TCM Genre movies schedule...

[Harvey]

Bride of Frankenstein is certainly the best, but it gets played to death. I've heard good things about the third film, but never had the chance to see it. (It is on Netflix streaming at the moment, though).

[Greg Cox]

Harvey wrote:

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Bride of Frankenstein is certainly the best, but it gets played to death. I've heard good things about the third film, but never had the chance to see it. (It is on Netflix streaming at the moment, though).

SON is the least of the three Karloff films, but Bela Lugosi as Ygor makes it worth watching.

[sojourner]

I tuned in just in time to catch some little boy with Little Orphan Annie's hair reciting lines terribly. I couldn't continue.

[Silvercrest]

I've only seen the original movie, parts of some of the later ones, and the Abbott and Costello flick. I need to go back and study these movies more closely when I've got the chance — but in the last year I've been realizing just how many of the popular Frankenstein cliches are either mixed-up or just plain wrong. Aside from the part about how Frankenstein isn't the creature's name.

In the cliche version, you've got a mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who talks in a lugubrious voice, has a hunchbacked assistant named Igor, and who creates a monster who walks as though he can't bend his knees or elbows. The Victor thing I can forgive, since that was his name in the original book. The cliche of Igor is somewhat understandable if the characters of Fritz and Ygor (who I guess shows up in several later movies) have been blurred together.

Now-- my understanding is that the "Frankenstein walk" originates in one of the movies where the monster is rendered blind and has to feel his way around — is that right?

But what about the lugubrious voice, like the rendition that Bobby Pickett gives us in "The Monster Mash"? It's almost iconic, but Colin Clive's delivery isn't anything like that. Where did that come from?

What other Frankenstein cliches are all wrong?

[Christopher]

Actually the voice Pickett used in "Monster Mash" was an impersonation of Boris Karloff's real speaking voice.

http://m.billboard.com/v/News/50Year...246e39b4b0e9e8

[Greg Cox]

Silvercrest wrote:

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Now-- my understanding is that the "Frankenstein walk" originates in one of the movies where the monster is rendered blind and has to feel his way around — is that right?

Pretty much. The monster was rendered blind at the end of THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, so Lugosi played him that way in the next film, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN.

Alas, all the dialogue relating to the monster being blind was cut from the final edit of the movie, so that the monster appears to be walking around clumsily with arms outstretched for no particular reason!

Glenn Strange (who played the monster in the next three films) seems to have carried this on for some reason.

[Mr. Adventure]

Got around to watching House of Dark Shadows off the DVR. It's quite a bit of fun now that I've seen enough Dark Shadows TV to know what's going on. It's interesting to see these familiar faces with movie lighting, makeup and clarity and it's fun watching a good portion of them get quickly offed in gory ways.

Though I can't see how a virgin viewer could get anything from this movie other than atmosphere. Instead of reframing the core of the TV series into a solid film it seems they just condense hundreds of episodes into 90 minutes leaving no time for anything to develop or to understand any of the characters. I think, for example, they could've cut Dr. Hoffman and David out of the film entirely.

My favorite part of the movie is the way the police come in and take out the vampires as if it's just an uncommon job duty like when they're called in when a circus animal gets loose or something. I don't mean that snarkily, I've just never seen it presented like that.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Got around to watching House of Dark Shadows off the DVR. It's quite a bit of fun now that I've seen enough Dark Shadows TV to know what's going on. It's interesting to see these familiar faces with movie lighting, makeup and clarity and it's fun watching a good portion of them get quickly offed in gory ways.

Though I can't see how a virgin viewer could get anything from this movie other than atmosphere. Instead of reframing the core of the TV series into a solid film it seems they just condense hundreds of episodes into 90 minutes leaving no time for anything to develop or to understand any of the characters. I think, for example, they could've cut Dr. Hoffman and David out of the film entirely.

My favorite part of the movie is the way the police come in and take out the vampires as if it's just an uncommon job duty like when they're called in when a circus animal gets loose or something. I don't mean that snarkily, I've just never seen it presented like that.

heh, yeah i always thought it was weird that you have the Collinsport PD running around with steaks and crucifixes like its just another day at work.

[RJDiogenes]

They probably watched the show and thought, "Hey, this is a reimagining-- all bets are off."

[Valin]

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

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heh, yeah i always thought it was weird that you have the Collinsport PD running around with steaks and crucifixes like its just another day at work.

In Collinsport that was just another day at work for the cops.

[Redfern]

Speaking of Frankenstein cliches...

Electrodes! The bloody things in the creature's neck are electrodes! At least, they were in the beginning of the Universal era. At what point did they start confusing them with fastening "bolts"? Did that idea start as overt parody in drawings and was simply forgotten over time?

And the flat headed motif. It started as somewhat subtle and it was mainly along the forehead. the back of the skull was pretty much rounded. Wasn't Jack Pierce's reason for the forehead was to suggest Frankenstein crudely sawed off the top of the skull to fit the new brain. But over the years, the Jack Pierce design was exaggerated by imitators until it was flatter than an aircraft runway.

Obviously, these concepts are not reflective of the original novel in any way. (Though I recently learned the motif of a dull-witted, mute creature was NOT an invention of the Universal series, but various stage plays presented in the mid to latter 1800s. That surprsied me.)

Sincerely,

Bill

[Silvercrest]

Was there a misperception that the "bolts" were literally keeping his head from falling off? I missed that one.

Anyone ever read The Frankenstein Papers by Fred Saberhagen? It retells the story from some other perspectives (including that of a highly intelligent monster). All the events are cast in a very different light. This story is set during the latter part of the Revolutionary War, presumably so it can feature a number of historical figures. But it somehow places the publication of Shelley's novel during the same time. I'm still trying to figure that out.

[Christopher]

Redfern wrote:

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Wasn't Jack Pierce's reason for the forehead was to suggest Frankenstein crudely sawed off the top of the skull to fit the new brain.

Basically. IIRC, he researched actual brain-surgery techniques from the period, and based the makeup design for Karloff on the crudest of those techniques, since the film's Frankenstein was not an actual surgeon and thus wouldn't have been qualified to pull off one of the more refined methods.

[Redfern]

Chritopher, since you have a knack for unerring facts, maybe you can help me.

Years ago, I saw a special about Frankenstein, and at one point it discussed Jack Pierce and his iconic make-up design. As part of that presentation, Illustrations (I assume Pierce himself may have drawn) were shown of various rejected concepts, including one that was considerably "robotic". There were at least three, but there may have been more.

So far, I have not yet stumbled across those images during my internet browsing. I'm hoping maybe you have seen (or better yet, have) copies of these declined concepts. I would love to have them for my personal digital collection.

Sincerely,

Bill

[Christopher]

^Sorry, but I think my sole source for that information is most likely the same special you saw.