Don't Make a Scene: Frankenstein (1931)

The Story: When Pauline Kael wrote of a review of Zeffirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet, she made a big deal of quoting a lyric from "The Bandwagon" to denote its style: "She came to me in stages." 

 

Well, Frankenstein—or I should say "Frankenstein's Monster"—comes to you in parts (some assembly required). 

Director James Whale, who wanted and took over the project from Robert Florey—whose concept of "The Monster" was as an unthinking killing brute and was using a John Dalderston adaptation of a play for the film's basis—as the second film in his five-year contract with Universal.

 

As a child, when I first saw this sequence, it thrilled me. Now, as an adult, it thrills me even more because I understand that it was—and is—filled with dexterous flourishes of direction to ramp up the suspense and pay it off for the audience. Despite what most people say about magic, sometimes, you can appreciate the talent more if you know how the trick is done.

Case in point: The monster's entrance. There has been a movie's worth of build-up, what with the concept, the digging up of dead bodies, the experiment itself, the hiding of the form under the sheet. And then, there are the foot-prints right before this scene, as Doctors Frankenstein and Waldmon talk about the resuscitation of dead tissue to create new life. They come closer, and then the paradox look to the door.

Whale cuts to the door, which slowly opens with the tried and true creak to set the spine on edge. 

Except the creature is facing away from us in shadow.

Cut closer. We can see the bolts coming out of its neck and it turns...very slowly...first revealing a scar under its jaw—and if we can tear our eyes away from that—that its head is alarmingly flat on top.

 

As we see more of its face, another layer is peeled off, as the creature comes into the light, and we can see the dead, unseeing eyes as they LOOK RIGHT AT US!!! 

 

And then, when we get a full view of its face, Whale moves in to a very tight close-up. 

 

And then, just a split second before we can get linger on even more detail, he moves to an even closer shot, putting us seemingly nose-to-nose with the creature. 

 

Most film-makers and cinematographers will tell you this is a bad move, and spoils a smooth transition between two separate images, and that to do so can be a jarring effect that will interfere with an audience's absorption into the scene.But, that's exactly the effect Whale wanted: he wanted to shock us with the transition, draw us closer to a repellent image and make us feel it with an edit that comes too soon and too close, adding to our discomfort.

It's a superb example of Whale's showmanship, theatricality, understanding of the mechanics of both film and fear, and a wicked sense of gleeful sadism on what could be achieved with an audience. Bravo.

 

The Set-Up: Most fiancee's spend their engagement staying out of the way of the wedding arrangements. Not Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive). At his Alpen laboratory, he has been obsessively working trying to re-animate dead tissue and has constructed an entire human body in an attempt to do so. With the rapt attention of his former teacher, Waldron (), Henry explains that his research has been a success. Would he like to see it.

 

Well, wait a few minutes. Someone's in the hall....

 

Action! 

E-3  MEDIUM SHOT

THE CAMERA, CHANGING ITS ANGLE, now takes in the door, keeping Waldman and Frankenstein in the foreground.

Both have now turned to the door, which slowly opens, revealing the Monster in the frame.

The Monster is a strangely hideous, grotesque, inhuman figure -- its figure supplying the only semblance of humanity.

It stands there in the doorway, staring out of unseeing eyes at the two men. He does not move....a slight, twitching about the mouth alone denotes life. 

Dressed in an old suit of Frankenstein, which is far too small for him, making the Monster look shrunken -- or in a shape-less, colorless sack-like garb, perhaps -- it looks like a dead thing.

Its flesh is gray, blotchy, the lips almost black.

The top of its head has a curious flat ridge like the lid of a box.

The hair is fairly short and quite obviously combed over the ridge to hide the defect of the joining where the brain was put in.

It is apparent that the Monster is becoming used to the dim light. 

Doctor Waldman is visibly alarmed but stands his ground.

Frankenstein goes toward the thing; after a few steps, however, he stops, fascinated by the creature, hardly knowing what to expect.

He motions to the Monster with his hand and says: 

FRANKENSTEIN: Come in! Come in! 

The Monster slightly sways, and we think it is going to fall but it starts MOVING toward Frankenstein.

All the joints are quite stiff, yet it has perfect balance.

It does not walk like a Robot, it glides forward with a slightly swaying, rythmic movement.

E-4  CLOSER SHOT

The CAMERA TRUCKS BEFORE Frankenstein as he, backing slowly, leads the Monster to a chair.

Still facing the creature, Frankenstein makes half-hypnotic, half-persuasive gestures with his hands.

FRANKENSTEIN: Sit down!

The monster fails to understand. Frankenstein though quivering with excitement painstakingly goes through the required movements; now he reports:

FRANKENSTEIN: Sit down! DOWN!

With slow, jerky tentative movements the Monster assumes a sitting posture.

 

Frankenstein

 

Words by Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh (Draft dated August 12, 1931)

 

Pictures by Arthur Edeson and James Whale

 

Frankenstein is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Universal Home Video.

M (1931)

M (aka M-Eine Stadt sucht einen Mördor, Fritz Lang, 1931) A rash of child-murderers in the Weimar Republic led Fritz Lang and his then-wife Thea von Harbou to use it for what Lang wished to be a film about "the ugliest, most utterly loathsome crime."

He could only have topped it if he'd stayed in Germany and waited a few years. Indeed, when he was attempting to arrange the start of filming, he was refused the use of Staaken Studios, as the head of production was a Nazi and thought the working title—"Murderers Among Us"—would be critical of the up-and-coming political movement. One wonders why, if he thought that was the case, he wanted to be a Nazi Party member in the first place. Actually, given History and given people, one no longer wonders.

 

But, Lang's M had more things on its mind than just a film about a child murderer. Lang's films usually did.

Lang presents the emotional issue in one shot.

 

The film begins with an ironic sequence—children in a circle out on a street playing a counting-out game (where when a child is pointed at, they drop out, or disappear from the game) with a rhyme that has to do with a "man in black" who makes "mincemeat" out of children with a "cleaver's blade." One by one, children get eliminated. How's that for foreshadowing? The song is an annoyance to one of the women at the tenement who is taking her laundry up to be washed, and when she complains about the kids, the washer-woman says "At least if we hear them, we know they're safe."

Then, it's a good thing this is Lang's first film utilizing sound. And a cacophonous world it is, with street-noises, off-screen alarms and sirens...even the passage of time when her little girl doesn't arrive for her regular lunch is emphasized mockingly with a cuckoo clock. In fact, after the titles, the first thing we hear is that children's on-the-nose game-chant. When the little girl is late, the woman no longer depends on sound and goes looking, asking the other kids coming up the stairs if they'd seen her. Then, as if to emphasize that she's not coming, Lang shows her empty place at the table, the yawning empty staircase to her flat, the still basement—then, outside, telephone wires to which gets stuck a balloon that we had seen a man buying for her, then the girl's ball as it rolls...and becomes still.

Horrible things are done in this film, but Lang shows them off-screen, suggestively, and lets the audience do the dirty work, making us culpable. But, we're not alone in this. As fear grips the city, everyone becomes suspicious of each other. Talking to a kid on the street? You could be the murderer! The accusations are made directly to the camera, as if we're the guilty ones. Suspicions turn into accusations, and the police, under considerable political pressure starts to ramp up their investigation, looking in all those empty spaces for victims, rousting criminal hang-outs for clues, making the city sweat, especially those dens of iniquity where aberrant behavior are ever-present.

While the populace looks over their shoulders, buying up the hysterical headlines in the newspaper, squinting at any suspicious activity (or even not suspicious!), the criminal element begins to feel the heat and they determine to catch the pedophile by the means the police don't have at their disposal—their own spider's web of a network utilizing beggars on the street to keep an eye on every child. The police, meanwhile, are narrowing down their suspects and starting to close in. It's just a matter of who catches him first, the authorities or the outlaws.

We already know who it is: we've watched him (Peter Lorre) work, watched him write taunting letters to the paper, watched at how close he gets to getting caught and slip away. But, it's the investigations that take him out of the shadows and provide him with a name and a familiarity. We've listened as he whistled "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and fretted, even if we haven't seen him, but felt the tension increase. Then, when he's been marked, we watch as he struggles to avoid detection only to realize that it's not the police he has to fear, but everyone around him. The tables have been turned. The populace are no longer potential victims, but potential threats.

Murderers as victims. Criminals as detectives. The audience as co-conspirator. Lang's film—his favorite of his career—subverts so many elements to such devastating effect that's it's no wonder anyone who wants to make a thriller—at least a smart, cynical one—has borrowed from Lang's playbook for many years. And his parlaying of a black and white world into one where the colors are switched was so alarming to the Nazi's that once they seized power, they banned the film in July of 1934 (although they did use clips of it in their anti-Semitic propaganda). Seems they didn't want any moral complexity for the masses. Black is black and White is right and they got to choose what was good and evil in the Universe (they chose wrong). Lang saw child murderers as vermin. But, he also saw vigilantism and mob-think as dangerous, as well. The message he said he wanted to convey was "watch your children" not only to keep them from harm, but prevent them from becoming monsters, as well.

City Lights (1931)

City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931) If there is one film that is the Masterpiece of Charlie Chaplin's career, it is City Lights, combining comedy and melancholy in a nearly seamless flow of images. In 2007, the American Film Institute voted it the 11th greatest movie ever made, while a 2008 poll instituted by Cahiers du Cinema voted it the 17th, and it was voted into the National Film Registry in 1991. Depending on the day he was interviewed, Orson Welles would say it was his favorite film, but Stanley Kubrick voted it his 5th, an appraisal—and ranking—agreed upon by Andrei Tarkovsky.

In 1949, James Agee said that the final scene was "the single greatest piece of acting ever committed to celluloid" and it has been cribbed by both Federico Fellini (The Nights of Cabiria) and Woody Allen (Manhattan) in their work.

The first thing one should know about City Lights is that it is a silent film...with sound. Chaplin wasn't ready to fully commit to "The Talkies" which came into public favor with 1927's The Jazz Singer) when he began work on the film in 1928, and the film compromises, somewhat, with music, sound effects, while maintaining interstitial titles and a predominantly visual narrative. Some of the sound is unnecessary—during an opening unveiling of a statue-tableau, the speaking gas-bags have their voices replaced by Chaplin quacking through a kazoo—but in other sequences, there is a toe-dab into making it essential as, at one point, The Little Tramp swallows a whistle and his resulting hiccups produce a chirping interruption to a pretentious recital. The gag wouldn't work without sound, and the sequence wouldn't work without the sound of the whistle off-screen and the frustrated soloists' reaction to it. Sound, in this instance, becomes essential to Chaplin's silent comedy.

It is also essential to the plot, unusual for a silent film.

The Little Tramp (Chaplin, of course) is going about his day—after being rousted from his sleeping place of a tented statue that has just been unveiled in a pompous civic ceremony—and comes across a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) selling flowers. She can hear—but not see—the bustle of traffic going by, including a very expensive car with a valet who lets out his rich employer. At this time, the Tramp passes her, and she mistakes him for the rich man who has gone off to his destination, oblivious to the girl. She strikes up a conversation with the Tramp and gives him a flower for his lapel, which moves the Tramp as he realizes she is blind. His instinct is to help, even when she dumps a pail of water on him as he observes her.

Still thinking of the girl that evening, he makes his way to the river, where he encounters a drunk millionaire (Harry Myers) who has gone to the river to kill himself. The Tramp convinces the man not to take his life, and inadvertently gets dumped in the water while trying to intervene. The two take turns trying to save each others' life, and the millionaire declares the Tramp his best friend and takes him into town to reward him with a big swanky dinner at a nightclub.

All well and good while the party lasts. But, when the millionaire sobers up, the Little Tramp is forgotten and tossed out on his ear. So, there are periods when Mr. Millions gets depressed, gets in his cups and the Tramp is back in his favor. This allows the Tramp to be in the glow of his generosity enough that he is able to pay the Girl's rent so that she and her elderly mother won't be tossed out of their walk-up. The Girl, of course, is grateful to her unseen benefactor and her affections are returned by the Tramp. He'll do anything for her.

That includes taking a job as a street-sweeper. That includes being coerced to a boxing match with the promise that the purse will be split 50/50. Even when the original boxer goes on the lam when the police catch up with him, leaving the Tramp to go into the ring with a more able-bodied opponent, who looks like he could use the Tramp for a sweat-towel. But, the Tramp persists. If there's a chance that he can help the Girl—especially with a new treatment for blindness they've discovered in Europe—he will do what he has to do. Love, after all, is blind.

One's sympathies, of course, are with the Tramp. And it is from the moment he's uncovered in the town square, negotiating with the intricacies of his statuesque perch—a moment that has him skewered by an upraised sword or inadvertently having his nose thumbed by an upraised marble hand—that we get an encapsulation of the Tramp's character, making us laugh but also gaining our understanding and sympathies. That sequence, and the film's running attitude, reflects The Little Tramp's rather harmless rebellions—is it rebellion if it's your very nature?—against polite society. The Tramp reflects the downtrodden and hapless among all of us and we see, in him, all our best intentions and our own struggles and mishaps, negotiating with an all too-stolid society.

It's part of Chaplin's comedic conspiracy with the audience—show the situation and let the audience anticipate, combining the tension with the frequent pleasures that come from Chaplin's quick surprises and athleticism. He may be a Tramp, but he's an adept one, a flexible, dexterous soul who does what needs be done (here, quite unselfishly), taking advantage of the situation presented (both character and director/actor share that quality) and making the most of it, teasing the audience with the situations and the larger story, and hoping for the best. The Tramp is an eternal optimist.

But, he's still a Tramp. And there will have to be an inevitable resolution between him and the blind girl. That step carries all the hope, anticipation and irony of a good O. Henry story. And, yes, it may be "the single greatest piece of acting ever committed to celluloid"—on the part of both Cherrill and Chaplin—as its nuanced expressions reflect a depth that's as deep as the heart of its viewer. Read into them what you will—shyness, regret, disappointment, happiness, gratitude, humility, heart-break, joy—they're all true.

And Chaplin stops there, fading to black. It is not the usual, unequivocal "happy ending" one has come to expect from the "Silents." The scene will go on (maybe happily, but probably not) leaving us with our own ideas of love, commitment, and pangs of the unrequited. To go farther would spoil it, one way or another. Orson Welles said "If you want a happy ending, that, of course, depends on where you stop your story", a line that is informed by his knowledge of Shakespeare as much as his knowledge of this film. This ending is as daring as stepping backwards towards an elevator shaft, or approaching an abyss on roller-skates. It promises disaster, like so many of Chaplin's stunts of comedic intent. But Chaplin leaves us there, suspended, but thrilled, nonetheless.

Dracula (1931)

Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) Filmed version of the stage-play* featuring its matinee-idol, Bela Lugosi. As with "Frankenstein," there had been other versions of Count Dracula's British Invasion, including one (Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau) that got around copyright issues by calling its "vampyre" "Count Orlok."** As with Universal Picture's earlier productions of The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Man Who Laughs, the film is heavy on theatrics, but, this time, is a bit lean in the make-up department, although Lugosi did wear painful silvered contact lenses to enhance his seductive glare. Lugosi's elegant monster, with his slash of a mouth, and eyes wide open while balefully squinting with a laser-like intensity manages to still evoke "the creeps" to this day.

Tod Browning's direction is full of subtle touches--the sudden appearance of the Count's "brides," for example--and not-so-subtle--a shot of Jonathan Harker on Dracula's staircase is shot through a spider web, and Dwight Frye's performance as Renfield is babblingly over-the-top, as is required of so many actors in the horror genre.

As we wrote of the primal homosexual aspects of Frankenstein, Dracula is the straighter blood-brother--the heterosexual aspect of humanity gone hysterical. Dracula's attacks start as seductions, but his acts are akin to rape--animalistic and savage--and linked to sexuality--penetrative, taking blood and passing on the disease of vampirism to his victims. sapping life-strength and energy. And it's all under the guise of civility and position, of manners and societal restraint. But underneath throbs the bestial urges--hidden by day, and only alive at night. Sure, it's nice to bask in the glow of celebrity, but make sure the smile isn't hiding fangs.

Count Dracula, then, is one big hard-on, that by light of day, crumbles to dust. That his bane are religious icons and his own lack of reflection (self-knowledge) only reinforces the metaphor. He's never gone out of style, no matter how straight-laced or free-loving the times. Dracula is one popular "playa."

With the times, the incarnations of "Dracula" have become increasingly sexual over the years, *** only making more obvious what Bram Stoker and Tod Browning buried in the sub-text. "Dracula" is, and always has been, the personification of serial criminal sexuality--which can only be curbed by the light of day. Dracula is The Forbidden, and carries the risk of damnation for seeking it. Besides the purifying rays of the sun, the surest way to kill a vampire is a blessed stake...through the heart.

Frankenstein-homosexuality. Dracula-heterosexuality. Of course, these haunts were conjured during the repressed Victorian era. But what horrified them, still carried a tingle, just as their stories intrigue us and our children, thrill us, and haunt our dreams. No wonder the Religious Right condemn them, or any aspect of the occult.

Hollywood makes a vain attempt (or stab) at killing them, but these monsters of the Id keep coming back, rising from the grave (or the ashes) to stalk another day...er...night. How do you handle these monsters/urges?

The answer next Friday

*Adapted from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel by Hamilton Deane and John L. Baderston. A Spanish-language version was filmed simultaneously (the English version during the day and the Spanish at night) using the same sets, directed by George Melford and starring Carlos Villarias, Lupito Tovar, and Eduardo Arozamena. BOTH versions are in the National Film Registry.


** "Dracula" did not go into the public domain until April, 1962.

*** A guided tour of coffin-dwellers (PLEASE, no flash pictures!): Christopher Lee's athletic, animal Dracula in the heaving Hammer films, Frank Langella oozing Byronesque charm in the 70's stage version and 80's film version, Barnabas Collins, cutting a swath through the ladies of daytime soap-opera on "Dark Shadows," Anne Rice's tortured, damned rock-star vampires, and right on up to current day with the throbbing vampiric (though chaste) teen romances of the "Twilight" series.