Expressionist pictures in Hollywood
before—Rex Ingram’s The Magician,
for instance, which I’m sure Whale
saw,” the noted film scholar Scott
Eyman tells LIFE. “But nobody had
done it quite so artfully.”
Working with a 30-day schedule
and a budget of $262,000, Whale began
filming on August 24, 1931. The shoot
was easy enough for Karloff—until the
tenth day, when he was first put into
full monster regalia. “I spent three and
a half hours in the makeup chair get-
ting ready for the day’s work,” the actor
later said. “The makeup itself was quitepainful, particularly the putty on my
eyes. There were days when I thought
I would never be able to hold out until
the end of the day.”
Since the process was so time-con-
suming, the actor had to arrive at the
studio at four a.m. “Fueled by tea and
cigarettes, he was on the set, padded
and in costume, by nine o’clock, and was
often at work until six in the evening,”
Curtis wrote. “It took another two hours
to pry the stuff off—using a highly flam-
mable solvent called acetone—leaving
only enough time for a rubdown and a
light dinner before going to bed.”“We found the eyes
were too bright,
seemed too
understanding,
where dumb
bewilderment was so
essential,” said Karloff
of the monster.THE MONSTER MENACES HIS
creator’s love, Elizabeth
(Mae Clarke). Compare her
pose here to the one taken by
the woman in Henry Fuseli’s
painting The Nightmare (which
was probably an influence on
Mary Shelley’s book), shown
on page 14.55JAC
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