Everett Sloan (the actor portraying Doctor Waldman) stand in front of a theater curtain and warn the audience about the horrors to come--those terrors may be too much for the faint of heart. It's charming and a bit of whimsy. The second has Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley discussing the first part of the story and how it develops into the second. As I said above, it sets the tone for the movie by underlying certain themes. The expanded themes of innocence and guilt in the second raise that script to a higher level.
- ACTING--Boris Karloff became a star from this role, so much so that in the second movie he is billed only as "KARLOFF." The other actors do a great job. The contrast of the two mentors (the kind Waldman and the scheming Pretorius) makes a nice parallel in the two movies. The Pretorius roll is more flashy (the sort that would garner an Academy Award nomination nowadays) but both actors deliver fine performances. Lanchester gives an iconic performance with almost no screen time, like Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love. Interestingly, Dwight Frye appears as the bodysnatching henchman in both movies. His character Fritz is killed in the first film but the actor comes back as a lackey for Pretorius! On the other hand, the comic relief Baron Frankenstein disappears in the second film to be replaced by Una O'Connor's comic relief performance, which is fine but has flaws as noted above.
- ADVANCES THE STORY/MYTHOLOGY--The second film deliberately advances the story, facing the consequences of Doctor Frankenstein's actions more directly. Pretorius's program is a logical extension of what happened in the first movie, though obviously it is a warped development from the disordered act of creating life from death. The monster as a character is also more developed. His tension between innocent and evil develops. He kills more people and he is treated terribly. At one point, he's tied to a log and held up in an unmistakably crucifixion-like image. The only religious character in the movie, the blind hermit, is clearly a man of compassion and caring. He prays with the monster and gives him a home and a life close to normal. The scene is an amazing endorsement of Christian charity. Too bad that was lost with someone else showing up! The monster is led down the path of evil by Pretorius, only to come to the realization that what's been done is too monstrous and must be destroyed. He has a very sympathetic ending.
- VISUAL STYLE--James Whale, who directed both films, clearly was inspired by the horror classics of German expressionism and keeps an even tone between both films. The sets are huge and odd. The comic miniature people are clearly a visual effect that doesn't look so convincing by today's standards. Even so, the scene still looks good enough and is more focused on the comedy and story-telling rather than the wow-factor of the effect. The labs are much the same, with fantastical machinery dwarfing the human operators. The second film has a bigger variety of locations and shows them off well. Both films look great.
The second film is definitely a step forward in story-telling, character development, and visual breadth. Both are great, but Bride is more great. They make a fine double-bill for your Halloween watching pleasure. There's a DVD set with these and a bunch of other classic Universal Frankenstein movies...
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