Frankenstein went on a rampage, damaged a police car, and needed stitches after injuring his head.
Country-music fan Forrest V. Frankenstein Jr. was arrested at a Toby Keith concert in Ohio on August 28 and stands charged with disorderly conduct. Here’s a nicely done report, with a photograph, on AOL News.
By the way, did you know that Dr. Frankenstein sits on the Board of Directors of the California Medical Association? He once served as the CMA president, elected to the job, appropriately enough, on Halloween day, in 2006.
On Monday, August 30, the Google home page in several European countries featured a “Google Doodle” honoring Mary Shelley on her 213th birthday.
Meanwhile, Villa Frankenstein, the British exhibition pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, is open. No monsters in sight. The name has to do with the design philosophies of Victorian architect John Ruskin.
With thanks to John Rozum and Orville Eastland III.
There are very few portraits of Mary Shelley, born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on this day, August 30, in 1797. Sadly, she never sat for a photographer, though the technology was available over the last decade of her life.
The two paintings above were done from actual sittings, twenty years apart. Most other known portraits, in oils or pen, were made after Mary's death, based on earlier sketches or descriptions by her son, Percy Florence.
Samuel John Stump’s portrait from 1820 shows a young Mary at her writing desk. She smiles shyly, lost in thought, fiddling with a locket. Stump was best known for his portraits of stage celebrities, and a series of famous landscapes.
The 1840 painting is by her friend, Irish-born Richard Rothwell who, for a time, was considered the finest portraitist in Britain. Mary appears with big brown eyes and luminous skin on a field of dark colors, a striking image of a refined and melancholic lady.
Both works come together brilliantly as inspiration for David Levine's caricature, published in the March 21, 1974 issue of The New York Review of Books. Levine, who passed away in 2009, was one of America’s finest artists, a master of pen and ink likenesses and editorial cartoon commentary.
Here’s something unusual that I noticed as I was stepping through the DVD of James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein, making screen captures for the blog. It’s not a blooper, but rather something the Internet Movie Database might call a “goof”.
I think this could be a genuine “find”, something that has gone undetected for 79 years. To the best of my knowledge, this has not been reported until now.
I’ve isolated the scene, a mere 12 seconds or so, in a video clip. You might want to look at it first, see if you notice anything. Once I tell you what to look for, I guarantee that you’ll see it all the time, forever after.
Had a look? OK. Here goes…
Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his assistant, Fritz (Dwight Frye), are making the last preparations before firing up the lab and zapping Boris Karloff to monster life. Frankenstein puts on some headphones and “listens” to the storm. “This time we’re ready, hey Fritz?” he says. “Ready!”
Our scene comes next, at 15:40 on the DVD. Frankenstein, his back to us, leans over Fritz, who is crouching at center screen. To the left, we see part of The Monster on his slab, a stiff hand sticking out from under a blanket.
Here’s a shot of the scene, which I’ll use as reference…
During this brief scene, a small object streaks across the frame, traveling from upper left to bottom right, close to the actors. It is roughly the size and color of a piece of chalk. It has weight, it travels fast. There’s also an audible but somewhat delayed thunk that could be the object hitting the floor or bouncing off something.
Here’s the reference photo again, with inserts from 5 subsequent frames, a composite image indicating the path of the object…
I have highlighted the object in these five insert images, to make it stand out. If you look at the clip again, you should now be able to make it out. Speed makes it appear elongated and blurry. The object is rather faint when it enters the frame (images 1 and 2), but it is very visible as a white streak when it crosses a dark patch in the exact center of the frame (image 3). It nearly disappears when it crosses over Frankenstein’s white lab coat (4), but you can see it clearly again against the black background just as it flies out of frame, bottom right (5). Listen for the thunk.
Note how actor Dwight Frye reacts to the object. Just as he begins turning towards the slab, the object crosses directly overhead and you see his eyes go up. He seems to hesitate, just a brief instant, then recovers and points to The Monster.
Obviously, the crew was aware of the object. Frye sees it go by. Perhaps it was felt that nobody would notice, and the take was printed and edited into the film. Apparently they were right for nearly 80 years, until DVDs allowed us to look at the scene frame by frame.
So, what happened here? What is it? Garden-variety goof? A cigarette, chalk, a pencil? Did something break off the set? Did a crew member accidentally knock or kick something across the frame? Was it a joke, a trick played, something to surprise the actors? Or was this intentional?
Is this actually, in some awkward way, meant to be part of the scene? Or was it a signal given by director Whale — much like some directors were known to fire a gun to startle actors — meant to provoke a reaction from Frye, to make him turn and point at The Monster. The problem with this theory is that a signal was not required. Frye could easily act the scene, listening to Frankenstein and then turning and expressing surprise. He did not need a cue to jump out of his skin.
There are a number of bloopers, mostly minor continuity errors, in Frankenstein. In the dungeon scene where Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman prepare to ambush The Monster, the microphone throws a shadow that travels across the floor and up a wall, but I’ve never seen anything quite as curious as this object flung across the frame.
So, what have we seen here? What are we looking at? I’m posting this information on the Classic Horror Film Board where dedicated fans and experts congregate, and I’ll report any findings made there.
I’d be curious to know your thoughts about this scene. If you’ve got an idea, post a comment and share.
On August 24, 1931, James Whale began shooting Frankenstein, starting with the opening scene from the movie.
The camera pans across a row of mourners at a gravesite. Old women sobbing, a child lost in thought, grief-stricken men. The camera slides past them to the last figure, a hooded skeleton.
The skeleton is an ancient and enduring symbol of death. Death’s Head skulls and crossed bones were often carved into headstones and full skeletal figures appeared as statuary alongside trumpeting angels and weeping stone maidens. Skeletons might appear in sad repose or leaping heavenward, shrouds dropping from their shoulders. In the Middle Ages, the image of the dancing skeleton mocked life’s brevity.
Frankenstein's cemetery skeleton stands off to the side, boxed in with pickets, its bony hands resting on the hilt of a sword. The bleak, sparse set suggests a pauper’s graveyard, with an expressionistic dead tree, a plaster Christ on his calvary cross and a few wooden grave markers stuck at crazy angles. Behind a rickety fence, Frankenstein and his impatient assistant crouch in hiding. As soon as the ceremony is over, the funeral party gone and the gravedigger retreating downhill, Frankenstein and Fritz spring into action, undoing the burial, liberating the fresh corpse from its all too brief interment.
The cemetery skeleton is the first hint of frights to come, yet it is more than just a lugubrious prop. The grim sentinel stands prominently screen right, a witness to desecration, through the entire sequence where Frankenstein and Fritz dig up and raise the coffin. In a telling gesture, Colin Clive’s Frankenstein, concentrated on his urgent task, blithely throws a shovelful of graveyard dirt square into the skeleton’s face. It’s a James Whale moment, of course, darkly humorous, but it is also a signal of Frankenstein’s maniacal focus on the job at hand, unconcerned with the consequences of his acts. As a symbolic gesture, it illustrates Frankenstein’s disrespect for Death itself.
The cemetery skeleton returned for a cameo in the 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein. It is seen briefly in the graveyard when the agitated Monster upends a tall gravestone and climbs down into a crypt, seeking refuge among the dead where he feels he belongs, only to encounter that other famous graverobber, Dr. Pretorius. The crucified Christ statue is also seen, a case of props re-used, unless this is meant to be the same cemetery as the one that opens Frankenstein.
I wonder if the cemetery skeleton was trotted out for bit parts in other movies, or if it quietly haunted the Universal prop department, undisturbed, between Frankenstein assignments. I wonder what became of it.
A spectacular painting by Jason Edmiston monster-mashes four classic monsters. Bold design and vibrant acrylic colors evoke vintage monster magazine covers and monster kit box art.
The Toronto-based artist regularly works genre characters and pop culture references into his work for a Who’s Who of commercial and editorial clients. The Mummy pitches Cadbury chocolate bars, The Creature from the Black Lagoon takes a bubble bath with his rubber ducky, The Birds meet the Twitter logo, King Kong and Godzilla share a soul kiss, and Hilary Clinton looms as the Amazing 50 Foot Woman. The Frankenstein Monster appears in a car ad, and joins his Universal Monster companions as cereal mascots.
"Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endured with vital warmth."
Thus wrote Mary Shelley in her introduction to the third edition of her novel, in 1831. A century later, Boris Karloff stepped out of the celluloid shadows. These are but two milestones in the long history of Frankenstein.
Today, Mary’s story continues to resonate. It continues to enthrall and to inspire new adaptations. It still breeds new interpretations in all manners of media, and generates new art. The Creature has been manufactured, brought together and endured with vital warmth over and over again.
This blog, driven by curiosity, observes and reports. It is not, by any means, a completist’s catalog. It is only an overview, a collection of impressions, glimpses, of a vast cultural phenomenon.
I made my 500th post last week. Today, all of a sudden, Frankensteinia is three years old.
Thank you for visiting and sharing my enthusiasm. Stick around, I’m not done yet.
By the way, my picture blog, Monster Crazy, turns two. Over 1900 images posted there.
Artist Adam Sidwell is posting a new portrait every week in his yearlong 52 Bad Dudesproject. Last January, this Frankenstein with an attitude kicked off the series.
Sidwell’s uncommon picks, done in a wide range of styles, include characters from the movies (No Country for Old Men, Fight Club, Terminator, Mad Max,Toy Story 3), television (Lost, Dexter), video games (Bioshock, Mass Effect) and real life (footballer Peyton Manning).
New art goes up every Friday, and prints are available for purchase.
This unique movie poster for the Bronx’ Ritz Theatre is a superb example of classic playbill art and typography. The Yiddish script and the history of the film shown, the Polish drama On a heym (Without a Home), makes it a singularly valuable document. The two-color placard, 21 by 29 inches (approximately 53 X 74 centimeters), was obviously produced in very low numbers by a local typesetting and printing shop.
Without a Home was the last Yiddish feature made in Poland prior to the September 1939 Nazi invasion. Its themes of immigration, displacement and the threat of anti-Semitism foreshadowed the coming tragedy.
The Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America dates the poster to “circa 1940”, but we can assert it was 1939. June 18 and 19 fell, as announced on the poster, on a Sunday and Monday. Furthermore, several of the films listed were released early that year, well in time to be brought together for a June screening.
Of particular interest to us is the highly eccentric double-bill showing of James Whale’s dark fairy tale, Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Lambert Hillyer’s dreamlike, somewhat transgressive Dracula’s Daughter (1936). The “We Dare You To See This” tagline was first used by Universal in 1938 to promote the pairing of Frankenstein and Dracula, a distribution event so successful that studios began making horror films again after largely shutting out the genre in the late Thirties.
The Ritz Theatre was built at 1014 East 180th Street, between Bryant Avenue and Boston Road. It opened as a silent movie house in 1927, the very year that Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer brought “talkies” to American screens. Typical of neighborhood showplaces in the Thirties and Forties, the Ritz supplemented its film programs with raffles, bingo and cash drawings. It evolved into The Yiddish Art Theatre for some time before disappearing, razed, along with its once busy commercial neighborhood, for housing.
The Ritz marquee is one of many wonderful photos found on a Bronx nostalgia site.
This Bride is model Ashley Devine in pitch-perfect makeup by Ting Chen, photographed in requisite black and white by Chad Harlan for the September 2008 Film Issue of the Austin, Texas-based lifestyle magazine Rare.
Harlan chose Bride of Frankenstein as one of twelve portraits celebrating movie classics and film genres. The set included homages to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Psycho’s shower scene.
The place is somewhere in England. The time, perhaps the late Thirties or the early post-war years. A barker makes his pitch — a colorful pseudo-scientific spiel, no doubt — as the crowd jostles for a glimpse of the mysterious masked women on the platform. Behind the curtained arches waits Eve, The Sensation.
Who was The Midway Bride of Frankenstein? Was she a real-life “freak”, disturbingly deformed? A giantess, perhaps? Or was she a sideshow creation, a variation on the timeworn girl-to-gorilla trick, done with mirrors?
Sideshows thrived on cheap scares. The original Victorian-era Spookshows materialized ghosts onstage using magic lantern projections and the illusion known as Pepper’s Ghost. These attractions evolved into fairground Haunted Houses with their creaky doors and crooked floors, stuffed mummies, dungeon torture scenes, and narrow labyrinths with summer job kids in dayglo rubber masks lying in wait.
In the Thirties, Boris Karloff movies made Frankenstein a household name and The Monster began stalking the fairgrounds. Frankenstein dummies were added to displays, and green Frankenstein Monster faces leered from banners. The traditional Haunted House, otherwise unchanged, might be recast as Frankenstein’s Castle.
Even as fairgrounds embraced The Monster, sideshow themes worked their way into Frankenstein fiction and films. Numerous short stories and comic book adventures had The Monster hiding out as a circus freak. In movies, just to name a few instances, Boris Karloff’s mad doctor Neimann escaped from the lunatic asylum and hijacked Professor Lampini’s traveling Chamber of Horrors Show, complete with authentic Dracula skeleton, as his ride to The House of Frankenstein (1944). In Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), the boys first encounter Glenn Strange’s Frankenstein Monster packed in excelsior as an exhibit for MacDougal’s House of Horror Museum. In Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Peter Cushing’s Baron hires a shady sideshow hypnotist to unlock his defrosted monster’s scrambled brains. In The Bride (1985), The Monster (Clancy Brown) finds brief respite as a circus performer and roustabout.
The Midway Bride of Frankenstein resurfaces in another British photograph, this one probably from the Fifties, of a tent foldout display painted with skulls, hellish faces and a very prominent topless victim overhead.
The art, as was often the case, might have been recycled from a jungle show or a Snake Lady exhibit. This Bride’s booth, baking in the summer sun, pared down to the barest of essentials, reeks of hard times. No top hat barker here, no masked ladies to hook the crowds. No adults patrons in sight, either, but lots of children swarming excitedly around the cheap setup. Notice the kids at left, trying to sneak a peek at the scary wonders within.
I’m curious, too, about the secret Bride of the Fairground. I wonder what waited behind the tent flaps. I suspect the payoff might have been disappointing. At best, a mild scare to be had, or just a headshake at your own gullibility. But those garish posters exercise their fascination. The masked women hold silent promise. Even the later downscale display — She Is Real! She Is Alive! — is captivating. And that, really, is what you paid for. As you handed over your coins, you knew in your heart that nothing inside could ever match the thrill of your anticipation.
As Tom Norman — the British P.T.Barnum who had once displayed The Elephant Man — said, “It was not the show; it was the tale you told.”
The heavily pierced laboratory Monster, by Andy Kuhn, is just one of several Frankenstein portraits posted this week on Comic Twart, a collective sketch blog where participating artists create images based on a theme. The subject last week was Frankenstein’s Monster.
The contributions include Mitch Gerads' atmospheric scene of a Karloff Frankenstein beset by pitchforks and torches, and a humorous digital portrait by Mike Hawthorne, with a link to a step-by-step ‘making of’, showing how the illustration evolved.
The moody, expressionistic Monster seen here at left is by Declan Shalvey, who illustrated the graphic novel adaptation of Mary Shelley’s story, written by Jason Cobley, for Classical Comics in 2008.
Be sure to click around and visit the individual artists’ blogs and websites. There’s tons of great art to discover.
A wild-eyed, drooling Beast attacks a stunning Beauty on a rousing Italian poster for Hammer Films’ The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).
The artist, “Sym”, is the extraordinary Sandro Simeoni (1934-2007), who would paint some 3000 movie posters in a career that spanned 50 years. He was equally at ease in all genres, ranging from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) to Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso (1975), with westerns, gangster films, science fiction and romantic comedies in between.
Simeoni — sometimes identified as “Symeoni” — worked from stills, and the Frankenstein poster was likely inspired by posed promotional shots of Michael Gwynn’s twisted, cannibalistic Monster menacing Eunice Gayson.
Simeoni typically showed characters in motion: Running, jumping and lunging at each other, with frequent dimensional effects of hands, guns or blades leaping out at the viewer. Here, in a typically dynamic composition, the artist cranked up the tension with swirling colors, overlapping credits, and the Monster’s claw raised out of frame. The purple in the Monster’s coat is picked up in the title and the woman practically leans out of the image in a bright yellow dress with black trim to emphasize the exposed shoulder and cleavage.
Here is a glimpse at some of Sandro Simeoni’s innumerable posters…
I found the Revenge poster on the superlative Wrong Side of the Art!movie poster site specializing in horror, fantasy, cult and B-movie titles. New additions are blogged daily and the archives are searchable by film title, director, actor, year, genre and a wide range of sub-categories. You’ll want to bookmark this terrific site.
A list of 152 Sandro Simeoni movie posters. Click the highlighted numbers to see the images.
Not a Frankenstein movie, but a great title for a film I can’t wait to see… The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry: Paul Naschy, The Life and Legend of a Horror Icon.
The intriguing title comes from an anecdote reported by Naschy (1934-2009). On February 25, 1966, Naschy was hired as an extra on a Spanish location shoot for the American television series I Spy with Boris Karloff in a memorable guest part as a Quixotic scientist. Though Naschy’s scenes were edited out, he had the opportunity to observe the elderly actor, hobbled by leg braces, at work in very difficult circumstances. Late in the day, in bitter cold and piercing winds, Naschy saw the suffering Karloff weep as he waited for transportation that was late arriving. “I am one of the very few,” Naschy wrote, “perhaps even the only man who saw Frankenstein’s Monster cry.”
The 60-minute documentary was directed by Naschy’s biographer, Angel Agudo. Mick Garris serves as host and narrator, and the film features rare archival footage of Naschy and interviews with Naschy friends and colleagues, including Christopher Lee and Caroline Munro.
In other Festival news, the extraordinary — and amazingly successful —FantasiaInternational Film Festivalwrapped up in Montreal on July 28 and we note that Matthew Saliba’s Frankenstein Unlimited (which I blogged about here) walked away with a Bronze Award in the Best Canadian or Quebecois Feature category. And, by the way, I was knocked out to see Frankensteiniaquoted by the Festival blog!
"Outstanding, must-read. A mind blowing treasure trove of all things fantastically Frankenstein.” — Karswell, The Horrors of It All
“A wonderful blog, as fun as it is informative, and always well written and designed... always teaches me something or sharpens my focus on some detail or other.” — Tim Lucas, Video WatchBlog
“Inestimable… Mind-opening… oh-so-freaking-awesome" — Arbogast on Film
"If you're at all obsessed with the gothic and perverse, this blog is a major time sink — so be warned. We've been blown away by the breadth and depth of the Frankenstein art on the site.” — Charlie Jane Anders, i09
“I continue to be amazed, amused, delighted, and awed by Pierre Fournier's blog… No one does it better." — Susan Tyler Hitchcock, author of Frankenstein, A Cultural History, Monster Sightings
“Make your first stop Frankensteinia… fascinating and funny stuff… always a good time and Pierre Fournier is a gracious and affable host” — rhsmith, Movie Morlocks
“A joy to read and he really knows his stuff” — Exclamation Mark
“An incredible gathering of Frankenstein lore and frequently updated. A must for monster fans and everyone else!” — Greenbriar Picture Shows
“THE shining example of the wonderful things that happen when passionate devotion to a subject combines with a relentless inquisitiveness and exemplary research skills… consistently excellent writing and presentation.” — The Vicar of VHS, Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies
“A fabulous trove of Frankenstein-related information, images, trivia, and more.” — Seo-Young J. Chu, Queens College, The City University of New York
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