Frankenstein

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pvitari
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by pvitari »

In honor of today's holiday, I have added screencaps of the entire movie of Frankenstein (the one, the only, the original 1931 version, of course!) to http://paulasmoviepage.shutterfly.com. Here's a sneak preview. I hope everyone enjoys! (And there's more horror with screencaps from Terror Train at http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com.)

Kindly Edward Van Sloan wants to reassure us before the movie. It has the opposite effect!
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This may be my favorite shot from the movie possibly because it makes me think of Young Frankenstein, which is the second greatest Frankenstein movie ever made. (Or maybe Young F. is tied with The Bride of Frankenstein for second. Yes, I know, many think Bride is the best but I go with the first one.)
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There's always a boring straight man (here in the form of John Boles, who did have a beautiful singing voice) and a lovely leading lady (Mae Clarke). Check out the VERRRY serious framed portrait of Henry F. Kind of an ominous photo if you ask me.
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See? This guy is not working on all his Tesla circuits. (I kid Colin Clive...actually I think he's beyond brilliant in this film. He's as perfect for Henry as Karloff is for the monster.)
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Frederick Kerr as Baron Frankenstein. I LOVE the Baron! He's a crusty, unimaginative, very conventional old fellow, but he sees through b.s. like a laser beam, and he likes a good time.
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Then there's this character....
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Who's actually a very soulful monster, if only you'd treat him right, though he has trouble with impulse control. Boris Karloff has the most eloquent hands.
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A couple of cheerful interludes
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THE classic monster movie image
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Then it goes downhill -- or should I say uphill -- from there.
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But a happy ending nontheless! Really, I love that Baron.
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JackFavell
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Re: Frankenstein

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Paula - I watched Frankenstein yesterday, and one thing I noticed about that abbie-normal brain in the movie - do you have a cap of the two brains on the table side by side? One is lit up from underneath, and one is dark..... I found that little artistic detail very interesting.
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pvitari
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Re: Frankenstein

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JackFavell, I think this is the shot you mean. Though I believe it's the "normal" brain that's more in shadow. Don't know what that means...

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However, one thing that is interesting is that later on, when Fritz breaks into the hall to steal the brains, the labels are different. In the shot you see here, the "normal brains" and "abnormal brains" are typed onto labels, in the same print as the Latin description. When Fritz arrives, "normal brain" and "abnormal brain" are handwritten in large letters on the labels.
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JackFavell
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Re: Frankenstein

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Thanks for posting that cap, Paula! I thought it was the abnormal brain that was lit up. I suppose it was a telegraph, in order to draw the eye - make it more attractive and noticeable to us the audience so we would be imprinted with it later on? Art direction is an interesting thing.
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MichiganJ
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Re: Frankenstein

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pvitari wrote:Frederick Kerr as Baron Frankenstein. I LOVE the Baron! He's a crusty, unimaginative, very conventional old fellow, but he sees through b.s. like a laser beam, and he likes a good time.
I've always loved Kerr in Frankenstein, especially how he uses his cane as a prop. He's fun, too, in Waterloo Bridge (1931) (again with Mae!) and Beauty and the Boss (1932).

The photos are great and remind me of The Film Classics Library series of books, which basically had hundreds of photos from a film with the dialogue captioned underneath. For me, these books were invaluable, especially before the advent of home video.

Your photos are tremendous, but were's Fritz?
"Let's be independent together." Dr. Hermey DDS
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pvitari
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Re: Frankenstein

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Hey! I could tell you to go to the website and find photos of Fritz (and I hope you do....) but here are a few for instant gratification. :)

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Hmmmm...
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That's the abnormal brain. ;) (If this were a Ray Harryhausen movie, the skeleton would come to life and have a sword fight with Fritz)
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As you sow, so shall ye reap and all that. (See photo no. 2.)
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This one's for JackFavell... picking up here the Frankenstein conversation that wandered into the Ben Johnson folder...

I love this shot of Dr. Waldmann and the skull on his desk. You have to wonder about a person who would keep a skull ON THE DESK. (He's got a whole ROW of skulls on his bookshelf!)
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Speaking of skulls, in the brilliant new BBC Sherlock series, Sherlock has both a skull on his bookshelf (he says it's a friend of his) plus a PAINTING of a skull on his wall. :) LOL
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MichiganJ
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by MichiganJ »

Thanks for the Fritz! I did go to the website, but figured one could never have too much Dwight Frye. Besides, a good cast is worth repeating!

This weekend I watched one last Frankenstein for the season, and what a film: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. The title itself is misleading (she's not Frankenstein's daughter, but Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Granddaughter would just have been silly), but the plot, where Dr. Mary Frankenstein essentially wants to change the name of Jesse James' simple-minded pal from Hank to Igor, is as epic as it gets. This film, and it's partner Billy the Kid vs. Dracula add the one ingredient that the Western genre was lacking for too long: monsters.

There's little doubt that Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter was Incredibly influential. It was rumored that Sam Peckinpah was collaborating with George Romero for a sequel to both of their masterpieces. Holden, Borgnine and the boys were to be resurrected as flesh eating zombies in The Wild Brunch, but it never got past the story outline stage. At least with all of the once lost films being found in various archives around the world, there is still hope for the lost John Ford film he'd done at Toho Studios: The Duke vs. Megalon (with special appearance by Rodan). Let's hope, too, that they find both endings.
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pvitari
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Re: Frankenstein

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Besides, a good cast is worth repeating!
You can say that again!
Holden, Borgnine and the boys were to be resurrected as flesh eating zombies in The Wild Brunch,
*SNORT*

**tea shoots out nose**

Warn me when you're going to post a pun, willya????!
but it never got past the story outline stage. At least with all of the once lost films being found in various archives around the world, there is still hope for the lost John Ford film he'd done at Toho Studios: The Duke vs. Megalon (with special appearance by Rodan). Let's hope, too, that they find both endings.
A rare still from the lost John Ford film, The Duke vs. Megalon.

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movieman1957
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Re: Frankenstein

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I rarely venture over here but my daughter just watched "Frankenstein" so I thought I though I'd comment. (Wendy;s comment about the "abbie-normal" brain may help.)

For years my daughter (and son) have been enjoying "Young Frankenstein" and rightfully so. However, they had never seen the original. I thought it would help them appreciate the humor more to know what was being satirized.

Well, she thought it was ok. (Faint praise indeed.) I didn't watch it with her but I wonder if she was so familiar with "YF" that she might find it hard to enjoy it in its original form. At least she saw it and maybe understands "YF" with a little more depth. Although with the "nice knockers" bit I don't know how much depth there is.
Chris

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JackFavell
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Re: Frankenstein

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At least she watched it with you! Alice wouldn't even watch with me!

It's funny, I always thought Frankenstein was a lesser movie than the Bride of Frankenstein. But returning to it after all these years, I really appreciated the spareness of it... it's pretty near perfect.
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MichiganJ
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Re: Frankenstein

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I'd still encourage her to watch Bride of, too. The film is a dark comedy and Young Frankenstein borrowed plenty from it as well. (Even though it's played straight in Bride, the whole blind man sequence has me cracking up anyway. I just can't forget Gene Hackman lighting the monster's finger, "Fire good!", and Boyle doing that elaborate eye-roll.)
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JackFavell
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Re: Frankenstein

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I have encouraged her, but she is being stubborn right now... what I need to do is have her "accidentally" show up as I am watching it, maybe the part with the little dolls, and then I think she would get caught up in it.

I know, I can never look at that blind man the same way anymore.... :D :D Nor can I listen to Puttin' on the Ritz without thinking of YF....
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MichiganJ
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Re: Frankenstein

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JackFavell wrote:Nor can I listen to Puttin' on the Ritz without thinking of YF....
So true. Just as Bing owns White Christmas, Frank My Way and Tony I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Puttin' on the Ritz belongs to Peter Boyle's ol' Zipper Neck.
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MichiganJ
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by MichiganJ »

Caught up with a couple more 'steins'.

Frankenstein (1910)--For a long time this was my Holy Grail of Frankenstein films to see. Many of my horror movie books and many issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine featured the same few photos from the film, all of them featuring a pretty impressive and entirely original Monster. At the time, those photos were all that survived of the film, until the discovery of an actual nitrate print, somewhere in the midwest.

Well, the wait was worth it. It's an amazing 12-minutes. The remarkable creation sequence alone is worth the wait. This is the only Frank film that I know of where the Monster is literally created, rather than sewn together from various (mostly) dead body parts. Here, the Monster emerges from a pot of flames. (It's clearly a skeletal figure made out of wax and melted in huge flames, which then was projected backwards, but the effect is nevertheless inspired, and actually a bit chilling.)

Better still is a sequence in which the Monster sees himself in a full length mirror for the first time. Director J. Searle Dawley (one of the few director's to direct D.W. Griffith!) has the mirror on the right side of the frame with Frankenstein on the left. A shadow indicates a door has opened and we then see the Monster 's reflection, but his physical form has not yet entered the frame. Despite the camera never moving (it is 1910, after all; the entire film is shot like a stage play), this sequence is quite impressive, and one that would be borrowed quite a lot in future films.

Will revisit often.

Frankenstein 1970 (1958)--From the first filmed Frankenstein I went to Boris Karloff's final appearance in a Franky film, Frankenstein 1970. It's been many a moon since I'd seen this film--it was on regularly when I was a kid--and the only thing I'd remembered about it was that I absolutely hated it. Oh, I'd watch it every time it was on, because it starred Karloff, but as a Frankenstein movie, it stunk.

As an "adult", the movie still stinks, but the aroma is considerably more pleasant. Karloff is the ham of all hams here, and more power to him. He eats every scene he's in, and, he's in a lot. The silliness of the plot centers around a film being shot at Karloff's castle while Karloff assembles a body in a below ground laboratory, which includes an atomic reactor! (The film was made in 1958. Where 1970 comes from confounded me as a tyke, and continues to confuse). While a bunch of hooey, the film does have some interesting sexual components that my younger self missed, and the motivations of Karloff's character are, at least somewhat, intriguing.

In no way great, and barely good, Frankenstein 1970 is still fun. And it's in widescreen, too!
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JackFavell
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Re: Frankenstein

Post by JackFavell »

I thought the 1910 Frankenstein was amazing, I'm glad to hear I am not alone.
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