But in Shelley’s original, said Frayling, “Frankenstein says he selected the body parts with great care. In the book - as in the subsequent retellings - Frankenstein the scientist constructs his creation out of parts of dead human beings. The idea of the creature as a grunting, horrific-looking monster actually stems from these early interpretations of Shelley’s story. In 1910, Thomas Edison’s film company made a “Frankenstein” movie, one of the first narrative films, and certainly the first narrative genre film, ever produced. While Shelley’s novel initially was considered an amoral flop, by 1826, there were no fewer than 15 theatrical versions of “Frankenstein” competing on the stage throughout England and France. “Frankenstein” was already popular before Universal Studios decided to adapt it as part of a new stable of cheap horror flicks in the early 1930s. and Frankenstein has to look like Boris Karloff.” It’s like Dracula has to wear a cloak, Sherlock Holmes has to wear a deerstalker.
“That image of the 1931 monster is so strong that ever since then, nobody can really have a crack at Frankenstein without taking some account of that image,” Christopher Frayling, author of “ Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years” (Reel Art Press), told The Post. Yet, despite countless reimaginings, it’s the 1931 version of the monster - with the lumbering gait, exaggerated forehead, squared-off head and electric bolts sticking out of his neck - that continues to haunt pop culture, inspiring Halloween costumes, toys and parodies to this day. And since the book’s initial publication in 1818, it has inspired hundreds of plays and more than 75 movies. But it was worth it: “The makeup is what really made the film,” said Mank.įrankenstein turns 200 this year. The combination of face paint and crude DIY prosthetics that he came up with took at least four hours to apply and two hours to take off after a long day of filming.
Since Shelley’s book contained little detail about the creature’s looks, Pierce could let his imagination run wild, and he spent months researching and experimenting with the monster’s appearance. “It was so extraordinary and so incredibly realistic,” he told The Post of the monster’s ghoulish face and flat-topped head, a collaboration among Karloff, director James Whale and makeup whiz Jack Pierce. While the story - based on the 19th-century novel by Mary Shelley about a scientist who tries to create a human but ends up fabricating a monster - was spooky enough, Mank said it was the makeup that really made the picture.
“She was 18 years old when the movie came out - she wasn’t a kid - so even adults were really shocked and thrown for a loop by this movie,” said Hollywood historian Gregory Mank, who has written multiple books on classic horror films. One young woman reported that she was afraid to go into her attic for months after seeing the film she was convinced that Frankenstein’s monster, played by a larger-than-life Boris Karloff, was hiding up there. One critic said that the premiere “aroused so much excitement” that many audience members “laughed to cover their true feelings” of horror and revulsion. Boris Karloff in 1931’s “Frankenstein” Courtesy Everett Collection 4, 1931, curious New Yorkers swarmed the Times Square cinema to experience what promised to be the scariest movie ever filmed. When Universal’s horror classic “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair Theater on Dec.