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SECRET ORIGINS OF FRANKENSTEIN - CHAPTER 1 OF 18
THE KING OF MONSTERS STALKS AGAIN!
The Frankenstein Monster! He's been re-imagined as everything from a blue cartoon robot to a pink breakfast cereal for kids, but in terms of transforming the monster's image from frightening to funny, a series of Saturday Night Live sketches were probably the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Say the name "Frankenstein" today, and you're likely to hear someone yell out "FIRE BAD!" a catch-phrase that attached itself to the Monster thanks to an SNL bit featuring Phil Hartman (pictured below) as Dr. Frankenstein's creation. He mumbled incoherently most of the time, but when the subject of fire came up, he panicked and screamed "Fire bad!" repeatedly. |
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DIAL F FOR FRANKENSTEIN
Thanks to SNL and many others, no one is really SCARED of the Frankenstein Monster anymore. But reader, after you finish reading this all-new, epic 18-chapter series, I promise you this: You will never look at Frankenstein the same way again! And you will fear him. As it was in days of old, his name ALONE will send a shiver of fear through your body. You can almost feel it coming now, can't you?
If you're saying, "That can't be true," thank you for reading DIAL B for BLOG for the first time! In previous "Secret Origins" issues, Robby Reed ripped the lid off Batman's hidden origin, explained the philosophical basis of Steve Ditko's Mr. A, and revealed the Fantastic Four's secret pulp roots. Robby has even explored the orig
ins of Scooter, Captain Pureheart and Hot Stuff!
NOW READER -- prepare yourself as Robby takes on Universal's Frankenstein, approaching the subject armed with a formidable array of custom-made graphics, ready, willing and able to expose incredible secrets kept for eight decades! That's right -- the first Universal Frankenstein movie is now 80 years old. The old boy has held up pretty well, hasn't he?
Get ready for 18 chapters, a new one each day, for the next 18 days. OK, Frankenstein fans. You think you've seen it all? You haven't. Because you've never seen anything like THIS. It's the Halloween series that couldn't wait until Halloween as the World's Most Original Blogazine becomes the World's Most Horrifying VLOGAZINE! (Video+Blog+Magazine!)
Leave a light on, lest the TERROR overcome you.
And now, we begin! |
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 UNCANNY DISCOVERY
"Your face has startling possibilities!"
These words, spoken by director James Whale to a little-known actor he found eating lunch in the Universal Studios cafeteria, launched the studio's Frankenstein dynasty.
Whale had been hired by Universal to direct their movie adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Lunching one day in the studio cafeteria, Whale spied a lean, gaunt actor whose face fit the role as he envisioned it. "Someone tapped me on the shoulder," the actor recalls, "And said that Mr. Whale would like to see me at his table."
The actor, pictured above, was a 44-year-old Englishman who had previously done smaller roles in 79 films (mostly as the villain). He got the part -- and William Henry Pratt became the Frankenstein monster. Pratt's stage name? Boris Karloff.
"Boris Karloff's face fascinated me," said Whale. "I made drawings of his head, and added sharp bony ridges where I imagined the skull might have joined. His physique was weaker than I could wish, but I felt that queer, penetrating personality of his was more important than his shape, which could easily be altered." |
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PAGING "DOCTOR" PIERCE
Universal gave make-up genius Jack Pierce, who had come to America from his native Greece, the job of visualizing the Monster, under James Whale's supervision. Mary Shelly's novel offered little specific description of the Monster's face, so Pierce did months of research on anatomy,  surgery, criminology, and even burial customs, to create the world's most famous flat top.
Pierce constructed the Monster's facial features out of cotton, nose putty, and a strong-smelling liquid plastic glue called collodion.
"I discovered there are only six ways a surgeon can cut the skull," Pierce said, "And I figured Dr. Frankenstein would take the easiest. He'd 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," Pierce continues, "that I decided to make the monster's head square and flat like a box, and dig that huge scar across his forehead, and have metal clamps to hold it together. The two metal studs that stick out the sides of his neck are inlets for electricity. The monster is an electrical gadget, and lightning is its life force!"
HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER
Applying the make-up to Karloff's head and face was a long, torturous process. The following photos are a mixture of shots showing Karloff being made up for the first three Frankenstein films. The make-up differed slightly for each film, but I'm presenting them as a group to show the general sequence. "Jack Pierce and I spent three hours almost every evening for three weeks creating the make-up," Karloff once wrote.
First, a headpiece was built out of cotton and glue, then "Electrical bolts" were affixed to Karloff's neck so tightly that he would bear tiny scars from them for years to come. At this time, Pierce was 42 and Karloff was 43.
BELOW: Pierce puts hair on the headpiece, painstakingly adding one row at a time... |
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| Pierce subtly exaggerated Karloff's own facial features by accentuating his gaunt cheeks and creating deep shadows under his eyes. The fake hair was brushed straight down over the forehead to discreetly "hide" the metal clamps Dr. Frankenstein used to fasten the Monster's skull together.
You can see one of them glistening in the pic below... |
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| In Shelly's novel, the monster had long black hair that was describe as "lustrous." Pierce, probably at Whale's request, gave the monster a more "contemporary" style which, at this stage, looks a bit like a monster mullet! |
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| Karloff wore a dental appliance on the right side of his mouth. When he removed it and sucked in, it made his cheek look hollow. The effect was accentuated by makeup, which was also used to blacken a few of Karloff's teeth. |
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| The monster's face was finished off with a coating of grease-paint that photographed as a ghoulish, pasty white. |
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Pierce adding various highlights and scars to the Monster's face... |
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| But when Karloff looked in the mirror, he felt his eyes were still too "alive" looking... |
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| At Karloff's suggestion, mortician's wax was applied to his eyelids to make them look half-closed, giving them a sort of dull, half-asleep look that was perfect for the monster... |
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Disturbing close-up showing Karloff's wax eyelids...
Don't stare at it TOO long, or it will come to LIFE! |
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Karloff's transformation, and the gruesome finished product... |
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The original Universal Frankenstein... the FACE of FEAR! |
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PROMETHIAN PROTOTYPE
The photo BELOW LEFT shows Karloff in an early version of the make-up that features "horns" bound by metal clamps. This look was discarded, perhaps because the studio thought it would be difficult for audiences to empathize with a creature sporting horns as big as the devil himself. Although the "horn" style make-up was rejected, its image still found its way onto an early poster for the movie, in "flopped" form (mirror-image)... |
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... and it was also used in early promotional materials such as the ad below. |
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In the end, the horns were removed, and the monster's final look was agreed upon by Pierce, Karloff and Whale. The entire thing took four torturous hours to apply, and another hour to remove -- almost every day, for 18 weeks. That's five hours a day just for make-up alone!
Karloff once recalled, "The make-up itself was quite painful, particularly the putty on my eyes. There were days when I thought I would never be able to hold out until the end of the day." |
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ABOVE: An ultra-rare look at the final Frankenstein make-up in FULL COLOR! This is not a colorized still, it's the make-up's natural, true, genuine color, as it appeared for REAL. The picture is a frame-grab taken from color home movies made during the filming of SON of Frankenstein, so the make-up may not be exactly the same as it was in the original movie. Note the uneven green-yellow color, which is not noticeable in black and white.
That's the face. When you think of the Frankenstein Monster, you think of THIS face, THIS monster make-up. No matter what the version, no matter what the interpretation, if the character's face doesn't look like THIS face, then it's just NOT the Frankenstein Monster. This face, the face of the Uncanny, is immortal. It is, as they say, "often imitated, never duplicated."
A face of startling possibilities!
Click the button below to see special guest Jack Pierce surprise Boris Karloff on "This Is Your Life," from November 20, 1957. A two minute clip
that MUST be seen. CLICK IT NOW! |
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