skull off straight across like a potlid,
hinge it, pop the brain in, and then
clamp it on tight. That is the reason I
decided to make the Monster’s head
square and flat like a shoe box and dig
that big scar across his forehead with
the metal clamps holding it together.”
Pierce also put electrodes on the
actor’s neck and coated Karloff’s skin
with cheesecloth, putty, and bluish-
green makeup, which photographed
as deathly grey in black-and-white.
Karloff himself contributed to the
creature’s look. “We found the eyes
were too bright, seemed too under-
standing, where dumb bewilderment
was so essential,” he said. “So I waxed
my eyes to make them heavy, half-
seeing.” He also removed a bridge ofmolars to create the monster’s sunken
cheeks, which were accentuated even
further with makeup.
Worried that the actor’s frame was
too slight, Whale gave him a heavy
coat, padding, and 11-pound boots to
help create the Monster’s lumber-
ing movements. (Karloff paid a price
for this, as the weight exacerbated his
chronic back problems.)
To create the distinctive look of
the film itself, Whale found inspira-
tion in the likes of 1920’s The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari and The Golem and
1927’s Metropolis—all masterpieces
of German Expressionism, a move-
ment that favored highly stylized,
often dreamlike visuals over flat
realism. “There had been Gothic/FRANKENSTEIN’S MOST
notorious episode shows the
Monster playfully murdering a
little girl (Marilyn Harris) while
picking flowers, above. It was
frequently censored—along with
other questionable episodes.
Censors in Kansas City, Missouri,
demanded 32 cuts, and some
scenes that had appeared in the
original version were cut from
its 1937 rerelease, resulting in
multiple bowdlerized versions
of the movie. It wasn’t until 1985
that a wholly restored version
of the original was released,
though censored versions are still
sometimes shown on TV. Opposite:
The Monster on the move.53JACK^ FREULICH/SHERMANCLARK/©UNIVERSAL^ PICTURES,COURTESY^ PHOTOFEST^MA
RC
(^) WA
NA
MA
KER
/BI
SON
(^) AR
CH
IVE
S