Frankenstein at 95: How James Whale and Boris Karloff Made a Monster for the Ages

On November 21, 1931, Universal released Frankenstein, and the movie monster as we know it was born. Ninety-five years later the flat head, the bolts and the heavy-lidded eyes are recognisable to people who have never seen the film. But the film itself, directed by James Whale with Boris Karloff as the Monster, is far stranger, sadder and more beautiful than its pop-culture shadow suggests.

A Friendly Warning

The film opens with actor Edward Van Sloan stepping out from behind a curtain to warn the audience that what they’re about to see might shock them, even horrify them. It’s a showman’s gimmick, but it sets the tone: this is a story told with a raised eyebrow and a straight face at the same time, which is exactly how Whale would handle horror for the rest of his career.

It’s Alive

Colin Clive plays Henry Frankenstein, a feverish young scientist assembling a body from stolen parts in an old watchtower. The creation scene, with its towering electrical apparatus, the slab raised into a lightning storm and Clive’s ecstatic cry, has been parodied so often it’s easy to forget how thrilling it is. Whale stages it like a piece of expressionist theatre, all angles, sparks and shadows.

Karloff’s Monster

Boris Karloff was a little-known character actor when he got the role, and the opening credits famously listed the Monster’s actor with only a question mark. His performance made him a star. Working under Jack Pierce’s heavy makeup, Karloff plays the creature as a newborn: confused, frightened, reaching for the light. His first appearance, turning slowly in a doorway, is unforgettable, but it’s his tenderness that makes the film endure.

The Scenes the Censors Cut

The film’s most famous and most controversial moment comes when the Monster meets a little girl by a lake. They play together, throwing flowers into the water, and then the Monster, not understanding, throws her in too. For decades the end of that scene was cut from many prints, along with Frankenstein’s gleeful line comparing himself to God, which made the story darker by leaving the rest to imagination. The restored versions bring the original meaning back.

Whale’s Vision

James Whale, an English director with a background in theatre, brought wit, sympathy and a painter’s eye to the material. He’d return for Bride of Frankenstein (1935), which many consider even better. His vision of the outsider, created by someone who rejects him and hunted by people who fear him, is what gives Frankenstein its staying power.

From Stage to Screen

Universal’s film wasn’t adapted directly from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. It drew on a stage version by Peggy Webling, which explains its compact, theatrical structure and its changes to the story. In Shelley’s book the creature is articulate and eloquent. In Whale’s film he can’t speak at all, which makes him more pitiable and, in a way, more frightening. It also left the door open for Bride of Frankenstein to give him a few hard-won words.

The film was a major hit, among the top box office earners of its year, and it confirmed that the success of Dracula earlier in 1931 wasn’t a fluke. Universal had found a formula, and the studio’s monster cycle followed: The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man and a long line of sequels and crossovers. Nearly every one of them owes its look to the Gothic world Whale built here.

Jack Pierce’s makeup deserves its own mention. The flat-topped skull, heavy brow and electrodes in the neck were his design, and Universal guarded the look so carefully that it became one of the most recognisable images in pop culture. It’s still the face most people picture when they hear the name, even though it belongs to the creature and not the doctor.

Colin Clive’s performance is often overshadowed by Karloff’s, but it deserves a fresh look. His Henry Frankenstein is brilliant, exhausted and close to breaking, a man whose ambition has outrun his conscience. The film never lets him off the hook, and the final act, as the villagers hunt the Monster to the old windmill, belongs as much to his guilt as to the creature’s terror. The burning windmill finale remains one of the most iconic endings of the early sound era, and a perfect place to raise a toast on the film’s ninety-fifth birthday.

Ninety-Five and Still Walking

It’s short, a little creaky in places and absolutely essential. Frankenstein gave us the mad lab, the angry villagers with torches and the monster who is more victim than villain. Watch it this November on its birthday, ideally late at night in black and white, the way generations of kids first met it on the late show. From all of us at WLAI and Midnight Macabre: happy 95th, big fella.