With the release of “Van Helsing,” I am revisiting your remarkable achievements in post-mortem reconstruction and re-animation.
In 1931, you were quoted as saying, “Think of it – the brain of a dead mean waiting to live again, in a body I made with my own hands!”
My question is, why create the body? Why stitch together limbs from separate corpses, rather than just bringing a dead person back to life? Is it because that person would already have an identity, and not necessarily be obedient to you?
I mean no offense, but bringing anyone, even an animal, back to life, would be considered a ground-breaking feat, guaranteeing your name in history. Such a creation might have actually been more submissive, having already learned right from wrong, which is what hindered you in your first effort. Plus, it would have required less of the indelicate business of multiple graverobbing, which alerted the narrow-minded authorities and townspeople to your plans.
Dr. Frankenstein, I know you may be too busy to answer this post, but I also know that you have admirers and proxies around the world who may give me their consideration. Please tell me why you chose to create a new “man,” rather than just re-animating a “normal” corpse.
P.S. I know you are real, but there are some who believe the chronicles of your work are fiction. To appease these philistines, I have posted this message in a section devoted to arts and literature. I hope you understand.
Frankenstein wasn’t simply trying to reanimate the dead, he wanted to create an entirely new lifeform (the novel was subtitles “The Modern Prometheus”). Parts from corpses was merely the raw materials used.
When somebody is dead - through disease or accident - it is likely that their body is damaged in some way. By taking the good bits from several different corpses, Baron F. could construct one viable being.
Its like using the parts from two wrecked cars to build one (probably pretty dangerous) car.
[frankenstein]
True enough, but even then, you don’t have to worry about the gearbox decaying while you’re trying to get the electrical system hooked up. Then, when you have time to re-replace the gearbox, the tires have liquified…and when you’ve found new tires, it turns out that they’re not compatible with the axels, so you have to replace the whole damn…
Well, you see how things quickly get out of hand. The whole reassembly process can take on a life of it’s own…er, no pun intended.
I tell ya, modern refrigeration…it’s more valulable than fifty Jacobs Ladders.[/frankenstein]
That wasn’t me. That was a copycat reanimator named Henry Frankenstein. While Henry F.'s creation was remarkable in its own right – especially with those two huge way-cool “neck piercings” he had – it pales in comparison to the monster I created in that mine could talk.
Different posters have given Frankenstein titles that he never earned or acquired in the source material, like “Doctor” and “Baron.” If there was ever an honorific loftier than “Herr” for poor tortured Victor, Mary Shelley neglected to mention it.
By the way, was Igor a Mel Brooks invention? In the novel, the closest Victor had to an assistant was Henri; in the James Whale classic, his deformed assistant was named Fritz. From whence came Igor?
SON OF FRANKENSTEIN- Ygor (Bela Lugosi) was a shepherd hanged for grave-robbing, but survived with a broken petrified neck. He helped Dr F.s son, played by Basil Rathbone, reanimate the Monster, who in the end fulls into a sulfur pit.
GHOST OF F… Ygor again shows up to summon the monster out of the now hardened sulfurous rock & get the Grandson (Cedric Hardwicke) to transplant his brain into the Monster’s body (with the result that the Monster has Bela’s voice but is now blind). He goes wild, knocks over a lantern & “perishes” in the burning house.
Ygor bodily is gone but ironically (or maybe not), Bela plays the Monster in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, only now somehow the Monster has been
frozen in some cavern.
Bit of interesting trivia- Fritz in the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN and misshapen assistant Karl in BRIDE OF with both portrayed by Dwight “Renfield” Frye.
Now, I have read the book several times & have no idea who Henri is!
I’ve read it a couple times as well, but can’t find my copy of it at the moment (Isn’t that always the way?). I may have the name wrong, but I doubt it. The version of the book I’m familiar with is the First Edition; most modern readers are more familiar with the Third Edition, where the character may have been excised or renamed. He’s Victor’s only friend who’s mentioned by name.
Okay, I just downloaded a copy of the book from Project Gutenberg (Not sure which edition; I’m guessing Third) and the character is called Henry Clerval.
And, of all people, Igor was played by Charles Bronson!! Wow! Elisha Cuthbert is starring in the remake. I wonder if she’ll be playing a female Igor. “Igory”, perhaps? Oh, wait. She’ll be playing “Sally Jones”. No idea if there’ll be an Igor in the new version. But, from what I’ve heard, it will bear little resemblance to the original aside from the basic concept.
As for why Lord Frankenstein built a new body, rather than use a complete corpse, could it simply be because he was MAD!He’s mad, I tells ya! MAD!
And he was played by Charles Buchinsky–later known as Charles Bronson.
Last night, TCM showed* House of Wax*, preceded by the 1933 version, Mystery in the Wax Museum. In the 1933 version, the henchman’s name was pronounced “Eye-gore.”