Frankenstein (1931), - 8pm est
Happy Halloween!
Posted on 10/31/2012 10:49:45 AM PDT by Vision
This is your Turner Classic Movie channel alert for Halloween night...
Tonight...the pre-code, original (I assume the controversial unedited version only released in '99) Frankenstein(1931), 8pm est
"A crazed scientist creates a living being from body parts, not realizing it has a madman's brain."
Overview & Cast
First, the silent film "The Unknown" (1927), then "Freaks" (1932).
Actually, the films were more eerie grotesqueries than outright horror as we know it.....each with unusual story lines...with some good twists.
I was completely engrossed, leaving my comfy watching post in between the double-header only to grab a Dove chocolate ice cream bar with dark chocolate coating (pop corn and Milk Duds being unavailable).
Ah, classical movies and chocolate ice cream bars, were Paradise enow (Omar Khayyam, 1048-1131)!
Now onward to a Frankensteinian experience tonight!
Leni
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck's?
Igor: [pause, then] No.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I DID put in?
Igor: Then you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.
Igor: Abby someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby someone. Abby who?
Igor: Abby... Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Normal?
Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [chuckles, then] Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
[grabs Igor and starts throttling him]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Is that what you're telling me?!!!!
Yea, these are great. This version was controversial in ‘31 and am curious how it translates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_%281931_film%29
BTW, haagen daz (chocolate with almond, salted caramel) and magnum (triple chocolate) bars are very, very good.
(I'm such a chocoholic....sigh)
Leni
Spine Tingling!
Saw FREAKS (1932 version).
Followed by Bedlam with Boris Karloff. Some Vincent Price flick on right now.
BTW bit a trivia, Vincent Price died on Halloween.
He was authentic, even in death.
I always loved the vintage horror genre, as epitomized by the old Universal films. I think much of it had to do with the moody, creepy atmospherics.
The “modern” horror genre, with dizzying wall-to-wall graphic effects, sicko serial killers, and zombies munching on brains... doesn’t particularly appeal to me at all. In fact, I frankly find all that rather tiresome.
I wonder if the “Frankenstein” (1931) print being shown tonight is the restored print, which has been recently touted about. Should be worth a look. I did briefly meet the leading lady, Mae Clarke, one time.
Way back then Forrest J. Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland and some of the black-and-white pulp horror comics would occasionally have advertisements selling classic old horror movies. The catch was--they were sold as reels of film, and you had to have a projector and a screen to watch them. Since then we've had laserdisc, beta, VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and now YouTube.
It amazes me to think of those long ago days now that many classic movies (horror and otherwise) are now available for free 24/7 on the Internet. Needless to say, I don't covet my old classmate's "Monster Calendar" any more!
But you cherish the memories.
One other little thought about “Frankenstein.” My grandmother always liked John Boles. She also used to proudly mention to me that she had a schoolteacher once who was the sister to Boles’ wife. I mentioned to my grandmother that Boles was in the original “Frankenstein” movie, and she gave me a sour face that conveyed disapproval that Boles had basically slummed in such an ‘icky horror film!’
That’s my favorite scene in Young Frankenstien.
Back it up just a bit though....
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:”Igor, may I have word with you?”
Igor sits on floor.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:”No, no ,no....up here!”
One of us, One of us.....
Frightening.
It is, but it’s also a very intriguing film.
It was one of the first to portray disabled/deformed people in a sympathetic light. Go to the Wikipedia page on the movie (for want of a better source) and check out the bios of the performers. Some were just amazing.
Classic!
I never tire of this Classic.
Watching now.
Freaks was good!
Lon Chaney in "The Unknown"
Kieth Richards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Ec43f1xdU
Good grief! Vision, I tried to write to you on this thread yesterday, but I see it didn’t post.
I said I hope you’re doing okay up there. Since you posted this thread, I’m figuring you’re doing well, with power and all.
Yea, we’re ok, thanks. The storm moved north at the last minute and when it was to get nasty it quieted down. Thank GOD. It was quite harry Monday afternoon. NYC/NJ is a disaster area.
That’s good to know—you’re fine.
There’s some really bad areas for sure. All the pictures bring back memories of Katrina here on the MS Gulf Coast. Katrina was way worse in destruction.
A couple of thoughts on Frankenstein from 1931; I’m curious if they resonate with anyone.
It’s an iconic movie. It had to have been bone chilling to people in 1931 who were seeing movies from the first time. It was probably among the first few talkie films and could have been the first monster movie. The first quick shots of the monster could have freaked people out! The story concept is timeless, it’s the granddaddy of all horror films.
That said, being a sofa critic 80 years later. I don’t see this standing up to time as well as other very early films and it surprises me. They’re weren’t many timelessly clever moments characteristic of pre-code/early movies (even silent movies). Much of the time the story wasn’t a step ahead of the viewer. I was very surprised they didn’t show an early love story between Dr. Frankenstein and his love before he began to obsess on creating life- which would have bonded the audience to the main character better. Overall the characters were dull, with the exception of Barron Frankenstein who stole every scene he was in. Why try to humanize the monster with the flowers in the little girl scene? They could have shown him walking up to her and then faded ominously away.
Anyway, great film, just more basic story telling than many other early movies were capable of.
Yes, the story of man-made man, the most horrifying evidenced by women's lib.
Frankenstein, written by a woman, was the prophetic allegory of "feminism" (like "liberal" standing for the opposite of its label) AKA beautiful, soft, lovely women recreating themselves to try to be like men.
As an aficionada of Twenties and Thirties films, I love to concentrate on all the details regardless of imperfect story lines, i.e., the clothes of the period, the room furnishings, the vocal accents, those wonderful, huge dining rooms in the manors, even the graininess of the film itself.....well, you get my drift.
I love Halloween night when all the oldie, goodies are scheduled.
Just me, my flickering screen and my Milk Duds, BOO !
LOL.....
Leni
Frankenstein, the story of man-made man, is a horrifying story. But it is also symbolic of the even more horrifying real-live monster of the women's lib movement.
Frankenstein, written by a woman, was an allegory of "feminism" (like the usage of the word "liberal," "feminism" stands for the opposite of its label). The feminine nature, made beautiful, soft, and lovely by God, is stifled and made grotesque in women who recreate themselves to try to be like men. The missing little girl symbolizes the 60-some million aborted children missing since 1970, victims of this monster’s wrath. Men (and women alike) are also counted among this monster’s casualties.
Mary Shelley wrote many fantastic novels and stories, but she is best known for Frankenstein, written in friendly competition with Lord Byron, John Polidori and of course, Mary's husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Byronic hero-demon who dominated his wife with an influence both inspiring and vampiric. When Mary wrote "The Transformation" in 1831, she was thirty-four. Percy had been dead for nearly a decade, yet his equivocal personality still possessed her, as reflected in the character of the narrator of this bizarre tale, a weak person with a great capacity to do either good or evil. The denouement seems to suggest that the author still could not abandon all hope that her late husband's soul was magnificent, at least in its potential for virtue. Though she died twenty years later in 1851, it is unlikely that Mary even exorcised her great angel-fiend.
To extend the allegory, the monster may be a man and the effects on a woman can be "monstrous."
Mary Shelley wrote “The Transformation” in the first-person tense, as a man. The man was an impetuous, hot-headed fool who loved a girl from his youth (as much as any tyrannical egomaniac can love someone besides himself). He makes a sort of “deal with the devil” to win back the girl.
Although the story has a “happy” ending, it was the man who was a fiend, and learned the hard way to humble himself, but the girl never wavered from her beautiful, feminine sweetness and light.
That is neat. Thanks for sharing that.
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