A Frankenstein Photo Reference

Boris Karloff breaks for a photo session during the filming of Frankenstein. It's late summer or fall of 1931.

In full makeup, sometimes grimacing but mostly deadpan, with raccoon eyes and sunken cheeks, impossibly gaunt, Karloff posed face front and profile, hands up to his face or straight down, fingers splayed and dead man stiff. He appears in closeup or full figure leaning precariously forward, anchored by his heavy boots. The photographer, most likely Universal’s Roman Freulich, lights The Monster with a low, eerie light or a strong spotlight for a stark effect.

The studio’s Publicity Department would send these stills out to papers and magazines, and studio artists would use them as reference for poster paintings or line art for newspaper ads. Case in point, this unusual pose, Karloff leaning forward off a stool covered with a sheer black veil, was repurposed for a very effective small ad. With the title swooshing dynamically across the image, The Monster — “The World’s First ‘Man-Made’ Man” — lurches menacingly at a generic cowering victim.

Frankenstein played a weekend gig at The Beacon on Main Street in Port Washington, Long Island. The theater opened as a Vaudeville and movie house in 1927 with 1600 seats. Heavily remodeled since then, it is still showing movies today.

Back in January 1932, The Beacon’s patrons got a double dose of Frederick Kerr, the bumbling old Baron Frankenstein who also appeared opposite Warren Williams in the companion feature, Honor of the Family, an elaborate costumer based on a story by Honoré de Balzac. That film is lost. Only the Vitaphone sound disks have survived along with a handful of lobby cards. 

Frankenstein Abridged

As if conjured, The Monster rises like a supernatural apparition in this unsigned illustration of the creation scene from Frankenstein published in The New York Press of January 16, 1910.

There was a time when newspapers routinely published fiction. It is generally held that the runaway success of Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Paper, serialized in 1836, inspired publishers to syndicate popular novels in daily installments. The practice declined through the mid-1900s with serialized novels moving to periodicals and pulp magazines, though some papers continued running book serials well into the Sixties.

Frankenstein was running in newspapers by the late 1800s, but the curious version at hand is not a serial but rather an abridged story, formatted for a single broadsheet page, part of a series called “A Classic in a Page”. The story title is elaborately hand-drawn, with “Wollstonecraft” misspelled.

Author Julius Muller prominently copyrights his version of Mary Shelley’s public domain title. Muller’s name — sometimes as J. W. Muller — appears in the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries for 1909 as copyright owner for his versions of Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon and William Beckford’s Vathek. Muller is listed as a resident of Glen Falls, New York, and his publisher as Associated Literary Press of New York.

Muller begins with a short intro, evoking the famous story contest at Villa Diodati that inspired Mary Shelley. “The novelty of the idea,” Muller writes, “the weird horror of the theme and the skill of the story’s construction, added to the purely literary excellences it contained, made it famous at once and its fame has endured now unabated for nearly a century.”

Using a descriptive third person voice for his adaptation, Muller cuts to the chase, drops the arctic opening and opens with Victor Frankenstein’s narrative. The main events are all here, up to the polar conclusion. Muller’s last paragraph reads, “The monster sprang through the open port and was lost in the darkness and the distance. Walton was obliged to return with his quest unsatisfied and he told to his relatives the strange story of Frankenstein, which they attributed to machinations bred by the Arctic solitudes.”

Today, abridged version of Frankenstein are very common and in constant supply, usually pitched to younger readers, often embellished with illustrations. Back in 1910, Mary Shelley’s story had already served as inspiration for numerous adaptations, often derived from stage plays and increasingly removed from the original. Julius Muller’s ‘Classic in a Page’ Frankenstein of 1910 is an early attempt at condensing the novel itself, and it makes for an interesting curio.  

Karloff on the Radio

The Monster steps up to the microphone in this cartoon illustration by Vernon Lind displayed large and very prominently in The Pittsburgh Press’ Radio News and Gossip section of January 15, 1939. Caption: “Boris Karloff will try to scare Eddie Cantor and his Mad Russian, Monday night, which is some undertaking even for Frankenstein...”

Artist Lind’s barrel-cheated Monster, with tiny head, big boots and dangling hands prefigures Dick Briefer’s “Merry Monster” from the 40s.

Boris Karloff enjoyed a prolific career on radio, performing drama and guesting on quiz shows and many comedy and variety programs. This appearance on Camel Cavalcade, broadcast out of Hollywood on CBS stations at 7:30 EST, January 16, 1939, came just 3 days after Son of Frankenstein’s Friday the 13th release.

Guest host Eddie Cantor, an energetic songster and comic, filled the show’s brisk 30-minutes with upbeat songs and patter with announcer Bert Parks — who slips in a couple of Camel cigarette commercials — and comic “foils" Sydney ‘Mister Guffy’ Fields and Bert ‘The Mad Russian’ Gordon. Karloff is introduced thirteen and a half minutes into the half-hour show. Unfortunately, the show is lost, but a script survives.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Cantor announces, “You are about to hear the voice of the man whose tones chill the marrow of your bones… A man whose actions are much more frightening than even thunder and lightning… The gruesome guy who makes you jump in bed and pull the covers over your head… The Monster Man in person… Boris Karloff!”

Karloff banters with Cantor, playing off his “boogie man” reputation…

KARLOFF: Come to my house tonight… At midnight I’m having a few friends-- Bela Lugosi --

CANTOR: Dracula --

KARLOFF: Peter Lorre --

CANTOR: The guy with the eyes and no body?

KARLOFF: Yes – and the Invisible Man… We’ll turn out all the lights and tell ghost stories!

Later on, when Cantor says Karloff is “really a home-loving man”, Karloff says, “I have a very lovely wife – and just of late I became father of a baby.” Karloff is referring to Sara Jane, born on his birthday, November 23.

As the show races to a finish, the cast does a quick courtroom sketch with Karloff as defendant, forced to admit murder just to stop The Mad Russian from telling any more bad jokes. Cantor plugs Son of Frankenstein a couple of times and wraps up with a pitch for the March of Dimes, a term he had coined for his favorite charity.

It’s a shame this show is lost, but another Cantor and Karloff show survives, from December 1941, and it gives a good idea of how the two men worked together, alternating as each other’s straight man and both landing some good punch lines. Listen to the Christmastime Time To Smile show as an audio file on YouTube. 

Frankensteinian: Homunculus (1916)

Clones clash on this Hungarian poster for the German Das Ende des Homunculus, the sixth and final episode of the epic, eight and a half hours-long silent serial directed by Otto Rippert.

In the end, the Homunculus is confronted with an identical copy of himself, specifically created and trained to destroy the original. The Hungarian poster, elegant and tense, was created by Nandor Honti. 

Danish-born actor Olaf Fönss became a European matinee idol through his forceful interpretation of the soulless, lab-created Homunculus who sets out to destroy mankind. Like T.P.Cooke, the British stage actor whose blue-green makeup as the Frankenstein Monster inspired vert de monstre fashions in the Paris of 1826, Fönss’s costumes were a hit with the Berlin dandies of 1916.

Images from Homunculus and episode descriptions by Ian Turpen on Flickr.

Poster source: Adrian Curry on MUBI.

Brian Ewing's Frankenstein

Here’s artist Brian Ewing’s perfect companion piece to his recent Bride of Frankenstein poster. Boris gets the same meticulously layered treatment: Bones, muscle and Monster.

Click to Brian’s page for the Frankenstein artwork, with links his posts outlining the process. Terrific stuff.

Related:

The Art of Frankenstein: Brian Ewing

The Art of Frankenstein : Jack Davis

Get out your wallets, there’s a precious few hours to go on this piece at Heritage Auctions, a rare occasion to own a Jack Davis original!

On this cover job for the October 1962 issue of Sick magazine, The Monster is zapped to life by Dr. Ben Casey, a popular TV hero of the Sixties played by Vince Edwards, as a drooling Igor looks on. The magazine’s bespectacled mascot appears in the background as a collector for an overdue electrical bill. 

Surprisingly, editor Joe Simon rejected this piece, having Davis bring the mascot forward and substituting for Igor. The final, published version is much less effective.

As a cartoonist and illustrator, Jack Davis, born 1924, towers over his field, universally admired, massively influential, often copied, never equaled. Hooking up with EC Comics in 1950, Davis worked for such titles as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, but really coming into his own with Mad in 1952, a magazine that better suited his humor and his unique, explosively dynamic style. Soon, Davis would emerge as his generation’s premiere cartoonist with his caricatures of politicians and personalities for Time and TV Guide, record album cover art, ad campaigns and now classic movie posters, notably one for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Jack Davis, I submit, is also one of the great Frankenstein artists! An obvious fan of the classic Frankenstein movies, Davis applied his nervous pen and brushwork to countless appearances of the lanky, knobby-jointed, big-booted Monster, complete with Karloff’s unmistakable mug, featured on magazine covers and monster-themed bubblegum cards, in comic strips and often sighted in Davis’ signature crowd scenes. The Jack Davis Frankenstein was prominent on the cover of Warren’s Creepy No. 1 and the “Fang Mail” logo in Famous Monsters of Filmland. His Frankenstein masterpiece might well be the stupendous “6-foot Frankenstein” poster, advertised for years in the back pages of Famous Monsters.

On his proposed cover for Sick, Davis betrays his love and real knowledge of Frankenstein — and a marked preference for 1939’s Son of Frankenstein — with such details as The Monster’s bulky fur vest and a loose noose around Igor’s throat. Igor, fans will remember, survived a hanging.

A sampling of Jack Davis art on Drew Friedman's blog.

With thanks to George Chastain for the heads up.

The Bride Plays The Fantasy Theater

It’s June 1935 and Bride of Frankenstein is coming to the Fantasy Theater on Rock Park Avenue in Rockville Center, Long Island.

Zooming in on the marquee, a scalloped banner promises cool, comfortable refrigeration to beat the summer heat. Currently playing, a mismatched double-bill has Cardinal Richelieu, a George Arliss costumer, backed with the rough and tumble Hold ‘Em Yale with Buster Crabbe. Perhaps the only thing these two films had in common was a young Cesar Romero in supporting roles. Frankenstein connections: Cardinal Richelieu was directed by Rowland V. Lee who would go on to produce and direct the next Frankenstein film, 1939’s Son of Frankenstein, and Lon Chaney Jr., in a tiny bit part as a football player in Hold ‘Em Yale would, of course, replace Karloff as The Monster in 1942 and go on to share screen time as The Wolf Man opposite The Monster in four Monster Rallies.

Squinting is required to read the front of the marquee: Starts Fri June 21 (or the 28^th?)… 3 Days Only… Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein. Supporting feature announced is Age of Indiscretion, a soaper starring Paul Lukas. Easier to see is the spectacular poster high up on the side wall overlooking the parking lot. The beautiful art looked terrific in color…

The Bride in a satin wedding gown swings a bridal bouquet as she is swept away by her Monster Romeo. Artist unidentified, but I suspect it’s Fred Kulz, a Universal artist who produced several illustrations for the Bride campaign.

From today’s perspective, three days doesn’t sound like much of a run, but remember, movies were a national pastime back then. Programs would typically include two features, comedy and musical shorts, a cartoon and newsreels. With no TV to compete with, many theaters changed their offerings twice a week to keep up with the demand. Shows played morning, noon and late into the evening, and theaters were huge. On its Friday through Sunday run, Bride of Frankenstein could have easily filled most of the Fantasy’s 1600 seats for every performance.

Built in 1929, the Fantasy survives to this day, multiplexed and operating as the AMC Loews Fantasy 5. The area is built up, the theater is squeezed between buildings and its elaborate Moorish façade has long since disappeared under plain stucco.

Photo source: Fritz Frising/Headless Hearseman Archives. With thanks to Fritz Frising who was manager at the Fantasy sixty years after this photo was taken. 

Henry Franks, by Peter Adam Salomon

The title character in Peter Adam Salomon’s Henry Franks is a 16-year old boy who survived a terrible accident that killed his mother, wiped out his memory and left his body massively scarred and stitched, as if he’d been puzzled back together. Old photographs and vivid dreams are the only clues to his forgotten past. Henry’s dad is no help, a broken, grieving man who works late and locks himself away in his room at home.

An outsider at school, a cipher to himself, Henry is befriended by Justine, schoolmate and next-door neighbor, as outgoing as Henry is introverted, an attraction of opposites. The story builds slowly and methodically until Justine’s curiosity and her eagerness to help Henry recover his past kicks everything into high gear. As intriguing clues to Henry’s identity pile up, news comes of a serial killer stalking the seaside Georgia community, and a hurricane is zeroing in for landfall.

Frankenstein themes aren’t merely referenced here, they’re essential to story. Death and rebirth, perilous science, bad parenting, nature unchained, protagonist as outsider… Author Salomon knows his Mary Shelley and makes very original and innovative use of her concepts.

Beautifully written, Henry Franks is a terrific first novel, one of those YA books that A’s will enjoy unreservedly. Henry and Justine are fully fleshed out characters, and their relationship is sweet and genuinely touching. The St. Simons Island locale is vividly real, its sleepy town, the unrelenting heat and swaying Spanish moss. Reading Salomon’s book, I felt like I’d actually been somewhere and met someone.

Henry Franks, a trade paperback published by Flux, is out now.

Peter Adam Salomon's website.

The Frankenstein Bookshelf

I think we agree, Frankenstein themes permeate popular culture and The Monster is an iconic presence. As further proof, if needed, these recent books…

For very young readers, The Monster’s Monster (Little, Brown & Company), by multiple award-winning writer and artist Patrick McDonnell, fields a friendly flat-top creature. “There’s nothing scary about him” reports the New York Times. “He’s actually quite endearing. His story is rather sweet.” The picture book blog 32 Pages says, “More Zen than Karloff, this Frankensteinian monster is the epitome of reverence, kindness and gratitude.”

Frankenstein, A Monstrous Parody (Feiwel & Friends), by “Ludworst Bemonster” (writer Rick Walton and artist Nathan Hale) is set in a creepy old castle where 12 ugly monsters reside. Frankenstein, we are told, is the ugliest of all!

The authors’ nom-de-plume and rhyming style are gentle jabs at Ludwig Bemelman’s classic Madeline books. The Washington Post reviewer promised readers they’d be “howling at the moon over this witty mash-up.”

For YA readers, Bekka Black’s iFrankenstein updates the Mary Shelley novel and formats the story as data transmitted by email, cellphone text, tweets and uploaded pics. Here, young Victor is a “computer nerd” and his Monster is a chatbot, a virtual creature who, like the classic flesh and blood Monster, escapes the control of his creator.

Appropriately, iFrankenstein is available exclusively as a digital download for Kindle and, soon, as an iPad App.

High on my list of must read books is Chris Priestley’s Mister Creecher, filling in previously unknown details of The Monster’s time in London and his friendship with a 15-year old street urchin. A writer of spooky tales and a damn fine illustrator, Priestley’s take on Frankenstein has been collecting all kinds of special mentions and award nominations. The Guardian called it “(an) ambitious novel… a stylish and atmospheric page-turner”.

Priestley keeps an excellent website and a fascinating blog. I’ll be returning to this tantalizing title soon as I get my hands on it.

Meanwhile, one more book review to come and we’ll wrap up our Frankenstein Book Month event.