ISSUE 7 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub

talent, Pierce took the creation of Frankenstein’s Monster more seriously. ‘I did some research in anatomy, surgery, criminology, ancient and modern burial customs, and electro-dynamics. I discovered there are six ways a surgeon can cut a skull, and I figured Dr Frankenstein, who was not a practising surgeon, would take the easiest. That is, he would cut the top of the skull off, straight across like a pot lid, hinge it, pop the brain in, and clamp it tight. That’s the reason I decided to make the Monster’s head square and fiat like a box, and dig that big scar across his forehead, and have metal clamps hold it together. The two metal studs that stick out the sides of his neck are inlets for electricity — plugs! The Monster is an electrical gadget and lightning is his life force.’ The Monster was nothing of the sort, and Karloff knew it. A well educated man, he would have read and understood Mary Shelley’s classic novel, subtitled as it was The Modern Prometheus despite Universal, who subtitled their production The Man Who Made a Monster. He was an actor, too, or rather An Actor: a Man of the Theatre, with a style and tradition not yet totally killed by the Motion Picture. Karloff carried within him that dying technique, the extension of Drama known as Melodrama. Overdone as many of his ‘straight’ performances would come to seem, when set against the naturalistic playing of his modern talkie contemporaries, he nevertheless vested his characterizations with thought, depth, and humanity. Even his Monsters. And because of this his final performance of the The monster frightens Frankenstein’s bride Frankenstein Monster still stands head and electrodes above any of the many that have followed in his asphalt-spreaders boots. Said Karloff : ‘The Monster was inarticulate, and I had to make him understood. When the audience first sees him he is only five hours old. My first problem was not to let his eyes be too intelligent, which is why I decided to use the false eye-lids that half veil the eyes.’ Jack Pierce took the idea, cut half moons out of rubber and stuck them to Karloff’s eyelids with spirit gum: Karloff’s one personal touch to his make-up. The rest was Pierce, working to Whale’s sketches. Again and again new make-ups were tried and abandoned. One, with clipped gouges in the forehead, seemed final and was photographed by the Universal stills department for use in publicity, posters and promotion. When the film was finally shown, the clips had disappeared: the make-up had been changed yet again ! Patiently Karloff bore it all, the pain and the tiredness, the soreness and the heat. He was too much the veteran to even dare hope that the film would come off, let alone that it would feature him. But the work and the pain paid off, and bit by bit the film was made. And in the end, Karloff was made, too. Years before, Hollywood’s original Monster star,

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