Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein 1931 movie herald image courtesy Heritage Auction Galleries

Carl Laemmle and Universal Pictures delivered the horrific Frankenstein to movie theaters in 1931. Boris Karloff plays the monster and Colin Clive its sinister, god-like creator. It’s alive! It’s alive!

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Frankenstein is based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and the subsequent 1927 stage production by Peggy Webling. Frankenstein, starring Charles Ogle, was first filmed in 1910 by the Edison Company. That was followed by Life Without Soul in 1915 and an Italian picture titled Master of Frankenstein in 1920.

Carl Laemmle’s Frankenstein owes its impetus to the success of another Universal Pictures horror film, 1931’s Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, which had debuted ten months earlier. Universal was looking for another horror vehicle in which to cast Lugosi, with writer-director Robert Florey coming up with several possibilities, including The Invisible Man, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Frankenstein.

Florey fashioned a five-page Frankenstein outline which was later followed by a full-length screenplay. A two-reel test was then filmed using the old Dracula castle set, with a heavily made-up Lugosi playing the monster in the pivotal creation scene.

Dissatisfied with Florey’s direction and Lugosi’s sympathetic portrayal of the monster, Universal released both. In order to avoid legal complications, however, the studio quickly assigned Florey to another of its pictures, Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), starring Bela Lugosi.

James Whale Directs Frankenstein

Frankenstein was produced by Carl Laemmle Jr., the 23-year-old son of the head of Universal Pictures. John Balderston, Francis Edward Faragoh and Garrett Fort wrote the screenplay, with James Whale in the director’s chair. David Broekman and Bernhard Kaun delivered the eerie, primitive music score and Arthur Edeson and Paul Ivano served as cinematographers.

Colin Clive (Dr. Henry Frankenstein), Mae Clarke (Elizabeth), John Boles (Victor Moritz) and Boris Karloff (The Monster) head the cast. Other players include Edward Van Sloan (Dr. Waldman), Frederick Kerr (Baron Frankenstein), Dwight Frye (Fritz), Lionel Belmore (Herr Vogel), Marilyn Harris (Little Maria), Francis Ford (Hans) and Arletta Duncan (Bridesmaid).

Frankenstein Filmed at Universal City 

Budgeted at $291,000, Frankenstein was filmed from August to October 1931 at Universal City, Universal Pictures’ sprawling 230-acre municipality located in California’s San Fernando Valley.  Other California locations used included Lake Sherwood,  Malibou Lake in Agoura and Busch Gardens in Pasadena, with the latter serving as the convalescent scene.

Makeup artist Jack P. Pierce had the monumental task of turning Boris Karloff into the hideous Frankenstein monster. Karloff’s imposing ensemble consisted of a square rubber head with lizard eyes, two pairs of pants, steel struts for stiffening the legs, a pair of 30-pound boots, gobs of blue-green greasepaint, mounds of heavy padding and lots of plaster. In all, the makeup process took five hours each day, with an additional two hours needed for removal.

Karloff’s monster costume was kept a closely guarded secret until the movie’s release, with Uncle Boris taking his meals in private and donning a black hood while being transported to various sound stages.

Frankenstein: It’s Alive! It’s Alive!

Frankenstein opens in a fog-shrouded cemetery at midnight where Dr. Frankenstein and his hunchback dwarf assistant, Fritz, are trolling for freshly-buried bodies. The Doc then takes his human cargo back to his old watchtower laboratory where he stitches the male corpses together, forming a single lifeless cadaver.

Fritz is sent to a nearby university in order to retrieve a preserved human brain. In a panic, the dwarf accidentally grabs a jar bearing the ominous label, “Criminal Brain,” and delivers it to his master.

With the horrified Dr. Waldman, Victor Moritz and his fiancee Elizabeth in attendance, Dr. Frankenstein proceeds with his latest experiment. Raising the cadaver on a huge platform to the top of the tower, Frankenstein captures the strikes of a series of lightning bolts that transfer their energy into his creation.

Initially, the creature remains motionless, but then a hand suddenly twitches. Catching this small movement, the power-mad Frankenstein shouts in triumph, “It’s alive – it’s alive – it’s alive…Oh, in the name of God. Now I know what it feels like to be God!”

Taunted by the slow-witted dwarf, the lumbering monster breaks free of its chains and escapes its dungeon home. Now on the loose, the monster terrorizes the nearby village and subsequently murders a little girl. Cornered by its creator and a mob of angry, torch-carrying townspeople, the monster meets its fiery end at an old windmill.

Frankenstein Opens in New York City

Frankenstein opened at New York City’s Mayfair Theater on December 4, 1931. The movie made its official West Coast premiere on December 6, 1931, in Santa Barbara, California, with Colin Clive and Mae Clarke in attendance.

“James Whale…has wrought a stirring grand-guignol type of picture, one that aroused so much excitement at the Mayfair yesterday that many in the audience laughed to cover their true feelings,” reported Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times (12/5/31).

“Looks like Dracula plus, touching a new peak in horror plays and handled in production with supreme craftsmanship…Appeal is candidly to the morbid side…” observed Variety (12/8/31).

Frankenstein Box Office, Trivia, DVD

• Frankenstein grossed a staggering $12 million at the American box office.
• Frankenstein and Dracula were re-released in 1938 and shown as a double feature. At one theater, packed with 4,000 restless fans, a riot nearly broke out when the show failed to start on time due to the late arrival of the prints.
• Frankenstein had a tough time with motion picture censor boards, both in the United States and abroad. The U.S. censors didn’t like Dr. Frankenstein’s pseudo-blasphemous “God” claim while U.K. censors objected to the monster’s murder of Dr. Waldman and its overt threats to bride-in-waiting Elizabeth.
• As per Carl Laemmle Sr.’s  orders, Boris Karloff in full Frankenstein makeup was never to be seen by his office staff. His reasoning: “Some of our nice little secretaries are pregnant and they might be frightened if they saw him.”
• Carl Laemmle Sr. viewed the rushes from Frankenstein and was horrified by what he saw. He then told his producer son that moviegoers must be warned, which led to Edward Van Sloan’s prologue/disclaimer as featured at the beginning.
• Bette Davis had auditioned for the part of Elizabeth, but James Whale deemed her “too aggressive.”
• Boris Karloff was invited to audition for the role of the monster after James Whale had spotted him in the Universal Pictures commissary. “Your face has startling possibilities…” he told the actor.
• One male moviegoer was so upset after viewing Frankenstein that he phoned the theater manager at 3 AM the next morning, telling the startled man: “I saw Frankenstein at your place last night and can’t sleep – I have no intention that you should either!”
• In its 1998 list of the “20 Scariest Movies,” TV Guide placed Frankenstein at #9.
• On DVD: Frankenstein 75th Anniversary Edition (Universal, 2006).

“The brain you stole, Fritz. Think of it. The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands!” Colin Clive declares.

Far out…