(upbeat music) - Welcome to Rise Smile Films, the film review podcast that mixes cinema with fine spirits. Journey with us as we encounter new, old, and strange films with the occasional dabble into sports and music. Proceed with caution as these podcasts feature spoilers and some mature language. This is Matt and this is Jesse. - Today on tap, we have Frankenstein starring Colin Clive, May Clark, John Bowles, Dwight Fry, Edward von Sloane, and Boris Karloff. I should have said end question mark. Based on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and based on the 1927 play by Peggy Webbling, John L. Baldurston, story by Richard Shayer. A lot of people on this screenplay, screenplay by Garrett Fort, Francis Edward Farrago, Robert Florie, and John Russell, and directed by James Whale. Welcome back to Rise Smile Films. It's time to continue on with our heavy hitters, horror podcast, and we're talking about a big one today from 1931. So Dracula still has the title for oldest movie, but this would be number two months away. Yeah, exactly. From 1931, Frankenstein, the second universal monster, hugely influential film for a lot of people, but not only for universal studios as a kind of growing new studio on the backlot, right? Yeah. But help launch the career of Boris Karloff, who would henceforth after that just be titled this Karloff, his name was so popular, right? But I'm excited to talk about this one. A pretty interesting series. I tried to watch "Son of Frankenstein" 'cause it'd been years. I didn't finish it, but that's an interesting little movie too. That one has, you know, Belle Lagosi playing Igor and at Basil Rathbone plays, you know, the son of Henry Frankenstein here. As the last time Boris Karloff played the creature, but maybe one day if we're looking for some offhanded sequels to talk about that might be worth talking about. But yeah, Frankenstein, 1931, this was a you pick any particular reasons. I'm sure we'll get into them over the next hour and a half. You know, when we started talking about big horror films that we had missed, it's no shortage or there's no shortage of universal property that we can tackle. And we have spent so much time, I think, talking about this film, Bride and Frankenstein and even Abbott and Costello from certain time, and then the sharing of the characters or actors that played multiple parts in all of these series. This just seemed, and it's been a while since we've gone back this far, it just seemed like the perfect time to do it. And there's also a little bit of personal bias in this for me, and I think there's some really interesting discussion points that I'm hoping that I can keep it better, keep it together better in this episode than I did for Rocky Five. But this is gonna hit some art streams. - You said that not Rocky Five, Rocky Balboa, right? - Whichever one we both got pretty sappy over. - They're definitely not Rocky Five with Tommy God. - That's just so bad, maybe that's why we talked about one, right? - No, I know what you mean. Yeah, it's just... - Balboa, yeah, that's right. - Thematically so much to talk about a film that's fast approaching its 100 year anniversary, which is hard to fathom. And there's a lot of things here, whether it was the true intention of James Whale, there's a lot of really heavy-handed stuff in this film that's, and a few things I picked up on for the first time watching, and I've seen this movie a dozen times. Yeah, this was one of the first universal monsters. I remember, I think I was maybe sick or something and I was at home, my dad went to the video store and I really wanted to watch the monster. So he brought Wolfman and this one. I thought this movie was boring as hell. - I bet. - Hell, were you? Seven, yeah six, yeah, Wolfman was cool 'cause he looks cool, right? So I gleaned on to that one more, but this one was, and then I got to Dracula, man, you wanna talk about Snooze Town, we struggled with that as much, much older adults with that. - Absolutely, but in years, going back and really digging into the behind the scenes, the commentaries and just getting into the nitty gritty with this film, and even more so for me, Brida Frankenstein, and that's where the good stuff is for me, but not taking anything away from this film, I mean, this film stands on its own. - So you kind of hinted around about it, so this is the unofficial flight question, and this is on the heels of an episode that went three plus hours last week, and for those of you that burned through all three hours, this one's to you. Wait, we had a lot to say about a movie, I didn't think we were gonna go that long, but they meant that. - Oh, man, sure, absolutely. - So unofficial, official, not nightcap and not flight. Of all the universal classic monsters, which one of them do you feel like had the biggest impact on the horror industry? - This might be perfect, perfect timing to get into this 'cause it's probably this movie. - I would agree, whereas Phantom of the Opera really set the stage, Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, brought us something uncanny and unfamiliar, and then Carl Emily Jr. Taking a shot in the dark on Dracula, are people even gonna like these scary movies? Guess what they did? But this is the one where I feel like it all came together, not only in the filmmaking tendencies, but in the acting, the cinematography. I mean, there's a lot of really innovative things in this film story-wise. It's a cool 70 minutes and you're out, but I think the biggest impact I think that can be seen is if you go to Universal Studios in Hollywood and you do the backlot tour, they take you through essentially what they call Europe, like the European Village, and you take that trolley right through the main square where the people in this film are dancing for Henry's wedding, and it looks just like it does in this movie, it's untouched. Aside from some probably some minor restorations here and there, but you're going through like 100 years of film history right there, so I know it's important to the studio that it was built upon. They can't get rid of that. I mean, there's so much legacy right there, but I think a lot of things came together in Frankenstein that would then be further expanded on in bride. That's what I would say too, and that's my answer the same as Frankenstein. When you look at all of the sequels and any of the subsequent properties that were after the original of any of the five to six universal monsters has been who you want to include in that. The bride without question had the most success and is the best film and it's really not even close. Now, some of that is the second half of the novel was adapted into the screenplay, so there was source material that had been time tested, but part of it also is the legacy that the original setup I think was far more solid and believable going forward than the rest of them are, and you might say, well, they killed off Dracula, they killed off the Wolfman, they killed off the creature from the Black Lagoon, they killed off the Invisible Man. They killed off the monster too, and they resurrected him because the basis of the monster is a corpse that could be reanimated if built properly. And so if you set that up, it gives you some plausible deniability about finality, and that to me is why this gets my vote for the most impactful or has the longest lasting or most impactful place in horror, because if it's not for Frankenstein, I'm not sure horror becomes as franchiseable as the rest of horror was, because people flocked in droves to the third son of Frankenstein, the third movie in that series, because one and two were so good. Can you say that about Dracula three? - Yes, son of Dracula was launched in New Jersey. - No way. - No, definitely. - What Invisible Nation or Invisible Army, what's the third Invisible Man? - There's Invisible Agent. - Invisible Agent. - Than the Invisible Woman. - So, right, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel already. - Definitely, yeah, no, yeah, there's something here, and it's interesting to see that the way Frankenstein looks and how he appears on screen is how he would forever be remembered. I mean, it's not how it's depicted in the book. It's a much more crude creation. I mean, green, flat top, neck bolts, high platform shoes, I mean, the dark coat. I mean, that's Frankenstein. I mean, even Herman Munster is gonna take on that appearance in the '60s, it's just really popular. I mean, even the Munster squad, that Munster kind of looks a little bit like this one too. - Sure. - But I think we're building an interesting little cast care unbeknownst to ourselves, because I made a claim last week. I was like, Matt, is the evil dead? One of the top five most important horror films. Doesn't have to be the greatest, but most important in terms of its story, its road to get there and the legacy from what it became and built. And I'll say the same thing about Frankenstein. So we have two of the five in this cast, possibly. I don't know if I could say the same thing about next week's movie, but I don't know. Maybe a viewing will change my mind. - Heavy hitters, we missed, man. We're swinging for the fences on this pitch. - Absolutely, two bottles here. Two bottles here, let's see how they treat us here as more of the Clyde May single barrel and we have some dry fly bourbon 101. But hey, we got a ton to talk about today. Let's get to our review breakdown of Frankenstein. - How do you do? - Mr. Carl Lemley feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture without just a word of friendly warning. We're about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon guard. He is one of the strangest tales ever told. He deals with the two great mysteries of creation, life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now is your chance to wheres it, we warn you. - The head of the studio is really nervous about this movie. So that way people don't come and pick it to the studio and burn it to the ground. Let me send Edward Von Sloane out onto a stage. - We can trust Van Helsing. - Sure, and this is crazy. I mean, you don't even get the universal logo to open up the movie. Like nothing, you just get this guy walks out on the stage and just start talking about how you're about to experience the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life. Man, to be someone in 1931, sitting there watching this in New York on its premiere. This guy comes out and tells me I'm going to see things I've never seen before and this is my chance to get out and run. I probably shit my pants. I don't know if I would be prepared for what I was in for. I mean, think of like horror up to that time, knows for a lot too. And I don't even know if a lot of that stuff was really making it stateside yet to like the general populace. You had Dracula, you have some Lon Chaney stuff, you have some bits and pieces of the uncanny, but you ain't never seen anything like this before. I've always really liked this opening because I think that it's just also another tactic to put more fear into the audience before the film even starts, right? - I'm right there with you on this. You can't but watch this and see the influences that Hitchcock had during the premiere of Psycho, also a heavy hitter in the horror industry. - Well, I see a lot of this too in like Blair Witch Project and just creating fear marketing. - Exactly. So fear marketing is the exact phraseology that I want to use at the premiere of Psycho, which we've covered. So go back and list that episode if you don't know what I'm talking about. Hitchcock made everybody that was seeing the screening not only sign a waiver that released the studio from any harm, but also each of the theaters that were showing it had to sign a waiver saying we won't let anybody in late for fear that you might miss this really important beginning. So after 15 minutes, doors were locked, you couldn't get in. Like if you weren't there for the like the opening, you were out. - You can't but see the genius in the marketing and the genius just in the man of Hitchcock. Or did you miss those Phoenix scenes in Psycho? - Right now. - Right. You can't but see the genius in Hitchcock and recognize the marketing master ship and the way he presented his films. And look back to this and wonder, did Universal luck into something? Or did they at a very, very early stage in film development decide, look man, if we're going to roll the dice with the reanimated corpse from multiple pieces monster, let's go all in and see what we can do. Now, before you answer, let me say one thing more about this. When we talked to Antonio, what's that? Four or five years ago in the Invisible Man? - Yeah. - Love to have her on again at some point before listening to us four years ago. - Yeah. - She said that there was quite a brewing battle between her family and other filmgoers, namely Mr. Thomas Edison. We talked about the little feud that Carl Lamle Jr. had with that family. You know, Thomas Edison. You know, it's a better way to beat somebody in 2031 in 1931 than creating a good product is create some noise around the product. And so my question for you is this, if we're creative enough to take this really, really dark property and turn it into something that 1931 audiences would like to endeavor for an hour or any minutes. So you're risky, this is the point I'm saying. Did we luck into something here because we really genuinely were worried about the audience's health or is this fear marketing? - I think it's both. I think it is a tactic to generate interest and get people excited and be like, oh man, this movie starts in this way. And I think it's also a slight bit of damage control. So they don't kill somebody or someone doesn't come suing them. I don't know if there was a lot of that taking place in 1931, but I think it's a little bit of both. I think they're trying to cover their asses and I also think they're trying to generate some buzz. And it works. I mean, it's the weirdest, most insane opening of like any movie ever. It's just, I mean, here comes an actor from the movie. I mean, this would be like if you're watching Oppenheimer and you know, Damon, yeah, Matt Damon comes out has just Matt Damon, not even in character and just tells you about how amazing this movie's gonna be. And, you know, if you're subject to bright lights, you might wanna put some glasses on during the Trinity sequence. - Well said, yeah. - And it's, this is just unheard of. It's so theatrical. And I think maybe that's also the gap to is bridging, you know, the vaudeville theatrical play, stage, play space. And maybe this is something from the play, yeah. I don't think so 'cause I did find that you'll like this little nugget. John Houston wrote the early version of this fear-mongering speech. - Wow, really. - He was like a staff writer at Universal in like years before his directorial debut. - Interesting. - Yeah, it's so, it feels like, you know, that they're making it from the play, giving it in front of the audience. And then yeah, let's just go. And then we get to these opening credit scenes. And I wanna talk about these for a little bit too because I think these credits are really weird. In the credits, I mean, you get, you know, all the names and stuff Carl Emily presents, you know, but Carl Emily Jr., the cast. But the stuff behind the screen is so bizarre. I mean, you got a guy with like nails and he's like looking down at the, from the sky. - Yeah. - And then there's like this like almost like magician's thing with like this devil looking thing. And I'm like, what does that have to do with Frankenstein? - Right. I've always wanted to know about its inclusion in the credits because at least, you know, Dracula has a bat behind the credits with Swan Lake. I mean, this means nothing. - Right. - It's just more mysterious, more uncanny. Maybe it was just honestly, it was just universal. It was like, we gotta put something up in front of here. Just throw that up. It's close enough to Frankenstein. The artists weren't able to render something but it's always stuck out to me of just how weird the credits are. - You're getting into a single reel of actual movie yet. - As weird or as memorable as the kaleidoscope pieces before Vertigo begins. - Oh, not as memorable. - See what I'm saying here? Like we are in a space that, and I don't know for sure. And I've never seen Alfred Hitchcock ever speak to the influence of Frankenstein. But of course he has seen the movie. Of course he had. And the opening of Vertigo, although better and newer, is off putting in much the same manner, the images behind the names, which really nobody's mostly caring about. Opening credits, mostly nobody's like, oh my God, the gaffer, no one gives a shit, is what you're seeing behind it. And man, we are gonna get a lot of traction out of what you see behind it today. - Absolutely. So cut two graveyard, you know, they're just putting a fresh, fresh soul into the ground. And he had two little creeps just peering over the hill behind some wrought iron. - It's been hung by the way. - Yeah, you have Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, not Victor. I think the reason they changed, they said Victor was too harsh of a sounding name, so they changed it to Henry, which I guess is better. And then you have Dwight Fry as not Igor, but Fritz. - Yeah, the Igor thing doesn't come along till the Bill of Lagosi character, that he ends up playing those latter sequels. But you're like, what are these two guys up to? They're watching, you know, it's in Latin, they're bearing this body, they're given prayer, they pet off, and these two guys go and dig up this body, and it's everything from the German expressionist film movement, it's long craggly shadows, it's dark, it's, you're like, what are they doing here? It's super effective, I even have a throw pillow of, these two guys blowing this coffin out of the ground there. - Really interesting tandem these two. Maybe let's just talk about, you know, their relationship right now, before we kind of get into the whole meat of it all. I need like a whole separate movie on how Henry found this guy. At some bar, this hunched back with a club foot. Like, how does he befriend someone like that? Tell him, hey, guess what, I'm gonna bring a body back till I do unhelp me. And he's like, yeah, it's just the rush this guy's been looking for. And these guys decide to team up, what a weird duo, but in also a weird way later in the film when there's these stages and twinges of jealousy from Fritz towards the Karloff monster, almost a bit of a father and son-like relationship too. And you're displacing one son to create, reproduce another one, right? Yeah, I really, I want to know more about this. I just, I need more backstory. They get in, they get in late's the thing, right? They get in almost too late for my interest, but I mean, I already know what I'm watching, so I'm ready to go with it. - Well, you hit something on the head that's really important to me in this film, and it has been important to you and I for five years plus now, and that's the idea of family. If Dr. Frankenstein chooses to bring on Fritz in a mentorship role as father to son, then we would expect that to be nurturing and caring and all of the things that positive patriarchy should represent in 1931 Hollywood. Instead, what we get is a very nondescript, what Fritz is getting from this other than maybe a roof over his head, because you do pose an important question, what's in it for Fritz? And if Fritz is so on the, Fritz, that he can't understand what's happening to him, then you get to a really important question that you need to answer and you as the viewers and listeners to this movie and podcast. Is Dr. Frankenstein the hero or the villain in this film? - Do you want me to answer that right now? - No, I'm gonna save it at the end. When we do our final ratings of the film, we'll talk about protagonists in the movie. - We can wait till the end scene, 'cause I have a very good example for you. - No, I'm sure. - Yeah, what is in this for Fritz, Jesse? - Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where he's sleeping. I don't know how he's being compensated. Is he just living up at this castle, I guess? He's not getting to go live in the Frankenstein mansion down in town. Yeah, what's in it for this Hertz street urchin, right? - Yeah. - So you wanna talk about played expertly by Dwight Fry. Fry already killed it eight months ago as Renfield. Now he's doubling down playing a completely different character, but also a bit of the Renfield, the Frankenstein, right? - Sure. - But body-wise, the body language is just something there. I mean, I think if he wasn't stuck in genre town, this guy could have had a really great career. I mean, he died of a heart attack at a really young age. Yeah, I just wonder what if with him because there's just a lot of talent there. And it's hard to see talent in 1931 because it all just looks like stage play. This is stage play and then some, right? And to everyone in this film, Colin Clive too, I mean, dude, this guy, dude, this guy is just drinking heavy on and off the set, right? And just looks weathered and stressed out the whole time. But man, it is a performance of utmost guilt that this guy carries for the majority. And then we'll get the cartle off. And this is the guy that's given the best performance of the entire film and he has no dialogue, right? So yeah, we're working with some good stuff here. - Obviously a lot's been made of the way the monster looks, but I don't think that the monster's sidekicks receive enough credit. You brought up Vaudeville earlier. As much as the jokes in Vaudeville are really, really well-loved and important, the piece that's often forgotten is the straight man. So if we want to stick to that Vaudeville in space, which I'm fine with for a while, then, and the monster is in that space, the punchline, then you have to have the straight man to set it up. And can you think of a more appropriate straight man to set that up than Colin Clive, Mr. Henry Frankenstein, who is so stiff that if the wind blows, his hair is going to snap. That's how much product is in his hair. Couple that now with Fritz, who looks like the ragged end of nowhere. And you've got to ask yourself, okay, Dr. Frankenstein, if you are so willing to play fast and loose with genetics, which is what we're tackling in 1931 in this film, can't you do something to fix Fritz and make him not quite so broken? Or do you really not care? - Yeah, I think it's, he's a means to an end for him, right? Once he brings this guy back, I mean, we don't really get to see what he's gonna, how he's gonna dispose of Fritz, but it almost seems like. - Oh, well, that's taken care of. Okay, well, the monster got him, I guess, or not. - Yeah. - Yeah, so the way this film looks, and what you said up also was really, really great, the beginning, we are out gothicking the most gothic endeavor and film American-wise ever with this German expressionism, hillside grave digging. I'm comparing this to Dracula. - Yeah. - And we can do Carfax Abbey and Dracula's Castle, but this hillside funeral digging up the corpse is as gothic as American gothic never ever ascended to. - Well, that's an immigrant story too. I mean, you're getting German immigrants who worked in the German film industry, production worker, cinematographers, writers, some directors, Karl Froong, who's gonna do the mummy, the next year. I mean, they came from that movement, so that's their style, that's what they get. They came from that whole Fritz Lang, you know, collective. And yeah, they're bringing that into these movies, and honestly, it needed it. I mean, like early American cinema, apart from like the really great chaplain stuff and Buster Keaton, I mean, there's some rough stuff in there. I mean, it may as well just be a still camera, and you just goes from left to right, and they do a stage play in front of the camera. Here, they're trying stuff. I mean, there's great, and there's moments too, where I'm gonna ding the film, because I don't know where the editor, maybe it was Lemley, where it's like, cut it there, and I'm like, don't cut it because-- - Wait, yeah. - Yeah, the camera's doing like a really great zoom in, and I'm like, man, look at the movement on this thing, it's not static, it's not still, it has some life to it. I'll mention the most egregious example later, 'cause I have some audio to back it up, but the lighting, the machinery, the sound, I mean, this is essentially a music-less movie, apart from the opening credits, and the end, and you curtain call, right? - Yeah. - Which is weird for me, I'm used to hearing some, I mean, Swan Lake, at least, you know, peppered it throughout, you know, Dracula, do you get nothing in this thing? You get sounds of, you get like just a sound field of just horror, right? And, so they dig up this body. - Let's go back to there, yeah. - Yeah, they dig up the body, so now they have the body, or probably just another piece of multiple bodies to build the ultimate human, right? And then they go get another hanged person, and they're like, oh, I'll get his brain, and no, he's dead, I mean, this brain is brain dead, so we need something a little more well-kept. Cut to, I always have an interesting roadmap with this film, like, I always feel like we go to, from cemetery, and we're just in the castle, building the monster. There's like three more scenes before we get to that. We cut to, I gotta get the names, right? So it's Edward Von Sloane as Dr. Volbmann, and he's given a lecture on brains, bodies, and, you know, everything in between. - What the brain of a madman looks like compared to the brain of a not madman. - They notice the undulations in the whatever the heck he's saying. They look the same. - A criminal brain. Yeah, this guy must have just been on universal retainer for just, like, this guy is good at delivering, like, heavy-handed exposition. Just put a script in front of him, and he's gonna say it, you know, as you need. He's good in the movie, too. - So those Coke bottle level of glasses that he's wearing, right? - But he's essentially playing Van Helsing again, right? - Yeah, right. - And when he shows up in the opening of the mummy, he's kind of playing another similar character. It's like a weird, interesting trilogy with that guy. And I've never seen him in another movie ever, ever. - Retire him after this one. - Exactly. So, you know, Class dismisses everyone disperses and Fritz sneaks in through the back door, or, like, a back-like window, crawls down and grabs. He does a weird thing here, though. He takes the lid off of the normal brain, and then here's a noise. I wanna know what this gong noise was. - Yeah. - Well, he hits the skeleton. - I don't think that made the gong noise. - No way, of course not. Skeletons don't gong. - It would almost make more sense if he hit the skeleton, got spooked by it, and then dropped it, but he hits the skeleton, and then, like, turns, and then there's, like, a gong sound. And he just drops this thing, and in, like, he's like, "Well, I can't go back empty-handed." So he goes and gets, "Oh, there's a second brain." He doesn't know what abnormal means, or... - I probably can't even read that. - I wanna say, "Abni normal" is so bad, but, hey, another movie, also a good movie. - "Young?" - Young, yeah. - You a fan? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - That 70s Melbrook stuff is just gold, right? - Gold. - Takes-- - Young Frankenstein out there. - Young Frankenstein takes this criminal brain and gets out of there, and then we cut to a scene that I think I mentioned a few weeks ago on the podcast, 'cause back when I made, you know, this movie, my movie keeps coming up a lot that I made in college, but I took a lot of lessons from just all horror across the board, and listening to the commentary, I was like, "What a weird way to establish a scene." So the next scene is a close-up of a picture of Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, and then you cut to a close-up of the maid, close-up of Victor coming in, and then a close-up of Elizabeth, and then they do like a long shot of the whole room expanded, and I was like, "I'm gonna take that." What a weird off-kilter way to establish a scene, 'cause usually it's like exterior, and then you bring it in, it was like this way, and I was like, you know, my brain was just doing weird stuff with that, but this relationship is interesting. I always forget about Victor, Victor's like the lost soul of the Frankenstein story here. I find it interesting that his name's Victor, you know, Victor Frankenstein from the novel, right? And this weird, unrequited love that he's pining, like, "I wish you would give me a chance," and I'm like, "Do you're shooting your shot now?" She's getting married to this guy in a week if they could get this other guy off the mountain. - Elizabeth. - Yeah, Mayclarck, yeah, Elizabeth. Who I think was recast for Brida Frankenstein, if I'm not mistaken. She's fine, she's fine in the movie. I mean, she has but a couple scenes, but plays a crucial, I think, important role in this story, but they're having this conversation, they're arguing about Henry and how weird he's being, and yeah, I went up to see him, and he wouldn't let me in, he doesn't tell me what he's doing. Can we go talk to his old mentor and see if he can get him to come down? And this picture of Henry just right between the middle of them and this, like, chasmic void between the two. And then not till later, when Henry's essentially like, no matter what happens to me, you look after Elizabeth and Victor's got to be like, "Man, score one for me." - Heck yeah, done. - Yeah, I hope you don't come off that windmill. - So much you've gone over there that is, I think, important to setting a theme or an interesting way to approach this film. Okay, if we exhume a body, can you think of anything that is more disrespectful than just the act of that to begin with, short of, exhuming it, and then not having the good grace to put it back in the ground and cover it up the way it should be done? Do you think that there's any part of Fritz and Henry Frankenstein that when they finished, put the grave or the coffin back in the ground and covered it up in an appropriate manner? Do you think that that happens? - Absolutely not. - Nor do I. - Yeah. - So we are already talking about crossing a line of respect that Henry is going to, as this move you progress becomes more and more and more comfortable and more and more willing to do until he doesn't. And then that's an interesting point too. - Doing all of these, like, scientists guys, I mean, you can even, like, bring it back, the camera back further to, like, people like Edison or Nikola Tesla or Robert Oppenheimer and just like these people. - And the pursuit of science. - Even the pursuit of technology, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, I mean, these-- - Social norm to be damned. - These guys are willing to go over that line even though you're not supposed to cross it for the betterment of progress. - So, yeah, you're setting me up so well, thank you. The question then is what progress? Because if Henry is looking to make progress, he's looking to make progress that in 1931, it had already progressed through mother nature and natural human action to a state of semi-perfection. Now, how's not perfection? Well, the birth or the creation of progeny has already been mastered by mother nature and mankind, I don't know, millions of times over. - Millions, billions. - From practice to actual execution, right? - Yep. - Henry Frankenstein finds himself in a situation and I had taught this film this way for a long time and I'm gonna change tonight later on the podcast. That when man, and I mean man as male, chooses to take on the role of life creator, the lack of understanding and respect given to the mysticism of process that's necessary in order to do though, becomes bastardized. And you get what we've seen several times already in this film, the screwed up son Fritz, who is doing dad's bidding in order to earn his favor despite his inability to do so. And I might argue that that's semi, although we don't see it, abusive, but I think there's some evidence to back some of that up. I don't think that Dr. Frankenstein beats Fritz, but maybe he might. It might be the only thing that Fritz understands. The second thing you have to answer is, if he has this fiance, that he is ready to make his forever in marriage, what is the point of creating science to re-breed life into what has already gone to the destructive path of death in a singular motion that involves only oneself versus doing that too much enjoyment, I would assume, with his wife in a natural way. You can say ego, and I'm not gonna argue that it's not ego, but the larger whole is, if it's ego and that's fine, go run with ego, I'm fine with ego too. But what we are seeing in Dr. Frankenstein is a misunderstanding of the role of male in creation and also the role of male when it comes to the relationship with the almighty. And he even admits it in a few short moments. - Yeah, I got it, I got it, I got it later, but yeah, absolutely, you want to talk about creating life, you know, sexually or, you know, asexually, which is, you know, the god path, right? It's just like, I'm just gonna summon life out of this wig. Out of the rib of Adam, I'm gonna create to know if he's right. And yeah, I guess you'd call it ego, yeah, wanting to prove people right. I have a couple of good examples of that. But before we get there, I mean, okay, so I remember there's three scenes, so we get another scene. They go talk to Dr. Evolveman. Hey, can he come with us? Can you, what's going on with Frankenstein? What's going on with this? What's going on with that? And he's like, oh yeah, he's doing weird experiments up there. And he's like, he's not working. And he's like, oh, what's with a couple of rabbits and frogs? He's like, he's not messing with rabbits and frogs. He's messing with the human form. And everyone's just like, what? I can't even process this right now. Now this Dr. Evolveman, and it's Waldman, but it's Waldman. I'm going to ask you a little bit later, I'll have a question for you about, you know, the German of it all in this film. I mean, where is that all coming from? You know, from Hare Frankenstein to the Burglemiester to forline, and I don't even know where we're supposed to be, 'cause I know my mind's telling me this is Hollywood, California. This is Burbank, ladies and gentlemen. But, you know, it could be France. It's probably Germany though, but like, how does that idea fit into the grand scheme of this entire film, 'cause you could just set it anywhere. I mean, we're not truthfully adapting the book. We're kind of piece mailing things here and there. What I would kind of want to know a little bit more too is, you know, with Henry, like, what set him on this path? You know, and I have very hazy memories of the book. That's like ninth, or like, 10th grade lit, right? Frankenstein in the modern Prometheus. Did he have a brother that died, and then like kind of like, you know, spun him out, or he wanted to create life or something? I don't know, I'm imagining like a brother got trampled by a horse, but I could be confusing my classic literature. But just a better kind of reasoning of why he's doing this in the first place. But another reason why I like the unexplainable, the uncanny is, no, let's just have a mad doctor, and he's gonna see this plan through to the end, right? And there's something really horrific about that. No matter how many times you tell him, this is a bad thing to do, that this is, you can't play God, you can't do this, that he's just pushing forward. Well, let's get to it. I mean, you wanna talk about, you know, something one of the great all time sets ever. Henry Frankenstein's lab here, where I actually think they use some actual Tesla coils, they were able to get an actual one, and the sounds, and the spinning lights, and apparatus that Frankenstein's on, Frankenstein the monster, not Henry. And two moments that stick out to me here, this rope that Fritz has to climb up and down to get to the roof, I mean, he's like in gym class. - Yeah, yeah. Dude, ring that bell when you get to the top, Fritz. And then everyone shows up, right? They all show up at the thing, and Fritz, I love this too, 'cause you wanna talk about just like wasted time. Fritz goes all the way down to see who it is, all the way back up the stairs to tell him who it is, and then all the way back down again to answer it, and he got a second. You're making me laugh, because I'm thinking that you should climb the bell and the rope, and I just keep going back to, oh, some old story, you know, God, this is so not what we should do in a podcast, it's so tangential, but how can you not think of certain screenplay and certain, oh, yeah. - That's our little, much to Frankenstein. Except, you know, Fritz didn't have a wardrobe malfunction. - That's right. - I don't know if you ever caught this detail, how many times have you seen this movie? 30 plus, I mean, if you're teaching it, I mean, you're watching it yearly, and then personally, I mean, you know, I'm somewhere in that range as well. This little detail of him going back up the stairs stops to pull the sock back up? What is that? Is that a Dwight Fry moment? - Yes. - Is that a character? Does that a James Will, like you walk up and pull your sock back up? I can't imagine a director saying that because it kills the shot. But there's something even more innately Fritz about that moment. It adds that much more character to what should be a one-dimensional, you make this movie in the '40s and the '50s, this character's nothing. Yeah, he's just, yeah, get him out of here. Or he's just, you know, the Marty Feldman of it, all the joke character. That's a little touch of nuance where Fry's thinking about like, look, this guy's weird? And here's another weird thing he's gonna do. Love it. It's a blink and you'll miss moment, but it's one thing I'm always gonna, I gotta rewind it a couple times to watch him pull his sock. - So let's go there for a minute. If we're talking about what Dr. Frankenstein is after, and let's just play in the space that it's perfection, then the perfection that he's trying to create is already at the beginning flawed because you're taking decomposing corpses that don't fit together, that can't be made into something that anyone would deem beautiful. Maybe the creator only, but in a way that is reflective of his own genius, which is so gross that it's a neatly just narcissistic, right? So if we're pursuing perfection, and we've already seen Fritz drop the good brain and then have to default to the criminal brain, so what we are doing in the thought process of perfection is bastardizing it right off the bat, then this moment where we take a brief second to pull up our sock for nobody else other than himself unless it's an acknowledgement in that moment that this man who is my quote, unquote father can't see me looking so shotly because possibly I'm about to be replaced by the embodiment of his own ego. And if that is the case, I'm up and against an impossible enemy of perfection that not only are we not gonna achieve but that moment when Fritz stops and to me pulls up that sock to acknowledge, I gotta have my socks up 'cause he wants to walk around with socks drooping around your ankles that looks sloppy, is so sweet and innocent and either pure genius of Dwight Fry or pure luck of happenstance because this is really uncomfortable having this wool sock scratch my leg and I gotta pull it up either way. - Yeah, it's perfect. - It's great and Fritz is so clumsy, Jesse. - He commits to the bit too. I mean, he has this cane and he goes up like the cane in both feet gold one stare at a time and takes him forever to get up these things but oh, he's trying. All right, let's get these people in the tower here. They're getting cold outside. (dramatic music) - Probably not at the blocked door. - Trippy! - Elizabeth, please, won't you go away? Won't you trust me just for tonight? - Your ill, what's the matter? - Nothing. - I'm quite all right. Truly, I am. Oh, can't you see? I mustn't be disturbed. You're rowing everything. I experiment is almost completed. - Wait a moment. I understand. I believe in you. But I cannot leave you tonight. You're not going to see me. You're in you. You're crazy. - I'm crazy, am I? We don't see you whether I'm crazy or not. - Remember, in our "Dark Man" episode, we discussed the several moments in that movie where whenever anyone called Peyton West like a freak, dude who was buying this party, he would just lose his mind. - Yeah. - And I don't know what's up with me, but this is like the first time I really honed in on this that anytime someone calls out Henry on, well, you're crazy. This is just crazy science. Like, there's like a light bulb that turns off for him and like, zzzz. Oh, I'll show you. And it's a couple of times like, yeah, you wouldn't call someone who just did what I did crazy, would you, doctor? - Right. - So it's almost, I mean, to back up your ego argument in this instance, oh, yeah, this is like a pure ego trip. Like, oh, I'll show you. Like, yeah, he's trying to as hard as he can to get him out of here. From the top, he tells Elizabeth, Elizabeth, go away, you'll ruin everything! You'll ruin everything! - Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. - Yeah, if you come in, you're gonna just ruin this all night for me. - Here's this woman who's dying to eventually create with him in the natural act that, like I told you, I think they both would enjoy. Certainly, Henry. He's way out of his league with her. - Yeah. - And his response to this woman who, several times in this film, throws herself at him, not in that sort of sexual way, but in a supportive way. His response is, get out of here, you're gonna ruin this? Just see, what is she gonna ruin? - I don't know, the moment. - She's gonna ruin a reanimated, reconstructed, piece-mealed corpse with the brain of a killer. She's gonna ruin that. Now, he doesn't know the brain's a killer, 'cause Fritz doesn't never tell him, but, and we find out that that piece of him, that later in the film, later in the series, that might be the most redeemable piece of the monster is his brain. What is she gonna ruin other than his claim to being the first that did? - Yeah. - So, you would almost wanna have an audience to witness this happen, 'cause if it happens, who's gonna believe you, right? - Who did you get to bake people to come up to the castle to just come see your thing, right? - Yeah, yeah, exactly. Don't you want to show off your genius to the woman that you are going to spend the rest of your life with, and hopefully try to impress? He is so screwed up. - Yeah, he's pretty off-putting in these opening bits. - And the lens that that off-puttedness exists in is the same lens that he is going to try to take on role of creator. So, when man as male, not a species, but when man as male decides to forego the natural mysticism that happens with progeny or offspring, and instead create the DNA out of the need to be recognized for greatness, ego of oneself. Then you get a really interesting creation that's going to be birthed. When we create normally, this is nothing that anybody has never thought about before, but let me just phrase it for a moment. When we create naturally, that which we create takes on the embodiments of pieces of both creators. If you stick to that natural creation myth, then it would make sense that the monster is going to take on the pieces of its natural creators, and the only two suspects that I can find are Fritz and Dr. Frankenstein. So, are we taking then with the debaucherous and broken, with the heavy dose of ego? Back to the original question. You're going to screw things up, or you're going to ruin, ruin what? How does she say it exactly? What does he tell her? You're going to ruin, what does he tell her? - You're going to ruin everything. - What is, what is she going to ruin? She's the only hope of bringing something to this that might bring some civility or decency to this aberration of humanity done for one reason. He doesn't want a friend, or he wants just to show, he wants like a show piece, because then everybody will recognize him as not, you had said it, as not crazy, or not a hack, or a cluck, but is genius? - Yeah, exactly. - One woman already thinks he's genius. The one that he thinks, I think he likes the most. - Oh, he can't see that right now. - He's buried in himself, man, buried in himself. - Let's get to the moment here. So, he has the body up on this thing, they shoot it up into the sky, the electrical lightning storm up there, gets the electrodes on the neck, at least in other versions. I imagine that's how it happened, you just don't see any of that. - I'm not sure. - Come back down, and we're just like, "Oh, that's, I can't even begin to fathom what we're watching here, his witnesses." And then he get this. (dramatic music) - It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive. It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive. It's alive, it's alive, it's alive! In the name of God, I know what it feels like to be God. (dramatic music) - What? - Listen to you, God? - Yeah. - Listen, I'm gonna play it one more time, I want you to listen to the tail end of it, because I never heard this, 'cause I never sit up with my ear next to the speaker, but listen to the weird, like, trilling laughter in the very last seconds of this, it'll give you goosebumps. - Okay. (dramatic music) - It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive. It's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive! It's alive, it's alive, it's alive! In the name of God, I know what it feels like to be God. (dramatic music) You literally have them right now. - Yeah. (laughs) - And if the audio sounds weird right there too, it's because, you know, whatever sensors were around or religious groups and theaters screening this, they're like, "Oh, you take that line right the fuck out of here!" So, this line, this, in the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God, was just cut out of every print screening of Frankenstein from 1931 until, I think, the '80s, when they rediscover the audio again and put it back into subsequent releases and home media and physical media. So, hey, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of discs, physical media, Blu-ray, VHS, DVD, 4K, it's in finding those things that they're able to preserve it and have it not be lost to time because not having that line in there changes the whole film trajectory of that character and the film, right? - Absolutely. - So, it is not as crisp as it could be because it's not the original source, but I'm so thankful they put that back in there and what a troubling line that is. I mean, dancing all around the creationism of this film and wanting to bring life back in this god-like way. Now, I know, and cackling like an insane person, commit this guy, now I know what it feels like to be God. And, dude, I don't know how his wife stuck or his fiance stuck around after that 'cause you know what, I'm gonna go date Victor now. - Yeah, yeah. If that's your ultimate goal is to, even for the briefest moment, experience the omnipotence of the Almighty, then you are in the hands of an absolute madman. And to proclaim this in a way that is the exclamation point on the novel of broken punctuation and failed experiments only leans into the sickness that Dr. Frankenstein has scored his life to. He has that opportunity, Jesse. Let's go back to a very normal right of human passage that most of us go through in marriage to some degree, and that is the birth of our children. - The bride who's ready to be and be a mother, I'm sure, and is quickly is probably the night of the wedding if we can get it done. - Exactly. - Is willing to give him the role that he would play in 1931 parenthood with a pretty nice catch for him, like I'm no huge May Clark fan, but all right, good job. - Yeah. - And instead, he kicks all of that to the curb and her because she's going to ruin it. So he can finish the birthing, the spark of life, literally, the spark of life into his aberration of life, his repurposed death piece by piece so that he can show the world that man, man, as male, can from time to time play God. That is so profoundly troubling and beautifully conflicted in film. - Yeah. - It's at this moment too. I mean, what's weird about that scene from that moment? I mean, that's the craziest I think he looks in the movie is in that moment. 'Cause now that he's created this thing, brought it back to life and now is kind of beginning the child rearing process. What the hell do you do with it? He does seem a little bit more calmer. His demeanor is a little bit more even. And it's as the bad news starts settling in and the dastardly deeds of his creation start happening that he does start having a change of heart, but this is the moment here. - If you never want you to do anything that was dangerous, where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? You never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars or to know what causes the trees to bud and what changes the darkness into light. But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy. You're young, my friend. Your success is intoxicated. Wake up and look facts in the face. Here we have a fiend whose brain must be given time to develop. It's a perfectly good brain doctor. When you ought to know, it came from your own laboratory. The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Oh, well, after all, it's only a piece of dead tissue. Only evil can come of it. Your health will be ruined if you persist in this madness. I'm astonishingly sane, doctor. You have created a monster and it will destroy you. - It was like an eight-second pause there, he's just like, oh, what a, wait, what? Wait, what? It's a criminal brain. You're like, oh, well, I'll figure that out. You say tomato, I say tomato. Matt, did you ever check out? Did you check out poor things? The Yorgos slanthemos came out last year with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe? No, on the list to see very soon though. But it's kind of this. I mean, he essentially creates a Frankenstein woman with a child's brain and that brain gets to grow and develop, discovers sex, and it becomes a whole thing that just, and mostly done for comedic effect and just uncanny, teary gillumnus of it all. I think a pretty good movie, actually. Yeah, you might want to check that out, but I do want to talk for a second here because we're about to introduce the monster here in a really interesting way. But the book itself is called Frankenstein End or the Myth of the Modern Prometheus. Now, last time we talked about Prometheus was in Oppenheimer. Prometheus acquired the power of fire, gave it to man, the gods punished him and changed him to eternity. The Eagles were going to peck him dry, right? What I find interesting about that title and it's kind of, I mean, and I don't know the last time you read the book, but the use of fire in this film is essentially, you know, the modern Prometheus, the gift of fire is essentially the monster's only weakness in this film, right? So, you know, this gift that you're giving to them, you know, is also a nightmare in the Frankenstein monster, but from the Prometheus standpoint, this thing is also the antithesis of your creation. I don't know, I find that really fascinating there. I don't know if there's a ton to dive into there, but I found myself thinking about that alternate title of the book when you kind of come across that. - Love that, very smart, good catch by you. So to that, good job. The thing that I think is also worth mentioning is the monologue that Dr. Frankenstein begins before Dr. Waldman sort of gets him on a course correction is important because for the first time we start to humanize him just a little bit. So we're starting to say, oh, he is just really, really curious about the way things in nature derive or evolve. As soon as you start to lean into that though, however, we are ripped right out of that with, I don't know, something say like discovering what eternity is, which then now, even in the questions that we probably have all had, I know you and I have shared with her about bringing sort of secularly and non-secularly what eternity is, that is an answer only left for the other side. - It's a blockbuster, we get to watch the movies that we created in our minds. - Right, exactly. - And playing too much in that space is not only again disrespectful, but far beyond the realm of human comprehension 'cause eternity is just so vast. I don't even want to spend any more time thinking about what that means and what it involves. - So there's a lot of literature around this time coming in, 'cause one of the parts of the time machine is going back to resurrect your loved one from dying and it's always being deemed as fate that that's supposed to take place. So I don't know what was going on in 1800s there, but it's a question I think on a lot of classic literary authors minds of what does life, I'm gonna die at 32. What does life after death look like for me? - Sure. - Let me write about it, let me hypothesize about it and we're probably all wrong, right? I mean, it's an entirely strange question that can really spin you out if you spend too much time thinking about it, but if you have a character who's like, "Oh, I'm gonna solve that question, okay." - And get back to our love of horror, right? It gives us a chance to play in that space without having to wait in too deep 'cause when we fade out, then we can let it go. But for a little while, we get to play with what death looks like and what debauchery looks like and what all of these human natural rights of passage we're going to go through look like on the screen when they're not done properly. So no sooner does Henry kind of get us to side with him a little bit like, "Okay, I can sort of see why you might be curious in that." And all right, that's not entirely awful. Boy, we don't get to stay there for very long though because he's going to drop this heavy bomb and it's, I'm just trying to decode eternity, like give me a break, man, what's the big deal? And through that, we go back to, okay, he has been pursuing these in-person or in-personable, just made that word up, processes in 1931 that you as man, human, not male, man, are not given the keys to the kingdom to rip back the great and powerful Oz Curtain and see what's behind there. All those questions will be answered, but it's on the other side and when you get to the other side, this is my take on this. I'll give you those, but then it stays here with us. And maybe that's motivation to continue to do what is proper and right and just so that you get those answers because you know what's on the other side of that? Fire, brimstone, hell. So Henry is really struggling in a biblical, secular, non-secular space to try to define where these answers can come from in a way that doesn't leave everyone involved with him, broken, compromised, or dare I say, dead? - Yeah. - And it's about this time too, when- - In 1931, do you think anyone gave a damn about any of that? - No, I mean, not at a very thematic level like that. - I don't either. They're probably already scared for like, what's about to happen here in a minute, right? They're not prepared for what's about to take place here. And so a pitter-patter down the hallway and I'm like, oh, here he comes. And the door opens, I don't know how it opens other than like with like the left hand, I guess. And this creature inters the room backwards and then slowly turns around and then Jamesville does a really great like medium shot close up, like extreme close up of the monster's face. And you're like, oh my God, this thing looks hideous. It's just like, and then it's very compliant. You know, it comes into the room, sit down, sit down, sit down. And he opens up the stage room and he sees the sun and he's, you know, grasping up at the sun, at the light. And it looks like there's some empathy with this creature. It looks like there's some, you know, good qualities with it, that it has the ability to learn to know the command to sit down. So Dr. Waldman's like, oh, wait a minute. I mean, maybe this thing isn't so far-fetched. And it's all going pretty peachy keen here for a little bit. And then Fritz comes in with the fire and then all hell breaks loose, right? He's coming after him, they have to get him back. Everyone's tackling everyone on the ground and Fritz just won't let up, right? And this is that jealousy angle that I, you know, really picked up on which is, you know, Fritz sees his replacement, this more perfect tall stature replacement, you know, more perfect, this is a dead man over here. What am I? And just torments and tortures his creature. But what a great introduction. A, because it's weird, who walks into the room backwards and then B, Boris Karloff as this iconic creation. You know, this film works a lot because of his weird, strange, angular body language. And then we got to give super special props. And I think honest to God, this is not even me making a joke. There needs to be a statue of this man at the front gates of both Universal Studios parks because this guy's legacy on these films and these creations is so important and he doesn't get talked about nearly enough. But makeup artist Jack Pierce created this look. He created this, he created the mummy, he created the wolf man. I mean, this thing works because it does look so otherworldly and so dead like it does have this weird almost green tint to it. Even though you can't see it, it's black and white. The flat top, the stitches, the black fingernails, just the costume design. I mean, I think they said it took like four hours to apply. I think Boris Karloff did have like a tooth bridge that he took out that way. It gave him that more kind of gun to cheek structure. But man, this makeup works, man, Karloff works. Yeah, I mean, do Jack, that statue that in front of the parks. Let's do it. 'Cause man, Universal owes a lot to this. It's just a legacy because you want to talk about a time when Universal Studios, Universal Pictures was, man, kind of hurt and bad. I mean, that's one of the reasons they took a chance on Frankenstein's 'cause Dracula was such a surprise and we're like, hey, maybe more horror will break in some money. I mean, we lost our shorts the last couple of years and this was a huge profit for them. So, and they deal with that guy a lot, let's do it. The setup on the monsters, great too, because all we've seen is really the hand raise. When it's alive, it's alive when we see the hand kind of come up and a little bit of movement underneath the tarp. When the monsters reveal to us, it's backwards. He rolls into the lab in a backwards manner and then turns around with a really important moment. So, we can talk about the chair that he sits in that looks more throne-like than comfortable. And you could argue it looks like maybe in 2024, what might be an executioner's chair? It's not. But, when he sits down, there is a brief moment of light from above that spills and we're gonna play in the space a little bit more. The light that spills upon him from above, that he is so desperate to claim or almost wash himself in. You can't but look at that and recognize that James Whale is playing in the non-secular acceptance of a force higher than the creator that is all too secular or mortal. The monster even recognizes what is happening. I shouldn't be constructed like this. And there's times in the film where you can see him look at himself like, what are these arms? What is, the monster is more cognizant of the unnatural state that he's been resurrected in than the creator is. And now we have a problem because we're gonna get into one of the big issues that the monster fights with and that's what is my relevance and who cares about me. - Yeah. - So, we've got lots of forces working here. A great reveal on hours and hours of mastery done by Jack Pierce as the monster turns around and faces the camera. And I wish I had been in the theater upon first reveal 'cause it had to have been a gas that was heard worldwide. - Oh my God. - Yeah, filled with dollar signs, yeah. And then we get just the genius and the brilliance of that lasting monster that we see so much around this time of year like fall season and Halloween just so lasting. And then to what you said, the introduction almost immediately of the Prometheus element, and that is what has been stolen from the gods. - Bless you. - Thank you. The ability to create is then undone by what was stolen from the gods mythically, fire. - Yeah. - Oh God, we are in such heavy, heavy literary, whether it's Bible or Greek mythology archetypes and nomenclature. We could go on and on for hours. I'm not going to 'cause that's not, we've got plenty of other stuff to talk about. The monster that was created by not the almighty that scared of the fire what was stolen from the gods. Like where are, what are we doing, James? Will do you even know what you're doing? - I don't think so. - I don't think so either, I think. - Maybe Mary Shelley did though. - Possibly, yeah, I mean. - Interesting. - Written by a woman. - Yeah. - And James, well, have you ever seen God's and monsters, Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser film? - I know, but I've never seen it. - Yeah, very interesting look into that man and just kind of his processes and he was a gay man. - James Will? - Yeah. - Really? - I didn't know that. - And yeah, I recommend that as a companion piece to check out the Frankenstein stuff, but I don't know. I mean, we might not want to give him that much intellectual thought into this, but if, but Brida Frankenstein has just as much of this stuff going on, so you know what? I might give him the benefit of the doubt that this man was maybe onto something. - Sure. - Well ahead of someone like Alfred Hitchcock, before Hitchcock's gonna really deliver a lot of thematic themes about seduction and murder and relationships. I think James Will is doing that. The only problem is it's pigeonhole in the horror genre, right? And we all know we've spoken at length about how just bottom of the barrel and swept away this genre is, but it's the opportunity. Much like last week too, it's the reason we went three hours like, oh, we gotta talk about this and then it just spins you out into these other ideas and thoughts and processes. I think, I don't know if I mentioned this last week, but I was like, you and I could write a hell of a paper on the evil bed and we could write a really great paper on Frankenstein. - No doubt. - Yeah, we'd get an A, and I've been thinking a lot since last week about that space in the podcast last week where we sort of were saying, is this Raimi getting lucky or did Raimi understand what he was doing? And we had several discussions about that last week. I don't know if I have an answer other than what we said in the moment, I don't know if I've changed with any kind of more thought put into it, but I do wonder about this, not so much with the evil dead 'cause that was specked and not adapted, but in the case of Frankenstein and the choosing of this property to turn into a film, is the source material that is written far more cerebrally than a screenplay has done in 1931 to be shot in 70 minutes. Is this selection by Hook or Crook? So. - It wasn't Mary Shelley, she was like, I think, 18, what's your book on with shit? - So fortuitous. - Yeah. - That because either she caught lightning in a bottle or understood things at a level at that point that I'm not even sure that we understand today. - Yeah. - Regardless of Mary Shelley's origin point to right Frankenstein, but the selection of such a solid and classically proper source and so far as its sustainability, that no matter what you did with it, as long as you kept to the premises that the book laid out, you couldn't but play in the space that you and I are talking about. - Yeah. - Is that source material? - Yeah, I'm so strong. - Yeah, for sure. But I also think the stage play adaptation somehow find a way of like, look, we can adapt this 300 page book into a 70 minute movie. So they went to the stage where they could get people for an hour and a half, do a little stage play, and they're like, that'll condense well through a film, we'll cut out a couple scenes there, get it into 70, because they've tried adapting the pros into films and it doesn't work, right? The Kenneth Branagh Frankenstein, my God, that's kind of not a great movie. And just various other, and for whatever reason, this streamlined Spark notes version of the story because Hammer does the same thing with this story, with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and it's highly entertaining. I wouldn't say it's as good as this movie, but man, I'll give that movie a single barrel rating, that's a great Frankenstein story. But it's this kind of bare bones version of the story, like it's not like they're finding him on the ship on ice and he's telling his tales of a kid and he's going to be the Frankenstein and the Frankenstein, I mean, he goes through it, it's Frankenstein and bride, I mean, 'cause he goes and meets the blind man, they try to make a mate for him in the book too, I mean, the book does everything. But for whatever reason, this just kind of like home-down version, you're able to do more with it, you're able to do more with the quality. I don't say like we don't like doing that argument, right? Like books or books, movies or movies, I think this is just a more efficiently told version of that story in film four. Man, 70 minutes, I mean, this is an episode of the television show on Netflix. This is nothing, right? Nothing, yes. So Fritz comes in with the fire and then we cut to the next scene and he's chained up, Frankenstein's chained up and he's just swinging about. Fritz comes in, he's whipping this guy, he's got the fire and we're just like, oh, this ain't gonna go well. And then you just hear a scream off screen, they rush down, Waldman and Henry and Fritz is hanging and we're like, yeah, this is troubling and like, what are we gonna do about this? This thing's killing the criminal brain. So I think this is Henry's like, oh, maybe the criminal side has some unfriendly tendencies. What do I do here, how do we stop this? So they let it out and this thing goes to town on these two guys, right? - Yeah, wipe his mouth. - He's fighting them, he knocks the doctor down, he's knocking Henry down. I mean, the doctor's able to inject him with like, - Trickleizer. - A tranquilizer to put him down and it was, it's almost like a sitcom this scene because like, they're fighting this thing, they're trying to inject him, the involvement's like concussed on the floor and then he's like, doctor, you okay? And then they're like, oh, it's a minute. They're coming up, they're like, man, this is a comedy of errors. You gotta get this unholy thing out of here, get me into a bed. And I never know if that scene, 'cause Elizabeth and Victor come in and the dad, right? I mean, his dad's really troubled with what his son's doing. He's convinced he's having an affair with another woman. - Yeah. - Comes up here and is Henry pretending to be so sickly and meek in the bed? Or is, man, is he just had like a nervous breakdown? He's just like, 'cause I kind of feel like it's a little bit of bullets. A, I can't let the people close to me see how much I fucked up. B, this has taken a huge toll on me and I can't do anything about it. To the point where the doctor's like, I'll take care of it for you. I'll disassemble the creature. - Yeah. If Frankenstein is a newborn, or the monster, if the monster is a newborn, then the argument becomes what's a more important nature versus nurture. And what is conspicuously absent in this is any of the nurture. This is all nature. Man, man as in male, right? We're not gonna teach this thing how not to kill people. We're not gonna teach the saintly. There's no softness to this. And with that lack of influence, and we are teaching it, you don't do what we do. We're gonna burn you or we're gonna scare you. You continue down this path of just heavy, heavy, male, male influence that just is devolving by the second into disaster. And when everything else breaks, and your creation that you were so proud of, has been revealed to be this terrible blister of ugliness on your epitat of great science intellect. - Ooh, Frankenstein? - Yeah. What do you do with it, Jesse? - I don't know. - Destroy it. - Yeah, get it away from me. Get, get, kill this him before I kill someone else. - What? - Yeah. - So now, where does that leave Henry Frankenstein? This guy who has worked so hard to prove, maybe he was crazy. - Yeah. - And so yeah, he does have another breakdown, but in that scene when we see him recovering, who's bedside with him? - Oh yeah, like he's outside of his palatial estate with his two dogs and his wife is like feeding him strawberries or so. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, she's just there. - See it through thick and thin, right? - Elizabeth's still in his anterior position. I'm sorry, an anterior position waiting on him hand and foot. - I think this is the halfway point of the movie too, because, you know, we kind of switched to an entirely different movie here where, you know, we cut to him recovering and we're like, "Oh, we're gonna do the wedding. "We'll do it this weekend." Like, great, everyone's happy. My dad's happy. He's just on me about having when's this wedding gonna be? And this is where I really noticed the German effecation of this. Do you have anything on that? Like, do you have any theories on? Other than like the German immigrants, as I said, we're working on this movie, but the story just has this heavy German feel and tone to it from like German society, hair, Frankenstein, furline. - I said Burgermeister. - Yeah, and we're doing, it's not Waldman, it's Waldman. Yeah, what's going on here? Do you ever think that it might be done that way because what it creates for 1931 America is a lack of understanding what German society looks like. So you're able to get away with maybe things that you, that could never happen in the US. They wouldn't let you dig up on it. So maybe the ignorance or lack of knowledge gives you a plausible cover. - Yeah, makes it more foreign and maybe more uncanny because we don't understand it. - Sure. - So you just are willing to be like, "Oh, I guess that happens there." - Bunch of crazy shit happens in Europe. - And castles are nice too. - Yeah, there's vampires in Europe. There's people digging up bodies in Europe. Man, what a place. - According to-- - Let's not vacation there. - According to Americans of 1931, parts of Europe are absolutely beautiful. - Yeah, but I have an audio clip here. I've never picked up on this before. This was a very welcome surprise to me. So finally we had this wedding and we got Henry in the tux, Victor is his best man, his dad as happy as can be. He has this weird soliloquy about putting orange blossoms on Elizabeth's head 'cause that's what he did for his wife back in the day. What, I don't even know what that means. - Yeah, what a weird tradition. - Right, Andy. Put this thing on. But then they just start cracking champagne and everyone's drinking. The maids are even drinking champagne. And this line here, I'll point it out. - 30 years ago, I faced this on your mother's head, Henry. Today you make me very happy by doing the same for Elizabeth. And I hope, I hope in 30 years time, a youngster of yours will be carrying on the tradition. (laughing) Now, how about a little drink, eh? My grandfather bought this wine and made it down. (laughing) My grandmother wouldn't let him drink it. (laughing) - Oh, bless her heart. - Yes, she was very good here. (laughing) - Well, you all four years come on. Here's the health to a sound of the house of Frankenstein. - I'm son to the house of Frankenstein. - Here's the jolly good health, the young Frankenstein. (laughing) - So, they, I love the hospitality of this dad. I mean, he's making sure everyone's taken care of, right? They're drinking like 1841. They do this toast. And here, here to the son of Frankenstein. And again, I'm giving, I'm giving a point to James Will and this guy, I think knows what he's doing. They do this medium close up shot of Colin Clive and he's like this look of just like dread and worry and like horror on his face as he hesitantly takes the cheers to the son of the house of Frankenstein. I never picked up on that before, but the son of the house of Frankenstein is the monster up at the castle, right? - Right. - Just bastardly unholy aberration that he's ashamed of, that he's holding contempt for. That is his true son that he birthed. Whoo, man, I mean, 1931, we ain't doing stuff like that. We're not so eloquently in our shots and angles to inflect a thematic choice and emotion. I'm giving the not to James Will's. I'm giving it to him because that's poignant, that's powerful and it's just a look, right? And we're cheers, and it looks like a very, and I don't know, 30 plus, you know, this might be a scene that I kind of tune out of 'cause the monster's not in it. - Yeah. - But you know, when you do this podcast and you're really paying attention to every nook and cranny and just how people are reacting and the very specific things being said, the son of the house of Frankenstein, and it's funny that they make movies, the son of Frankenstein and the house of Frankenstein, too, right? And then here to the health of Frankenstein, we're like, well, this guy's just like this guy's toast, right? - Yeah. - He's not in good health, he's in terrible health. So do you think Dr. Frankenstein's father is a good dad? - Well, he's likable, well, he's for sure likable. I think he's a good personality in this town. I think he makes sure everyone's taken care of, but would you want that as your dad? - Oh, absolutely not 'cause he seems like an absentee father. It seems like he's here for the big stuff and not. And maybe here's the missing scenes I need where the book, I think, is a dead brother or whatever. Maybe he's trying to prove something to dad, too, right? 'Cause there's no mom, right? - So in the wall of portraits that is all male things Frankenstein from 19 present day till whatever, like going back years and years and years and years. - Is the next portrait that's gonna be painted, the monster? 'Cause what does that look like? So now-- - I'll tell you what it looks like, it'll look good on my wall as well. - Hell yeah, what has happened is Henry, in the pursuit of ego, has destroyed what the family has come to represent and in so doing has once again let down his father because of the dead brother, because of, I think, what is numerous attempts to validate his own importance. Maybe dad never recognized him as a worthwhile scientist. And so we continue down what happens. We've talked a lot in horror. What happens when mom fucks it up? What happens when dad fucks it up? And this movie is this story. - It's also a mess, right? - Right, it's a huge mess. And so-- - There's a lot you want to prove to your father that you're just as much of a man as he is, that he can hold the stable house, that he can exuberate this great wealth and you want to feel as prim and proper as dad is, as your role model. And here, yeah, I mean it's a success and failure. A is a success because I was successful in what I created, B, it's an unholy abomination. - And I could never bring that around. - No way. - Yeah, we didn't bring that to Thanksgiving. - Yeah, come on, no way. - I didn't break it's time to just shove it in his hands and some stuffing. - Exactly. - We ruined the evening for everybody, but yeah, no, but yeah, I don't know, I'm really, I don't know if I'm troubled or-- - Yes, you're troubled? - Yeah, no, the scenes with the dad are just weird. I mean, 'cause any, there's a scene earlier where the bergamaster shows up and they're having this conversation, they're very concerned about the status of the wedding and what's going on in the town. And I'm like, man, fast forward. I mean, this scene is just, what kind of bore city? And then you got this and then I can't wait to talk about the final scene of this movie, which is what is that even doing here? But it's more dad, right? So yeah, I mean, this father character, her Frankenstein, Pa Frankenstein is, ah man, a very troubling character for me in this movie. - Yeah. - So when Dr. Frankenstein is asked by his father to put these orange blossoms on his wife's head the way that he did 30 years prior, the question then becomes, what are we resurrecting? A common theme and in the process of this resurrection, what are we destroying? What we're destroying is a new start in favor of what has already been tried and played out previous marriage. So again, we're seeing in the Frankenstein male lineage, a very continuous pattern. And this is gonna, I'm gonna come back to this in a minute, a continuous pattern of destruction. - Is this also, I just came up with this as well. You know, if James Will is a gay man, is this kind of like a kind of, you know, with my father not accepting me, you know, coming up? I don't even know if we're really, we're not really, we're not really coming out. Like I think like we were later throughout the decades and it's a little bit more taboo. - Sure. But maybe that shame, right, of not being able to communicate with that and trying to prove that I can be something, I can be important, I can be this, but you're holding on to this secret. That's some of the just really interesting subtext that are at a personal level for the filmmaker. - I mean, yes. - Point James, point James Will, dad take this. Imagine your father telling you, this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna put this on her head because you know what it does? It makes me think of your mother and it pays weird. It pays the respect that I've deserved from you to me. Aren't we now continuing in the same space of, if it's not recognized by somebody else, naturally? Is it really worth being recognized? - No. - What I mean by that is if you walk around and you have to tell everybody, hey, do you like my jump shot? Do you like, or whatever, right? Whatever you're proud of, do you like this? And no one ever says, man, Jesse, that's an awesome shirt. You are lights out from three point land. We haven't talked sports in a few, 'cause let's weave it in a little bit. So if no one ever says that, is it maybe not the truth? So then you're chasing down an impossible ghost to catch with the butterfly net. And the only one that gives a shit about it is you. So again, the house of Frankenstein is about legacy. You know, legacy is a really nice word for it. It's a six letter word for a three letter word that sounds like ego. That's how fucking legacy is. - Well, legacy is also torture too, right? - All of those things are in play here. So again, the house of Frankenstein is the house of ego. And every male, including the monster, is in pursuit of the same thing. And it comes at a very, very expensive cost. You know what that is? Destruction. I'm gonna destroy your wedding day so that it looks like what my wedding day was 30 years ago. 'Cause me and your mom made this you, which is our own monster. And I don't really even like you because I'm having you try to fill these shoes that doesn't seem like you've been very capable of doing. And just instead of just letting you do your own thing. And now you're gonna do the same thing by making Elizabeth, like your mother, has anyone considered for a moment what Elizabeth might think about that? - Oh, she's sequestered in some room, right? - It's about to get abducted by the monster after he wrecks havoc on the countryside. But she wanted to say something. - We'll get there. - Oh no, just like we'll get to the next scene here because I knew this next scene I knew we were gonna talk about for a while. Did you think we were gonna talk a lot about the son of the house of Frankenstein? 'Cause when I saw it, I was like, whoa, wait, what? I was like, whoa, that's a loaded sentence there. 'Cause I know what's living up at the mountain there. Is this-- - The son? - This murderer, right? Yeah. And the son comes to, chokes out Dr. Waldman, stumbles his way out of that castle and it's like, where's this thing gonna go? I'll let you set this scene up and then we can get, set it up, I'll play the audio, and then we'll talk about it. After Dr. Waldman is given the task of disposing of the monster, what we find out is the monster has other plans indeed, and that is to do away with Dr. Waldman. So then once Dr. Waldman has been killed, the monsters set loose upon the countryside. So as the monster escapes Frankenstein's laboratory, we cut to some little quaint town in the middle of, insert place, Germany. And we start off with another important role played by a father, Jesse. Okay, there's plenty of things that go on and we see some gypsies and we see some dancing, we just see some general German-ness and later Hozen, but we get a really important scene where this little girl asks her father, "Dad, will you stay and play with me?" And the father responds with, "Not now, honey, I'm too busy. "I'm too busy, but I'm gonna go to work. "Be a good girl now and don't get any trouble. "Okay, father, I'll leave." And we see what is generally, I think, acceptance of like a really safe place, so I can leave my kid out here and I'm gonna go do my own thing. - Yeah, it's 1931 and in 2024, man. You probably could have done this back in the day, right? - Yeah, and all this is juxtaposed against the monsters wreaking havoc on the countryside and the screams of terror as anyone on the countryside would do naturally when they see him. - You have those and I'll have these. I can make a boat. - Creation. - Need some mind flow? (machinery whirring) - No, you're hurting me! No! (machinery whirring) (machinery whirring) - Destruction. - Yeah, and I don't, you know, when swimming lessons became, you know, like part of the norm, but like this girl can't swim. Dude, she seems like a rock to the bottom of this lake. So to set the scene here, so the dad's gotta go do his work. He's gotta go sell heads of cabbage or whatever. And Boris Karloff just strolls up and, you know, as, you know, 2019, '97, '98 Jessie, would probably be like, whoa, this guy looks weird. 1931, I mean, I might not know no different. I live in a quaint countryside. I know very few people. I go to a little school on the hill. And this, what's interesting about Karloff's performance here is it's very welcoming, it's very personable, it's very warm. And yeah, it looks like, yeah, my dad won't play with me. Will you play with me? So yeah, they start playing, right? And they start playing, they pick in the flowers, tossing them in the lake. Oh, look, mine floats, this floats. And I think the monster is just like, what new fun thing? I just discovered this look of jubilation on Karloff's face as he just like, this is the best day of my life, right? But what happens when the fun ends? And he's like, well, I gotta throw something else in here. I mean, I got no more flowers. So he looks at the girl, picks her up. And my God, dude, everyone's heart in 1931 had to have dropped as he tosses this girl, seems like a rock. And he's like, whoo, whoo, whoo. And then just kind of scampers off, not really fully, I think, understanding what he just did. He's just like, well, that was weird. Onto the next village, right? Or onto the next home's dead. So the childlike consequences of what he just did, right? You went from play to destruction. Years ago, I gave you a fantastic Mondo poster of this scene, right? It's singing our living room right now. It's them with the flowers kind of looking at each other. And then on the Mondo, by the way. Yeah, I'll do Mondo rules. On the hillside is the people with the flamethrowers, you know, pillaging. We'll get to that in a second. But speak on it, Matt. I know this is a hugely kind of important cinematic scene for you, just both thematically. But there's a lot at play here. But yeah, where do you want to go? Where do you want to go with this? Oh, I got a waste. So if you listen to the show weekly, you know that the picnic scene at the hustler comes up a lot. The monologue from red at the end of Shawshank Redemption comes up quite a bit. This is another one of those scenes. What are my scenes? I'll have to come up with those. Yeah, what are the scenes I talk about all the time? You have so many. Yeah. But this scene was always really important to me because it's just so horrifying. So let me take you all back to like December, January of this, of this 2023. So as you know, there was a bit of a gap in the podcast for a couple of months. And maybe people thought we had gone away. The truth is I got really sick, you guys. And not to be dramatic and not to shock anybody, but it was probably hours away from never podcasting again. Like I was really sick. I got a terrible bacteria. We had to have this terrible, terrible necrotizing fasciitis surgery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, we got it in time. And after, you know, 16 pounds of flesh essentially had been removed and there's this huge gaping hole in me, the process of coming back to some state of health began, it was long and there was a lot of pain. And what I'm about to tell you was in a place where in my mind, I wasn't quite all the way right 'cause I was heavily, heavily medicated. So my wife came to the hospital. He's in the hospital bed all day long. You gotta move. So like, let's go for a walk. So we're walking around the hospital. And this, so just as a state of not matte thinking clearly and how important this film is in my life, this is how I'm gonna lay it out. The first film that myself and my wife ever went to on a date was De Niroz and Brenna's. - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. - And literally that night we created a monster called us. And so this movie in a strange way has woven itself into the inner machinations of my novel over and over again, which is gonna lean into where I'm gonna rate it, which if you haven't figured it out you can, I'm sure you guys can figure it out. - Ronka! - Yeah, terrible film, I hate it. And we're walking down the hallway of the hospital and I tell my wife, you know, I think I'm gonna get a tattoo. I don't have any and I don't ever really probably plan on getting any. And she like looked to me and I'd like, "Oh, is that right, honey?" I said, "Yeah, I think I am." And she's like, "Oh, any ideas what you wanna get?" And I said, "Yeah, I think I wanna get Frankenstein's monster." And she looked at me like, she knows how important and how much I love this film, but she looked at me like, "Really where?" And I said, "I think I'm gonna get it on this huge scar "on the side of my ribs that is healing." And she's like, "Why would you wanna do that?" And this is the space I met. I said, "So I'll never forget what I've been through." And she literally fell on the floor laughing in the most gentle way, but like my husband is out of his mind on Oxy right now. So I'm kinda not paying attention. The absurdity of that, there's no way we'll ever forget. There's this huge scar on me everybody. Right, nation like, I became Frankenstein. And so then she kind of continued. She's like, "Well, what do you mean you won't forget?" I said, "Well, you know, they took this piece of me "and they've used another piece of me "to cover up this other big hole in me. "And so in a way, I've kind of been "turned into Frankenstein's monster." - Yeah. - And little did I know that we still had probably eight to 10 weeks going before I was ever back to some state of normal so we could even cut the show again. - Yeah. - I was addressing a different way to teach this film to myself than I had taught my students for 20 years. I have taught this film to my students for 20 plus years in a way that was when man takes on the role of God, here's what's happened, that's a short version. And you've already listened to the first hour in 30 minutes, you've kind of already got a taste of what that meant. - Yeah. - I realized when I finally got through this that what I was addressing is what this scene does so well and why this scene in the space of man as creator didn't fit into my narrative and here's what it is. - Frankenstein is a story about the battle of the sexes and frankly, it doesn't paint the most promising picture of the male. - Yeah. - And the world of Frankenstein, the masculine is defined by one necessary but troubling trait and it is what we said earlier, what is earlier, its destruction. It is so prevalent in this film that Dr. Frankenstein to create life is taking the remains of life destroyed and rebuilding it into life re-imagined and then hating it so much, he wants to destroy it again over every male in this film is involved in some act of destruction. Now the creation short of the part that we're gonna get to here at the lake in just a minute isn't played out until we get to the brides appearance mostly in the second one, a little bit of Elizabeth but mostly with the brides appearance in the second film. The effeminate is represented in this as the forces of creation. And what I was working through in this subconscious, James Whale, Sam Raimi, lucked into something or a larger force of play was what had happened to me when I had the surgeries, three of them and when I went through the process that I went through, all of the pieces that were destructive, surgery, the antibiotics, the destruction, anything that would be destructive, getting rid of, shockingly and not bombastically but truthfully, were carried out by male medical providers. That was done and we moved on and what was left was what was left for me and that was the recreation of what Matt 2.0 was gonna look like. Know who that was carried out by? - Females. - Janelle, Monica, Barry, Sonya, Sunny, I could keep going, my wife Denise. They were left with putting the pieces of, like even the detox from the oxy, like, with, oh, full on, like to that. To all you people out there to struggle with it, my heart goes out to you and I love you. I know how fucking hard that is and what I had to come down from that, I can only imagine if you're struggling with that. So God bless you and fucking fight, man. - Yeah. - But the pieces of that, like just the conversations, the day-to-day dressing changes, the light therapy, God bless you Sonya for listening to me. So, I can never, ever thank the effeminate forces in my life that went back to the creative elements that reconstructed me into ready, not a monster. - Yeah. - It's a really long way to get to the point I wanna make here. - Well, you almost need that gentle care. You know, if you have mails, there's like, get on up, man, like, let's go. Like, yes. - Cut your brush up and you almost, when you're in that such a fragile state, you need something gentler, more warmly and homely, to kind of piece you back together. No, I totally see that. I think that's a fantastic story and a way to kind of just piece it all together. And man, if you're down, you wanna go get that Frankenstein tattoo. I'll go get tatted with you because I've always wanted to get a Michael Myers cult of thorn right here on here. - Man, we have to do that. - We just gotta, let's just go. - Let's go, we just gotta go do it, right? - Let's go. - No, I think that's very inspiring to just kind of look at it from that angle and how much significance and importance this very simple story at the end of the day holds for you and that I think this really crucial moment because little Maria innocent represents that, right? Is warmliness and welcomeness. There's nothing hostile about the character of Maria, right? I mean, she's so innocent and willing to bring this hideous thing, I mean, like I said, you know, you're now a tittiest there. I mean, she's a little more accepting but probably has to realize, man, what's wrong with this guy, right? - Yeah, so on this happen, this happen, happen chance encountered the two of them having in the forest. - Yeah. - The monster finally finds somebody that doesn't think he's ghastly and actually wants to spend time with him or not destroy him. It is a female. - Yeah. - So then we get into this really interesting and smart way of James way to play in that creative and destructive piece. Maria is creating art. She even says so as much. Look, I learned how to make these boats and they're taking flowers. Can you think of anything more delicate than a flower? Throwing these flowers into the water, creating these boats. Well, the bad news is, the monster runs out of flowers first. So he looks around, literally looks around and the next beautiful thing that he sees is the girl. And he processes in his very simple, broken monster criminal brain, pretty things or beautiful things belong in the water. So in an attempt to try and be creative, which is a common theme in this film, creation in the hands of male, he takes Maria and tosses her into that. - And destroys her. - And destroys her. - It's twisted, it's very twisted. - It is so powerful. And a lot of times I think it's lost on a younger audience 'cause they see the monster's reaction and kind of want to laugh at him. 'Cause you almost have to. 'Cause it is so shockingly horrifying. - Karloff plays it. I think the only way you can play it, which is just like a gassed shock, whore, and then I'm gonna move on. 'Cause in his infantile criminal brain that is, you know, baby child, like he can't process what he just did, right? I mean, I don't think he can process murderer in these actions, right? Although we're gonna get to the moment here in just a second where I'm like, I think he's in full control of what he's doing. But here, no, there's something very innocent and childlike about him. And really troubling that I've always played. I mean, Karloff has no dialogue in this movie. It's not until the sequel, we're gonna make him speak. And I mean, we can go on and on about how important that is to the creation and the growing of this child. That's seen in the blind man's house and the Christianity of it all. Oh my God, the 30 minutes right there just talking about that guy. Easy. And Gene Hackman doing that a little bit in Frankenstein. - Yeah, but no, yeah, this is powerful. I'm, I mean, fortuitous back to the future, me getting you that poster, moving such significance for you. 'Cause I knew, I mean, I remember we watched this in class. I knew, and I had seen Frankence. I mean, the great part about, you know, watching the films in your class that you were showing was there was a few of them that I was like, oh, I'm good on this film. 'Cause like, I've seen it probably just as much as this guy. I mean, it was this, Jaws was another one. - Sure. - Where I was like, I can say a lot about this movie here 'cause there's a lot. I mean, just, I've just watched it a lot. But man, the Universal Monsters are just, they're just sacred to me. I like, I don't even care how boring the mummy is. I mean, I still love the mummy. The other day I watched, you know, Sunday morning I watched "Wear Wolf of London," which is a "Wear Wolf" attempt before "Lon Chaney." And you know what? It's not a great movie, but it's 70 minutes. I had a blast watching it. It's just fun watching these people go through horrific circumstances and them trying to figure it out along the way. It's the beauty of the language of film. Something that we can all speak. - Yeah, and the other thing I like about it too is I just have this really kinetic connection to Universal Studios Hollywood. Yeah, I know you love "Universe Studios, Florida," right? I mean, you can give me a tour of that place, but "Universe Studios" Hollywood is a theme park you can do in a day. I mean, there's not a ton there for people to do, but the fact that it's built on the backlot, I mean, it's essentially, you take the elevators down and you're on the lot. And then when you do the backlot tour, I mean, they've really, they've kind of fucked it up along the way because they have this Jimmy Fallon video telling you all this and I was like, "I don't need any of that." Tune that out. Let me just, let's go through Hill Valley Square where back to the future was. Let's go through the square where Frankenstein was. Let's go through the lake where they filmed some of the portions of Jaws and the burbs and just all these films that I just, I hold really special and dear to me. And I had that moment where I'm going through this and I'm like, the most important like, film moments throughout history, but my film history happened here, right? So cool. And I don't, you don't get to have that at Disneyland or at other studios that have been maintained the way that Universal has done that backlot. Like the Bates Motel. This is the beat on the Bates Motel, right? I mean, and this last time that I went, they let you get off and like walk up and around the house and the hotel and I was like, man, it's just like, this is where I want to die right here. So there's something just really special about how Universal has preserved their own film history. And yeah, I just, if people haven't gone and done that, I mean, I think it's funny to say my favorite thing to do at Universal's Hollywood is the backlot tour, but it's honestly true. How can you go through those sets and think, what magic was made here and not to be silly and romanticize it and over mystify it? But it's true. We can romanticize it 'cause this film's almost a hundred years old. I mean, that's a hundred year old set there that is still there. It's just, I mean, you just put everything into perspective and you started thinking about all these scenes and getting tossed into the pond and there's the lake where they film the creature from the black lagoon and I'm like, oh, wait, crap. - Yeah. - And I'm just like, and everyone else is just watching Fallon. I'm just like, fuck that guy, whatever. - Nothing against Jimmy Fallon, just let me just be here. - Let me be here in the moment and if you do the really expensive tour, which is the like the $300 one, they let you get out and just walk around everything. I mean, so. - Have you done that one? - Not yet, but I'm gonna do it one of these days, right? - Yeah. - I gotta walk up those steps of Hill Valley where like, doc, I gotta tell you about the future. Like I gotta, I gotta stand there, right? - Yeah, that's so awesome. - Yeah. - So there's no place like that just anywhere else where you can be that close to so many film moments, right? I mean, I took you legendarily. I took you to film where they filmed Halloween. That's only 'cause I knew it was right down the street, but I'm not going to a lot of like film locations just because like I respect people's property and like I'm not just gonna like go up to like the house where they filmed Nightmare on Elm Street. But that's a place where you're just like, yeah, it's free rain, right? Yeah, this is a truly monumental moment. It changes the movie. Yeah, I think it gives you some sympathy to the monster in that he doesn't understand what he just did and then also vilifies him to an unredeemable point, right? Where you can't kill kids in movies. - You can't, no, you literally, in 1931, you cannot kill kids. You lose everyone. - We can't do it today. - You can't do it today. And so the bigger element then is if he is subject to the forces of creation, destruction and being on the masculine side and very, very masculine side, so only nature, then does he ever have a chance? And then the sympathy that we started to derive with Dr. Frankenstein and his, I'm just curious about the way that the world works and science plays in that, takes a backseat to, I'm not even mentally capable of processing any of that. And the most genuine, sweet and sincere moment, pretty things belong in the water. Little tiny, sweet thing that's been the first thing that hasn't shrieked in horror upon sight of me. I just killed. - Man, where are the sympathy start to lie? - Yeah. - Hey, let's cut to the other horror show of this movie, which is "The Dad is Wedding." Oh, well, before we do that one, do the wedding, but hold on one more thing. As bad as Maria being thrown in the lake. - Oh, no, no, no, no. We're getting there. You're like, yeah, I'm out of sequence. No, keep going. We'll get to that. - You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. - I got a whole thing, but like, yeah, we come back to the wedding because Elizabeth shows up and Henry's like, Elizabeth, you look amazing, but you're not supposed to be here. I'm like, dude, you're saying all the wrong things to this woman. - No shit, again. So they're like, she's like, I'm really worried. Henry, like, it's not like, I guess Dr. Waldman is a family stalwart, even though it really doesn't seem like that in the movie. So they go to her chambers and he's like, yeah, I'm sure he's just running a little bit late and then knock, knock, knock, victory at the door. Henry, I need to talk to you, then from Dr. Waldman, he's dead. And so he's like, Elizabeth, stay here. And then I don't know why they do this. He locks her in the room and some kind of clunky ADR here where they hear, and he's like, he's in the house. So they do this mad dash and they're looking for the monster behind, like, partitions and in the wine cellar. And I'm like, what is happening here? But then, I'm trying to remember which one I played, but then this happens. (screaming) (screaming) (screaming) (screaming) All right, yeah, Elizabeth, the monster comes in through her window, leers at her, and I know everyone wants to laugh at that. (growling) 'Cause it's like almost like a cat call, right? It's exactly what it is. But it's also horrifying, and or I'm like, okay, this criminal brain was this guy, some sort of a rapist, like, what was this criminal? And okay, we gotta go, I mean, last week, we went there with the trees last week, we gotta go here now, here. I don't know if enough time took place to do any type, but it almost looks like, was she sexually assaulted too? I mean, she's on the bed there, everything's flown about, the way she's screaming and the cries, I don't know, I might say yes, but 1931 is, I don't think, ready for something like that, right? I mean, your movie'll get canceled, thrown in the fire, Ben Lemley will not allow that, but it's hard not to deny what just took place, this disheveled wedding chambers. No, Jesse, I don't know how you can't look at that. The bride thrown on the bed in her wedding gown, look, you had to find ways to get her in that, so let's give an example, right? Can't show that, can't show any kind of sex on screen, so instead, we hang up the phone in the cradle and it starts ringing and ringing and ringing, as we, right, we get it. That's a pretty good one. The fire in the fireplace roars to where the flames lick the side of the concrete, like. I was gonna go for the train going into the tunnel. Perfected north by northwest. Oh, like plowing that tunnel, look, man. In 1931, we're a much more refined time back then. You gotta be subtle the way you show it. Extremely subtle, but is it really that subtle though? I mean, I mean, no, I don't think so. I don't think I'm with you. There's a reason I brought it up, but like, very troubling again, I mean, Elizabeth. Unconscious on the bed, everything thrown about. Strown about, earth thrown about, and he's just kind of scampering off into the darkness. I mean, what are we missing, like a cigarette burning in the ashtray next to her? I mean, we're there. Yeah, you're not burning a cigarette when that type of, you know, actions taking place, but yeah, just to show, again, so I'm with you. It's weird too. I mean, the monster, not fully understanding his actions throwing Maria in the pool, but I think fully understanding in this moment, knowing exactly what he's doing, because of that forever. I'm gonna take you and you're not gonna like it. It's again, troubling. 1931, hey, point in James Wells Corner. This guy is trying to say something and shoot it in a way that way. It'll get by the sensors, it won't get pulled out. Yeah, it's extremely troubling. And why did Henry lock the door? I mean, no one can get in this thing. They get in, it's a disaster. And then okay, we doubled down that horrific incidents cut directly to the town square that you can drive through in Universal Studios Hollywood. The father carrying his limp little girl soaking wet. I know the sensors had a hard time with the girl getting thrown into the water and the Godline earlier. This is just as tough. How this didn't get cut is beyond me. This is, I think, the most horrific scene of the entire movie. 'Cause he has this unblinking, I don't even know this actor, but this unblinking, like, look as the, like, right leg, like dangles with the motion of walking. And I think the thing that trips me out the most is the townsfolk in their German later-hosen jubilation stopping their celebration and the realization of what's walking past us and as they kind of collectively formed this group going up to City Hall, oh my God, extremely troubling. That's just, and I'm like, this is 1931 and he's just carrying his dead daughter, but she was murdered. Why would you bring that to my steps? But she was murdered. I think we got to do something about this and then cut back to the house and everything's going haywire up there. What does Colin Clive Frankenstein's guilt level at this point? Is it at an 11 at this point? Well, James Well is in no hurry to cut you a break from what you're watching either. It's bad enough to watch him carry her corpse through the middle of the time. Oh, it's about two minutes. Yeah, and then we go to the Burgermeister steps and he's holding her. What about this? And you just on it, on it, on it. We're not cutting. I'm gonna drive this point home. Do you all recognize what has happened here? It is unrelentingly honest. And so now you get- But still, hard to watch, right? Oh, honest, yes, horrifyingly honest. Yes, very hard to watch. I can get- Your leg, that you said. Her sock is kind of torn down on the side. Interesting little one sock down and one sock up again. Yeah. So it's dirty, soaked to whoever plays Maria. Good job to you 'cause you do dead really well. She plays dead great. Yeah. I don't know how this escaped whatever sensors were around 'cause it's before, excuse me, before the haze code. But yeah, almost 100 years later, dude, give me an evil dead Achilles pencil. As hard as that is to watch. I mean, I'm not just begging for that, but like, I prefer that over. This is black and white troubling. I mean, you can laugh about the monster on this and that, but I don't know how this doesn't spin everyone out. I mean, this is, you can't do this. You just can't do this. No, you can't do this. James was like, guess what I'm doing it? And it's gonna double down on just the impactfulness of the movie even more, yeah. So then, okay, so now we got, you know, an assaulted wife or fiance up at the estate. Got this dead little girl here. Guess what? It's mob justice time now. I'm gonna play the clip. This was the moment where I was like, man, I wish whale hadn't cut away from this 'cause what an impactful scene this would've been, but still packs a punch. (crowd cheering) Ludwig, you will search the woods, those are your group. (crowd cheering) Fire! Fire Frankenstein! You will take to the mountains, those are your people. (crowd cheering) I will lead the third group by the lake. (crowd cheering) Remember, get him alive if you can, but get him. (crowd cheering) Fire, search every ravine, every crevice, what the fiend must be found. (crowd cheering) I'm ready. (crowd cheering) Like your torches and gold. (crowd cheering) And you follow this mob group as they're like, coming down the steps and if you watch the camera, it's kind of doing like this kind of crane shot, kind of like Halloween where it's like pulling up above. And it looks like it's gonna keep pulling and going down the alleyway and well, for whatever reason, cuts to like these dogs. And he kind of interrupts that thing 'cause talk about a shot that could like pull back and just see this mob form go down the street. Holy shit, I mean, that's good stuff right there. But the implications of all of this, I mean, I really, I just wanna say evil dies tonight because I'm very troubled by the idea of mob justice. Part of me really wants to believe in law and order and like we gotta catch this guy, we gotta try him. But can you really try someone who's created and not intellectually able to sit on a stand? - Yeah, probably not. So this group of angry men, right? - You got it. - You just took the words right out of my mouth. - Are gonna sally forth and kill this thing. That they ain't bringing them alive, Frankenstein back. - To destroy him. So you have groupthink all literally focused on one goal, destruction. What could go wrong, Jesse? - I really like that the the burgle maesters, like I'll take the leg because I can't walk up the hills like you people can and here's Colin Clive, Henry Frankenstein is like, I'm gonna take the mountain slope and this look of determination on his face yet just riddled with guilt is like, this is all on me. And I need to kill this thing. I gotta be a part of these people and we're gonna do whatever we can. Yeah, there's just in the second half of this film, it's just seen after scene of troubling sentiment, whether it's action or inaction and now super action of this group forming to go that action, inaction and super action. - Yeah, that's good. - To go kill this thing. 'Cause I don't know, I don't know if the Frankenstein needs to just be just executed here in just a very vicious way but you can't, you're not gonna convince these people otherwise. Now when this father walked through the town square with his dead daughter like, no, they're out for blood. So you have another troubling sequence. So up the mountain slopes we go, right? The slopes, the lake, the hillsides, the whatever. And man, it's Henry comes face to face with his creation and that's seen that showdown of them on the sound stage of the mountain slope. I mean, it's just like, I made this thing and I don't know if I can kill it because A, I love it. B, I can't kill it, B, it's stronger than me. See, it is me. - Yeah, and it knocks him right out, right? And he carries this thing right up the hill. - It's interesting that the chase culminates in a windmill. So if we get back to origin points, then where the monster was created technically was in a hub filled with energy. So to not be able to repurpose the same lab and get back to that, well, what's a windmill used for? Creating energy. So I love that in a simplistic way, the monster and the monster's creator return to a simpler version of where he was birthed in order, I think to hopefully die or come to some understanding of why I'm here. Why a windmill? Well, it looks good. It's fun to set on fire. We'll get there. There's no way out. But inside that windmill, we get to some really, really interesting possibilities and what you might just brush off as not important. We're gonna talk about the monster and the mirror for a minute. - I'll let you do it 'cause I knew that one, that one's in your repertoire. You're really eloquent in how you explain that. - Henry comes to you in the windmill and the monster at this point isn't, I think, as concerned with destroying Henry is I think it is in his own simplistic way. Trying to ask Henry, why did you do this? Why did you bring me back? Why did you make me? And there's this little sort of cat and mouse that the two of them are engaged in where Henry really does feel like the monster's gonna rip him asunder and the monster's just stalking after him and what comes between the two of them are the gears that run horizontally on the windmill and the way they are structures in such a way that they present an almost window-like appearance. James Whale and all of his mastery that I think we've done a pretty good job of recognizing in this film and giving him credit for. - Point James Whale? - Another one. Decides to shoot this in a very reflective manner where the way that Dr. Frankenstein is looking through the gears of the windmill are the exact reflection of the way the monster is looking back at Dr. Frankenstein. They're the same pose, the same face. And what we get is a shocking admission that what Henry is looking at is a fucked up version of his own reflection in the mirror in front of him, hence the name the monster in the mirror is really the monster in me. ♪ I'm looking at the monster in the mirror ♪ ♪ I'm asking him to change ♪ - Yeah, so speaking of Universal Monsters, do we like Michael Jackson's werewolf? It's a bet time to watch Thriller, isn't it? - For sure, yeah. - We do love that. So what is revealed to Dr. Frankenstein in that moment is you created me in a version of you and look at how horrific it is. And it's the biggest middle finger that has been given to anyone, probably till about mid 1960s in that period that we talked about, maybe last picture show like this is an absolute middle finger to the creator, to God, to the roles of masculinity. - Dad? - Dad? - Yeah. - To James Whale, point James Whale saying, "You know what, this movie really has kind of been about "hey, men, fuck you." And the monster does it perfectly. - And I love this scene too, 'cause after that he sees him there, he tries to like make a mad dash to like the balcony to like climb over. And I'm like, dude, you gotta just jump over and just hope, you know, you're gonna break your legs, just hope you just like don't break your head. - Get your bail of hay or something. - Don't break your head. And the monster catches him and it's just like, choking them out, throwing them out. And these people set fire to this windmill. - And what do we have to say about this because I'm of the mind to think that like, unconscious Henry Frankenstein, if the monster throws him directly the ground and he hits the ground, I think that's a dead guy. - I do too. - But miraculously, he hits one of the windmills, it slows the momentum of this fall and he just kind of slides to the ground. - Catchs him a moment, yeah. Saved by science in a weird twisted way. - Oh wow, yeah. - Wow, yeah. - Because he's gonna be around for the end of the movie and the sequel, but I mean, that's a kill shot if he hits the ground. I mean, there's just no surviving that. And Victor, Victor, are you okay? And set fire to this thing, the monster's up in there and he just goes up in flames, right? This whole thing goes up. And ladies and gentlemen, this is where the movie needs to end. Matt, think about what a powerful ending this would be if just like the shots, I'm gonna play the audio here. Just listen down crazy, this sounds. - Just. (tires screeching) (tires screeching) - Look me, you will set some more. That was a y'all girl. - Oh, I already played that one, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, I don't think I have this one, but it's essentially the crowd screaming as the things going on fire and like, (tires screeching) and then it pulls back to like a long shot of like the crowd there with the flame. And if we just cut to black on that shot, dead monster, maybe dead Henry. And we just like, that's where we're walking out to our jalapis, movies done. - We're done and in Hitchcock's best interest, this is where you end your movie, right? - Yes. - But this had to have been a lemme thing or a sensor thing or someone saying you gotta tie up this movie in some sort of more complete way. And we cut to this really weird scene of the dad going to the room of his son's bedside. The bed chambers where the fiance was just assaulted and a long shot out of focus, there's no way. I looked a couple of times. I don't think it's calling Clive or make Clark. I think they're body double sandins 'cause we never just like do a zoom in and the dad's like, ah, I don't need to go in there. Like he doesn't need this, this, this line. I'll drink this and the movie ends. - Here's to the house of Frankenstein. - Here's to the house of Frankenstein and then the main house of Frankenstein. - And then the movie fades out. You've been watching a universal picture. The movie ends on a whimper and I get why they did it because you just can't end a movie on just the burning wreckage of a unholy creation. You gotta have a nice quote unquote happy ending. - Man, it's just, this thing is just like, what is this doing here? This has been a universal picture with the plane kind of flying around and then we get the curtain call which I really appreciate of this era's films and we finally get to see who played the monster. Are you trouble? I get where you're coming from on this. It's very fair criticism. - Tacked on, yeah. - Are you troubled though at all that here we have these two in bed and Henry is now going to create again 'cause what we're alluding to is they're about to get down and make the marriage legal. - Yeah, after my injuries heal. - Right, after I have my burns of healed and I'm able to function in some manner to where I can consummate the marriage. - That's trouble. - Is that for sure? - And again, and they do make a son, Basil Rathbone. - Yeah, and it is troubling that and it's shockingly done and I agree the movie should be done when it's done but the dad is outside the door with a harem of maids, all females. - You're going to salute the house of Frankenstein and they like house of Frankenstein. - Oh, for sure. - Yeah, it's still a little like as sloppy, clumsy as it is. I still find it like, oh God, this family needs to stop procreating now. - Yeah, it's thematically loaded. Absolutely, but at least that. It also reminds me, like, I mean, we'll go back to vertigo and how vertigo fantastically ends with Scotty looking over to the railing of vertigo cured but man, this girl just died and like, dude, what's my life like after that? - Yep. - And there was an extra scene with Barbara Belgetes in a room and they have to hear about the crazy thing that happened, like, dude, I don't-- - I'm glad they cut that. - Don't need that end on your high note and the high note of this film is burning windmill. - Yep, I agree, a good argument. - No, no, I mean, no argument, just like, I've watched this scene a couple times and I'm like, what a weird, strange ending but like 19th again, a different time. But again, you didn't have trouble showing the dead girl walking through the town hall but now we gotta like tie it up. - Why the people? - Exactly. But then we get to finally reveal Boris Karloff as the monster. I mean, what a great, a great reveal there. And ladies and gentlemen, 70 minutes flat, two hours and 11 minutes on this podcast. (laughs) - Yeah. - I have a couple anecdotes for you here. I think a lot of these are pretty interesting. So Dracula was a massive success and that prompted Lemley Jr. to make more horror films and his first thing was like stage adaptation of Frankenstein, let's go there. But because Bella Lugosi was in the wheelhouse, Lemley Jr. was like, oh, you'll deploy the Frankenstein monster. And so they were like kind of gearing up to do that and he wanted to play Henry, but they expected him and you're gonna play the monster. And they made a, they did makeup tests. They made a poster, a real poster. You wanna talk about something. I'd love to get my hands on the Bella Lugosi. I can pull it up for you. I think it's on the, on the wiki page here. I wonder if what they decided on was that. - Oh, look at that. - Yeah. - That he was just too round. - Well, he ended up playing-- - It's face being too round. - Yeah, he played Frankenstein in Ghost of Frankenstein. So he did get to do it, but no, essentially, I mean, he was attached to the project with a different director and, you know, once they said, well, we're not gonna move forward with you with James Will, came on board and he was like, well, I'm just gonna, from the ground up, redo this whole thing. The director and Bella Lugosi were given another horror film of that time called Murders in the Room War. I don't know if you ever seen it, it's a post story. - A decent little movie. - Is that a post story? - Yeah. - Yeah. - So not bad. So that was, I guess, a consolation prize for not doing Frank is that everyone always claims that from what I was able to research that Bella passed on the movie and what a career mistake was. But I think it boiled down to, it was just, they moved on from him and it was just a creative decision. 'Cause, I mean, you can get down to the nitty gritty on the Lugosi Karloff rivalry in the '30s and '40, 'cause they were in a lot of movies together. The Raven, the Black Cat, and they're really good together, but there's almost like this twinge of jealousy. And from what I've heard, it was never that. It was always very cordial. They would play chess on set. It was very magneto and professor, nice. But it was never like, I guess people thought it up to be, but I don't know if you get the same movie with, I mean, you need Karloff's interesting facial structure, right? Yes, you do. It's a fuller Lugosi face. I mean, Lugosi is a perfect Dracula. Yeah, Karloff is a perfect Frankenstein. Amen. Maria being thrown into the pond and the line about God had to be cut. They were considered lost, but rediscovered back in the '80s. I mean, can you imagine if we had just never seen those scenes just because, I mean, they didn't think nothing of movies back in 1931. It was like, cut that out, throw it in the trash, and luckily someone had like an OG print to be like, no, let's put this back in. Thank you, God. Yeah. Jack Pierce's makeup is so iconic, it actually has a copyright, and that copyright runs out in 2026. So what happens then? Does Universal do something about that? Does like anyone get to do their own Jack Pierce Frankenstein because it's public domain at that point? Wow. James Will was allegedly jealous of the Karloff attention on set. I mean, even on set, it was like, well, this guy's on to something, and made him carry Colin Clive up the mountain repeatedly. He was just like, as Jealousy. I was like, I don't know if I believe that, but a part of me was like, oh, I can't believe that. I can't do. Let's see. It's like, you're taking attention from my little movie. I mentioned John Houston's early version of the warning, which was a proactive response to religious groups. We didn't talk about it. I knew we were going to pass it. So in the scene of the windmill, after you're a monster in the mirror, and they're fighting and choking each other out on the balcony, the burgle myster is like, there he is, the murderer. And it's almost, are they talking about the monster? Are they talking about Henry? And they're kind of talking about both those guys, right? It's good. Yeah, clever. It's masked in a way where it's just like, no, you're talking about the guy that made that thing. Yeah. Oh, and we mentioned Dwight, probably pulling up his saw. Cause I was like, I can't forget that little nice nuance there, but plenty to talk about Frankenstein. I mean, I mean, we could go just as long on, on bride of Frankenstein, cause we bring Dr. Pretorius into this. Una O'Connor screaming or head off nonstop in that movie. Hey, guess what? Dwight fries back, but in a different role. Igor, at the blind man shack, creating the mate, she's horrified by her husband. And you want to talk about James Will in full control of that movie. I mean, the camera work is even more intricate and more experimental in that movie. Man, I love bride. I mean, in college, when I watched the commentaries to Frankenstein and got really familiar with the material and the movie production process, I was like, I need to check out bride and bride just blew me away. I was like, this is such a good film. It's essentially for me, it's the evil bed to evil bed tour. Like, we knew what we did there. Well, let's kind of do it again, but like we know more and let's blow it up more and let's do it better. And bride has a ton of stuff to talk about. And her. Yeah, exactly. That's a Lancaster. And the Mary Shelley opening. The Manchester, I think, yes. And that is Elsa Lancaster, who plays Mary. And that weird Lord Byron, like, who could scare us the most with a story, right? And strange openings to start these movies. And then you have son of Frankenstein, ghost of Frankenstein, house of Frankenstein, and it gets more schlocky as it goes along and less talents involved as it goes along. But you want to talk about a high point with this character. I love Abbott and Castello meet Frankenstein. There's some really great moments of actual fear in those films. It's not, I mean, it's not Bud Abbott as the cop that takes the phone ringing and that that fits. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not Karloff, it's Glenn Strange as the monster, but you get Bella back as Dracula, the only time he ever did it. And you get Lon Chaney Jr. back as Larry Talbot. I mean, what more can you ask for? Pretty awesome. I loved that movie as a kid. I mean, that was like Avengers Assemble for an eight year old for me. I was like, oh, these monsters. They come together and away. And eight year old me. I was like, that's Karloff, why not? Sure, why not? And as a kid, I love the monsters. That was like, I mean, when TV land as a cable channel, like really emerged, that was a staple. And I loved watching that show in like Herman Munster and just like, do you want to talk about it as just a crazy dad and that weird family, right? I mean, like that worked for me, that formula. Like there was something like really good sitcom wise there to do something with the monsters. Oh, hell yes. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. And then the monster squad, I mean, Frankenstein. I mean, Frankenstein's showing up here and there. I mentioned, you know, Curse of Frankenstein with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. You and I, we got to do a hammerfork. We do, yeah, at what point? Not next week. I mean, next week's set in stone. But like, we just got to do a hammercast because there's just something cozy about those movies. It's just like sitting in bars in 1960s London with these English actors. And it was like the first time that I think they experimented with gore and like what blood could look like. And it was like bright red paint. But it somehow still works, right? Yeah, there's a smattering of Hammer Horror films. I would love to show you. But like Curse of Frankenstein rocks, that's a great movie. And they made seven Frankenstein movies in that series too. So I didn't know that was that many. Yeah, Cushing's in all but one of them. Yeah, that guy was still off-tarking. Exactly, right? But what's your favorite tasting note? Moment scene sequence of Frankenstein. You know, we didn't talk a lot about at the time the technology and how visually stunning the creation of the monster is during the lightning storm. But in, you know, in 1931, that was a big deal. 2024, it just looks like a bunch of little gadgets and dials. But the frenetic nature of the laboratory as the monster is created is so powerful. And it's just this wash of sound and buzzing and lightning and anxiety. And it just leads into the tension that I think the monster really underplays quite well. So it's a really nice juxtaposition for me. So I love the laboratory creation bit. Yeah, I'm gonna go with the final windmill burning. It's such a great image. And again, I wish the film ended there but it's really impactful. The film's wrapped up there. We think we've killed the monster but there's something really dark about it that this mob justice won. The males destroyed even more, right? They just destroyed their own, their own weird creation. So it all kind of cycles back in a weird fucked up circle, right? But, I mean, for 1931, I think it looks great. I do too. I don't know. Are we gonna have the same? Oh my God! I mean, I gotta pick dad carrying his daughter through the thing. I mean, that's extraordinarily troubling for many reasons, right? Yeah. But I just, the other, oh my God of me is just like, oh my God, I can't believe they got away with that. Oh, it's good. Yeah, it'd be the same, just the shocking look at that. But just to be a little bit different and to pay homage to a monumental moment in my film screening life, it is, oh my God. He just threw her in the lake and she's not coming out. Yeah. Oh my God, you had the balls to do that, James Will. So that's my, oh my God. Yeah. And think about early 30s film, like I said, his static camera angles, we're gonna pan left, right? We'll do a shot here, shot there. But that scene of her carrying is like, attracting, like, we're like walking with him and they weren't doing stuff like that back then. I've watched a lot of classic 20s and 30s movies and it's just, it's so experimental for its own time. So, a lot of different ways that we're experiencing with greatness right there. Who's the master still around Frankenstein? I think a lot of people and choices and options to choose from, where are you going this week? A lot of choices and I'm gonna save the other one for when we get to the bride. But I'm gonna give this to Mr. Boris Karloff because I think he created next to Bonnie and Clyde, the second most popular Halloween costume of all time and that's freaking monster and the bride. So Bonnie and Clyde are always number one. Like, perd numbers really are. Yeah. And they're number two. The bride is just as amazing looking as the monster is but he came first and man, he plays it well. He plays stiff rigamortas, troubled with my own lack of knowledge on anything ignorant, beautifully well. So I'm giving it to Karloff. And then, it's, it said Karloff. Karloff. So popular after that, I mean, I mean, he was just credited as like, Karloff is in your movie and you knew who it was, right? Not even Boris Karloff. White Peter Weller works so much as Robocop in that movie as the body language. I mean, there's a lot of body language from Karloff on how he reaches and grabs and, you know, begging and asking and confused and horrific. There's a lot there with nothing. I mean, there's nothing on the page for this character other than like, here's the scene. Go. Exactly. I think we're taking the opposite approach here 'cause I think I know what I'm picking would be your master just to live for bride. And I think I would switch my master with yours for bride. I think I just discovered an untapped genius in James Well for this. I mean, we can say, did he look into it? Did he not? But I mean, when you linger and stay on things, you're doing it for a reason. And directors in this time period are not doing that. I mean, they're just trying to make a movie in a week and get it to the theaters. I mean, there's some real craft here and some real ingenuity. And I might need to dig a little bit more into his biography, but I welcome it. Ian McKellen plays a phenomenal James Will in that movie, Gods and Monsters. But that's my master's is still there. Love those choices. Well, like I said, and I said, it gets better. It gets better in this series. How are you gonna rate and grade Frankenstein? Rocket, well, call single barrel and top shelf. It's rocket, right? Yeah, I can't believe we had to do this film. Long time come in, way overdue, as we can say about the whole cast. But obviously for me, this is top shelf. Top seven of all time. So that would mean it's number seven. I would say top six, it was six. This is a really monumental film for me. There's a lot of just personal connections to it. I also find it ridiculously enjoyable and perfect save the arguments we can make and justifiably so, with the very, very final closing scene. You know, thematically it's charged, clunkily presented. And we do like our movies just to abruptly end and neither one was like a pink bow on it. We don't like that. Yeah, this is a bit of a pink bow, but that's not gonna take away from what an important, enjoyable, powerful, smart, horrifying film this is, almost a hundred years after it's been released, that's saying something, 'cause Dracula didn't age that well. No, that's... I'm not going back to Dracula often. That's kind of a slog. And, you know, occasionally we'll get a hanker. Okay, let me go see what Dracula's up to. But yeah, Frankenstein was one of the first films where I was like, I was like, I had these discs here. I don't know, I was like, it plays the movie, but then I was like, there's all this other stuff on the disc, like a making of a commentary. And Frankenstein was one of the first films where I would just went all in. And I was like, I wanna watch everything on that disc. And I learned so much about how they made it, just like the film historians that did the commentary, just that's where I picked up on that like, shot, shot, shot, exterior to establish. And I was like, what a weird way to do something like that. So I learned a lot just listening to that. Oh, this is top shelf without a doubt. I mean, this is one of the most important horror films of all time. One of the best universal monsters, I think only bested by bride. And just wait for that conversation. 'Cause I think that will just be even more hardy of a thematic discussion. But there's a lot to really like here. And I think this viewing in particular really bumped it up a lot for me. 'Cause I was, again, that podcasting eye. I mean, I'm really paying attention to stuff that I normally wouldn't pay attention to. I was just kind of like, yeah, onto the next scene. But I was like, wait a minute, he said what? And I'm like, I leave it. - That laugh he picked up was really a good catch-in, really eerie. - Yeah, yeah, really hysterical, horrific. It was almost like the monster was laughing at us. So yeah, it's top shelf. It's, yeah, I came, and then you and I kind of came across the same set of orange-backed monster books, right? I even gave you one for Christmas one year. And so the monster's there. I mean, there was a Frankenstein book, a Dracula book, but like, I mean, it was fun learning about all the Frankenstein movies in this like orange, yellow-paged book 'cause it had been used so much. But hugely important movie for me. It's, yeah, I don't find myself going back to the mummy of Dracula. But the ones I go back to the two Frankenstein's, I come back to the Wolfman a lot, I come back to Creature from the Black Lagoon a lot too. Those are the ones. Those are my guys. Maybe Invisible Man will sneak his way in there, but yeah, this one's up at the top. I love the character, I love Karloff, one of the most, you know, under-appreciated actors, I think, of that time period, right? - Yeah. - I mean, I think Clark Gable and Cagney and, you know, Lionel Barrymore, like Chaplin are taking a lot of that praise, but man, Karloff's just as talented as those guys too, right? He's just stuck in John Ravel. - Yeah. - But whenever that guy shows up, I mean, he's a welcome seasoning and whatever film, you know, he's in, all the way up to, have you ever seen Peter Brock Donovanch's targets? - No. - Oh, you want to talk about a- - Oh wait, no, I have seen that where he's the, Jack Nicholson. - Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. - No, that's terror. - Yeah, yeah. - No, I've seen targets, yeah, where he's the assassin. - Yeah, you know what I've seen that? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's like, it's a mass shooter, and he's like an actor that this guy's obsessing over, but this guy goes on a shooting spree. - I mean, you want to talk about a kind of a timely movie, but like really troubling for like 1967, I think. And I think it's Gruff's last movie. - It is. - And he's really good in it. He's really good in it playing of a character that is essentially grappling with, fuck, I've been playing these characters my entire life, and I'm kind of sick of it. Can you give me something else? And they kind of make them in that movie play a character who's sick of playing horror characters. - Yeah. - Oh yeah, Peter Brock Donovanch cast would be interesting, and just his whole ties to the last picture show, and who he was dating, who was tragically murdered, I mean, there was that great podcast that they did, you know, through TCM, right? - Yeah. - But, yeah, Karloff has always just been like, "That's an actor there." I mean, he gets it, right? - He does. - Him, Vincent Price, there's a couple of people in this genre that just like, when they get in front of that camera, they know what they're doing. Well said, "Well, that's a lengthy conversation. I'm Frankenstein. Let's wrap this up with what's coming next." (dramatic music) All righty, so wrapping up the heavy hitters cast here, we've had the evil dead, we've had Frankenstein, and I think I left it up to you, and I think there was a lot of possibilities for this final slot. I'm gonna hand it back to you. I don't know if you've changed your mind, maybe not, but why don't you announce what's coming, and we can talk a little bit about, you know, our preconceived notions coming into this movie. I guess it's a perfect follow-up to this week, isn't it? Because often discussed, and not yet covered, but if we're talking about the destructive elements of the male this week, then I guess we're gonna talk about the destructive elements of male combined with the creative elements of the female next week. And we're going to a heartwarming tale about the trials and tribulations of childbirth. Woman's name is Rosemary, and it's all about her baby. Rosemary's baby next week. We have talked about this film a lot. - My perspective coming into this, Rosemary's baby was one of those movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where I heard about it. I've seen, you wanna talk about a top five all-time movie poster, iconic imagery, and I finally sat down, watched that movie, and I was just like, oh, okay, whatever. And I did a full 180 on Texas Chainsaw. I mean, that film to me is a masterpiece in my eyes. I mean, that's phenomenal. Indie '74 filmmaking and a film that hits hard and has a lot to say. Am I gonna have that same change of pace with Rosemary's baby? I don't know, man. I'm in a different space watching movies. I'm paying attention more. Things are hitting me at different levels. I'm definitely gonna bring it. I mean, Roman Plansky, at this point, I mean, talk about a very troubled individual that we'll have to talk about next week, and he's ex-communicato at this point. But at the time, you know, while he was making this movie, I mean, his girlfriend, you know, fiance, wife, carrying their child was murderer, Sharon Tate in "The Manson Murders" at that time of this production. Like, how does that leach onto this movie? Mia Farrow, John Cassavetti's Oscar-winning Ruth Gordon? I can't wait to watch this movie and see if I bring something new into this. And it's happened before on this podcast 'cause you and I were ready to come in here and slay ET. Like, that thing was dead as a sugar-covered doughnut in the ditch like he is in that movie. And we almost came out almost on top shelf on that thing. That was very surprising for me and you, indeed. And just where we are in our lives watching something like that. So I don't know, Matt, Rosemary's baby might surprise us. And I think it's really poignant that we're doing this movie next week because next week also on Paramount Plus, there's a prequel movie coming out called "Department 7A," which is a prequel to this film, starring Julia Garner from Ozark, which might check out. I don't subscribe to Paramount Plus anymore, but that might be some interesting companion piece to this movie. Julia Garner's about to have a real big fall. Real big fall 'cause she's got a couple important things coming out. If you haven't seen "The Teaser Trailer" for "The Wolfman" is out and you should look at it. And we've kind of danced around that and we've kind of talked about what we're going to do there, but that might be a good time to pop bright in there, right? I mean, yeah, why not? Just have it do a couple of the monsters, maybe throw a little hammer seasoning in there to round it out. Sure, yeah. But Rosemary's baby. I don't even know. It could go anywhere from rock at the top shelf, people. True, yeah. It's going to be an interesting conversation next week. I haven't seen it in a few years. Oh, I might be longer than you, yeah. So it's going to be a real, real fun and I need to be concentrating quiet revisit. So I'm going to probably do this in the wee hours of the morning or late at night when it's just me. I don't think we should do this one together on purpose. Yeah. That we come in both kind of fresh. We're not reading each other. Yeah, this is a conversation that we've talked about. Super, super high concept. What if your wife was birthing the Antichrist? Like, let's go. Does it hold up? And the movies that got left off this cast that got Rosemary's baby got into the pole position instead of... Night of Living Dead. Oh, God, I want to do that movie so bad. I mean, that's another two hour plus on just themes and importance and indie filmmaking. Sweet little George Romero making the little film that could. 28 days later was, I think, popped around in there. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, either 50 version or 70s version. We both went to 70s version. The thing, I think we do. The thing made in a cameo, but we might have a better spot for the thing. Hereditary. I mean, when's hereditary showing up? I mean, it's just, it's going to show up eventually, but this was, it just got like, it was a bridesmaid. Right? Again. Just so many, I mean, other heavy, I mean, the wicker man. I think you and I could have a really, really hearty conversation on both Candyman and Hellraiser, both Clive Barker stories. These are all films we've talked about in the last few weeks. This is all stuff that's come up. Yeah, so I mean the howling. We talked about the howling for a minute too. I think the lesson at the end of the day is, I mean, hey, this showing ever starred for episodes because there's a bunch of episodes right there. That's true. But hey, I've loved talking Frankenstein with you. Me too. Next week's episode is going to be a lot of fun too. But hey, I got to get going. I mean, I just, I got to go figure out. I'm going to go Google search with a burgle Meister is because is he a mayor? Is he a sheriff? Is he a custodian? Like, what does that guy do in a town? Well, I probably won't be able to attend with you because I got to go home with puzzles. Thank you cards because I got to do this one more time. Barry, Sonia, Shade, Monica, Sunny, Janelle, you. And most importantly, and who was with me through every single freaking minute of it. Denise, I love you, babe. Thanks for taking such care of me and recreating this monster. There we go. There we go. We'll see you all next week, everybody. Have a good week, everybody. We'll see you in the dark. Thank you for listening to Rise Mile Films. Be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn, or if you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave us a rating and a review while you're there. It really helps out the show. And for Rise Mile Films merchandise, go to tpublic.com. Frankenstein is property of universal pictures and no copyright infringement is intended. Until next time, cheers. Well, well, well, what's all this? What do you want, eh? What's this? If you please help down them, we thought that Mr. Henry could do with the glass of his great-grandmother's wife. Fine old lady, my grandmother. Very foreseeing of her to let my grandfather drink in this. Mr. Henry doesn't need this, what else? As I said before, I say again, here's, here's to a son to the house of Frankenstein. It's here, they're not so sad. [Music]
