#1 Story of 2007: THE LOST KARLOFF FRANKENSTEIN!

This is a detective story, a puzzle, a case of film archeology. This is the story of how classic monster movie fans came together, solved a riddle, and wrote a new chapter in Frankenstein film history.

In my book, there was no event more important this year than the discovery of a lost Boris Karloff Frankenstein performance!

The credit for this extraordinary find belongs largely to film historian Scott McQueen, with contributions by Tom Weaver, Kerry Gammill, and the collective of horror and monster movie fans at The Classic Horror Film Board.

The CHFB is a very knowledgeable community. Delving as they do into horror film history, passionate and generous in sharing their expertise, the members of the CHFB have made a number of fascinating discoveries. For instance, over the last year, tracking actors who have played the Frankenstein Monster, studying screen caps, deconstructing sometimes blurry images, CHFB members have identified at least 3 different stuntmen subbing for a frail Bela Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1942).

In June of this year, Gammill purchased a photograph on eBay and brought it to the attention of the CHFB, sparking the investigation. The previously unknown still shows Boris Karloff in Monster mode, posing with makeup man Jack Pierce and a third gentleman looking on…

The problem with this picture is that Karloff’s makeup does not correspond to any of his film appearances. It’s definitely not from the original 1931 film. Karloff here is much older. It is not from 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein, when The Monster wore burn scars, exposed skull clamps and singed hair. It’s not from 1939’s Son of Frankenstein either, when Karloff’s face was fuller, the makeup smoother, and The Monster was wrapped in a bulky sheepskin vest instead of his usual black coat.

Karloff also wore the Frankenstein makeup briefly in a famous 1962 episode of TV’s Route 66. The makeup job on that one was quick and crude, not done by makeup wizard Pierce, and not at all like the one in the photo. So what are we looking at here?

A companion photo to the new picture has been in circulation for some years. It’s a candid picture of Karloff, obviously from the same photo session, with wife Evelyn. That one was a bit of a mystery, too…

Evelyn Helmore, a long-time family friend, did not marry Karloff until 1946, well after he had abandoned the Frankenstein part. The only explanation for the picture, it seemed, was that Evie had visited Karloff in 1940, six years before they were wed, on the occasion of a unique, legendary non-film Frankenstein appearance. It was identified as such in Scott Allen Nollen's Boris Karloff: A Gentleman's Life, a biography written with the participation of Karloff's daughter, Sara Jane.

In the summer of '40, Karloff gamely submitted to full makeup and costume for a climactic stunt at Los Angeles’ Gilmore Stadium. The event was an All-Star Charity Baseball Game pitting Hollywood Leading Men against Movie Comedians. The proceedings were recorded in stills and a newsreel clip. The photo here shows Karloff’s Monster rising from the dugout, with Jack Pierce looking on…

Karloff stomped to the plate and grounded the ball. As The Three Stooges bumbled and butted heads, chasing the ball, The Monster clomped purposefully around the bases. The Stooges somehow got the ball, in extremis, to catcher Buster Keaton, who promptly keeled over in a pratfall faint when he saw The Monster bearing down on him. The result — one of The Monster’s most amazing superhuman feats — was an infield home run!

Was the mystery picture from the baseball game? The members of the CHFB started asking pointed questions. For one thing, upon closer inspection, the makeup in the posed pictures doesn’t quite match the one in the baseball pics. The hair is different, nicely trimmed bangs on the Baseball Frankenstein, straggly hair in the posed pics. The forehead gash on the Baseball Frankenstein is sculpted differently than the one in the candid pictures, which cuts down through the brow. Most distinctly, Karloff in the posed pics looks definitely older, with prominent bags under the eyes. What gives? And, by the way, who IS that third man?

A first, tentative answer came from Scott McQueen who dug up an August 1946 memo from Universal Pictures authorizing the use of the Frankenstein Monster by Samuel Goldwyn Productions. Then, a CHFB forum participant, doctor kiss, identified the third man as film director Norman Z. McLeod, In 1946, McLeod directed Karloff as a villain to Danny Kaye’s daydreaming hero in MGM’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty!

All of a sudden, the puzzle pieces fell into place and we had an unexpected and exciting new discovery: In 1946, sometime over the April to August shooting schedule for Mitty, freelancing makeup man Jack Pierce came in and, with Universal’s legal blessing, transformed his friend Boris Karloff for a penultimate appearance as Frankenstein’s Monster! That day, Pierce and director McLeod, as well as wife Evie, posed with Karloff in Frankenstein getup.

The question now, of course, is whether a scene was actually shot. Perhaps the makeup was done to see how it would photograph in color, but it is certainly likely, with the director present, that a scene, a short cameo, would be filmed. Why it was discarded is a mystery. Perhaps the gag didn’t work as intended. Or maybe it worked too well and “stopped the show”.

The investigation continues. Perhaps a script can be found with the Frankenstein gag mentioned. Who knows, maybe actual footage of Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster, in Technicolor, is slowly disintegrating in some forgotten film can, waiting to be saved.

Whether anything is ever found remains to be seen, but still, an important discovery in Frankenstein history has been made. It’s amazing — and encouraging — that something like this can pop up after sixty long years.

Congratulations, and thanks, to the people at The Classic Horror Film Board for bringing forth the #1 Most Important Frankenstein Event of 2007!

If you enjoy classic horror, the Classic Horror Film Board forums will amaze you. You learn something there every day. If you ever decide to register (free) and participate in the discussions, you’ll find the CHFB crowd is enthusiastic and inclusive. They will welcome you with open arms. 

I hope you enjoyed my countdown of Frankenstein Events. Post a comment, let me know what you think!

Frankenstein: A Cultural History

Frankenstein’s themes, inherent and suggested, and, of course, its signifier character, The Monster, have been referenced in cultural and human affairs for almost 200 years, now.

Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s book, Frankenstein: A Cultural History, is an ambitious and satisfying overview of the phenomenon.

Hitchcock is an engaging writer and, best of all, she is generous and inclusive, as genuinely interested in Mary Shelley’s literary significance or the political interpretations of editorial cartoonists as she is in The Monster’s appearances in cheap B-movies and on Halloween masks. Dick Briefer’s comic book interpretation gets as much respect as Jung’s archetype of the shadow does in explaining The Monster’s sway on our consciousness.

Frankenstein movie fans might be a little disappointed by the film coverage in the book. Key versions are examined, and Boris Karloff’s iconic bolt-neck interpretation fairly permeates the narrative, but because the book is so wide-ranging, which is the whole idea, films are just a part of the greater story, and Hitchcock gets nowhere near — and never intended — a comprehensive study of Frankenstein in the cinema. It must also be noted that there are a couple of minor mistakes in the book’s film discussion. The Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill) character is first mentioned in the correct context of Son of Frankenstein (1939), but a few pages on, he is associated with the earlier Bride of Frankenstein (1935). In discussing Hammer Films’ Curse of Frankenstein (1957), credits belonging to Peter Cushing are attributed to his co-star, Christopher Lee. These are mere slip-ups, to be sure, but genre fans will bristle.

Frankenstein: A Cultural History succeeds because it takes large steps, with net cast wide, following Mary Shelley as she slowly gains acceptance for her seminal novel, and her extraordinary Monster as it inexorably takes its place as a central cultural icon.

Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s website, featuring an excerpt form the book.

Hitchcock’s blog, Monster Sightings.

The publisher’s Frankenstein page.

Frankenstein on Broadway

It was one of the most anticipated showbiz events of the year, gathering steam in the entertainment press even as the show was being tried out in Seattle.

Adapting the beloved 1974 film to the stage posed a challenge. Mel Brooks had been very successful in morphing The Producers into a live musical. That one translated easily to the stage. Making Young Frankenstein into a live experience implied a major modification to the original concept. The nostalgic, iconic visuals at the core of the movie had to be thrown out.

Young Frankenstein was not only a marvelous comedy, it was a pitch perfect homage to the classic Frankenstein films, a visual spoof replete with authentic laboratory sets and evocative black and white photography. The effect was so dead-on, it was like stumbling onto an alternate universe Universal movie where everything looked perfect, but all the characters had lost their marbles. Translating to the stage meant losing the key visual treatment of the film. The set pieces are the same, the familiar jokes are all there on cue, but in the end, the new Young Frankenstein is a different animal. Going from film to stage, it traded satire for parody, finesse for burlesque.

Critics have generally been kind to Broadway’s Young Frankenstein. By all accounts, it is loud, boisterous and thoroughly entertaining. Sutton Foster has been singled out for her knockout interpretation of the lusty Inga (played by the equally excellent Terry Carr in the original movie), notably for a show-stopping hayride number, and the fabulous Andrea Martin is a perfect casting opportunity as the dreaded Frau Blucher. Most satisfyingly, Shuler Hensley, in the all-important part of the galumphing Monster (his third pass at the role), is unanimously acclaimed.

The unstoppable Mel Brooks justified his revival and retooling of Young Frankenstein as a Broadway blockbuster in a recent issue of Vanity Fair. “Listen," Brooks said, "the reanimation of dead tissue is important philosophical thought—and it's still good for a laugh."

For sheer hype and wall-to-wall coverage, no other Frankenstein event this year can match the media impact of Young Frankenstein coming to Broadway as a musical.

The Broadway show’s elaborate website (Check out the Transylvania Travel Bureau) and MySpace page.

An article with pictures on fangoria.com.

Previous Young Frankenstein Musical posts.

The Great Frankenstein Controversy

Number 4 on my list of Frankenstein Events in 2007: John Lauritsen’s The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein.

It’s an old story. From the moment it was published, anonymously, 190 years ago, critics attributed Frankenstein to the author of the book’s original introduction, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Even after Mary assumed her byline, Percy’s presence loomed as her editor, some said collaborator, in the authorship of the famous novel. To this day, scholars are still measuring Percy’s influence on the novel, chiefly through the study of his numerous annotations to Mary’s manuscript.

In March of 2007, writer John Lauritsen revived the controversy and cranked it up to eleven. Lauritsen argues that Frankenstein was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, not Mary, whose contribution was basically secretarial, copying Percy’s work in her own handwriting as she had done for some of Lord Byron’s poems, preparing the manuscript for the printer. Lauritsen also suggests that the central theme of Frankenstein is male love, expressed both directly and in coded language that he, as a gay historian, is able to interpret.

Lauritsen’s forceful thesis, self-published under his Pagan Press imprint with the unmistakable title of The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, ignited a firestorm in literary circles. It went ballistic, reaching a wider audience after Camille Paglia gave the book a short but resoundingly positive review in a Salon.com article.

What’s fascinating about Paglia’s review is not so much how completely convinced she is by Lauritsen’s arguments, as her gleeful celebration of its assault on stuffy old academia. Paglia writes: “Lauritsen's book is important not only for its audacious theme but for the devastating portrait it draws of the insularity and turgidity of the current academy… This book, which is a hybrid of mystery story, polemic and paean to poetic beauty, shows just how boring literary criticism has become over the past 40 years.”

A vastly different perspective on the book came from Germaine Greer whose article in The Guardian carried its own unequivocal title, “Yes, Frankenstein really was written by Mary Shelley. It's obvious - because the book is so bad”.

Greer writes, “The latest sensation to galvanise the torpid lit-hist-crit establishment is the "discovery" by market research analyst John Lauritsen that Mary Shelley did not write Frankenstein.” She then delivers a full-on blast against Lauritsen, complete with her own reading of Frankenstein as feminist text: “The driving impulse of this incoherent tale is a nameless female dread, the dread of gestating a monster… If women's attraction to the gothic genre is explained by the opportunity it offers for the embodiment of the amoral female subconscious, Frankenstein is the ultimate expression of the female gothic.”

Another good read on the subject is the transcript of an Australian ABC Radio program, The Book Show, featuring Lauritsen along with Percy Shelley expert Neil Fraistat, and Charles Robinson, author of The Frankenstein Notebooks. Its all very civil, composed and thoroughly fascinating. Fraistat makes an observation that, in the end, provides a satisfying coda to The Great Frankenstein Controversy of 2007:

“I think the interesting thing is that one of the things that John's book does that's so valuable is it acts as a kind of provocation, it makes people have to go back and really look at the evidence and think these things through for themselves.”

John Lauritsen’s website is here. Pagan Press is here, including a list of reviews, notably Camille Paglia’s, and Pagan Press' Frankenstein pages.

Germaine Greer’s article in The Guardian.

Transcript from ABC Radio’s The Book Show.

If you are interested in Lauritsen’s book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, I suggest getting it directly from the author. Support small-press publishers!

The Frankenstein Events of 2007 Countdown continues on Wednesday, December 26.

Frankenstein Events of 2007

Starting here and all this coming week, I will undertake to list the Top 5 Frankenstein Events of 2007.

This list, of course, is entirely personal, wildly arbitrary and seriously subjective. These are the events I interpret as being significant. The only criteria used here is What Struck Me. Anyone else might remix the list in a different order or come up with a whole different batch of events that deserve mention. I cannot judge films, plays, books, toys and merchandising I haven’t seen, so unless any of these garnered uncommon critical praise or high media visibility, they can’t make the list.

Perhaps, if we’re still meeting here in a year’s time, if you like the concept, I might assemble a panel of experts from among our very knowledgeable readers and come up with a more informed and inclusive list of Frankenstein Events for 2008. We’ll see. For now, without pretensions, here’s my list, with my heartfelt Season’s Greeting to all.

First, some runners-up…

GIANT FRANKENSTEIN PEZ DISPENSER

It is one of the most common search engine terms leading to this blog. The folks at Pez Candy, Inc. produced this special, limited edition, Universal-licensed, Frankenstein head Pez dispenser. It’s a foot tall, it lights up and makes noise. Candy and batteries are included, and both taste the same. You are more likely to find one on eBay than in your local pharmacy’s notions department.

THE BEDSIDE FRANKENSTEIN

Continuum Publishing’s playful series invites its readers to sample their books at leisure, serving up its contents in bite-size articles, sidebars and capsules. The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Frankenstein, written by Carol Adams, with Douglas Buchanan and Kelly Gesch, encompasses all aspects of Frankenstein’s stride through popular history, complete with quizzes, a crossword puzzle, flip-books, “monsterbilia”, and maps of Mary Shelley and Victor Frankenstein’s travels. There are interviews with Forrest J Ackerman and Frankenstein uber-expert Don Glut. I love the great cover by Dan Piraro.

You can sample pages from the book on Amazon’s Online Reader.

FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS DVD

The Monster’s heart, a Nazi submarine, the bombing of Hiroshima… And that’s just the beginning of this, one of the most delirious Frankenstein films ever made. It ends with a 25-foot tall, flathead, caveman Frankenstein battling what appears to be a giant vinyl octopus. And its got Nick Adams in it, too.

Frankenstein Conquers The World, aka Frankenstein vs Barugon (1965) makes the Year’s Best DVD list over at Tim Lucas’ Video WatchBlog. David Kalat calls it “A stellar job, a DVD done right”. Fellow reviewer Sheldon Inkol says, “you owe it to yourself to experience the unbelievably loopy Devilfish finale.”

MARION MOUSSE'S FRANKENSTEIN

My #5 pick for Frankenstein Event of 2007 goes to Marion Mousse’s gorgeous graphic novel version of Mary Shelley’s book, which I previously blogged about here.

The art is loose and confident, cartoony, yet accurate and detailed. This engrossing adaptation is very faithful to the original, and still allows for exploration and development of the themes and characters. Volume one (of three) ends, tantalizingly, with the creation scene. The next two episodes are coming out in 2008.

Published by Delcourt of Paris, this one deserves to be translated into English, perhaps collecting the three 48-page parts together into one book. Like I said in my original review, pending a translation, this one is worth getting for the artwork alone.

Next up: The countdown continues with a Frankenstein Controversy!