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Variety,
December
8, 1931
Frankenstein
(1931)
Universal production
and release. Directed by James Whale. Features Colin Clive, Mae
Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff. Based on story of aMry (sic)
W. Shelley, with adaptation by John L. Balderston from play by Peggy
Webling. Literary credits also to Garret Fort and Francis Edward
Faragoh. Cameraman, Arthur Edeson. Carl Laemmie, Jr., producer.
At the Mayfair, N.Y., week Dec. 4. Running time, 73 mins.
|
Frankenstein
|
Colin Clive |
 |
| Elizabeth |
Mae Clarke |
| Victor |
John Boles |
| The
Monster |
Boris Karloff |
| Dr.
Waldman |
Edward
Van Sloan |
| The
Dwarf |
Dwight
Frye |
| The
Baron |
Frederick
Kerr |
A click from
the start of the Mayfair engagement, holding a crowd out on a rainy
opening night. "Frankenstein" establishes itself as a
notable box-office subject.
Looks like a
"Dracula" plus, touching a new peak in horror plays and
handled in production with supreme craftsmanship. Exploitation,
which dwells upon the shock angle, is also a punchful asset with
hair-raising lobby and newspaper trumpeting.
 Appeal
is candidly to the morbid side, and the screen effect is up to promised
specifications. Feminine fans seem to get some sort of emotional
kick out of this sublimation of the bedtime ghost story done with
all the literalness of the camera.
Maximum of stimulating
shock is there, but the thing is handled with subtle change of pace
and shift of tempo that keeps attention absorbed to a high voltage
climax, tricked out with spectacle and dramatic crescendo, after
holding the smash shivver (sic) on a hair trigger for more than
an hour.
Picture starts
out with a wallop. Midnight funeral services are in progress on
a blasted moor, with the figure of the scientist and his grotesque
dwarf assistant hiding at the edge of the cemetery to steal the
newly-buried body. Sequence climaxes with the gravedigger sending
down the clumping earth upon the newly-laid coffin. Shudder No.
1.
Shudder No.
2, hard on its heels, is when Frankenstein cuts down his second
dead subject down from the gallows, these details being presented
with plenty of realism. These corpses are to be assembled into a
semblance of a human body which Frankenstein seeks to galvanize
into life, and to this end the story goes into his laboratory, extemporized
in a gruesome mountain setting out of an abandoned mill. But first
our scientist must have a brain, which leads to another sock touch
of the creeps, when the dwarf crawls into a medical college dissecting
room to steal that necessity. If you think these episodes have exhausted
the repertoire of gruesome props they are but preliminaries.
Laboratory sequence
detailing the creation of the monster patched up of human odds and
ends is a smashing bit of theatrical effect, taking place in this
eerie setting during a violent mountain storm in the presence of
the scientist’s sweetheart and others, all frozen with mortal
fright.
Series of successive
jolts continue through the moment when the monster creeps upon the
scientist’s waiting bride, probably the prize blood-curdler
of the picture, and its final destruction when the infuriated villagers
burn down the deserted windmill in which it is a prisoner Finish
is a change from the one first tried, when the scientist also was
destroyed. The climax with the surviving Frankenstein (Frankenstein
is the creator of the monster, not the monster itself) relieves
the tension somewhat at the finale, but that may not be the effect
most to be desired.
Subtle handling
of the subject comes in the balance that has been maintained between
the real and the supernatural, contrast that heightens the horror
punches. The figure of the monster is a triumph of effect. It has
a face and head of exactly the right distortions to convey a sense
of the diabolical, but not enough to destroy the essential touch
of monstrous human evil.
In like manner
the feeling of horror is not once let go past the point at which
it inspires disbelief, where out of excess it would create a feeling
of make-believe. This is the trick that actually make the picture
deliver its high voltage kick. The technique is shrewd manipulation.
After each episode dealing with the weird elements of the story
there is a swift twist to the normal people of the drama engaged
in their commonplace activities, a contrast emphasizing the next
eerie detail. Playing is perfectly paced. Colin Clive, the cadaverous
hero of "Journey’s End", is a happy choice for the
scientist driven by a frenzy for knowledge. He plays it with force,
but innocent of ranting. Boris Karloff enacts the monster and makes
a memorable figure of the bizarre figure with its indescribably
terrifying face of demoniacal calm, a fascinating acting bit of
mesmerism.
Mae Clarke makes
a perfunctory ingenue role charming, and John Boles is satisfying
as a family friend, playing with neat elegance a part that loses
much with the alternative finale.
Photography
is splendid and the lighting the last word in ingenuity, since much
of the footage calls for dim or night effect and the manipulation
of shadows to intensify the ghostly atmosphere. It took nerve for
U to do this one and "Dracula", all of which may track
back to the gruesomeness of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame",
which was also produced by this company. The audience for this type
of film is probably the detective story readers and the mystery
yarn radio listeners. Sufficient to insure financial success if
these pictures are well made.
copyright ©
1931 Variety
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