It has been a very long time since I have watched the old Frankenstein movies put out by Universal Pictures in the 1930s and 1940s. Was the monster supposed to be particularly strong or hard to kill? I don’t remember any particular strength or durability feats right now. Any info would be appreciated!
Well from the movies he’s shown as strong and lumbering, and having some relative resistance to pain.
[hijack]In the novel though, he’s portrayed as highly intelligent, and if I recall he could speak a few different languages. [/hijack]
In the movie, he’s made from the corpse of a large man, so he’s strong. But he’s childlike and can’t control that strength, and he has the revived brain of a condemned murderer.
[Gene Wilder, chuckling amiably]
“Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?” Is THAT what you’re TELLING ME?"
[/Gene Wilder]
Sed - a - give …
It depends on which movie you’re watching, really. In the first film, Frankenstein from 1931, the Monster is portrayed as fairly big and strong, but there’s no particular indication that he’s any stronger than a human being of comparable size would be. He is just as vulnerable to sedatives (or sedagives, if you will) as an ordinary person, and he only survives the windmill fire at the end of the film by falling into an underground cistern full of water.
In Bride of Frankenstein, in 1935, the Monster was vulnerable to bullets (he is shot in the arm, and clearly feels pain because of it). He is chained up at one point, but is able to break free of the chains fairly easily. So his strength has apparently begun to increase.
By the time of Son of Frankenstein, in 1939, Basil Rathbone gives the Monster a medical examination and pronounces him “completely superhuman.” He has “two bullets in his heart, but he still lives.” His blood cells “seem to be battling one another, as if they had a conscious life of their own.” Ygor states definitively, “He cannot die. Your father make him live for always.” Toward the end of the film, Inspector Krogh shoots him point blank in the chest, and he doesn’t even seem to notice.
I would say that the Monster is kind of like Superman, and a lot of similar fantasy characters. That is, he started out relatively normal, and then his “powers,” if you will, got increased with each subsequent appearance. By the later films in the series, they weren’t even bothering to explain how the Monster survived his “death” at the end of the previous film. Everybody just sort of took it for granted that he was indestructible.
Fascinating! Thanks for the info.
Excluding Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the movies pretty much found the monster where the prior film left him. And, except for House of Dracula, the movies also attempted to explain the Wolfman resurrections. It was Dracula who kept coming back with no explanation.
And let’s not forget the Hammer films starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the Monster. In “Curse of Frankenstein” Cushing shoots the Monster midway through the film and says that he can easily bring him back after killing him, and in the Hammer series the Monster seems to have superhuman strength. You didn’t mention this, but I noticed Colin Clive’s portrayal of the infamous scientist is one of a basically good man who is completely consumed with the idea of creating artificial life. Peter Cushing plays Dr. Frankenstein as a very arrogant amoral man who is not necessarily evil but one who has NO QUALMS about letting anything stop him from creating the Monster (even if that includes committing murder in order to get the proper brain).
His greatest strength was in his amazing schwanzschtücker.
Wherewolf!
True, but my point was, there wasn’t any particular explanation for how he lived through whatever supposedly “killed” him in the prior film. How did he survive falling into boiling sulphur? He just did. How did he survive being frozen in ice? He just did. How did he survive being swept away by a flood? He just did. How did he survive being burned alive (in Ghost of Frankenstein)? He just did. There was no real explanation offered beyond, “He’s the Frankenstein Monster, so he lived through it.”
The beginning of Bride of Frankenstein, where we see that the Monster fell into an underground cistern below the burning windmill from the end of the previous film, is the only situation where a normal person might plausibly have survived in a similar circumstance. All of the Monster’s other returns more or less rely on his inherent indestructibility.
I read the book not that long ago.
Not only is the monster very strong and highly intelligent, he is also extremely agile - able to scale impossible cliffs with inhuman speed.
He also has an uncanny ability to pursue his maker no matter where he flees.
He is portrayed as a type of tragic demon.
It’s a gread book.
I highly recommend it.
Yeah, the book monster is way different than the movie monster. Didn’t she at one point describe the monster as carrying guns? The way the monster is able to follow Victor around makes the book feel to me more like a written nightmare than anything else.
OK.
I’ll say it.
Frau Blucher.
In a PB novel authorized by Universal, “The Shadow of Frankenstein”, the “Great Ray” which Henry (yes, I know) Frankenstein used to animate the Monster causes infinite cellular regeneration. Henry has learned to re-animate the dead & revive organs & limbs with lesser doses which do not have the same power. The Monster hopes that Henry can drain him to be truly dead.
I was skeptical but it was a pretty good novel. Henry & the Monster ally against a possibly immortal serial killer who was Jack the Ripper who keeps going by eating a uterine stew recipe developed by the Sawney Beane clan. Also, Henry finds out the history of “Abby Normal”.
Whinny!
I think it was in Son of Frankenstein where the doctor’s secret was an electromagnetic ray (I think it was even described as in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum) which conveyed the life-force, which could revive the dead and perhaps even convey immortality. In the movies that followed, it was stated that he had discovered the secret to immortality.
I think in one of the Toho movies, the monster is destroyed except for his heart, which is described as immortal. He regenerates a complete new body from that.
Sorry.
Don’t remember anything about guns.
The monster does use a dog sled though.
Which struck me as a rather unmonstery image.
(That’s when the monster is actually being pursued by Dr. Frankenstein, who has sworn to kill his creation. So it was probably Frankenstein, not the monster, who was packing heat.)