Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and
Hey friends. If I sound a little bit unusual today,
I am recording in a different place than usual. My
audio setup's a little different, So if if you hear
anything different, that's the reason why. In fact, I'm recording
from my secret laboratory. Because I'm so excited today we're
going to be talking about the nineteen thirty nine Universal
(00:37):
monster film Son of Frankenstein. This was a great pick.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Rob, Yeah, this is a lot. This film is a
lot of fun and for Weird House Cinema, it's our
return to the nineteen thirties. This is only the fourth
film from the nineteen thirties that we've talked about on
the show. We previously talked about nineteen thirty five's Mad Love,
then nineteen thirty two's Doctor X, and then most recently
last year, I believe, nineteen thirty five's Bride of Frankenstein.
(01:02):
Today's film is the sequel to that motion picture.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
The treequel, if you will, And this is really exciting
because Bride of Frankenstein is one of my favorite horror movies.
If you've heard the episode we did on that, a
lot of it was just gushing about how much I
love the film. And I had always read that the
Universal follow up, Son of Frankenstein was a lot better
than you might expect from a third movie in the series.
Until this week, I had never seen it, and Wow,
(01:28):
I was blown away. I love Son of Frankenstein. Not
only is it great, not only is it worthy of
the Frankenstein line. I think I probably like it better
than the original Frankenstein as well. I think it's not
quite at the level of Bride, but it's like the
very next tier down. It might be now my third
or perhaps even second favorite Universal monster movie.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, it's really quite a testament to how good it is,
you know, because we've talked about the problem with sequels,
the challenge of sequels in the past, like how do
you capture that man? And like most most films don't
work the first time around, but then to actually strike
gold and then come back and equal or exceed the
previous film, like that's quite an accomplishment. And then to
(02:11):
have the gall to come back and do a third one,
you know, the odds are not with you. So I
have heard from a lot of people that have said, yeah,
this one is better than the original Frankenstein. It's more
fun or whatever, you know, caveats you want to put
on it, But yeah, I would agree. It doesn't. It
doesn't really top the glory of Bride but you and
(02:32):
then at the same time, it also you know, it
doesn't really do much in the way of digging back
through unused morsels from Mary Shelley's novel. It doesn't dive
too deep into the themes of the original work, but
we do end up with a very entertaining, at times
very comedic, but also weird, fresh film that is still
(02:54):
a logical continuation of the series, full of great sets,
great cinematography, and a lot of fun performances.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, I would agree. I think it probably doesn't have
as much in the way of profound themes as the
first two movies do because they interact more with the
original source material. Like you were saying, there's not much
of Mary Shelley in Son of Frankenstein, and yet it's
just fantastic. It's just a wild, fun ride full of
(03:21):
zany characters and great scenes, great dialogue, and Bella Lagosi
in a performance I can't believe I've never seen before. Like,
having been a Bella Lagosi fan, I don't know how
I was without his igor in this movie. It's one
of his best ever.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Absolutely just terrific performance, and it's not the only scene
stealing performance in this picture.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Really.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
My only complaint, and it's a small one, concerning Son
of Frankenstein, is that it maybe feels a bit long
for a nineteen thirties monster film. It clocks in at
an hour and thirty nine minutes, whereas the original Frankenstein
was an hour in ten and Bride was an hour
and fifteen. As my wife observed she watched it with me,
as did my son. They could have maybe done with
(04:06):
a few cuts to the many hatch and door opening
scenes and maybe maybe got that runtime down just a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I agree that it's a little bit longer than you
might expect, but at the same time, it feels pretty
tight to me. I agree. Yeah, there are a few
like hatch opening scenes, I guess, but it is not
padded out. I mean, this is not it conquered the
world with driving scenes and so forth. We're not spending
time parking the car.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right and it is a great hatch, is what this?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Guess?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, quick schedule change. Note you might be some of
you might be wondering, why are y'all talking about this
nineteen thirties horror movie. Aren't you supposed to be talking
about a nineteen nineties Cthulhu movie. Well, we had to
switch up in the schedule, but don't worry, and we'll
come back in the future with some other Cthulhu mythos
movie to make up for it. All right, so let's
get back into Son of Frankenstein, and my elevator pitch
(04:57):
for this one is just Frankenstein the next generation.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Wait, in that analogy, is Basil Rathbone the Picard or
is he more the riker?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Hmm, that's a great question. We'll have to chew on
that one as we received. All right, let's hear just
a little bit of that classic trailer audio. I think
we have some fun narration in this.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Twenty years ago in the barony of Frankenstein, a monster
created by man stalk through the country, being and killing.
In time, Frankenstein, maker of the monster, died, the monster disappeared.
Now after twenty years, the Son of Frankenstein returns and
fear grips the village an a man tainted by the
(05:43):
blood of his father can forget his human soul and
carry on the diabolical work of the Frankenstein. As a man,
I should destroy.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Him, but as a scientist, I should do everything in
my power to bring him back to conscious life and
some ton on the generator.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All right, So if you're excited for this one, now,
if you've never seen Son of Frankenstein and you want
to watch it, or you want to rewatch it before
getting into the rest of this episode, well we encourage
you to do so. This is a universal monster movie,
so it is widely available in physical and digital formats
of all kinds, including universals Frankenstein Complete Legacy Collection box
(06:29):
set that's eight movies plus extras. For folks looking to
stream it in the States, I believe it's currently on Peacock,
but you know, check that out for yourself and see.
I see if you can find it somewhere that you like.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
I streamed it on the Big River and the quality
was good.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay, all right, I watched this one on the big screen,
which is pretty exciting. I don't think I've actually done
that for a weird house cinema before I saw it
with friends and family at Atlanta's historic Plaza Theater, presented
as part of the Silver Screens Spook Show series. It's
pretty great in two major ways. So first of all,
Professor Morte and company come out and they do this
(07:11):
fun pre show full of gags and puppets and terrible jokes,
a whole lot of fun. And we caught them the matinee,
so it was all kid friendly, very halloweeny. And secondly,
it's a real I thought it was just a real
treat to see a nineteen thirty nine film in a
movie theater that opened in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, I'm not sure if Son of Frankenstein ever played
at the Plaza back in thirty nine. I looked around.
I couldn't find any really good resources for this kind
of research. But I'll tell you in twenty twenty four,
it looked just tremendous on the big screen, like it's
just such a well shot picture and the film quality,
and know it's been so beautifully restored. It's just just pristine.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
The Plaza really is one of the treasures of Atlanta,
so it is so wonderful.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, and so Yeah. If you're visiting Atlanta or you
live here, go check out the Plaza. Check them out
at Plaza Atlanta dot com. They have lots of fun programming,
including Silver Scream spook shows. There's also Plaza Drome that's
a partnership that they have with Videodrome. And next week alone,
the week following the original publication of this episode, they're
(08:22):
playing a Ramsey Brothers Bollywood horror film and Beyond the
Black Rainbow. So it's you know, if you like our
show and you have access to this theater, there are
plenty of reasons to go there.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
They are really operating on your frequency, Rob.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I know, they just they won't They really won't be
back in. I'm going to get back in, all right.
Shall we get into the people behind this picture?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Ah?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, I guess we should. Now. One thing that you
might assume if you haven't seen the movie yet and
you just look at the creative names behind it, you
might assume a big problem would be where's James Whylee? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I think that that is one of the things that's
often pointed out in at least reviews, if not criticism
of the film is we have to move on from
James Whale at this point, and it's another director taking
the film. It is Roland V. Lee, who lived eighteen
ninety one through nineteen seventy five, an American director and producer,
an established name at this point, having directed since I
(09:25):
believe nineteen twenty and written, produced nearly and produced nearly
as long. This was his only horror film, however, coming
off of a number of historical adventures and comedies, including
nineteen thirty fours The Count of Money Cristo, nineteen thirty
seven's Love from a Stranger that would starred Basil Rathbone
as well nineteen thirty nine's Tower of London, which had
both Rathbone and Carloff in it, and his last directorial
(09:49):
credit was nineteen forty five's Captain Kidd, after which he
retired to run a ranch. But I believe he returned
at one point in nineteen fifty nine to produce and
do some writing on a film called The Big Fisherman. Also,
he was a founding member of the Screen Directors Guild.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Incredibly big shoes to Phil coming in after James, Well,
but I don't know. To me, this movie feels directed
with extreme confidence. There is just such a strong, steady
storytelling hand at the helm with a great sense of humor.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, And it's all the more amazing when you read
a little bit about the problems with the screenplay and
the challenges with the screenplay running into this. So the
screenplay is credited to Willis Cooper, who lived eighteen ninety
nine through nineteen fifty five. This is a guy who
created an old time radio horror show called lights Out
(10:40):
that ran from thirty four through forty seven. His other story,
screenwriting and dialogue credits include a few Mister Moto movies
and the nineteen thirty nine serial The Phantom Creeps Now Again,
Son of Frankenstein. Apparently had a lot of script problems.
Cooper's initial script was rejected, and Lee had numerous issues
with the script as production proceeded. Apparently even as they
(11:01):
were shooting it. They were apparently still writing pages minutes
before the film rolled, and Lee himself was in there
doing some of the writing uncredited. So I mean that
in some pictures that would be a recipe for chaos
and disaster, but it works here, and we'll get into
some of the ways that it works really well as
we proceed.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
That's wild. It doesn't feel like that. It feels tight.
It feels tight and well considered, and all the scenes
feel constructed with the overall arc of the story in mind.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, and it could be based on what I was reading,
it could be that, like, it wasn't a situation where
they necessarily threw everything out. They kind of kept to
the basic bones. They'd shift characters, they'd change characters, but
you know they maybe they were making just very deliberate
choices every time they changed something and made sure that
they weren't just completely jackknifing the vehicle.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I'm seriously impressed.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
We'll mention in passing here that, of course, this is
ultimately based on the work of Mary Shelley, who lived
seventeen ninety seven through eighteen fifty one, the English writer
responsible for a good seven novels and multiple short stories,
but her first eighteen eighteen's Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus,
this is the one that made her a legend. This
is the book that kind of gave birth to so
(12:24):
much in gothic horror and certainly science fiction. It's almost
impossible to overstate the importance of this book in general,
and of course without this book we wouldn't have this movie.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, and we talk at length about the importance of
Mary Shelley in the history of science fiction and horror
in the episode we did on Bride of Frankenstein, so
check that one out too. In fact, I think that's
going to be rerunning soon, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yes, it is rerunning this October. I'm not sure where
it's going to fall on either side of this publication,
but look out for it. You don't have to do
too much of digging in order to listen to our
Bride episode again.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, but big, big Mary Shelley fan here.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, it's a tremendous book. If you haven't read it,
you don't be afraid of that publication date. It stands
the test of time, all right. There are a number
of other names that we have discussed on the show before,
some in right of Frankenstein, and of course the big
one literally is the monster himself, played by Boris Karloff,
who lived eighteen eighty seven through nineteen sixty nine. I
(13:26):
won't go into as much detail here since we have
covered Karloff multiple times for different films that he's appeared in,
but British actor born William Henry Pratt. Boris Karloff was
his stage name. His credits go all the way back
to nineteen nineteen, and he already had a long filmography
by the time of nineteen thirty One's Frankenstein came around,
(13:47):
which of course really put him on the map in
the horror genre and helped make him a legend. And
he appeared in various other horror films as well, which
is nineteen thirty four is the Black Cat, Do's The Mummy. This,
of course is the last time that he appears as
Frankenstein's monster in a feature film. I think he would
(14:07):
do like a little one offs here for TV, you know,
a handful, but this is the last time he truly
played the monster.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Now, I will have almost exclusively positive things to say
about this movie, but I think one fair criticism you
could make about Son of Frankenstein is that it signals,
in a way, a retreat from the complexity and the
pathos that were imbued on the monster in both of
the two previous films, in the original and then especially
(14:37):
in Bride, where the monster becomes so interesting and pitiable,
and you know, you get that section in the middle
of the movie where he lives with the old man
in the cottage, and then you get his conclusion at
the end when he decides that we belong dead. The
version of Karloff's Monster that appears in Son of Frankenstein
(14:59):
is very psychologically stripped down compared to that. I mean,
he has some interesting moments, and you can see Karloff
really giving the character probably more than is even on
the page. Like there is a scene where he confronts
Basil Rathbone for the first time and he reaches up
as if he's deciding whether to kill him or to
(15:21):
embrace him, and he doesn't know which he should do,
and so Karloff is, i think, bringing his own stuff.
It almost feels like to what's there. I think maybe
one of the weakest things about the movie though, is
that they did away with a lot of the complexity
that the monster earned already in this series.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I absolutely agree. So we don't see any of
these moments. Aside from the scene you highlighted, there aren't
really any scenes of like real transcendence with the creature.
Both of the previous films had some really haunting moments
that he might forget. If you haven't seen the film
in a while, I'll also note that the other big
(16:01):
difference with the monster this time around still looks great.
Makeup still is tremendous, Karloff still shines through. But the
monster also has this big furry coat on which, you know,
it's a different looks he's winnerized.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
He's dressed like Trumpy from Pod People. Yeah, you know,
he's got that furry coat.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
All right. Next up we have barn Wolf von Frankenstein.
This is the titular son of Frankenstein played by Basil Rathlone.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You know, there are multiple sons of Frankenstein in the
movie though, because Basil Rathbune plays the son of Henry Frankenstein,
Henry being the movies version of Victor Frankenstein from the novel,
and then also Wolf Frankenstein. Basil Rathbone has a son
in the movie, Peter Frankenstein, who is his son. And
(16:52):
then there's also discussion of whether or not the monster
should be thought of as Henry Frankenstein's other sons. Is
the monster Basil Rathbone's brother, So it's just a SunFest
Sons abound.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
They could have called it Sons of Frankenstein and that
would that would have been a great title. I don't know. Yeah,
so anyway, this is this is the biological sun of
the original Frankenstein again, Baron Wolf von Frankenstein Uh played
by Basil Rathbone. Basil Rathbone lived eighteen ninety two through
nineteen sixty seven. Famed British actor who we've previously discussed
(17:29):
on the show for his roles in nineteen sixty Two's
The Magic Sword in nineteen sixty six is Queen of Blood.
But that's a that's a much older Basil Rathbone that
we were talking about there. Here we get to see
him in his prime, you know, coming off of a
lot of like swashbuckling stuff. You know, he's even got
that nice pencil thin mustache going on. Oh yeah, and
(17:52):
he gets to buckle some swash late in the picture,
you know.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
He does he swings.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, so it you know, it's it's impossible not to
compare his performance to, of course, that of Colin Clive
in the previous two films who played the original Victor Frankenstein. Clive,
of course was Henry in the movies. Yes, sorry, Colin
Clive was tremendous. He had just such amazing frantic energy.
(18:21):
But Basil Rathbone I think that's a pretty great job
getting somewhere near that level without because he's also not
supposed to completely embrace the madness of his father, or
at least not immediately, Like that's part of the substance
of the film. It's like, to what extent are you
going to step into your father's shoes and be the
(18:42):
man he was for you know, good or for bad.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Bazil Rathbone does well with this role because it's written
in a way that you might say contains contradictions, Like,
ultimately he's a quite sympathetic character, and yet he behaves
in ways that are really not I don't know if
you like just described his scene to scene behavior. A
lot of it is not very sympathy, earning the way
he is just so defensive about his father's legacy, and
(19:09):
he's dismissive of you know, oh, all these peasants afraid
of monsters. Bah. He is defensive and shows insufficient concern
for others at many times, and you could argue as
even vainglorious to some extent, and yet in the end
you don't think of him as one of those protagonist villains.
Ultimately you're on his side.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah, yeah, And he You know, there's a nice lead
up to him doing any mad science. You know, it
starts off more as a gentlemanly curiosity about these things,
and then it becomes increasingly personal and obsessive.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah all, but oh.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
As we previously alluded to, this film also features the
legendary Bela Lagosi, who lived eighteen eighty two through nineteen
fifty six. This, of course, is the Hungarian American actor
and classic horror icon best known for his portray of
Dracula in the nineteen thirty one Universal Horror Film, which
of course came on the heels of a Broadway play
(20:07):
based on the novel Dracula from I Believe twenty seven,
and his success as Draka led to a number of
additional horror films. This is interesting though. One of the
things about Legosi's career, though, of course, is there's often
an uneven and even downward trajectory. There are a number
of issues that kind of derailed his career, especially late
(20:29):
in life, and in fact, this film apparently occurs at
a point of decline as well. His part in this
apparently wasn't even in the original screenplay, and when the
character of Igor that's with a why was initially added
It was a very small part for apparently little pay,
(20:49):
almost an insulting level of pay, many thought for someone
of Lagosi's stature and his talent. And so the director
of the story goes Lee here stood up for Lago
and as much of the shooting script was again being
written and prepared last minute, he was able to continually
beef up Legosi's role, giving him more and more dialogue,
making his character more and more important. Because ultimately, instead
(21:14):
of getting like just a Toady or a Hinchman here,
or just a you know, sort of like the crazy
old hermit character, instead we end up positioning Bella Lagosi's
igor as really the central antagonist of the picture.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Oh. I can't believe this movie was ever envisioned without him.
He's the star of the show. It is a scene
stealer every time. Every time he comes on screen, I
would just light up, like, oh, here he is again.
I'm so excited. And his scenes are great again. It
does not have the feeling of something thrown together at
the last minute. His scenes feel like the core texture
(21:50):
of this movie.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah yeah, and I mean it even brings up some
deeper concepts about the overarching themes of Frankenstein, which'll get
into Yeah, he's yeah, so he has some of the
trappings of henchman, but he's also like a satanic antagonist,
a tempter that is luring bearn Wolf von Frankenstein into
(22:13):
deeper experimentation with his father's legacy.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, and there are just so many moments where it's
the perfect pairing of an ominously understated line in terms
of the words with Legosi's predatory delivery, like that part
where he's talking about how the monster is his friend
and then he just says he does things for me.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Those things are murder, as we will learn.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
But yeah, I mean, if Legosi was actually feeling i
don't know, demeaned or depressed about this role, it does
not come through in the movie. He seems like he
is having a ball.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah. That's my understanding is that he was greatly appreciative
of everything that Lee did for him here and giving
him more to work with and letting him go beyond
just mere you know, villain stuff getting into comedy. Like
there's there's some really funny moments from this character and
virous other characters in this picture.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
When he coughs on the guy in the testimony scene
that was laughing so hard. Sorry, I cough.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Apparently in earlier versions of the script, the Inspector was
the primary antagonist.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Hmmm, that's funny because the Inspector comes off quite honorable
in the final telling.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yes, and is also just a tremendous scene stealing performance
as well. This is Inspector Krogue, played by the Great
Lionel Atwell, who lived eighteen eighty five through nineteen forty six.
This is an English and American actor of stage and
screen who is perhaps best remembered today for his roles
in various horror films, because he was some in some
(23:53):
pretty notable ones, including nineteen thirty two's Doctor X, which
we talked about on the show, Oh, the Original, nineteen
thirty three, The History of the Wax Museum, as well
as assorted Frankenstein, Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes movies of the era.
He even got to play Professor Moriarty at one point.
He was active in universal horror for quite a bit there.
(24:14):
Personal scandal ended up relegating him to mostly smaller roles
in smaller pictures for the last several years of his
life and career, but he's great here portraying this proud
and proper inspector who lost an arm to the monster
as a child. And this is one of those performances
where every scene involving the character is worth watching for
(24:36):
all sorts of just little performance details, like little momentary
shifts in his facial expression, as well as all of
these grandiose manipulations of his prosthetic arm. So between this
performance and Legosi's igor performance, oh man, it's just this
is such a feast.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, packing in the oddball characters, because again, you might
get the wrong impression about this guy from the role
he plays in the plot that he's like the you know,
the arm of the law. He's the police investigator, and
he's portrayed as mostly honorable and upright, and yet he
is eccentric to the max. Like every scene he does
(25:14):
something really weird.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, there's there are a lot of gags with the
prosthetic arm, but but they're not they're not like super
goofy gags, Like they're all very much in character for
this very prim and proper man who believes that if
not for this accident, not an accident, if not for
this attack that he suffered as a child. He would
(25:36):
be a general, he would be he would be a
man of far more importance in the world. But he
still holds himself up as if he does have this,
this this true purpose in life.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
You know, if not for Boris Karloff, I would be Napoleon.
Yeah and uh. And there are these these little moments,
like the scene where he does the little heel click
at Basil Rathbone, or Rathbone tries to do it back
at him, but he just stares at him because like
Rathbone didn't do it right, so he has to click
his heels again.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
So good, all right, let's see Son of Frankenstein also
has a wife, and this is an American wife, Elsa
von Frankenstein, played by Josephine Hutchinson.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Elsa von Frankenstein doesn't sound like a character written as
an American.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, it might have. This is one of those things
that might have changed as they were moving through the
production process. So she's played by American actress Josephine Hutchinson,
perhaps best known for supporting roles in nineteen fifty nine
is North By Northwest, and she'd previously co starred in
the nineteen thirty four musical Happiness Ahead. That was her
first feature film. Coming off of stage work. She worked
(26:56):
a lot on TV up until nineteen seventy four, I believe,
appearing on such shows as the original Twilight Zone.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
In several scenes throughout the movie, she's sort of the
presence that is helping to pull Basil Rathbone back from
the brink, you know, from going too far with his experiments.
She's sort of a voice of goodness and reason and
interest for their family at least, though it's interesting also
that she's portrayed as like not personally being very excited
(27:23):
about moving to wherever this is Transylvania, or it's not Transylvania,
you know, wherever this is supposed to take place, the
village of Frankenstein, which is just surrounded by this barren,
horrible landscape of dead trees. And she clearly is not
excited about that. But she's game, you know, She's like,
I'm gonna give it a try. We're gonna see if
this works.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Dead trees and intense lightning storms. Yes, And they've of
course brought their son, this is son of Frankenstein or
grandson of Frankenstein's, anyhow you want to describe him.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
This is the son of Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yes, this is Peter von Frankenstein, played by Donnie Dunnaghan
born nineteen thirty four and as of this recording still
still still very much out there retired now. He was
a child actor of the late thirties and forties who
also appeared in Tower of London. He also most famously
was the voice of young Bambie in the nineteen forty
(28:18):
two Walt Disney animated film Uh Yeah, Yeah, Okay Yeah.
Texas born and I believe at the time based out
of Memphis, Tennessee. Something that becomes very obvious with this
performance because his father is British his mother is American,
but with kind of like what a transatlantic kind of
(28:40):
accent going on. Little Peter, though, has a very loud
and at times difficult to understand thick Southern accent, Like what.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Is going on with his accent? There is one part
where he's saying his prayers before bed and he says
the word aim and I don't know how many syllables
are in the word amen when he says it. It's
a lot. He is The accent is is nuts, but
it but also I love this kid's presence. It's like
(29:13):
it doesn't really fit realistically, but it's so much fun
every time he starts talking.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, and to be clear, if we're not shaming Southern accents,
Lord knows, we don't sound pretty plenty Southern to many
of you.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, but it just feels wildly out of place. And
I've read that the actor here, looking back on his time,
he says like a part of it was that the
director kept telling him to speak his lines louder and
these big cavernous sets that they were using, and that
just ended up enhancing his Southern accent, like you just
having to act act louder, and that just made him
(29:49):
more Southern sounding. Yeah, but it's yeah, it is a
wild performance. It's like that thick Southern accent going along
with the sort of I guess surely temp as precociousness
of the actor and the character.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
With the super curly hair. So yeah, but yes, so
you get these exchanges where it's like Basil Rathbone being like, yes, son,
what do you what have you been doing? And then
it's like I've been out hunting there.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it is alarming. The the the audience in
the theater didn't didn't know what to make of this
at times. But but yeah, Donnie.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I wouldn't change it for the world. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
But Donnie done again. He apparently had a kind of
a challenging time after this picture, but ultimately, as an adult,
ended up joining the Marine Corps served in Vietnam uh
and has since his his his time as a as
a marine, has done a lot of interviews about Bambie,
about this film, about his time as a child actor,
(30:48):
and and you know, answered a lot of questions about it,
and also mentioned that he was terrified of letting anybody
know that he was the voice of Bambi when he
was in the Marines, because he's like, if they find out,
that will be nickname and I just can't have that.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Oh no, yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Right, Well, we mentioned the look of this film being
so spectacular, so I want to briefly call out the
director of photography, George Robinson, who lived eighteen ninety through
nineteen fifty eight. Yeah, he also worked on Tower of London,
forty two's The Mummy's Tomb, various Frankenstein and Dracula sequels,
and even nineteen fifty five's Tarantula. And likewise, we have
set decoration by Russell A. Gossman who lived eighteen ninety
(31:25):
two through nineteen sixty three, who won Oscars for his
work on nineteen forty four's Phantom of the Opera in
nineteen sixty one Spartacus. He also worked on a number
of other major and minor universal horror films.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Was Tarantula, the spider movie we covered that had a
spider getting really big and attacking a town, and they
discovered that the secret to defeating it was explosives.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, via Eastwood showing up at the
end in a jet.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah that's right, Clint Eastwood flying a jet fighter.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah yeah, let's see. The makeup is once more by A.
Jack P. Pierce who lived eighteen eighty nine through nineteen
sixty eight. Monster makeup legend who worked on all so
many great films of this era. Twenty eight's The Man
Who Laughs, thirty one's Dracula, thirty twos, The Mummy, thirty
three is The Invisible Man, nineteen forty one's The Wolf Man,
and so much more so again legend and master of
(32:20):
the craft. His credits run really deep. And then finally,
the music is by Frank Skinner who lived eighteen ninety
seven through nineteen sixty eight, five time OSCAR nominated composer.
His genre scores include The Wolfman, Various Mummy, and Invisible Movies,
nineteen fifty five is Revenge of the Creature and more.
I have to admit, like when I was watching the film,
I really didn't think much about the music. The music
(32:42):
just kind of felt like what I expected of a
picture like this. But we were chatting with my son afterwards,
who had never seen a Frankenstein movie before and hasn't
really seen much in the way of I don't think
he may have never seen a black and white film before,
so it was a first in many ways. He said
that he thought the music made it scarier, So kudos
(33:03):
to Frank Skinner. It is an effective score.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, you know, there are actually some parts with some
important diegetic music in the plot, because we see Bella
Lagosi standing in the window playing his whatever instrument this is.
It looks like a cross between like a clarinet and
a horn of some kind. I don't know what that is,
but I think he's standing there playing creepy music as
an alibi. So he's like always doing that while the
(33:28):
monster is out killing somebody, so he can't be blamed.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Oh god, these scenes of what is it he's playing
like clarinet or some.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Sort of Yeah, I don't know, that's what I was saying.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Some weird mountain flute. But you we get those great
scenes of Igor playing it.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Love it. By the way, you mentioned Jack P. Pierce
doing the makeup effects. I guess it must have been him.
But whoever did Bela Legosi's teeth in this movie needed
an oscar? These are some good He almost has fangs
they or maybe they are fangs, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean's he is almost a monster in
and on himself. He's just like as close to like
he almost looks like a wolf man like. I think
they realize there's a line. We can only go so
far here, and then we're in a two monster film
and we can only have one monster in this picture.
But they bring it right up to the line with
this character design.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
All right, well, do you want to talk about the plot?
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
The very first thing we see is an exterior shot
of a town square with mountains in the background holding
a dark castle on top, and then in the foreground
we see this winding wall topped with spires gate of
you know, these vertical posts like a palisade gate and
then a gatehouse with a roof that just curves like calligraphy,
(34:43):
And the columns and the archway surrounding the gate are
not straight up and down or horizontal. They're tapered and tilted,
as if the set designer were like a Peter Watts
vampire allergic to right angles. And this seems to be
laid out in the style of lightly reminiscent of German
expressionist horror films like The Cabinet of Doctor Kaligari, which
(35:06):
strives not for strict realism and set decoration, but for
these kind of warped geometries that express feelings and ideas
rather than the natural forms of real objects. Now, the
geometric weirdness in Son of Frank is nowhere near as
extreme as it is in Caligari and other real German
expressionist films, but we are in for some unusual angles
(35:29):
and slopes in this bleak world. So I think you
might call the visual style of this movie somewhere in
between your classic universal Gothic horror cinema cinema style and
half expressionist.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, Yeah, it's it's really interesting because the sets are gorgeous,
you could almost never mistake them for an actual interior space,
you know, like this doesn't you know, this is not
a location, this is a set. But they also don't
feel surreal like they can. You can look at them
and be like, Okay, you know, I'm buying this as
(36:01):
a physical space. But again, it's if you start thinking
too hard about like what kind of room is this,
Like what are these twin balconies, like eagle shaped balconies
over the dinner table and so forth.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, the breakfast room with the turrets in it.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing. It's highly effective, very dramatic.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
And some of this all, some of this weird architecture
is also done with shadows where you would place So
you might have a room with a fairly normal logical
staircase in it, but the placement of lights in the
room causes the shadow of that staircase to to like
fall crazily up the side of the wall in a
way that it never would in a real dwelling. But
(36:43):
just because you've got the light source in such an
odd place, the shadows are are extremely unusual and create
that expression this feeling again. But anyway, so we open
on this locale and we zoom in on the gate
here and it reads engong ver boat and entry pit,
and above that in wraught iron letters, it says Frankenstein.
(37:05):
And then we pan over to a broken window nearby
and see somebody looming in the window. Who is that?
Is that bela Lugosi staring out?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, that's Igor creeping. He does a lot of creeping.
He's a great creep.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Oh yeah. So a gaggle of cringing, benighted villagers come
up the hill. They're like literally kind of like hunched
over and looking up in terror, as if like, you know,
dragon's gonna come out of the sky at any moment.
They're they're bringing a wooden cart piled with sticks with
them up the hill. And two of the villagers are
young boys. They're full of mischief and bravado, and one
(37:38):
of them is like, are you afraid? And the other
one says, of old Igor nah, And then they're gonna
chuck a rock through the window, But as soon as
they look up and see Igor peering down at them,
they just scream and run away. Soon after, on a
dark night with rain pouring down. We join the proceedings
of a town council of some kind. There is a
guy who looks like a judge at a raised bench.
(38:01):
I think this guy might be the character called the
Burgomeister sort of. I think that means basically like the mayor,
you know, the master of the Burg. Then you've got
several old men wearing ceremonial hats, a police inspector with
a monocle, this is Lionel atwell, and a handful of
assorted Hrumphy codgers puffing on pipes.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, some of these guys were in previous Frankenstein films.
But yeah, the number of great, great looking character actors
in here, a lot of big heads and elongated heads.
It's a fun crowd, a.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Lot of I never yeah. Yes. So the situation of
this meeting is that the old Baron Henry Frankenstein has
died of natural causes, it seems, and left everything to
his adult son, the now Baron Wolf von Frankenstein, who
is abroad in America. So Wolf has inherited the dank
(38:56):
and miserable castle looming over the Burg. But also so
it seems a lot of paperwork and the Burgomeister says
there's a chest of documents that he has to deliver
to the surviving Frankenstein upon his arrival, and the fen
so wolf On Frankenstein and his family are currently bound
for this little hamlet by train. He's traveling with his wife,
(39:18):
Elsa and his son Peter. Now, quick, quick background check.
I'm pretty sure I'm right about this. But they are
supposed to be originally coming from America, right, did you
get that?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
That was my impression?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yes, yeah. So let's see what else do we learn
from this town meeting scene. Well, we learned that a
lot of these old guys are not happy to have
another Frankenstein coming to town. They blame the elder Frankenstein
for the ruin of their village, which I think is
called Frankenstein by the way, So I think it's the
Baron Frankenstein, the Frankenstein Castle, and the Frankenstein village or town.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
And so they say that his family is the reason
that a traveler never wants to stop. I don't know.
Maybe they tried and failed to get a little tourism
industry going, but this place is just considered cursed.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Yeah, it was spelled the end of the Frankenstein Frankfest.
Nobody wants to come here.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Now, and this is all because, of course, Henry Frankenstein
created a monster in the devil's own image, which is
not what you want. So they all subscribe to the
idea that like the sins of the father, should be
held against the son. And we also learned that the
Frankenstein Castle is a blight. They believe it to be
cursed as well. And the only person in the village
(40:33):
who will stay there is quote that crazy Egor with
his broken neck, and this is bel Legosi. There's also
some acknowledgment that they've had this conversation a million times before,
so it seems like they just sit around every Saturday
night with a pipe and some cordials complaining about the
Frankenstein family. Recreational complaining not an uncommon activity. Yes, Anyway,
(40:57):
they resolve they're going to deliver the younger Frankenstein his
inheritance as prescribed by law, but they will show him
no hospitality. The family is going to get no warm
reception from them. So then we cut to a train
where we meet the Frankenstein family in the flesh. Here
again we've got Basil Rathbone as wolf Josephine Hutchinson as
(41:17):
Elsa and Donnie Dunnaghan as their young son Peter. Now
from Wolf, here we cut right into frankenstein apologetics. Elsa
tucks Peter into bed, comes into the next train compartment,
and Wolf is like, you know, it wasn't my father's
fault that his half witted assistant Fritz retrieved a criminal's
brain when he was supposed to just get a normal brain,
(41:40):
so we can kind of see where his head's at. Immediately,
also in the scene, Elsa looks out the window and comments.
She says, what a strange looking country, which I thought
was funny because the scene that is passing outside the
train window looks more than strange. It looks like an
illustration from Scary Stories to tell in the dark. It's
just gloom and gnarl to infinity, dead black, leafless trees
(42:05):
that look like giant witch fingers curling out of the ground.
It's not nice, no, But then Wolf is like, it's
so exciting, isn't it. I guess he likes this kind
of thing. He's clearly thrilled to have quit his university job.
He's gloating about, you know, no more students, no more
faculty meetings, Hurrah, and together they fantasize about the cliches
(42:29):
of Gothic horror. They're excited about the castle. Will the
castle have a moat? Will it have a haunted room?
Elsa is into this idea. I think she's she's a
little bit ghost curious. And anyway, this year segues into
Wolf ranting about how his father did nothing wrong and
he's been unfairly blamed for the tragedy that unfolded.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, there's a tremendously funny bit of dialogue here from
Baron Wolf that I have to have to to read
because it's like, it's kind of a metajoke, and it's
also just a nice bit of comedy. So he's saying,
he's continuing to Rand. He says, his name has become
synonymous with horror and monsters. Why nine out of ten
people call that misshapen creature of my father's experiments. And
(43:11):
then he's interrupted by the train conductor, who says Frankenstein.
And so you know, this is of course obviously alluding
to the fact that many people call the monster Frankenstein,
as if that is the monster's name, and then this
leads other people to correct these folks and say, actually,
(43:32):
Frankenstein is the name of the doctor and not the monster,
and so forth and so forth. But I honestly had
never looked into when this exactly took hold, And clearly
the answer is, I guess during the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah, okay, Well, to be clear, just speaking for myself,
I'm aware of the distinction. I've read the book. I
know that the creature is not literally named Frankenstein, but
I just call it a Frankenstein. When you see a Frankenstein,
you could just call it a Frankenstein. That's okay, shorthand,
it's okay.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yeah, But clearly there were there there were nerd battles
over this back in the day as well. I guess
maybe nerd a little bit hard nerds, a little bit
literary nerds that were saying, no, you're referring to the
monster incorrect.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, okay. So there's a scene where the Frankenstein family
arrives at the train station. Once again, it is pouring rain,
and they receive a very cold welcome from the Bergomeister
and the leaders of the town. The Bergomeister hands Wolf
(44:38):
his things and the keys to the castle, and then
they tell him that they are not going to be friends.
Wolf tries to make a speech to the assembled crowd,
but it does not go over very well. They give
him the cold shoulder. Also. The speech again, it's defensive.
It's very I'm sorry that my father, through no fault
of his own, came to be hated by all of you,
(45:00):
which is funny. It's one of those non apology apologies,
except he's not apologizing for anything he did. It's about
his dad anyway.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah, and like the lack of quality labor in this area,
he's like yes, he's like, I really, we're mad at you, Like,
couldn't you have have produced some labor that could have
gotten him a proper brain for his creation.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Anyway, the family gets into a car they are transported
to the castle. There's a happy reunion between little Peter
and one of the castle servants, a woman named Amelia.
Peter was asking about her earlier on the train. They're
apparently close, which is kind of strange because I understood
that understood the story to be that they'd never been
to this castle before, So maybe these are servants they
(45:41):
already knew already from somewhere, and they traveled ahead to
the castle or something.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I guess such. These must be servants they brought with them.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
But once we go inside the castle again we get
these bizarre counterintuitive angles on the shadows, activating the expressionist
geometry motif one of my favorite things. This big central
room in the castle, with the staircase and the shadow
of the stairs is just wild. And we meet all
the servants. Wolf is ecstatic about the castle. He finds
(46:10):
the dankness exhilarating, and Elsa is trying to put on
a happy face, but obviously she is not a fan.
And everybody goes about settling in in their various ways.
Wolf has a brandy in the library and grouses some
more about how his father made a miraculous discovery and
now everybody's being so unfair to him. And then he
goes on to read a letter left to him by
(46:32):
his father, the late Baron. And this letter has some
nice phrasings in it, so I wanted to read it.
It says, my son, herein lies my faiths, my beliefs,
and my unfoldments, a complete diary of my experiments, charts
and secret formulas. In short, the sum total of my knowledge,
such as it is. Perhaps you will regard my work
(46:54):
with ridicule, or even with a distaste. If so, destroy
these records. But if you like me, burn with the
irresistible desire to penetrate the unknown. Carry on the path
is cruel and torturous. Carry on, I put secret after truth.
You will be hated, blasphemed, and condemned. You have inherited
(47:15):
the fortune of the Frankensteins. I trust you will not
inherit their fate. So he's leaving all of the apparatus
of his work to his son, and it is up
to him if he wants to continue that work or not. Meanwhile,
we see Igor outside the window in the rain, just
looking in with this devilish grin. Now here's the scene
(47:36):
where we had Peter saying his prayers before bed. This
is one where he's like amen, he says in the
one part of the prayers is like help me be
a good little boy. Oh, I love it. Oh. And
Peter also says, I think they're trying to close the curtains,
and he's like, please don't close the curtains. I like lightning.
(47:58):
So let's see. Later that night, they get a visit
at the castle from the police inspector Krogue. This is
again Lionel Atwill. He comes out of the rain to
meet with Wolf, and this is where we learn about
one of his arms being mechanical. He sort of uses
his remaining arm to manipulate the mechanical arm, so holding
it up into a salute, for instance. And he's very
(48:20):
he's very proper and observant of decorum. He's very mannered,
and he explains his business by saying that he wants
to protect Frankenstein from the fear and wrath of the
villagers in the town below. But then he begins to
ask about the monster. He's also sort of doing a
bit of fact finding here. He's asking about whether the
monster possibly still lives because there has been a there's
(48:44):
been a string of murders, sort of unexplained murders in
the years since the monster was supposedly destroyed, and Krogue
says that there that in every case the murder had
the same weird features, a bruise at the base of
the skull and an exploded heart inside the chest. Could
the creature be alive and still dangerous? Hmm, good question. Now,
(49:08):
I thought this was an interesting detail because I may
have missed it but I don't recall him ever explaining
how exactly this exploding heart murder method works. The best
I could make of it is that, like the appearance
of the creature is so terrifying that when people see him,
their hearts explode.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
I was thinking that maybe it was like some sort
of weird heart punch where Punch Frankenstein punches you in
the base of the skull so hard to your heart explodes.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
That's the best thing I can come up with. It's
like a special kung.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
Fu move Bodha thinker.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yes. Anyway, after this, Wolf goes on a rant about how, yes,
my father did manage to create life from death, but
surely those stories of the monstrousness of the monster must
be greatly exaggerated. At one point, he says, do you
honestly know of one truly committed by this creature? And
(50:02):
Krog is like, well, yeah, when I was a kid,
he ripped my arm off. Oh okay. I like the
way the scene is just a very blunt check on
Basil Rathbones sort of defensive delusions about his family legacy.
But anyway, Krog still he Krog really does not seem
to be holding this against the Frankensteins. He's not out
(50:25):
for revenge. He's offering them help. He says, when you
need help, you have but to ring the alarm bell
in the tower, and wherever I shall be, I shall
hasten to your assistance.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
He is so lawful. Good. Yeah, to a fault.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
And then there's a very nice moment I thought between
Wolf and Elsa where they're looking out the window into
the stark landscape and the thunder and Elsa says, what
a dreadful storm and awful lightning, and Wolf says, it's magnificent.
Nothing in nature is terrifying when one understands it. Darling,
my father drew that very lightning from heaven and forced
it for his own will to bring life to a
(51:01):
being he created with his own hands. Why should we
fear anything?
Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yeah, Yeah, some more of that Frankensteinian optimism.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
There, and a lot of affinity for lightning, Like multiple
members of the family, the Sun and Wolf, they're looking
at the lightning and they're like, just makes me feel good.
I like it.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of build up with the lightning here.
I'll come back to this more as we touch on
more examples.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
All Right, the next morning, we see Peter again. This
is the scene where they're having breakfast, and then Peter
comes up on this ledge overlooking the breakfast table. He's
got a toy shotgun with him and he's like, well hello,
and there's some general goofy dialogue about how oh. He
like points to a scary head mounted on the wall
(51:47):
and he's like, what's that and they say that's a
bore and he goes like ant Fanny and they say, no, Darling, no,
not like aunt Fanny. That's a wild boar. I think
they're joking about bore. And then he's I hope I
don't have teeth like that. It would be too hard
to clean them.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yeah, this film is intentionally comedic. There are a number
of gags. They don't all work, but a number of
them work very well.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yeah. So later that day, Wolf goes investigating the ruins
of his father's laboratory, and here's where things really start
to cook. So as he's looking around, he runs into Egor.
Igor Is creeping on him from above, like in a skylight,
peeking through a hole in the roof, and Wolf at
(52:32):
one point he finds a big hole in the floor,
looks down inside it far below, and there is a boiling,
bubbling pit of some horrible liquid. Wolf sniffs and concludes
that it is sulfur. You know, so your new house
has a boiling sulfur pit. No big deal. And then
Igor from the roof tries to kill Wolf by dropping
(52:54):
a boulder on him, but Wolf dodges out of the way,
and then they have a confrontation. Frankstein trains a gun
on Igor and starts to interrogate him. He's like, why
did you try to kill me? And Igor says, I
thought you came here to kill me, and Rathbone says, well,
it's all well and good for you people to hate me,
(53:14):
but attempted murder is another matter. So this is the
first scene where we really get any dialogue with Igor,
and again Bella Lugosi's energy is just off the charts.
He is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, And it's worth noting that Igor in like just
sort of like very loose terms, becomes this kind of
horror staple often depicted as kind of like a hunchback,
even though Igor in this film is not a hunchback.
He has a a broken neck because he was, as
we'll find out, he was previously hanged for Robin Graves
(53:51):
allegedly survive, but I think is still considered lee. He's
on the books, he's legally dead. So even though Igor
would become this kind of like Staple Hinchman in sort
of like the Scooby dooification of universal horror at the time,
(54:11):
this character is a new creation based on nothing from
the Frankenstein novel. But I guess kind of an evolution
of the concept we see with the character Fritz who
alluded to earlier, played by Dwight Frye in the first
Frankenstein film.
Speaker 3 (54:27):
Who's also not in the novel. I mean, in fact,
the victor Frankenstein's work in the novel is specifically portrayed
as very lonely and solitary work. He is working by
himself and consulting with no one. I think that's almost
sort of the point of that part of the story
is that he's just in his own head. He has
(54:48):
nobody else to relate to.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Yeah, it's lonesome work that is tearing apart is sanity,
and he's having to dig all those graves and scoop
all those brains himself. But again, as I alluded to earlier,
Igor is no mirror. Hinchman in this no mere cookie
character like he is, as we'll see, essentially the primary
and antagonist of the picture, a satanic tempter and manipulator.
(55:12):
And he's tremendous.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Yeah, this introduction scene is so good. There's this moment
where he like he knocks on the bones sticking out
of his neck and he's like, oh, it's all right,
it's okay, and he reveals a secret passage in the
wall and takes Wolf down. This leads to a crypt
with two sarcopha guy it's got his grandfather there, but
(55:37):
also his father, Henry Frankenstein, where someone has vandalized his
epitaph on his sarcophagus. I think it says Henry Frankenstein
carved in and someone has written in chalk Maker of Monsters.
And then beyond that, Igor leads Wolf to a shocking surprise,
which is the comatose body of the monster. This reveal
(56:01):
is great in terms of its cinematic effect, except I
don't want to be too critical, but it's just lying
out in the open in the middle of the room
where Wolf already was, and it's revealed to the audience
simply by the camera pulling back to bring it into frame.
So it's kind of difficult to believe that Wolf was
already in the room but didn't see Boris Karloff lying
(56:23):
there in full makeup until just now. But that's okay,
let it slide.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah, still a great moment.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
Igor reveals that the creature has been there for quite
some time now. Igor says he's my friend. He does
things for me, and then he says this place is
a place of the dead. We are all dead here,
again referring to himself having been unsuccessfully hanged and somehow
(56:50):
having this legal death status even though he is obviously
still alive. So the question is why was the monster comatose?
Igor says that he was injured by lightning while out
in a storm, and Igor brought him back here and
he's been asleep ever since. And from this point Igor
(57:10):
basically hectors Wolf into helping revive him. Maybe Wolf doesn't
need all that much encouragement, like he's curious about this himself,
but Igor is putting the pressure.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
On, that's right, He's laying it on pretty thick.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
And this is the scene where Egor starts to introduce
this framework that you know, really in a way, this
creature was your father's other son. And Wolf says, you
mean to imply that this this is my brother and
Igor is like, yes, but his mother was lightning. Ooh,
(57:44):
good line.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yeah, it's a great line. Again, more building up of
the lightning and treatment of the lightning here.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
So Wolf commits to making his father's creation walk again again.
So at this point he doesn't have to make life
from death. The creature is already a but he's going
to use his medical knowledge to resuscitate him from his
coma and make him walk again. And he goes and
he amends the graffiti, he amends the vandalism of his
father's epitaph and changes it from maker of Monsters to
(58:15):
Maker of men. And here's a very clean Act one break.
And this is clearly like, here's where we are now
the action really starts. Yeah, So Act two we get
the town council and the Bergemeister getting antsy about all
(58:37):
of the activity they're noticing around Frankenstein's lab. People are
coming and going bringing big crates, and so they decide
they're going to get Igor to come in and testify
to them about what's going on. Now, there's some really
funny moments here that one is like Basil Rathbone working
in the laboratory. He's hauling chains and pulleys around and
(58:58):
doing this heavy work and this bus room and he's
still wearing his three piece suit and tiem hm. Meanwhile,
all the work is going on in the lab Egor
is trying hard to keep it a secret from the
other servants. So the only other servant I think who
really unders who knows what's going on, is Wolfe's right
hand man, Benson. So Benson is there like making notes
(59:21):
while they're making observations about the monster, saying things like, wow,
look at his blood pressure. It's three times the normal
blood pressure. Wow, he's got two bullets in his heart,
and yet it still pumps blood. I've never seen blood
like that before. They say that his blood cells seem
to be battling one another, as if they had a
conscious life of their own.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
Second week in a row, where we have some very
puzzling anatomical details from analysis of the monster.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Yeah yeah, interesting. But oh from here we go onto
the scene where the Bergomeister and associates get Igor on
the stand to testify about what's going on on. So
this interrogation scene is supposed to be about what Frankenstein
is up to in his lab. But it's so funny
how it ends up being mostly about the legal loophole
(01:00:11):
that makes Igor immune to the death sentence. Yeah, and
then also just going around the room reconfirming the identities
of all the jurors who voted to hang him the
first time. Yes, this scene is so good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah, I mean he has him dead to rights here, like,
you can't hang me by the neck until dead a
second time, I'm already officially dead. And yeah, there's just
a lot of fun back and forth. Bell Lugosi gets
really hammered up as Igor here number of number of
funny lines and hilarious mannerisms, while also staying true to
(01:00:46):
the character being devilish and intimidating as well.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
There's a really funny moment where he coughs in one
of their faces and the guy's like, oh, he spit
on me, and Lekosi's like, I'm sorry, cough, phone stuck
in my throat. Great saint, great saint, amazing. It's so good. Then,
also in other scenes around this time, we see Wolf,
(01:01:12):
Igor and Benson trying to get the creature revived in
the lab with electricity, but it fails. At one point,
Wolf loses hope. He thinks he will never succeed in
waking him from his coma. Also, somewhere around here they
discovered that the secret of life is cosmic rays. Okay,
now it seems that Inspector Krogue just keeps visiting the
(01:01:32):
castle at various times, Like there's a scene of him
having tea with Elsa and Wolf joins them, and Krogue
here learns that Wolf has been up to his ears
and experiments in the old laboratory, which the villagers call
the monster's home. And they say, oh, don't the sulfur
fumes bother you? And Rathbones like, no, no, no, not
(01:01:53):
at all. They say that this place to be used
to be an ancient Roman health spa. But then the
ulfer got more intense, and I believe the inspector says,
even the stoutest Roman couldn't venture into that today without
being par boiled to the bones. And then Rathbone says
to the inspector, I'll have you come there sometime and
(01:02:13):
par boil you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Not very good, not very good.
Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
No, here we get some more wonderful Peter comments where
he comes in he's like saying, I'm a soldier, I'm
a hunting all day long. And then Peter goes into
a story about how in the middle of his nap
a giant woke him up, but Peter gave the giant
a picture book and he went away, bum bum bum.
(01:02:40):
This clearly is significant to Wolf, He's like, oh, what's
going on. But it's also significant to Krogue. So Wolf
is trying to hide this from Krogue, but he becomes
convinced that the creature has awakened and actually went into
Peter's room, so he rushes off to his lab and
he finds Igor in the creature both missing. So he
(01:03:01):
is in the middle of arming himself with a knife
and mixing up some concoction. I don't know if he's
trying to make a drug or something. But then the
creature comes up behind him. This is the first time
we see the creature walking in the film, and they
meet face to face, and so there's this is the
scene we were talking about earlier where we at least
I feel like Karloff is trying to add something here.
(01:03:23):
The creature doesn't speak, doesn't say anything. I don't think
he ever speaks in this film, does he ever say anything?
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
If he does, it's so little, Like at one point,
I think a previous version of the script had considerable
well I don't know abo considerable, but it certainly had
dialogue from the monster, and at some point they cut
all or most of it out, So yeah, we don't
really get anything from the monster here. At one point
they also considered doing this in color, but apparently they
(01:03:52):
didn't really like the way that the monster makeup looked
when shot in color, and I think, yeah, you don't
want to see this film in color, like it's so
beautiful and black and.
Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Yeah, so this seems in keeping with the sort of
reduction of the monster's consciousness and humanity from where he
was in Bride, because in Bride he learns to speak.
Remember that's like a big part of the story. He
doesn't speak a lot, but he says some things.
Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Yeah, in a way, it's like the monster in this
film is here to serve purely as the metaphor for technology,
which is valid. I mean that's a key part of
the original novel as well. But it's kind of like
once technology is created, once there's been some advancement, you
can't abandon it. You can abandon it, but then other
(01:04:36):
people are going to take that technology up, and do
you trust them because the people who take up that
technology may be the likes of Igor here, and he
is not going to use it for the betterment of man.
He's going to use this technology to get revenge on
his enemies, to murder his way through his enemies list,
which is exactly what Igor has been doing and plans
(01:04:58):
to do again if he gets this monster up in running,
which now he has.
Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
That's right. So when Basil Rathbone and the monster first
meet face to face, the monster seems to maybe be
used to reacting with violence when it meets people, so
he reaches his hands up as if maybe he's going
to choke him, but then sort of decides against it,
and so it's an interesting psychological little moment. But then
(01:05:22):
Igor returns and Igor seems to have control over the monster.
It obeys his commands, I think because they've been together
for so long they are friends. So who you know
they talk now a Basil Rathbone and Bella Legosi talk.
Who knows the monster is awake? Igor says, only you
and Benson Man, and Wrathbone's like, well, Benson will never tell,
(01:05:48):
and Igor says, no, he will never tell. Now Here,
Wolf says, well, we may have made the creature physically well,
but he's not in the mind yet. We need to
keep working on him to heal him up, to make
him well in the mind. And Igor says he's well
enough for me. So, of course, here the monster murder
(01:06:12):
missions resume. I was gonna say begin, but it seems
they've been ongoing for some time before the film started. Now,
there's a scene of revenge against a character named Neimula,
one of the jurors who convicted Igor. There's like a
murder shown on a He's out on a horse drawn
wagon out going out along the cliffs. He's riding between
(01:06:32):
the rocks, and then the monster reaches out from behind
a rock and grabs him, and then stages the murder
to look like a wagon accident.
Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
This is the true crime portion of the picture here.
Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Yeah, So after this, we're at the castle. The Frankenstein's
are having dinner with an incredibly suspicious looking krogue, and
they are interrupted by news of the death of Neimula. Also,
Benson disappears somewhere around here. Everybody's asking where he is,
but he knows there are more monster revenge murders on
(01:07:04):
Igor's command. We see Igor going around like marking doors
in town with an ex to show the monster who
to get. There's also the recurring scene we get here
of Igor playing his instrument in the gatehouse window. At
first I thought it was maybe to summon the monster home,
but I later interpreted this as he's like playing music
(01:07:24):
out in public view so that he can never be
blamed for the murders.
Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Yeah. Yeah. And then also there's a sense too that
it's almost like he's like you the Pied Piper or something.
You know, It's like he's pulling the strings if you will.
Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So you know, you can't have a Frankenstein
movie without a Pitchfork mob. So Pitchfork mo mob gathers
in the town square. Because of the murders, they lay
siege to the castle. It isn't safe to leave. Inspector
Krogue is in the castle with the family, claiming that
he's there to guarantee their protection, and at one point,
(01:07:58):
Peter the Sun he shows Inspector Kroge a gift that
his friend the Giant gave him. It's a watch, and
krog looks at it. It's a pocket watch with an
engraving that says like two benson. Yeah, so obviously something
is going wrong here. Later, there's a confrontation in the
lab between Wolf and Egor over the monster. Wolf tries
(01:08:20):
to banish Egor from his lab, and Igor confesses to
ordering all the murders of the jurors who convicted him.
When he says he will not leave, he says, the
monster belongs to me, not to you. Now in between here,
it's funny that, like the stakes are coming up, you know,
we have the mob who are ready to attack the castle.
(01:08:41):
We have Egor and the monster doing murderers, we have
the inspector on the case, and yet we get these
little scenes where Wolf and the inspector are just like
playing darts and having brandy while they're I don't know,
biding their time.
Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
Oh man, So there's so much brandy drinking in this picture,
to the point that on the i am dB parental
page someone decided to put a warning in there. It's
like warning adults drink brandy. This characters. Yeah, there's a
lot of a lot of reaching for the brandy here
and then a lot of dart throwing, and it gets
it gets pretty furious the dart throwing here, Frankenstein's really
(01:09:17):
working out some issues regarding his legacy and the legacy
of his father here via darts.
Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Yeah, historical brandy use. Yeah. But in these scenes it
comes out that Krogue suspects the monster is once again
alive and afoot and he wants to know the truth,
and of course Frankenstein is you know, he's very offended
by this. He's like, so, I suppose I whipped him
up as a cook whips up an omelet. And Wolf
(01:09:47):
tries to put suspicion onto Egor instead of himself, but
krog says it can't be Igor who did the monster
is because he was being watched during all the murders.
This is what I was talking about with the window.
So eventually there is a confrontation between Igor and Wolf
in the laboratory. Igor he had that bloody hammer. He
tries to get Wolf with a hammer, but Wolf shoots him,
(01:10:10):
and there is the discovery by the inspector of a
secret passageway in the wall where he finds Benson's body. Meanwhile,
in the lab the monster finds Igor's body and Igor
remember was his only friend, so This leads to monster rage,
and we get a number of scenes of monster rage
where he's just smashing things, busting everything up, throwing it
(01:10:31):
all into the sulfur pit. Now, eventually the monster, in
his rage, decides to kidnap Peter, and so he takes
Peter away to the laboratory and all of the good
characters give Chase, Elsa, Amelia, Wolf and Krogue. They all
pursue the monster into the laboratory for the final showdown.
And here we do get to the swashbuckling. Finally.
Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Yeah, there's of course the expected payoff with the prosthetic arm.
It gets ripped off in a fight there between the
inspector and the monster, and then the inspector's shooting at
the monster, and I think the monster is kind of
deflecting the shots with the prosthetic by accident. And then yeah,
here comes Basil rathbone buckling some swash swinging on that
(01:11:14):
rope and doing a rope assisted kick to the monster.
Since the monster flying off the edge down into that
boiling sulfur pit. That boiling sulfur pit that we knew
from the very moment it was introduced was going to
eat up a monster or some other characters. You know,
somebody's going into that sulfur pit.
Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
So yeah, so there's payoff there. But you know what
there's never payoff on is a wolf's threat to par
boil the inspector and nothing happens there. Yeah, they're friends
at the end.
Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Yeah, it was just like a terrible joke. I guess
it's like we wouldn't get enough sleep. They're not all
going to be zingers, especially if you don't have enough sleep.
Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Yeah, now we get a actually quite happy ending. I
don't know if it's really earned this happy of an ending,
but it's like it's all going to be okay.
Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Yeah, the baron and family signed the castle and the
lab over to the locals and take the first train
out of town, so all is forgiven. I don't know.
Maybe all of the townspeople that were killed off by
the monster recently were all crooked and corrupt. I don't know,
Like maybe essentially Igor cleansed the town of corruption. I'm
(01:12:22):
not sure.
Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Also, the last time we see Igor's body, after he
has supposedly been shot and killed, he is obviously breathing.
You can see his chest like rising and falling up
and down, and I don't know if that's a goof
or if that's to lay the groundwork that Igor could
come back in another sequel.
Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Igor will return, and he does he.
Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Does, to be clear. So are we gonna do House
of Frankenstein.
Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
I think we may have to. That one is very
interesting as well, has an interesting cast, so.
Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
I think not supposed to be quite as good as
The Son of frank But amusing i've read.
Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
I would continue the journey. Oh, one more comment on this.
We had, we have so much great stuff with the lightning.
You know, his mother was lightning the fierce lightning storms
in the region, you know, as if Zeus is just
constantly lashing out against the countryside. And then this is
something my wife pointed out. When the monsters actually revived,
(01:13:24):
are they they're using some sort of generator or something.
They're not doing what you think they're going to do,
which is, let's capture the lightning like Frankenstein Senior did.
Instead it's some other means, And I don't know if
that's intentional, if that's supposed to be. You know, some
commentary on like the mode of interaction with the technology
that is taking place in this next generation. It's less
(01:13:46):
Heaven sent and more technology. Speaking to technology, I'm not
sure interesting. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, that's
a good point. Yeah, I might be overthinking it there,
but that's what I love about a film like this,
you know, you get to enjoy it on so many
different level.
Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
Yeah. So once again I had a fantastic time with
Son of Frankenstein. This movie greatly exceeded my expectations. Highly entertaining.
So yeah, great pick. And I couldn't recommend this one enough.
Really really fun.
Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Absolutely, yeah, this one. This one was a lot of fun.
All right. Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
this episode of Weird House Cinema. As always, we would
love to hear from everyone out there. If you have,
you know, experiences with this film, thoughts on this film,
on other Frankenstein pictures, write in and you know we
will try and include some of those on a future
(01:14:35):
installment of Listener Mail, which comes out do you know
me about once a month these days. Stuff to Blow
Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with
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set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
weird Film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want
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(01:14:56):
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(01:15:18):
Mind logo on it, or perhaps the Weird House Cinema logo,
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Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other. To suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
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