With Frankenstein,
director James Whale had astonished the cinematic world with his boldness
and creativity. And though he also was successful with his other horror films,
The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein, it was really drama that
attracted him. Before Frankenstein, his first film for Universal was the
tragic melodrama Waterloo Bridge and during the 1930s he was to return to
drama consistently. Needless to say, they never did as well at the box office
as did his horror films. After one such lackluster drama, Universal was thrilled
to have Whale back to horror with this film. Or is it?
Whale could certainly have sold it as such.
A large dilapidated gloomy house with staircase upon staircase, distorted
mirrors, home to an eccentric mad family, a group of strangers driven by
the rain stopping there and Boris Karloff. Karloff and been in a number of
films since Frankenstein but in small parts that made no impact. They wanted
to have him in another horror. In a producer's note at the beginning of the
film, they point out that the actor who plays the "mad butler" in this film
is the same as who played the "mechanical monster" in Frankenstein. Much
of this film sounds familiar today as many movies were to use these same
ingredients for many horror films. But not at the time other than a couple
silent films such as The Cat and the Canary and The Fall of the House of
Usher. Whale, who was a big fan of Paul Leni's Expressionism in his directed
silent horrors, makes great use of the house, the darkness, the flickering
lights, the angles to create a background of slow building dread.
Whale adapted this from a novel by J.B.
Priestly, one of the more prominent leftist writers of that period. Apparently,
there were a lot of class dynamics in the book, but for the most part Whale
and his scriptwriter dropped much of that. Still, this is very dialogue heavy
and the horror doesn't truly kick in until with about 20-minutes remaining.
Till then it is an actor's film with everyone getting a sizable chunk of
dialogue and their moment in the spotlight. Except poor Karloff who plays
a maniacal mute and was not really happy with that role. But what a set of
actors, mainly from the English stage. All but Karloff early in their film
careers and a few who would go on to great things.
Playing the jittery head of the house, Ernest
Thesiger was to become better known in The Bride of Frankenstein. His religious
fanatic sister played by Eva Moore was a theater star and nearly steals the
film. To her brother, "You are afraid. You don't believe in God, but you
are afraid to die". The first of the three strangers to arrive are played
by Raymond Massey, Melvyn Douglas and Gloria Stewart. Next come a pair played
by Charles Laughton and Lilian Bond. It is a delight watching them trade
barbs, niceties, flirtations and concerns as the night gets crazier with
a drunk homicidal Karloff and a psychopath in the attic.
But getting back to my original question,
is this a horror film? Well yes, and no. Whales is not really out to scare
the audience as much as to create a stultifying no escape atmosphere and
a situation in which five very different people have to band together to
survive the long night. And somehow, he squeezes in a bit of comedy and a
love story. We are lucky that this film still exists. After Universe lost
the rights to the book, they withdrew the film from circulation and lost
it. For years. Director Curtis Harrington went in search for it and Universal
eventually came up with a ragtag print that was restored.
