I just finished watching “Bride of Frankenstein” on *Svengoolie *(for the thousandth time; great movie!) and it struck me as strange: In the original Mary Shelley novel, the scientist was named Victor Frankenstein. But in both the original 1931 movie *Frankenstein *and the 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, the scientist was named *Henry *Frankenstein. Why the change? It seems rather arbitrary. Was this ever explained anywhere?
(PS - in the Mel Brooks film “Young Frankenstein” the scientist was named Frederick Frankenstein, but he was supposed to be a descendant of the original doctor, so one wouldn’t expect him to have the same first name.)
In the original Universal movie, Frankenstein has a friend whose name is Victor-- Victor Moritz, played by John Boles; maybe that was a nod to the original name. As far as why it was changed, I don’t know, but my best guess is the fact that the movie was set in the present (1931) and not 1816. Henry was a very popular, and gaining, name in 1931, while Victor, which had been popular, was declining. It’s hard to appreciate this in 2016. Anyway, perhaps the name change was done to emphasize the modern-day setting.
The only reason I can guess in the one my 8-year-old brain came up with: what they were doing was something Frankenstein had been specifically told not to do, maybe as a condition of not being tried for his previous exploits. When he set up shop again, he made sure he could get rid of the evidence in a hurry.
We’ll never know. In the book, Frankenstein’s first name was Victor and Clerval’s first name was. . . Henry! Maybe the writers got confused, and just never went back and corrected it.
I forgot about Clerval’s name being Henry. It’s been 30 years since I read it.
It just occurred to me though, that this may have been done in the stage play, which, the 1931 screen play is based on, and the play was written in England when Victoria was queen. That may be the reason right there.
Mary Shelley wrote under George III.
I would have to get a copy of the play to verify that the name switch happened there, though.
There’s a recent Frankenstein film called Victor Frankenstein, starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe. In it, Victor is the one who makes the monster, but he’s motivated over guilt about the death of his brother Henry. So both names play a part in the film.
The lever was obviously something that could be pulled safely and accomplish something IF other things were set differently. Any adventure gamer could tell you that.
I think the folks at Universal thought that “Victor” sounded too foreign to Americans, whereas “Henry” was a friendly, familiar name that they thought audiences could identify with.
In Shelley’s novel, Victor Frankenstein’s friend was Henry Clerval. They just switched the first names of Frankenstein and his friend (although why they switched the last name to “Moritz” is anybody’s guess).
By the way, IIRC, there is no “von” in Frankenstein’s name in Shelley’s novel, nor is there one in his name in the 1931 film. According to Wikipedia, his name shows up on his tombstone in a later entry in the Universal series as “Heinrich von Frankenstein”.
But, of course, they screwed around with the legend shamelessly in the films (In the first film, the laboratory was in a watchtower far from the family home in an unnamed village. In Son of Frankenstein the laboratory, with a convenient (and no doubt smelly) sulfur pit is right behind the family home (which looks completely different from the one in Bride of Frankenstein, which, in turn, looks completely different from the one in Frankenstein), and the village itself is named “Frankenstein”.
And don’t get me started on the rest of it.
I want to say, although I can’t prove it, that the name change first appeared in one of the plays–possibly Peggy Webling’s play on which the Universal screenplay was based. This is one of those things I feel like I read somewhere at some time. How’s that for a rock-solid cite?
You’re right that there was no “Von” until Son of Frankenstein. For that matter, in Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was not a Baron, either (nor was his father). They were a prominent family, but not nobility. He was also not a doctor, despite people sometimes calling him “Dr. Frankenstein.” He was in his first year at the University of Ingolstadt–the equivalent of a college freshman–when he created the Monster.
I don’t recall, myself. One of my books at home has the cast list for Webling’s play – I’ll have to check it and see.
The way the screenplay was written for the Universal “Frankenstein” makes sausage making look like a straightforward and wholesome process. It supposedly started with Webling’s play (which she wrote for Hamilton Deane’s acting company, the same bunch that dramatized “Dracula” – Deane played, in his time, Dracula, Von Helsing, and the Frankenstein monster, although he wasn’t the original or the most famous of those doing it for his company). Unlike “Dracula”, which got revamped (heh!) by John Balderston for Broadwayy, then rewritten again by Balderstoin for the screen, Frankenstein went through a period of “development” where Robert Florey took a crack at it, getting it thoroughly wrong, then Garrett Fort took it up, and finally John Balderston (who called Webling’s original play “illiterate”). There might be a couple of other hands in there that I missed.
In any event, Webling’s play was a period piece, set at the time Shelley wrote her novel. Pictures of the stage play show people in period costume. By the time everyone at Universal got through with it, it was set in the present day, with modern electrical devices and the like, and the Frankenstein family background was completely changed. so it wouldn’t surprise me if the shift from “Victor” to “Henry” took place at that time.
I haven’t read Webling’s play, by the way, but I’d love to. Several years ago David J. Skal published a book having both the original Hamilton Deane script and Balderston’s rewrite (although I already had that – it’s easy to get from anyplace that sells Broadway scripts), and you can compare the two – they’re extremely different. Somebody needs to do the same with as many versions of the Frankenstein script as they can get hold of. The Universal Script that has been published only has the final shooting script.
As I said, it’s a pretty vague memory. I may be thinking of the Mina/Lucy name switch in the Deane-Balderston Dracula play.
I like what film historian Tom Weaver says about the setting/time period of the Universal films: they take place in their own nether-worldish sort of “Universal-land.” That’s why you can have films set in middle Europe through the late 30s and early 40s with no hint of Nazis or war, where the population wear contemporary business suits and drive modern automobiles, and yet still fearfully recite ancient superstitions and werewolf rhymes as if they’re codified legal codes, and occasionally break out into spontaneous medieval harvest festivals.
