"The gruesome is the most truly novel thing..."

Frankenstein had been shooting for three weeks, halfway home, when this fascinating article by Mollie Merrick was syndicated to newspapers, on September 8, 1931.

The piece acknowledges Hollywood’s newfound taste for horror films — “a new mood in motion pictures” — with a reference to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, shooting at Paramount, concurrently with Universal’s Frankenstein. Coincidentally, both films had started up on August 24.

Colin Clive is quoted, wonderfully, about the “queer” Shelleys, saying, “While the husband was writing about skylarks the wife was creating this tale of monsters.” James Whale and Mae Clarke are praised and the film itself is said to be based “on sincere effort and true values”.

Boris Karloff is also praised, specifically for his “brilliant performance” in Five Star Final, a film released the very week the article appeared, otherwise his writeup is straight public relations fodder. The actor’s makeup, we are told, promises to “rival anything Lon Chaney ever attempted”. At the time, shortly after Chaney’s untimely death in 1930, countless actors appearing in elaborate character parts and/or heavy makeup were tipped as “the next Lon Chaney”. Bela Lugosi, for one, was frequently singled out in the press as the heir to Chaney and he was even penciled in for a never-made remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Veering into pure ballyhooey, the piece picks up on the story about Karloff being ferried around the set with a veil over his head (see previous post) and even cranks it up to eleven: “In transit from his dressing room to the stage, Karloff wears a sort of cage over his head with thick veiling… The arms are concealed beneath a large smock.”

Note also that Karloff is identified as Russian, a common assumption in early reviews due to his formidable stage name, though the fame soon to be brought on by Frankenstein would correct the mistake and the actor would forever after be identified as a perfect British gentleman who, in real life, was the absolute opposite of the movie villains he played.

California-based writer Mollie Merrick was a prolific and popular feature writer, widely syndicated through the North American Newspaper Alliance, NANA, whose roster included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna Ferber and Ernest Hemingway. As a movie columnist, Merrick had the run of the studios and her name appears on guest lists to all the best Hollywood parties. Nevertheless, she was never totally beholden to the industry and could turn in a very harsh review when a film deserved it. Merrick began her career in the early Twenties and was still at it in the Fifties, writing PR copy for Marilyn Monroe.

Note the use of the archaic term gelatin as a moniker for movies. James Whale is given the job of “translating the weird Shelley story into gelatin”, and romance movies are tagged as “sex gelatin”. Merrick made frequent use of the term, at least up to the mid-Thirties, referring to Hollywood as “the gelatin industry” and “the gelatin village”. Studio bosses were “gelatin Barons”, and the film All Quiet on the Western Front was hailed as “a gelatin epic”.

Gelatin, as well as celluloid and silver screen were terms derived from motion picture film itself. Gelatin was the translucent agent that bound chemicals and silver halide crystals to the flexible celluloid base that made up a strip of film.

Note, also: In her opening paragraph, Merrick attributes Sir Philip Sydney’s quote as a description of Frankenstein. The Elizabethan poet was actually referring to something else, having preceded Mary Shelley and her novel by some 250 years.

Under The Veil

Makeup man Jack Pierce leads a veiled Boris Karloff around the lot during the simmering summer of 1931. They might be reporting for work, long shadows suggesting a morning sun.

The story goes that Karloff, in full monster getup, had once left the hot soundstage for a cooling walkabout only to bump into a studio secretary, causing her to faint dead away. The incident spurred a memo from Universal Headquarters ordering the actor indoors, to eat alone and to be kept under wraps, literally, when moving around. Secretaries, especially pregnant ones, would thus be spared a nasty fright.

It could have happened, of course, but it sounds like typical Publicity Department hogwash. The story did, in fact, “leak” to newspapers. Early publicity for the film played up The Monster’s extreme appearance — what will it look like? — and tales were circulated about the makeup inflicted on Karloff, bad enough in reality, but played up to ridiculous proportions by public relation flacks to include torturous and utterly unnecessary additions such as a metal spine and stiff leg struts.

Karloff went along good-naturedly with requisite studio ballyhoo, and Jack Pierce was always game for striking a makeup man’s pose, holding a grease pencil up to someone’s eyelid or “fixing a scar” on a monster’s hand for the benefit of a studio photographer.

Here, the two men, in most likelihood, are playing along with an elaborate PR gag. There’s a second shot, the men having switched position, that looks staged.

Regardless, the picture of Karloff with features hidden — reports specified a blue veil — with accomplice Jack Pierce is one of the most unusual photographs from a very unusual film set.

Thor Meets Frankenstein

The God of Thunder calls down lightning bolts, zapping a massively stitched Frankenstein Monster to life on this variant cover by Mike Del Mundo for Marvel Comics’ Uncanny X-Force #7.

The image is part of a special Thor Goes Hollywood series picturing the Asgardian superhero in classic film situations as promotion for the upcoming Thor movie. Another variant cover plunks Thor into the iconic poster for Jaws.

The issue with the Frankenstein cover — contents otherwise unrelated — will be in stores April 6, exactly one month ahead of the film’s release.

Mike Del Mundo’s website and deviantART site.
Marvel Comics website.

Back in the Lab

Colin Clive brews up trouble, with a Karloff shadow forecasting the grim outcome. A terrific publicity shot from the 1931 Frankenstein.

2011 is finally kicking in over here at Castle Frankensteinia. My January hiatus, dictated by private obligations and professional pursuits, was not planned but it was beneficial. Electrodes are recharged and posting enthusiastically resumes.

First, a bit of business: This blog’s readership continued to grow substantially and gratifyingly last year, both in direct hits and RSS subscribers. Many of you are now accessing this site through Google Reader or the Frankensteinia Facebook page, which recently sailed beyond 1000 followers. Our presence on MySpace, however, is stagnating and I will no longer bother updating my page there. If you follow Frankensteinia through MySpace, I urge you to join us on Facebook, instead.

Looking forward to 2011 on Frankensteinia, this is the 80^th anniversary year of the 1931 Frankenstein, so you can expect a veritable procession of posts about the classic film, its cast and crew, the ballyhoo and the censorship that attended its release. I am also working on posts about Mary Shelley and her inspiration, and I’ve dug up some fascinating stuff about Frankenstein stage plays in the mid-nineteenth century.

The special events I ran last year — the Halloween-time October is Book Month and the year-end Art of The Bride collection — were hugely successful, so I think I’ll fire up another Art Of series or two, with The Bride returning, among other Frankenstein themes. Oh, and unless I come to my senses, I think we might have a new Blogathon in the works, theme to be announced shortly.

There’s tons of goodies on hand, so without further ado, let’s cut to the chase and just start posting!

The Monster : Per Oscarsson

We note, with great sadness, the passing of actor Per Oscarsson who perished along with his wife in a house fire, on or about New Year’s Eve.

An actor of extraordinary talent, Oscarsson performed on stage, television and a hundred films in a career that spanned 65 years. He was a Cannes Best Actor for Hunger (1966). He was still working, having last appeared as a recurring character in the films based on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series.

In 1977, Oscarsson turned in a superb performance as The Monster in Victor Frankenstein, released to television in North America as Terror of Frankenstein.

The film, rigorously faithful to the Mary Shelley novel, suffers from a low budget, pedestrian direction and a pace so slow it sometimes crawls, but Oscarsson’s Monster, a striking, redoubtable figure with a yellow, ravaged face, black lips and piercing eyes, is unforgettable. Underplaying, earnest, and speaking in a soft, accented voice, Oscarsson conveyed pain, bewilderment, menace and barely concealed anger.

Per Oscarsson’s intimate, controlled performance as The Monster remains one of the best on record.

Per Oscarsson’s Wiki page and IMDB page.

The Art of the Bride : Ray Caesar

This disquieting Bride in a pressure-cooker bonnet is the work of Ray Caesar, a leading light of the Pop Surrealist movement.

Using sophisticated modeling and texture-mapping software, the artist poses and positions his characters and props in a 3D environment, creating weirdly appealing images of mutated, porcelain–skin figures in Regency-era gowns inhabiting an opulent, waking dreamworld. Think Alice in Wonderland on drugs.

Ray Caesar’s superb website.

Fascinating interviews with Ray Caesar on The World’s Best Ever and Coates and Scarry.

A variant image of The Bride on Richard Goodall Gallery.