Frankenstein

U.S.A. | 1931 Directed by James Whale Starring Boris Karloff Colin Clive Mae Clarke B&W | 71 Minutes | Not Rated Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC | 2-disc set) Universal Home Video

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10     10   10 = Highest Rating   Guest Review by Troy Howarth

Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) seeks to create a man, but ends up with a monster (Boris Karloff) that terrorizes the countryside...     It's almost a thankless task to talk about James Whale's Frankenstein — by this point the film has been dissected, deconstructed, analyzed and so thoroughly examined that it would seem that there's very little new to be said about it. The film's immediate impact in 1931 helped to create and define the horror genre, and its influence continues to reverberate. Even with advancements in technology, nothing has come close to equaling its impact as an adaptation of Mary Shelley's venerable novel, or its visualization of the hollow-cheeked monster, embodied by Boris Karloff.     Shot immediately after the success of Tod Browning's Dracula, the film looks infinitely more modern and has withstood the test of time remarkably well. Apart from a few creaky moments of romance, not much has dated in the film, either. The vivid performances, Whale's expert use of mise-en-scene, and the excellent technical credits give the film a lasting fascination. The film is steeped in images of death and decay, subtly lending an air of malignant horror to the entire production. Arthur Edeson's expressionistic black and white photography and Charles Hall's set designs helped to define the 'look' of horror films from that point on, while Whale's sense of gallows humor gives the film an added edge — compared to his subsequent horror pictures, notably The Old Dark House (1932) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), this aspect is admittedly subdued, but it still surfaces in quirky character traits and sight gags (Clive throwing dirt in the face of a statue of Death at the beginning of the film, for example). The film is also very well paced, avoiding the stagy longuers and inane filler material that plagues so many genre films of the period.     All this shouldn't suggest that the film is perfect, however. With the noteworthy exceptions of Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan, the performances range from the wooden to the forgettable. Technical shortcomings are terribly evident in the wrinkled backdrops used in a few shots, as well as the inept dummy used for the scene where the monster throws Clive from the burning windmill. In addition, some awkward elements surface in the screenplay as a result of the constant rewriting that the film underwent during its pre-production period. The most glaring of these is the bizarre, albeit oft-quoted, sequence in which the monster breaks into the bedroom of Frankenstein's fiancé (Mae Clark). The problem with the scene is twofold — the most obvious is that it implies that the monster somehow knows that she is Frankenstein's fiancé, even though he has no way of knowing this, and it also clashes with the monster-as-victim portrayal that dominates the film, showing him as a menacing brute terrorizing a woman who has done him no harm. Given the patchwork nature of the final script, it's amazing that there aren't an overabundance of such errors, but the few jarring notes that are there deserve to be noted for the sake of fairness!     That said, the film is amazingly confident and well crafted in its execution. Though not as stylistically elaborate as Whale's subsequent films, the film shows ample evidence of his fixation on mobile camerawork. Unlike many early sound directors, Whale believed in allowing the camera to have free reign, to become as much a participant in the action as it is a spectator, but crucially, he also shows a sophisticated grasp of sound itself. Unlike Dracula, the film doesn't hurt for a music score. Whale uses ambient sounds to help sustain the atmosphere — nowhere is this more evident than in the opening graveyard scene, where sobbing, a solemn church bell and the thud of dirt hitting a coffin's lid resonate with eerie precision. The end result is a film of considerable stylistic power, its emotional impact galvanized by the pure poetry of Karloff's star-making portrayal of the monster. Viewers with a taste for the camp and the baroque tend to prefer Whale's ambitious sequel/send-up, Bride, but it was Frankenstein that set the bar so high for others to try and follow.

For its 75th anniversary, Universal has given Frankenstein another — yes, yet another — DVD release. Having previously been issued in a beautifully remastered stand-alone edition, it then found its way onto a slightly altered release via Frankenstein: The Legacy Collection, which gathered the film and its sequels onto an affordable box set release. The initial DVD release, just for the sake of comparison, suffered from a digitally filtered soundtrack that was a little too clean — while eliminating background hissing and popping that plagued previous VHS and laser disc editions, it also muffled ambient sound intended to be part of the film's sound design. The legacy edition corrected this and offered what appeared to be a virtually faultless presentation of the film. With that in mind, is the 75th Anniversary release worth the upgrade? Depending on how strongly you feel about the film, it would certainly seem to be worth the investment. The fullframe transfer is a bit sharper, brighter and better detailed than the previous editions, with as little print damage as one could possibly hope for in a film of this vintage. The improved picture quality allows one to better appreciate little details in the set design, an important facet in Whale's meticulously designed films. The audio is on a par with the Legacy release, retaining the appropriate ambient sounds while minimizing any other imperfections. Dialogue is crisp and clear throughout, and optional English subtitles are included for the deaf and hard of hearing.     Extras kick off on Disc 1 with two full length commentary tracks. The first, ported over from the previous editions, is by film historian Rudy Behlmer, who focuses on the film's production history. Behlmer makes for a good, informed commentator and the track manages to be informative without being dry. The second, newly recorded track is with film historian Sir Christopher Frayling. Frayling, best known for his work on Italian maestro Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Western genre, makes for an equally knowledgeable, yet accessible, narrator. He spends much of his time comparing the film to the Shelley text, examining the film's impact on pop culture and the way in which it has, to some degree, overtaken the book in terms of popularity and points of reference. A newly produced documentary on Karloff — Karloff: The Gentle Monster — sheds some light on the enigmatic horror icon, renowned for his kindness and gentle disposition yet still shrouded in mystery with regards to many aspects of his personal life. The last of the bonus features on Disc 1 is pretty much disposable: Monster Tracks is an "interactive" pop up feature that you can incorporate into the viewing of the film, but none of the trivia tidbits reveal anything you can't glean from the commentary tracks. Disc 2 kicks off with Universal Horror, narrated by Kenneth Branagh — this originally aired on A&E, presumably around the time that Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) renewed interest in Gothic horror, and it makes for an enjoyable intro to the Universal horror legacy, even if it does tend to skimp over the World War II period. Ported over from the previous releases, The Frankenstein Files examines the film, its sequels and other noteworthy contributions to the Frankenstein saga, notably the series of Hammer films starring Peter Cushing. Boo!, a short film from the '30s, is a cute spoof of the film, also ported over from the previous editions. Lastly, The Frankenstein Archives assembles plenty of stills and promotional material on the film. 10/23/06

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