Frankenstein (1931)

While an eminent vampire was crawling out of his crypt-bound coffin somewhere in Eastern Europe, a devout but possibly unhinged scientist was discovering the secret of granting life to that which has never lived…  Somewhat abbreviating Mary Shelley’s early nineteenth century novel, Universal’s first version of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus warns us via prologue through an onscreen narrator of the ghastliness we’re about to witness (a tool Ed Wood would later naïvely employ in similar fashion with Criswell), before introducing Henry (though he was actually called Victor in the book) and his deformed servant Fritz as lurking body snatchers waiting for a recently deceased corpse to be buried over so they can exhume it in order to take it back to their laboratory.  Assembling a makeshift body from other people’s parts the scientist's last component required is a brain, but the imbecilic Fritz accidentally takes a damaged specimen from the nearby medical school after he drops the only good one.  This of course forms the catalyst for Henry’s eventual failure in creating a Nietzschean ‘superman’.  Using electricity provided by a storm the hulking monster is ’granted’ life but it proves to be sporadically violent, lacking observable intelligence and the means to integrate socially, unpredictable, and a moral burden to its creator.  Soon Henry is persuaded to go home and marry Elizabeth but he’s unaware that the creature has broken free of its prison and is now roaming the countryside.  The innocent murder of a child sparks a mob congregation, partly led by Henry himself, intent on tracking the wayward monster and destroying it.

Jack Pierce unwittingly developed one of the most iconic characters in cinema history with his creature design, painstakingly applied to Boris Karloff over a period of hours.  The bolts in the neck, the flattened cranium, darkened fingernails - all possibly thought of as clichéd nowadays but innovative at the time, and certainly possessing everlasting longevity.  The first proper appearance of the monster is strange, and partly achieved with a lovely piece of editing: footsteps as it approaches (and a verbal warning offered by Henry himself so our anticipation is heightened), the door creaking open, and the monster facing… backwards?  Yes, it actually walks into the room backwards before slowly turning for our first full view of it, a series of three or four cuts that progressively bring us closer to the distorted, morbid face.  This was the movie that really launched Boris Karloff’s career and seeing him in other films tends to bring it home how great this performance is; it’s an easy thing to forget through years of repeat viewings.  In fact I tend to prefer his portrayal of the monster here over his work in the sequel.  Bela Lugosi was famously offered the role, declining to become involved due to what he felt was an apparent lack of talent required.  This misjudgement is sometimes blamed on his later vocational misfortune but to be fair he’d already received plentiful recognition with Dracula and I doubt his future would have been significantly improved by taking on the role of the monster, firstly because his versatility as an actor would have inhibited his progression one way or another and secondly because he finally got his chance to play the monster a couple of films later for one of the sequels and it didn’t shake the world.  Having said that it’s impossible for anyone to predict what might have happened.

Henry’s dedication to his work is quite heavy handed, however, there is an omnipresent duality to his motivations: is his work that of a man who wishes to master science to create life through manipulating naturally evolving cells, thereby offering evidence that there is no God, or is he seeking to emulate the God that he believes exists (signified by his most famous line, “…now I know what it feels like to be God.”) so as to reinforce either his admiration or competitive contempt?  In fact, the name ‘Victor’ (the character's name in the book) itself may not have been chosen randomly in this light of theistic questioning: as indicated by the use of a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost at the end of her book, Shelley was influenced by the poet and it is in this book that Milton refers to God as ‘the Victor’.  This possible allegory is unfortunately lost in the Universal film by their renaming the scientist as Henry.  Further characterisation of the protagonist comes when the monster is on the loose and we see Henry craftily lock his wife in her room - is this to protect her or because he doesn’t want her interfering, something which she has already done enough of.  Probably the former in this case but throughout the film there are thoughts in Henry’s brain we feel are remaining unspoken and this makes his character much more interesting.  Mention must also go to the castle/watchtower where Henry performs his experiments as it’s an incredible gothic design of twisted angles, warped walls and shadows, echoing some of the German silents that preceded it years before.  As a film it’s much better in many ways than its brother project, Dracula, released the same year, similarly successful and revolutionary.

The Wolf Man (1941)

Taking a slightly more original approach than what could be considered typical of the time, Universal had this story wrote afresh rather than adapting a piece of existing literature. Of course the werewolf myth itself was not their concoction and neither was this the first time they had wrestled with the legend - 1935's preceding Werewolf of London is a great film and quite different from the Larry Talbot series, of which The Wolf Man is the first (though subsequent offerings would always join him up with other monsters). Returning from America to Welsh soil to ultimately take up a hereditary role as squire (following his brother’s unexpected death) Larry Talbot - a mechanically gifted man but hardly qualifying as intellectual - becomes almost immediately besotted with local girl Gwen who helps run a small shop. Persuading the already engaged woman to go out for the evening they (along with a 'gooseberry') wander into the carnival of a passing gypsy camp where Gwen’s friend is gorged to death by what may be a wolf, though is in fact one of the gypsies, Bela, who has transformed under full moon into a werewolf. Talbot himself is also attacked though manages to kill it with the silver-tipped cane he bought from Gwen’s shop, however, some confusion ensues when the police find the dead gypsy Bela instead of the wolf carcass Talbot claims should be there. Offering the benefit of doubt some of those around him reason that it was dark and foggy and Talbot couldn’t actually see what or who he was killing, but he’s already attracted the hostile attentions of some of the townsfolk who’ve had their moral strings yanked upon hearing that Talbot was out with an engaged woman. Additionally her friend ending up brutally slaughtered is something that wouldn‘t have happened if it weren‘t for him. Talbot’s own version of things loses weight as he goes to show the authorities a bite received in the attack, but finds that it has inexplicably healed prematurely. His problems seem to be getting no rosier when one of the gypsies warns him that he’s due to transform into a wolf himself as soon as the full moon reappears.

1941's The Wolf Man moves along at a brisk pace using a few conventional cinematic tricks to characterise Talbot quickly, helped by a notably able cast - Bela Lugosi is, er, Bela the gypsy and quite fantastic in what is essentially a bit part.  Bela’s presence is the pivot that changes Talbot’s fate forever and the curse the latter acquires almost seems to be nature’s condemnation of his actions as he endeavours to woo Gwen, a girl already in line to marry the strapping gamekeeper.  Up until the point he is bitten everything seems quite optimistic for the carefree foreigner.  Lon Chaney Jr. exhibits better thespian skills here than he later would in Son of Dracula and Ghost of Frankenstein - the doomed Larry Talbot suiting his naturally melancholic appearance while taking advantage of his persistently sorrowful expressions in effort to induce sympathy.  I’m sure Universal were happy to employ him here because the name itself was a commodity that could bring in audiences thanks to his very famous father - the fact that his father’s name was effectively forced on Chaney Junior by the studios (his first name was Creighton and this is originally how he was credited in films) smacks of marketing amorality and couldn‘t have done the man's morale much good.  Of course the ever reliable Claude Rains as Talbot senior is great in a calm and collected performance - John Talbot and some of his contemporaries are responsible for a number of intriguing discussions regarding the mechanics of the human mind as they pass opinion on how it might be possible for a man to realistically believe himself to be a werewolf, whilst naturally denying that a corresponding physical transformation could also be possible.  In fact in this light it could be a great ambiguous study of either abnormal human psychology or supernatural metamorphosis depending on how you wanted to look at it, if it weren’t for the fact that Chaney transforms into a wolf on screen...  Supporting this possibility is the reported fact that the first draft of the script contained no such transformation and could have resulted in a movie similar in approach to some of those Val Lewton later produced for RKO - this ambiguity would have been preferable in my opinion.  The wolf man himself is eventually displayed without a shadow of either physical or conceptual obscurity and, while this is probably one of the film’s very few faults, it is understandable from the perspective of wanting to push cinematic boundaries for the sake of popularity.

The actual effigy of the wolf man (in this incarnation) has never been something I’ve admired personally, looking odd whilst simultaneously out of synch with the kind of creature that attacked and infected him in the first place (i.e. he walks on two legs while Bela’s wolf was on all fours).  Having said that, it’s quite an accomplishment from a special effects angle (courtesy of Jack Pearce), taking several hours to both apply and remove.  The most adept aspect of the film must surely be Curt Siodmark’s script itself, featuring entrancing dialogue for the most part and plenty of good ideas that have become highly influential for this particular sub-genre.  The tragic status of the infected man formulated here has since become a staple of the werewolf movie for example, and Paul Naschy’s later creation, Waldemar Daninsky (appearing in over ten films from the sixties onwards), is clearly inspired by Larry Talbot.  The sign of the pentagram being visible on the wolf man’s victims is also a smart metaphor for the symbol that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany (i.e. those marked with the five pointed star will die) - Siodmark himself was a Jew who departed Germany as the new political regime was taking force.