Pre-Code Essentials: Frankenstein (1931)

Plot

Young scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) thinks he has stumbled unto the secret for bringing the dead back to life. At night, he and his assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) toil away in an abandoned, secluded building and stealing corpses to experiment on. Frankenstein’s fiancée Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) becomes concerned about his strange behavior and arrives at his secret laboratory just in time to see him successfully bring the Creature (Boris Karloff) to life. It isn’t long before Frankenstein decides the Creature could be potentially dangerous and must be destroyed.

Before he is completely certain the Creature has been killed, Frankenstein leaves to get ready for his wedding. The Creature kills Frankenstein’s assistant and escapes, finding his way to a nearby town. He meets a young girl, Maria (Marilyn Harris), who invites him to float flowers in the lake with her. When he runs out of flowers, he throws Maria in the water, thinking she will float too. When she doesn’t float, the horrified Creature runs away to the house where the wedding is to take place, frightens Elizabeth, and escapes again. When the villagers find out what has happened to Maria, they band together with torches to hunt the monster down. Dr. Frankenstein joins the mob and when the Creature finds him, he drags Frankenstein to an abandoned windmill. The villagers corner him there and burn the windmill down.

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My Thoughts

Frankenstein is my personal favorite of the Universal horror films. It’s an extremely intelligent horror film and it’s interesting to see a horror movie that leaves you sympathizing with the Creature. I really don’t like referring to the Creature as a monster because Dr. Frankenstein is the real monster here. The Creature never asked to be brought back to life, he doesn’t understand what’s going on, and all he can do is react in very primal, visceral ways and nobody around him understands that.

Boris Karloff is absolutely genius as the Creature. Although Frankenstein is not a silent film, Karloff’s performance is a testament to how much an actor can do without actually saying anything. When you take a performance as brilliant as Karloff’s and combine it with that unforgettable makeup by Jack Pierce, you get a truly unforgettable character. The story of Frankenstein has been adapted for the screen many times over the years, but Karloff remains the most famous actor to play the Creature for a very good reason.

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The Definitive Pre-Code Moment

After the creature is first brought to life, Dr. Frankenstein declares, “It’s alive! It’s alive! In the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!”

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Why It’s an Essential Pre-Code

Compared to some other movies turned out during the glorious pre-code era, Frankenstein might seem pretty tame in comparison. Sure, it lacks the gratuitous undressing, gangsters, and innuendo that other pre-codes have in spades, but it’s an excellent example of another big part of the production code: issues surrounding religion. Many censors objected to anything that portrayed religious leaders in an unflattering light (The Miracle Woman and Rain are prime examples of that) or anything that could be seen as blasphemous. Dr. Frankenstein’s desire to play God most certainly fell into the “blasphemous” category, specifically his line about knowing what it feels like to be God. This line was edited out when Frankenstein was re-released after the production codes were being enforced and wasn’t fully restored until several decades later. Note how the concept of playing God is quite explicitly condemned in 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein.

Censors also took issue with the scene where the Creature throws the little girl into the water. Many people thought this scene was too violent and gruesome and cut the part where we see the Creature actually throwing the girl into the water. Personally, I think actually seeing the Creature throw the girl into the water is way less disturbing than to leave it showing the Creature reaching for the girl and letting the imagination run wild.

Christopher Strong (1933)

While at a party one night, the hostess challenges her guests to go out and find either a man who has been married for a long time and has been faithful the entire time or a woman over twenty who has never had a love affair.  Monica Strong (Helen Chandler) and her boyfriend Harry head out to find these people.  Monica heads straight for home to fetch her father Christopher Strong (Colin Clive), but Harry ends up meeting famous aviatrix Lady Cynthia Darrington (Katharine Hepburn) after they have a minor accident on the road.  When Harry finds out that Cynthia meets the requirements, he brings her back to the party.  At the party, Monica is thrilled to meet Cynthia and quickly becomes friends with her.  Christopher is thrilled to see Monica spending time with Cynthia since he thinks Cynthia is a positive influence on her, but also because he has a growing infatuation with Cynthia.  Christopher’s wife Elaine (Billie Burke) suspects her husband has strong feelings for Cynthia and her worst fears are confirmed when Cynthia comes to stay with the family in Cannes.

While in Cannes, Cynthia and Christopher take a late night boat ride after a party and they both confess that they love each other.  When they get back to the house, they kiss, which Elaine sees, but agree that they shouldn’t be together.  Cynthia distances herself from the Strongs, but can’t help but get involved when Monica comes by her home one night on the brink of suicide.  Her mother had forbidden her from seeing Harry because he was married, but now that he’s divorced, he won’t marry her because he found out about a one-night fling she had with another man in Cannes.  Cynthia saves her by calling Harry and convincing him to give Monica another chance.  After straightening out Monica’s crisis, Cynthia embarks on a challenge to fly around the world.  She wins the challenge and becomes something of an international celebrity, but she still longs for her days with Christopher.  Much to her surprise, when she lands in New York, Christopher is also in town and eager to see her.

While in New York, they rekindle their romance and Cynthia agrees to give up flying to ease Christopher’s worries.  Even though she misses flying, she soon realizes that she has a reason to stay on the ground: she’s going to have a baby.  But before she can tell Christopher the news, he finds out that Monica (who is now married to Harry) is expecting a baby of her own.  Cynthia goes to congratulate Monica, but Monica and Harry have discovered her affair with Christopher and Monica gives her the cold shoulder.  To make matters worse for Cynthia, she feels awfully guilty when Elaine personally thanks her for helping to make Monica so happy.  She doesn’t have the heart to destroy Christopher’s marriage, so she gets back in her plane to break the world’s record for altitude and commits suicide.

I thought it was odd that this movie was named after the lead male character when the women are the strongest parts of it.  This was only Katherine Hepburn’s second movie, but it really set the tone for the type of roles she’d become infamous for playing: independent, confident women with careers typically held by men.  Kate gave a very solid performance, but my only complaint was that her character is supposed to be from England, but she has no trace of a British accent.  Billie Burke and Helen Chandler were both also quite memorable, but you can’t talk about the women involved in Christopher Strong without mentioning the director Dorothy Arzner.  Just like the character of Cynthia, Dorothy Arzner was also a woman doing a job typically only held by men, so I can’t imagine a better person to direct this movie.  On the whole, I thought it had some good performances, but I didn’t think the story was anything particularly special.  If I used a star system to rate movies, I’d give it two and a half out of four stars.

It’s also worth noting that there is a scene where Katharine Hepburn dresses up as a moth, which makes Christopher Strong the second movie I’ve reviewed this month where the lead actress dresses up as some sort of insect.