For Whale, the famous creation
scene (“It’s alive!”) was the key to the
film’s success, but once again there was
little to go on when it came to inspi-
ration. Webling’s play had avoided the
scene entirely, and the novel was vague
about the details. “It was on a dreary
night of November that I beheld the
accomplishment of my toils,” Mary
Shelley wrote, as Victor Frankenstein,
in the first words she penned at Lake
Geneva. “With an anxiety that almost
amounted to agony, I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I
might infuse a spark of being into the
lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was
already one in the morning; the rain
pattered dismally against the panes,
and my candle was nearly burnt out,when, by the glimmer of the half-extin-
guished light, I saw the dull yellow eye
of the creature open; it breathed hard,
and a convulsive motion agitated its
limbs.” (This description, according
to Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New
Annotated Frankenstein, “matches
exactly the experience of profes-
sor Giovanni Aldini, who attempted
to revive a hanged man by applying
electricity.”)
Inspired by the laboratory scenes
in Metropolis, the scene took five days
to film, but an even more effective epi-
sode—the Monster’s first entrance—
was far simpler. Whale cannily built
suspense by delaying the crucial
moment until halfway through the
film. “The monster backs into the
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