What is happening in this picture? I DO NOT KNOW. Is one of them trying to close the door, one of them trying to keep it open? Who? Which?
I've seen this film three times now, and I still can't really tell you what happens in it. Although Erle C. Kenton is credited as director, "The Ghost of Frankenstein" is, even on its own terms – in fact, especially on its own terms – a directionless disappointment leaving one potentially powerful storyline after another spitting sulphurous dust in its wake. Either this is going to be a really short piece then, or a really, really long one. I'm going to have to stand up to type it either way, or I'll just become insensible.
Let's start with a bit of background – Ideally, I'd simply write about these films on their own merits, but I have to state something definitively –
Lionel Atwell IS Sir Cedric Hardwicke!
The "Lon Chaney" credited here is actually Lon Chaney's son, Creighton Tull Chaney, forced to adopt (and then lose) the stage name "Junior" in order to get work. Chaney Senior, of course, was "the man of a thousand faces", an outstanding silent actor particularly celebrated for his Horror work: Quasimodo...
And, more pertinently, he proved a huge hit the year before "Ghost" as Larry Talbot "The Wolfman"...
Let's see...
Let's see...
Huh...
I guess my point is that the horrifically nothing nature of Chaney's interpretation of the Monster in this film was not necessarily inevitable. There's no ignoring some terrible, terrible decisions were made, those eyelids for a start. I'm tempted to blame director Kenton for those. Lional Atwill doesn't seem to be helping either. Wait. Not Lionel Atwill. Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Sorry, I always get those two confused (even though Atwill was so great in "Son" last week). Thank God the two stalwarts appear together in this film shoulder to shoulder, dressed identically as surgeons... I miss Dwight Fye.
Oh hey! Aw, that's better! Look at the acting on that! How I love Dwight Frye. "Destroy the castle! Wipe the last traces of these accursed Frankensteins from our land!" That's his only line in the film though. And look, Lionel "Burgomaster" Bellman's back from the dead too! "The people are right, your honour." And Michael "Maria's Father" Mark: "I agree, your honour." There's the fan service out of the way, then, in scene one, but as a fan, still, I thank it. I could stop writing now.
But then we'd miss Bela Lugosi's grinning Ygor, nudging battlements down onto the heads of the torch-wielding, Frankensteinian mob – I suppose the torch-wielding mob is fan service too – and we'd miss explosion after glorious explosion as Castle Fankenstein is raised to the ground, and we'd miss the poetic irony of the Monster being set free by the violence intended for his destruction...
We'd miss, in other words, one of the strongest beginnings any Frankenstein sequel could hope for.
But what follows...
Well that actually looks quite fun, doesn't it! And Bela Lugosi is always great as Ygor. So what's going to happen now? Some twisted variant on "Of Mice and Men"? That would be brilliant! This film could go anywhere!
Sure, Chaney's monster seems a little one-note, and we can't see his eyes, but he's still covered in sulphur. So let's see...
Let's see...
I've realised what makes this interpretation particularly upsetting – and this is no fault of Chaney's – is that, for all my protestations a month ago that it was Whale's 1931 original which gave us the Monster we know to this day, it's THIS – not Karloff's tortured, nuanced, sinewy wretch – THIS, clumping, expressionless thicko that people think of when they hear the word "Frankenstein".
Here's Janet Ann Gallow as Cloestine Sussman.
There's a superb and moving interview with her here, but I won't quote from it because it would lend a poignancy to this scene that I don't think the film itself earns, although it's not uninteresting that it at least tried. The Monster will later want to replace his brain with Cloestine's, which is sort of touching, but involves scooping out the contents of a four-year-old's head, and anyway he abandons the idea pretty quickly when she asks to be taken home. That might be what's happening in that picture at the top! Ygor is presumably protesting because he wants the Monster to take his brain, which again is sort of touching until you think about the scooping.
Meanwhile! Ludwig Frankenstein (Sir Cedric Hardwicke, left – not to be confused with Lionel Atwill's Dr. Bohmer, right, although who could POSSIBLY confuse these two completely different brain surgeons?) being the younger son of Henry Frankenstein (or "Heinrich" as the franchise Germanically retcons him) and brother to Wolf (whose absence from this sequel might be the film's biggest flaw) wants neither Ygor's brain for the Monster, nor Cloestine's (nor the inflated clown's head Cloestine carries everywhere, which might explain why she was so unfazed by Chaney), but the brain of his own murdered assistant Kettering because the ghost of Ludwig's father, Heinrich (also played by Cedric Hardwicke, Colin Clive presumably having been banished to another universe) explains to him that everything will be fine if only the Monster is given a non-Abnormal brain. So, yes, a ghost told him, that's his motivation. Earlier, Ygor blackmailed him to take the Monster in – appearing from either behind a curtain or one of those secret passages I like to think just materialise now around the buck-toothed scamp – but this couldn't remain Ludwig's motivation because then we wouldn't have a titular ghost. Not that we need a titular ghost; the original title of this film was apparently "There's Always Tomorrow" (David Cairns explains why here).
Meanwhile! Ludwig's former teacher, Dr. Bohmer, wants to use Ygor's brain, motivated by the promise of Unlimited Power when Ygor somehow eventually takes over the world as a result of the op. So many brains! But I can keep track of them; that's not why I can't really tell you what's going on. No. The reason I can't tell you is that the film itself doesn't know. Does Ygor actually want to take over the world, for example, or does he just want Bohmer to grant him immortality, as he movingly mutters before the operation which might kill him? Why does the Monster want the brain of a four-year-old anyway? To start afresh? If so, why does he murder Kettering? And why is he menacing Ludwig's daughter, Elsa? And why is Elsa's love interest, local Prosecutor Erik – the superb Ralph Bellamy – so slack in investigating Kettering's murder when he seems so keen to prevent the village descending into Frankensteinian riot otherwise? And how have Ludwig and Elsa been keeping hold of Cloestine for two weeks, as the girl's father claims, if the Monster only abducted her the night of his surgery, and the village are storming Ludwig's hospital the moment the he came over? Why did they keep hold of her for two weeks, given she asked to be taken home? My theory is that they didn't. My theory is someone somewhere made a mistake. My theory is, ultimately, we're not meant to be paying this much attention. I'm making this film sound far too fun. Why does everything explode? Because the end.
Further reading:
imdb, where most of these images come from.
The Dwayger Dungeon.
Dracula, Frankenstein and Friends.
The Titus Andronicus Project's youtube commentary.
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