# Frankenstein (1931) -- Spoilers, I guess **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 5, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299 "2011-04-05T18:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/21 "2014-03-05T21:50:47Z")
At one point, the monster was supposed to be blind, it was filmed but it was cut. So you have a scene with the monster walking through the terrified village holding his arms out ('cause he’s blind). That look became iconic. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/22 "2014-03-06T01:11:22Z")
> [@Almac](#): > > Has anyone noticed the odd revised continuity between the Whale duo and the later sequence of movies starting with Son of Frankenstein. In Son, the earlier Frankenstein’s tomb bears the legend, ‘Heinrich von Frankenstein’ (instead of plain Henry Frankenstein) and the detonated laboratory bears no resemblance to the set and exterior miniatures in ‘Bride’ and of course the monster is suddenly mute again. It’s as if Universal’s new owners (the Laemmles had moved on) had decided to make a sequel to people’s memories of the earlier films rather than the actual films themselves: increasing the Germanic quality of the settings (a sinister enough concept in the late thirties) and the violence of the monster’s assaults has been extended to actual mutilations. Interestingly the continuity in the increasingly B series became extremely faithful at this point (in the Abbot & Costello spoof, the Lugosi Dracula uses the same pseudonym, Latos, as John Carradine in the last two straight ‘House’ entries) but essentially all the later films refer back to Son as a starting point. Yes. They originally hadn’t planned on a third film, and it was many years later. It’s always bothered me that they did a virtual reboot (and that they were actually able to get Karloff back for a last turn as the Creature). Notice that it isn’t even the same town anymore, not Ingolstadt, but now the town of Frankenstein. The EXTREMELY Germanic expressionistic sets (A dining room with TWO fireplaces? Two? All those weird angles and high relief shadows? And all those rooms so bare with No Dirt on the floors? ) Kinda appropriate that this thread is now a Zombie. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/23 "2014-03-06T02:12:55Z")
Is it “Bride of Frankenstein” that has the creepy little homunculi in the bottles? (With one horny little rascal trying to get into the next bottle over, which holds a female homunculus?) Weird scene. Also astonishing how very brief Elsa Lanchester’s appearance is as the Bride. She gets a couple of minutes, not more. All that build-up (all that make-up!) and she’s just a bit of dramatic throw-away. (She’s so much better used in my favorite movie, “Murder by Death.”) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/24 "2014-03-06T02:42:54Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Is it “Bride of Frankenstein” that has the creepy little homunculi in the bottles? (With one horny little rascal trying to get into the next bottle over, which holds a female homunculus?) Weird scene. > > Also astonishing how very brief Elsa Lanchester’s appearance is as the Bride. She gets a couple of minutes, not more. All that build-up (all that make-up!) and she’s just a bit of dramatic throw-away. EL is also in the beginning prologue playing Mary Shelley. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/25 "2014-03-06T03:21:08Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Is it “Bride of Frankenstein” that has the creepy little homunculi in the bottles? (With one horny little rascal trying to get into the next bottle over, which holds a female homunculus?) Weird scene. > > Also astonishing how very brief Elsa Lanchester’s appearance is as the Bride. She gets a couple of minutes, not more. All that build-up (all that make-up!) and she’s just a bit of dramatic throw-away. > > (She’s so much better used in my favorite movie, “Murder by Death.”) That’s the one. There’s one homunculus that’s almost completely cut from the movie – a Baby in a High Chair. You can still see it from behind in one shot, but its “glory shot” has been cut. That whole sequence was something of a _tour de force_ of special effects back then – not at all easy to pull off. It’s hard, by the way, not to see that “creepy little rascal”, who is supposed to be a king, as Henry VIII. Henry VIII had been famously portrayed by Charles Laughton in **The Private Life of Henry VIII** two years before **Bridge of Frankenstein** was made. And Laughton was married to Elsa Lanchester, who played the Bride (and Mary Shelley, as noted above). It all looks like an intentional in-joke. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/26 "2014-03-06T07:53:01Z")
I always thought it was a shame that Lugosi was typecast as Dracula. He did such an incredible job as Ygor. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/27 "2014-03-06T10:32:29Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > But the preceding scenes on the mountain – with the obviously fake muslin sky backdrop and everybody walking past the same rock over and over – were jarringly cheesy. Some of that was deliberate. You may also notice a lot of anachronisms in the clothing, architecture, and technology. (There are no telephones, for example.) The filmmakers were trying to create a “mythic” or “fairytale” atmosphere, not tied to any particular time period. The cloth backdrops may be part of that. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/28 "2014-03-06T19:25:51Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Some of that was deliberate. You may also notice a lot of anachronisms in the clothing, architecture, and technology. (There are no telephones, for example.) The filmmakers were trying to create a “mythic” or “fairytale” atmosphere, not tied to any particular time period. The cloth backdrops may be part of that. I seriously doubt that. The painted sky wasn’t merely painted, it was _wrinkled_ – you could see the waviness because it wasn’t taut – something that could’ve been fixed in a short time with some rope and sandbags, as I say above. (If it was to suggest a “fairytale” astmosphere – something the rest of the film wasn’t tryin g to do – it suggests low-rent fairyland.) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/29 "2014-03-06T21:38:13Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > I think both have serious flaws and I wouldn’t call either very sophisticated (though I think the imagery is very strong in both, and the language in the book is pretty good). > > In the book, Frankenstein is made too stupid to interpret the creature’s threats. Now that I think about it, the creature actually comes across as much more sophisticated than its creator. But I think that’s more a consequence of the plot than the intent of the writer. In the crucial plot points, I find it hard to keep from shouting at Victor to stop being so bloody stupid. The book has the monster learning to speak by listening to a peasant in a small home be read aloud to (from _Plutarch_ and Constantin-François de Volney’s _Ruins of Empires_) by a renegade female Turkish aristocrat who is hiding from some Sultan. It’s debatable which is more preposterous - the reading material from which the monster learned to speak or the Turkish aristocrat’s story. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/30 "2014-03-06T23:19:54Z")
Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in England in 1887. The name change reflects how his family felt about having an actor in the family. A mild mannered man who spoke with a slight lisp his hobby was growing roses. He received no onscreen credit for his role nor was he invited to the debut screening. ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/31 "2014-03-07T00:20:32Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in England in 1887. The name change reflects how his family felt about having an actor in the family. > > A mild mannered man who spoke with a slight lisp his hobby was growing roses. > > He received no onscreen credit for his role nor was he invited to the debut screening. I’m pretty sure he is credited in the end credits. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/32 "2014-03-07T03:08:57Z")
> [@randwill](#): > > I’m pretty sure he is credited in the end credits. According to his daughter, Sara, the monster was credited with a question mark. At that time he was unknown to film audiences. www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/five-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-boris- ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/33 "2014-03-07T03:29:21Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > According to his daughter, Sara, the monster was credited with a question mark. At that time he was unknown to film audiences. > > www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/five-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-boris- The Monster is credited with a question mark in the opening credits. In the closing credits, Boris Karloff is fourth billed with his name. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/34 "2014-03-07T03:33:54Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > This thread needs a shout out to Dwight Frye, who played Fritz (and Carl…oh, and let’s not forget his star turn as Renfield!) Let’s also not forget his starring role in the Alice Cooper song. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/35 "2014-03-07T20:30:54Z")
Sounds like Sara Karloff has a poor memory. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299/36 "2014-03-08T16:09:09Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The book has the monster learning to speak by listening to a peasant in a small home be read aloud to (from _Plutarch_ and Constantin-François de Volney’s _Ruins of Empires_) by a renegade female Turkish aristocrat who is hiding from some Sultan. > > It’s debatable which is more preposterous - the reading material from which the monster learned to speak or the Turkish aristocrat’s story. The DeLacey family were dispossessed Parisians in exile for helping Safie’s father escape prison. She is fleeing from his attempts to take her back to Turkey with him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frankenstein-1931-spoilers-i-guess/577299.md?page=1)