room, then turns around, with Whale
cutting closer and closer,” says Eyman.
“It’s not a makeup anybody imagined,
but it’s not a face you ever forget.” (Six
years earlier, in 1925, a similar effect
was created by the revelation of Lon
Chaney’s face in The Phantom of the
Opera, which had terrified audiences.)
Filming finished on October 3—five
days past schedule and $30,000 over
budget. It was too late to back out now,
but Universal executives remained
nervous. Had Dracula been a fluke?
Would audiences find Frankenstein
too frightening or—worse—funny?
To minimize potential bad public-
ity, the first screening was held in
Santa Barbara, away from the prying
eyes of the press.
In the opening credits, Karloff was
billed only as “? ” (He wasn’t eveninvited to the premiere, since he was
“an unimportant freelance actor,”
he later said.) During the first scene,
which showed a graveyard funeral
procession, “You could hear the whole
audience gasp,” Lewis told Curtis.
As the film progressed, the audi-
ence became increasingly unsettled.
“People got up, walked out, came back
in, walked out again,” he continued.
“It was an alarming thing.” When the
film ended, there was no applause—
just stunned silence.
Even more worried than before,
Universal considered cutting some
of the more disturbing scenes—until
Eddie Montagne, a studio director,
reassured everyone. Recognizing that
the audience’s reaction indicated
that they had been truly gripped, he
exclaimed, “You’ve got the hit of allCONTINUED FROM PAGE 57CONTINUED ON PAGE 64MARY SHELLEY (ELSA
Lanchester), Lord Byron (Gavin
Gordon), Percy Bysshe Shelley
(Douglas Walton), and Minnie
(Una O’Connor) at Villa Diodati
in the prologue to Whale’s
Bride of Frankenstein (1935),
which fictionalizes the events
that inspired Mary’s classic
novel (above). Opposite: A
poster for the film highlights
Lanchester as the titular bride.
The makeup on her face alone
took three hours to apply,
according to the actress.
61