Frankenstein

American Film Institute

Film poster for the 1931 film Frankenstein, directed by James Whale.

There have been many adaptations of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus, beginning with a 1910 short film, but director James Whale's 1931 Universal production Frankenstein remains the most familiar and critically acclaimed. The fleshed-out characters in the 1931 film (which was also partially based on the 1927 Frankenstein play by John Balderson) became the touchstone for future adaptations of the story, as well as the inspiration for many of the movie clichés associated with the "mad scientist" genre.

Those who enjoy the films are, perhaps, unaware of the significance of Shelley's subtitle, which is a key element of the story. Prometheus, a figure from Greek mythology, was legendary for molding men and animals of clay and bringing them to life, either with fire, or with the assistance of his patron, the god Zeus. Fire in the myth is neatly substituted for lightning-produced electricity in the movie Frankenstein. Another variation on the Greek myth has Prometheus dividing up bodies and reassembling them, another aspect of the novel and films.

In the 1931 film, Dr. Henry [Victor in the novel] Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is a brilliant scientist who believes that he can reanimate a dead body by use of an electrical spark of life. This pseudo-scientific theory, called "vitalism" in the nineteenth century, had long been refuted by scientists, but served the film as a visually interesting plot device. Frankenstein is a serious scientist, but becomes self-absorbed and too reliant on his own, unorthodox theories. He is obsessed with the possibilities of biogenetic research (although that term is never used in the novel or film).

American Film Institute

Boris Karloff (far left), the actor who played "The Monster" in the 1931 film Frankenstein. Although Frankenstein is actually the name of the scientist who created the monster, the name "Frankenstein" soon became popularly synonymous with the menacing creature. In the 1931 Frankenstein, the filmmakers cleverly inserted a question mark in place of Boris Karloff's character name in the opening cast credits, then, in the end credits, replaced the question mark with the name "The Monster." The top right image shows Karloff in the makeup chair undergoing his transformation into The Monster--the finished look is shown in the bottom right image.

Because he has been chastised by the scientific community for his views, a point illustrated by background explanations in the novel and alluded to in the film, Frankenstein feels compelled to hide much from his peers. He cannot tell his beloved fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clark) or close associate Victor Moritz (John Boles) what he is doing because he knows that they will not understand why he is tampering with nature.

	Additional "Frankenstein" films
	The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Dir: Terence Fisher Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee Frankenstein (1910) Dir: J. Searle Dawley Cast: Charles Ogle Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) Dir: Terence Fisher Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg House of Frankenstein (1944) Dir: Erle C. Kenton Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr. Mary Reilly (1996) Dir: Stephen Frears Cast: Julia Roberts, John Malkovich Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) Dir: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Robert DeNiro, Helena Bonham-Carter Son of Frankenstein (1939) Dir: Rowland V. Lee Cast: Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff

To assist him, Frankenstein hires Fritz (Dwight Fry), a hunchbacked dwarf, who is an outcast from society. Fritz is the embodiment of the devoted assistant who has become a stock character in many films about "mad" scientists. Fritz's physical deformities cause him to be an outcast, just as Frankenstein's theories cause his own disenfranchisement.

Frankenstein's motivations initially seem pure as he pursues the advancement of science and the creation of life itself. In a humorous cliché that separates real science from movies, Frankenstein is not depicted plodding through years of frustrating scientific experimentation. Instead, he seems to go directly from theory to the mother lode of biogenetic achievement, the creation of a full-grown man from dead bodies.

At the opening of the film, which starts about halfway through the story of the novel, Frankenstein and Fritz surreptitiously retrieve the body of a man who has been hanged. Because the man's neck is broken, Frankenstein determines that the brain cannot be used and instructs Fritz to go to the local medical college and secretly retrieve a brain that is being preserved for study.

Unknown to Frankenstein (but seen by the audience) Fritz has an accident in the darkened laboratory of the medial school, drops the brain and must substitute that of a criminal. Fritz's clumsy mistake is the first turning point in the picture. It predicts a bad end to Frankenstein's biogenetic research and became a stock situation for all subsequent films in which a scientist is seeking a new and revolutionary development: a seemingly insignificant mistake or unexpected turn of events will always thwart the best-laid plans.

Some time later, an overworked and exhausted Frankenstein is finally ready to bring the creature to life. On the night of a raging storm, Frankenstein has the reassembled, grotesque body of the dead man raised toward the opened ceiling of his cavernous laboratory inside a windmill. With Elizabeth and his old friend and colleague Moritz coming upon the experiment and looking on in horror, the lightning strikes, creating the electrical impulses that bring the creature (Boris Karloff) to life.

The noisy, chaotic scene within the laboratory has become familiar to millions of people since the film first appeared more than sixty years ago:

Frankenstein:
"Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!"

Moritz:
"Henry--In the name of God!"

Frankenstein:
"Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!"

American Film Institute

In the 1931 Frankenstein, Mae Clark portrayed Dr. Frankenstein's fiancée, Elizabeth.

This scene is the second turning point in the film. Just as the creature itself changes from death to life, Frankenstein himself has changed: he has gone from being a seeker of pure scientific achievement--a good scientist--to being a god. Upon hearing Frankenstein's near-hysterical words, the audience immediately recognizes that the scientist is not god and his hubris will be his undoing.

The film's third turning point transpires when the creature, who has turned into a monster, gets loose. Another cliché developed from Frankenstein is the staple of horror/science fiction films that whenever someone is ordered to keep a careful watch, something inevitably goes wrong. In Frankenstein, Fritz, who has no feelings of empathy for the deformed, mumbling creature, taunts him, making the creature angry enough to kill him, destroy the laboratory and escape.

In the original novel, and the more faithful 1994 Kenneth Branaugh adaptation of the story, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the creature is very intelligent and articulate, whereas in the 1931 Frankenstein and most other films, he is either mumbling or displays very limited abilities to speak.

American Film Institute

Still from the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, with Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester. Similar to Karloff's opening credit in the 1931 Frankenstein, Lanchester was only credited onscreen for the role of "Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley," while a question mark appeared next to the character "The Monster's Mate."

The fourth turning point in the 1931 film occurs after the monster inadvertently kills a little girl. Frankenstein finally realizes that his creation must be destroyed before it kills again and that he must never repeat his experiment. Spurred on by torch-wielding villagers (often interpreted as representing an ignorant and unaccepting society) Frankenstein must kill his creation. Unlike the Shelley novel, though, the doctor is not himself killed, but marries Elizabeth to start life over.

Following the great popular success of Frankenstein, Universal decided to make a film showing that the monster did not die after all. He was brought back in The Bride of Frankenstein, a 1935 release, also directed by Whale and starring Clive and Karloff. This time, the monster seeks a mate, which Frankenstein reluctantly creates for him because of the interference of the evil scientist, Dr. Pretorious (Ernest Thesiger). The "Bride" (played by Elsa Lanchester, who also portrayed author Shelley in a brief prologue to the film) is repelled by the monster, who becomes a sad embodiment of a lonely, misunderstood creation of science gone wrong.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

	Additional "Dr. Jekyll" films
	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1908) Prod: William N. Selig Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912) Dir: Lucius Henderson Cast: James Cruze Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) Dir: Terence Fisher Cast: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee

A different type of biogeneticist is portrayed in the films about Dr. Jekyll. Whereas Frankenstein wanted to create life, Dr. Henry Jekyll wanted merely to alter its course. Like the Frankenstein films, The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films have been plentiful, with the earliest version appearing in 1908. The three best-known feature versions, released respectively in 1920, 1932 and 1941 all have champions who label one or the other as the best. However, the 1932 Rouben Mamoulian-directed Paramount production is most often regarded by critics and fans as the best version and provided the story for the 1941, Victor Fleming-directed M-G-M version.

In Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story seems like an outline of the story that was translated into so many films. The novella has a third person narration in which the inexplicable events that happened in the abandoned house of a highly respected London doctor are related through an interchange between Richard Enfield and his cousin, Utterson. In Stevenson's narrative, it is revealed that Dr. Jekyll had had a secret "bad" side, which manifested itself throughout his life.

American Film Institute

In the 1932 film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when Fredric March (far left) is transformed from Jekyll into Hyde, he turns into a hideous creature, reminiscent of sketches of Neanderthal man, with a protruding, buck-toothed mouth, and dark eyebrows and hair. In the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when Spencer Tracy (top right) transforms into Hyde he is sinister looking, less hideous, but more suggestive of evil. In the first American feature adaptation, in 1920, noted stage and film actor John Barrymore (bottom right) portrayed Hyde with little makeup, relying, instead, upon a sinister change in demeanor. In a completely different take on the Jekyll and Hyde transformation, David Hemmings appeared as a homely, unappealing Jekyll who was transformed into a handsome, albeit still evil Hyde in a 1981 British-made television adaptation of the story.

Stevenson's Jekyll wanted to separate the good and evil side of his natures into two distinct people so that he could freely pursue a life of debauchery, while simultaneously maintaining his respected position in society. In the films, however, the kindly, good scientist Dr. Jekyll seeks to separate the two natures of man, the good and the evil, not for his own pleasure, but for the benefit of mankind.

The reason why the movie Jekyll was more "good" than "evil" may lay in the climate of censorship that was emerging in the early 1930s. Hollywood films were becoming increasingly subject to strict censorship rules laid out in the recently created Production Code, an industry document that was enforced by the PCA (Production Code Administration, popularly called The Hays Office). Although not strictly enforced until two or three years after the production of the 1932 picture, the Code was starting to become the industry standard and often led to changes in scripts or even completed films in order to adhere to what were determined by the PCA as standards of public decency.

Thus, the reasons for Dr. Jekyll's experiments in the 1932 (and later, the 1941 production) were more pure. Jekyll (Fredric March in his Oscar-winning performance) has only the highest motives in his quest to separate the two natures of man. He reasons, and lectures to his colleagues, that if the two natures of man, good and evil, could be separated, then man's evil nature could be destroyed. While separation of good and evil has no parallel in biogenetics, one could argue that the theory is crudely similar to modern research attempts to isolate particular genes to lead the way to finding cures for catastrophic diseases such as AIDS or Alzheimer's.

No matter what Jekyll's motivation is, the audience senses from the beginning, and friends and colleagues warn, that this is not something that should be interfered with. Jekyll proceeds with his experiments, however, and soon creates an elixir which he feels will accomplish the separation of his two natures. He convulses violently and physically turns into a different persona, a sinister character he names "Mr. Hyde."

American Film Institute Miriam Hopkins portrayed music hall singer Ivy in the 1932 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

American Film Institute In the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Ingrid Bergman portrayed the character of Ivy.

There are added dimensions to the story of Dr. Jekyll: His evil nature takes on a tone of sexuality and sexual sadism that is not present in Frankenstein. Additionally, Jekyll's addiction is not just addiction to work, but to the transformation itself. In most of the film adaptations, Jekyll pursues Ivy (Miriam Hopkins in the 1932 version, Ingrid Bergman in 1941), an entertainer who is terrified of the domineering and brutal Hyde. In all of the films, Jekyll comes to regret his actions as Hyde, but soon finds that he is powerless to stop the transformation, and the antidote he developed to reverse the process becomes ineffective.

In all cases, the scientist is playing god by attempting to separate good from evil. Whether the motives are purely good (1932), mostly good (1920 and 1941) or evil (original novella) a scientist is attempting to interfere with the genetic nature of man with disastrous results that end in death.

Unknown risks in the pursuit of science
There are parallels to the view of Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll in these films and some present-day arguments against biogenetic research. Religious arguments against cloning or stem-cell research most often center on the moral wrong of attempting to interfere with nature or to create life. Within the films, the good scientists realize that they are "playing god" but cannot turn away from their pursuits until it is too late. Like their evil counterparts, the bad scientists of the next session, they make choices in the pursuit of science that prove unacceptable to societal norms and cause their personal destruction.