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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Playing "follow the link" I just came "this close" (imagine me nearly pressing my thumb and index figure to gether) to those images on this page... http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-man-jack-pierce.html ...but the link was broken. The various comments suggest the images I remember were not actually drawn by Pierce's hand, but were presented by other parties to hopefully inspire or guide the eventual design. Sincerely, Bill
Starting Wednesday, November 28th... 8:00 PM EST: The Time Machine (1960) 10:00 PM EST: The Andromeda Strain (1971) 12:15 AM EST: Solaris (1972) 3:15 AM EST: 2010 (1984) 5:15 AM EST: From the Earth to the Moon (1958) I still haven't seen Solaris, so I'll check that out.
TCM had Camelot! on last night. Must have been 25 years since I last saw it. It was much slower moving than I remember.
They must be doing an sf night in their books-to-film theme for the month... I've only ever seen a few bits of Solaris, it's very deliberately paced... Andromeda Strain remains one of the most accurate translations of a novel to screen I've ever seen, and 2010 is a lot of fun. I saw a bit of Earth to the Moon when they showed it last month, it looked cool. And as much as I love Arthurian legend, Camelot is pretty snoozy.
Oh, yeah, I hadn't noticed -- those are all films based on SF novels. And I've read all five novels, but I've only seen four of the films. I should check out Solaris.
Solaris is an interesting film, although the pacing might get on some people's nerves. The 2002 remake isn't too shabby, either.
I'm waiting for the Blu-Ray release. (The Criterion version of the original, on Blu-Ray and DVD, is superb).
I'm patient enough to wait. Although it was a financial failure at the box office, the names of George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, and James Cameron are enough to guarantee that it will be released in high definition...eventually.