Halloween Endurance Test: Young Frankenstein (1974)

Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein might be the ultimate Frankenstein film. Taking all the bits and pieces of the Universal oeuvre and bringing them together in a family-friendly mix. Sort of like what Universal tried to do with the House of Frankenstein film, only with Brooks succeeding this time, instead of failing.

Just watch the opening “FronkenSTEEN” scene again. Universal once made an entire film, Son of Frankenstein, to delve into a man’s desire to escape his family’s history. It’s also a great way to quickly dispose of all the exposition needed to set up the plot.

Everything is here. House of Frankenstein’s cheap Dracula skeleton is replaced here with a cheaper looking Baron Beaufort Von Frankenstein corpse. The Count’s famous abode (clearly the Todd Browning version) recreated and reused as Frankenstein’s family home. The credits even claim that the good Doctor’s lab equipment was from the original. (Sadly providing the film with a connection to the decidedly less fun Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.)

Young Frankenstein also makes a strong case for using comedians in all horror films. Gene Wilder’s over-the-fop acting gives Frankenstein the manic energy you’d expect from a mad scientist. Igor (Marty Feldman), and pronounced “Eye-gore” thank you) steals every scene he’s in.

Continuing in his grandfather’s line of work, henchman-ism, Igor brings a modern touch to his work. He’s well aware of his worth, and not afraid to deflate his employer’s delusions of grandeur. A great quality to add to a character who’s job is to aid a man with the (life-giving) power of God.

Wilder admits in DVD’s convenient documentary that it was Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein that served as his films main inspirations. Noting, however, that both Son of Frankenstein and even Ghost of Frankenstein added some spice. Which is just as well considering there’s probably only two or three interesting scenes between those two.

The documentary also notes that cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld played a large role in the film’s success. A factoid that’s obvious to anyone watching it. What’s not obvious, however, is how close Hirschfeld was to losing his job during production. The darks is darker on-screen, and the contrast is greater all because Hirschfeld was ordered to satirize even the original’s production.

All this morphing into a send-up that completely surpasses the original(s). Young Frankenstein is the horror genre’s version of This is Spinal Tap. Both reveling in the absurdity’s of each’s respective genre.

Halloween Endurance Test: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)

The Frankenstein franchise is easily my most popular blogs. From Universal’s classic monsters, to Hammer’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s tale, people love the mix of mad scientists and monsters. Tonight we find the Frankensteins have traveled from Vienna to Texas; delving in life’s creation, South of the Border-style in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.

Up to this point, I had thought that Frogs would be the movie this year with the smallest budget. Then I uncovered this gem…

The first thing you’ll notice is how washed out the colors are. I’m not sure if this is a problem with the print, as I can’t imagine too many copies of this films laying around, or if the film stock it was shot out was washed out to begin with. Convincing cases can be made either way.

What can’t be made convincing are the “special effects.” The painting of Frankenstein’s manor looks horrible in the matte shot. The fact they decide to then follow up with a close-up, of the painting, is unbelievably audacious. With the effects budget this film had, it would’ve been better just to shoot a “Further Adventures of Jesse James” film instead of tying him to a story so technology prone.

Just look at it!

(Amazing! Rumor has it that the lab equipment in the film was the same equipment used in Universal’s films. A reuse almost as audacious as Ed Wood’s use of the octopus from John Wayne’s Wake of the Red Witch in Bride of the Monster! Supposedly one of the only time the famous lab stuff was shot in color.)

We learn early on that it was Frankenstein’s grandfather who did all the famous experiments. (He also apparently created artificial brains, thus killing off one popular franchise subplot right off the bat.) His granddaughter, Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) decides to move halfway across the world to continue the experiments in a land where life is cheap: the Wild West.

We also learn that the infamous bandit Jesse James (John Lupton) is also still alive. Alive and unlucky, as his latest heist goes bad, leaving him stranded out in the pueblo with a wounded henchman, Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder). They meet Juanita Lopez (Estelita Rodriguez), who offers to take them to Maria and her brother, Rudolph Frankenstein (Steven Geray).

This film is amazingly two-faced. First you have Jesse James, who, as a bandit, has to pretend he’s someone else throughout it. Then you have Maria Frankenstein, who offers to aid Hank in order to use his body in her experiments. She succeeds, and during the process, she finds out that her brother has been poisoning her prior experiments. Hank, newly birthed as the monster Igor, quickly offs the offending sibling. All the while Juanita, who brought Maria into this story, has been surreptitiously badmouthing the scientist behind her back.

(Juanita’s brother had been one of Maria’s previous test subjects. A brother who was surprisingly white to be part of the Lopez family. Thus indicating some deceit on the side of Juanita’s mother at some point!)

James eventually realizes that Maria’s concern for Hank is not entirely altruistic, and returns to the lab for revenge. Before Jesse gets there, Juanita has brought the police (yet another group she was lying to) to stop the operation, though the officer is unable to best Igor.

Sadly, even in monster-death, Hank plays 2nd fiddle to Jesse James.

In a strange twist, Maria loses her mental control of Igor mid-combat, and gets strangled by her creation. Leaving Igor, Jesse, and Juanita the last remaining characters. Jesse gets choked, and in perhaps the worst finale ever, Juanita blindly fires Jesse’s pistol twice (honestly, she’s not even looking at the action!), thankfully ending the tale.

Halloween Endurance Test: the Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

The Curse of Frankenstein is one of the most important films in the Frankenstein canon, if not, the most important one.  While Universal’s Dracula opened the door for horror films, and Frankenstein showed that horror films could also be as technically proficient as any other genre, it was Hammer Films’ the Curse of Frankenstein that opened up Mary Shelley’s domain for everyone else.  Assured by their lawyers that Shelley’s story (now in the public domain) was an actual, viable resource, Hammer made their own take on the tale.  Legally, Hammer just had to make sure their version of Frankenstein’s monster looked nothing like Karloff’s interpretation.

Even the stories are vastly different.  Universal’s Frankenstein was a well respected member of the community. a status completely at odds with his passion for grave-robbing.  (Not to mention the Edgar Van Sloan disclaimer that precedes the film, warning moviegoers of the ghastliness they’re about to see.)  When we initially meet Baron von Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), he’s already in jail, and threatening to strangle a priest!  My how standards can change in 20 years!

Here Victor is orphaned at a young age, and quickly becomes an enfant terrible.  He ushers his aunt out of the house, promising to keep her on the allowance his mother was providing her.  His literary love interest Elisabeth is actually his cousin here, and is removed from view just as quickly.  His aunt briefly noting that, “she’ll [Elisabeth] make a fine wife for someone someday,” before the door is slammed shut.  Absolutely no interest.

Victor has one interest, and that’s science.  He hires a science tutor, Paul, and learns all he has to offer in just two years.  Keeping Paul on salary afterwards as an assistant/voice of reason/love interest.  This would be total pedophile material if not for the fact that it’s Victor who’s clearly wearing the pants.  (Granted, nowadays it’d still be pedophilia, but back then, it the days of rigid social/class hierarchy, who knows?  There’s clearly no teacher’s union for Paul to fall on for support.)

Paul goes along with Victor through most of his experiments until classism again rears its ugly head.  Paul is fine helping Victor bring a dog back to life, rob a bandit’s grave, and endeavor to create life.  It’s not until Victor robs a sculptor’s grave that Paul feels their experiments have gone too far.

“Mutilating?  I’ve removed his brain; mutilating has nothing to do with it.”

Sensing this testosterone overload, and the questionable glances it’d bring out of movie-goers, Hammer brings Elisabeth back into the fold.  Her mother’s dead, she now has no place to live, and she’s engaged to Victor.  Who, we learn, has been seeing Justine, his maid, on the side.  These Europeans and their pansexualism!

Creating a love triangle between Victor, Paul, and Elisabeth.  A two-sided love triangle, as Victor still shows no interest in Elisabeth.  Making one wonder why she was even included in the script besides as being a tie-back to the novel.  Interesting as even “the Creature” (Christopher Lee) plays second-string to Victor!

(An important distinction here is that Christopher Lee is always referred to as “the Creature.”  Frankenstein’s creation having been called “the Monster” by Universal, the M-word was thus off limits in this film.)

Book nerds/academics will rejoice in the fact that the Curse of Frankenstein is assuredly Victor’s show.  No one watching the film will have any interest in the Creature.  Since, even after the monster is alive, no attention is paid to it.  In fact, it’s killed one scene later!  The movie’s final act’s sole focus being how Victor will give life back to it.

This film was a huge hit for Hammer, leading the studio to remake other Universal franchises (Dracula, the Mummy, etc…), as well as numerous sequels. It also made Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee into huge stars; quickly establishing themselves as stars in Britain’s new wave of horror.

Halloween Endurance Test: House of Frankenstein (1944)

Universal’s House of Frankenstein holds a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s because the film starts on a rainy night with Professor Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors traveling sideshow. Perhaps its because the studio finally did away with both Frankenstein’s castle and his mansion in the last film (Ghost of Frankenstein) allowing the franchise to use the “buddy roadtrip” formula within the horror genre. As with all the House… films, this installment throws all of Universal’s famous monsters into a giant, nonsensical story and hopes you don’t notice how quickly the whole Dracula business gets dealt with.

Dracula is the weak link in the stories. Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors displays Dracula’s staked skeleton, though it’s not long before the stake is removed. Sending the most anemic looking vampire loose again on the countryside. Sadly, I suspect this is the same vampire that was seeking a blood-transfusion “cure” in House of Dracula.

Even Dracula’s vampire powers are lame. He turns into a comically animated bat before drinking his victim’s blood! Instead of seeking the blood of attractive, young women, here he feeds off of grandfathers, and seeks to marry the women! Forever gone is his harem of vampire women. Where White Zombie illustrated the capitalist uses of voodoo, here we’re treated to the conservative side to the King of the Undead.

“We want nothing to remind us of something we’re trying to forget!”

The town of Frankenstein’s guards speak with that beautifully off-kilter internal logic of Strangers with Candy‘s Jerry Blank. Not that Professor Lampini’s own dialogue is any better:

“What do you have here?”

“It’s my own Chamber of Horrors! We’re wondering if we can set up in town?”

“You might as well leave, the burgomaster will never allow it.”

“But why not? There’s nothing here to offend anyone!”

Except a rotting vampire skeleton with a slight chance of reanimating itself. Or any of the other horrors my traveling show contains. Perhaps the word “horror” means something else in German, or to Lampini.

I know these movies aren’t the best indicators of a franchise’s quality, but these House… movies’ portrayal of the Wolf Man makes it unlikely I’ll ever pick up a Wolf Man collection. (To say nothing about that horrid Benicio del Toro Wolfman film from last year. So bad I chose not to cover it!) Plus the Wolf Man is always dressed up as a greaser mechanic (a la Billy Joel circa the Stranger). Not a good look for a creature who’s supposed to be fearsome (“I can only change your oil when the moon is full!”).

The Wolf Man immediately breaks up Lampini’s happy Chamber of Horrors. His very presense manages to steal Lampini’s hunchback assistant’s gypsy girlfriend from the troupe.

(Trapped between an infatuated hunchback and a middle-aged corpse-lover, the gypsy makes the only logical choice. Throw in the only occasionally murderous Wolf Man though, and the equation changes.)

For those wondering where the titular host of this House party is, the monster gets a full minute and a half of screen time! He’s reanimated, then immediately driven by a horde of angry townspeople into quicksand.

Halloween Endurance Test: Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Ygor’s back again? After being shot numerous times by the Son of Frankenstein? My pet-theory about how Ygor was created by the filmmakers as a separate Frankensteinian-id is gaining ground here. Ygor/Id as a way for the Frankenstein character to commit the murders the story demands without sacrificing the valuable “good guy” sympathy with the audience. After all, just how guilty can the Baron really feel when he’s ordering the murders?

Though I’m beginning to suspect that all this focus on visualizing Frankenstein’s psychological split is distracting me from the true action: the villagers. Tired of constantly running scared from the monster, today the villages take action. Deciding to blow up castle Frankenstein to ward off the curse that is causing the crops not to grow. I’m not sure how the castle is affecting the crops; it is located on a mountain and not an arable field, and thus seemingly out of the way. I’d suspect that the castle brings in more tourist revenue then anything else in this fiefdom.

Have you ever seen how people use dynamite to destroy castles? Apparently just as they did at the finale of The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers. The scene where the orcs prepare to invade Helm’s Deep, and run a bomb into what appears to be the sewer entrance holds everything you’ll ever need to know to other throw unresponsive feudal lords.

Four movies into the franchise and we still have no idea what era this is all supposed to transpire in. Horses and carriages are the main sources of transportation, but one can’t forget the telephone Dr. Pretorius brought out in Bride of Frankenstein.

While the title of Son of Frankenstein was spot-on, I have no idea how ghosts play into the story here. The main gist of the story is the monster wants a new, non-criminal, brain. Dischord on the homefront, Ygor wants to give the monster his brain; tired as he is of ending all his films either shot or hung. The monster, with his first demonstration of free will ever, wants the brain of an innocent child.

“Let’s go to Frankenstein and choke the truth out of him!”

At this point I can’t tell whether the movie’s pro-vigilante justice, or just con-child murder. There’s just too many generations of Frankensteins running around the screen now. His daughter too? It’s longwinded hokum like this that made the following road-trip cinematic excursions so popular.

Perhaps this was all a trick by Universal to get Bela Lugosi to finally play the monster, even if it’s byway of dubbing his voice onto Lon Chaney’s body? Do studios hold grudges that long? Did Lugosi even have any star power left to make such a move worthwhile? (He is after all, billed fourth in this feature.)

Halloween Endurance Test: Son of Frankenstein (1939)

The first thing one notices in Son of Frankenstein is that it’s a revenge flick. You’re not even a minute in and Bela Lugosi leans his head out of Castle Frankenstein’s ruins; attempting to scare away juvenile vandals, and failing at it! The major studios might turn a blind eye to a star’s “personal demons,” but they’d never forget a slight such as refusing a role they wanted for you. Instead they’d wait out your good fortune, and slap you with fourth billing as Igor the hunchback, the next chance they get. Ygor isn’t even a “true” hunchback, he just seems to have lopsided shoulders due to his broken neck.

Ygor plays the film’s comic relief, a new turn for Lugosi. Called in front of the court to inform them about Frankenstein’s son’s experiments, the authorities can’t decide on how to deal with Ygor, not Frankenstein. At first they want to hang him, but as he points out, they already have. They ultimately decide on the almost Fulci decision that if he’s hung but the devil doesn’t want him, they’ll have to wait to hang him again. Apparently the courts here only prescribe a punishment, not what the end result of that punishment should be.

In time Ygor will become the darker side of Frankenstein’s son’s conscience; commanding the murders that Frankenstein’s father had to call for himself in Bride of Frankenstein. Ygor trains the monster to respond in a Pavlovian manner to the playing of what appears to be a kind of backwoods Hungarian flute. Bela jams, a townsperson dies. Only this time they aren’t dying for (body) parts, they’re dying so no one finds about the experiments that they’ll need (body) parts for.

Frankenstein’s heir, true to the film’s title, runs the show. Traveling to the family estate from England, where he was a professor, Frankenstein wants to escape the academic life. What he can’t escape is the baggage of his name; as his absentee, monster-making father isn’t the most popular person in the village. The village inspector introduces himself, explains why the Frankensteins are so unpopular, then shows off his wooden arm; as the monster ripped his last one out during his rampage.

One really wonders what happened after Elizabeth was kidnapped in Bride of Frankenstein. Here Frankenstein’s son admits he’s only ever heard tales about his father, and he’s excited to find his father’s scientific notes. Notes, we soon find, that outline how to create everlasting life. Igor, always eager to please, helpfully points out how Frankenstein’s son and the monster are technically half-brothers, in a strange attempt to perversely justify the monster’s resurrection in a twisted, familial way.

“The cells seem to battle themselves… as if they have a mind of their own.”

The monster’s angry disposition now becomes conditional upon his origin. The forcing of life into dead tissue has left that tissue disagreeable even amongst each other. The cells within his own blood can’t get along. (He also has a heart twice the size of an average human. Where Frankenstein Sr found that specimen is never explained.)

Or perhaps its due to the castle’s layout. Which owes more to German Expressionism then ever before. Gone are the majestic cathedral ceilings, replaced with meandering staircases and hallways composed entirely of shadows. Making one think that young Frankenstein made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at Caligari’s castle.

Halloween Endurance Test: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

As superior as Frankenstein was to Dracula, its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, sits higher still. This is the film that made the franchise, and director James Whale’s career. While the Dracula films never truly found a rhythm, never reached a highpoint, and the Mummy films reworked its origins tale numerous times, here director Whale takes all the themes that made the first a success and builds on them.

Freed from the constraints of reproducing a literary classic, Universal’s screenwriters could run with the characters in ways Mary Shelley never dreamed. Including, in yet another opening disclaimer sequence, having “England’s greatest sinner,” Lord Byron, and Mary and Percy Shelley sitting around talking about the book’s creation. Segueing perfectly into a flashback montage from the first film. Which leads Mary to note that Frankenstein’s monster end at the mill was not actually the end at all…

One thing that did end in the first film though, was Frankenstein’s monster’s innocence. The original was censored because of a scene where a little girl drowns. The sequence plays more tragic than horrific though, as the monster doesn’t understand that she can’t float the same as the lily pads around her. Ten minutes into the sequel, and the monster is truly a monster. Revenging himself by drowning the father of the girl whose death he accidentally caused.

30 minutes into the film and we’ve seen two drowning scenes, and Dr. (now Baron) Frankenstein’s teacher Professor/Dr. Pretorius’ own experiments: five homunculi (miniature humans). Where Frankenstein worked with the dead, Pretorius works from the seed of life; hoping to populate the world with “Gods and monsters.” If that isn’t blasphemous enough, the first time the monster is caught, he’s brought to town crucified on a pole!

Frankenstein refuses to work with Pretorius, claiming his experiment was a mistake. He now just wants to be a Baron. The monster, befriending a blind man who teaches him to talk, as well as sanctifying him in a strange dinner scene (bread is broken, wine drank, all under the watching gaze of a crucifix), wants love of his own. This desire for a bride meshes well with Pretorius’ own desires. So a kidnapping is in order.

Don’t think Frankenstein as some tragic hero though, as he fiends as well as any of the others. Finding a suitable body is again a chore, so he pays off an assistant to bring him one that suffered a short and surprising death. (At which point the idea of two ideologically clashing doctors truly falls apart.) No longer will the reanimated dead be a patchwork of cut up body parts. The bride sports a few seams on the head, and a (famed) electrically shocked haircut, but is in no way as mutilated as the monster.

This advance in the reanimation of the dead brings about the ruin of both, as the bride wants nothing to do with her scarred groom. She hisses as a cat when approached, causing a heartbroken monster to end it all by exploding Frankenstein’s lab.

Or was it all? While the franchise would jettison most of what happens in this film story-wise, the ruined tower would remain as an understated constant. Serving as a focal point for the multitude of Frankensteins who would pass through its walls after Victor.

Halloween Endurance Test: Frankenstein (1931)

Did you really think after watching most of Universal’s Dracula and Mummy franchises, I’d end the holiday without tackling the grand-champ, Frankenstein? Plans for a spiritual sequel to Dracula were in motion as soon as the box office receipts were in. Problems concerning the production arose just as quickly.

First, Bela Lugosi, already a star in Hungary, now a star in the States, immediately started throwing his weight around. The one aspect of Dracula that the Mexicans couldn’t improve upon, Bela refused to play the monster in Frankenstein. Going so far as to get a doctor’s note saying he couldn’t play the monster, as all that make-up would be bad for his health.

Amazingly, Bela’s real concern was a.) being typecast, which happened anyway, and b.) the monster’s lack of dialogue. Bela was an actor, and the groans and grunts the script provided just weren’t enough for him. Strange reasoning coming from a man still learning English at the time, having learned his Dracula lines phonetically.

Second, Dracula had been a risk for Universal to begin with. Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal, did not want his studio spearheading a horror genre. He was concerned with the censorship potential to such a film playing throughout the States. His son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., saw the potential in horrific films, making them the centerpiece of his time at the studio.

Frankenstein was a different beast altogether though. The church could take some issue with a undead prince, but God still reigned. A crucifix was all one needed for protection. Not so with Frankenstein’s monster, who was an affront to all religions the world over. A man, bypassing God, and creating life in his own piecemeal image! A concept so shocking director James Whale would include a disclaimer before the movie starts. Having Edgar Van Sloan (I believe, Dracula’s Von Helsing) come out from behind stage curtains to warn movie-goers of the shocks they were about to see.

Factor in a scene where a young girl drowns (quickly cut from the prints), and this film had controversy written all over it. Luckily for Laemmle, Jr., that writing included profits.

All in all, a better film than Dracula. James Whale wasn’t the drunk Todd Browning was, giving the story technical merits that its predecessor unfortunately lacked. This film established Universal’s reputation as a horror studio, a title it would carry for decades until it was dethroned by Hammer studios in the late ’50s.