Same here. I'm not quite so fond of Chaney, though, who strikes me as much more limited a performer than Karloff or even Lugosi - though he was certainly a better Frankenstein's monster than Lugosi was. Okay, so was Glenn Strange. Lugosi supposedly passed on playing the Monster in the original film, objecting to the make-up. Evidently his career choices were somewhat more limited by the time the fourth or fifth sequel rolled around. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1G9NdiRreY[/yt]
Lugosi was brilliant as Igor in Son of Frankenstein, of course it helps to play off of Rathbone. Love the Wolfman best. Chaney hits it perfectly and you really feel for the charceter. Something totaly absent from the recent remake.
It's rather remarkable that Universal's Frankenstein led to quite a few generally well-regarded sequels - some better, some worse - and their Dracula petered out rather quickly (okay, okay, like Lon Chaney all you want to but you can't claim that his turn as "Count Alucard" was either his or the bloodsucker's finest hour ). Particularly so when you see how much more continually renewable variations of Dracula have been in popular culture since then.
The quantum leap in filmmaking technique between Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein is startling. Frankenstein is creaky. It's not a bad film, but it's an early talkie and you can see that they were just figuring out the format. Bride is a slick Hollywood production that improves on the original in every way. I'm toying with going to that screening tonight, but I know traffic is going to be a nightmare worthy of the Frankenstein monster. Neil
My husband's great uncle (Russel Gausman) was the set decorator for this film as well as other horror films and he won an oscar for set decoration for one of them, Phantom of the Opera, I think. I saw it (the award) at his uncle's house, but that was many years ago.