{"id":15199,"date":"2020-10-21T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=15199"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:17:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:17:40","slug":"how-james-whale-brought-theatrical-flair-to-universal-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/how-james-whale-brought-theatrical-flair-to-universal-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"How James Whale Brought Theatrical Flair to Universal Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Horror is undeniably flashy, and often theatrical: screaming, crying, shouting, and grandiose acts of mayhem and evil are all staples of the horror film, accompanied by an often striking and expressionistic visual style. The genre lends itself to such portrayal, and of course the work done by silent-era German filmmakers such as Robert Wiene (in 1920\u2019s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari<\/em>) and F.W. Murnau (in 1922\u2019s Nosferatu<\/em>) made a lasting impact on the medium. Yet it was the cycle of monster films made by Universal Studios in the 1930s that fully established the classical style of cinematic horror for American audiences, and one of its architects\u2014arguably the chief one\u2014was director James Whale. An Englishman who had held just about every position in the theatre before moving to Hollywood, Whale added a distinctive theatrical bombast and eccentricity to the German Expressionist and Gothic styles of horror cinema. His horror features for Universal\u20141931\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>, 1932\u2019s The Old Dark House<\/em>, 1933\u2019s The Invisible Man<\/em> and 1935\u2019s Bride of Frankenstein<\/em>\u2014not only set a template for years of horror movies to come, but enriched them with characters and performances that give subtextual as well as visual depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Worcestershire in 1889, the sixth of seven children, Whale found himself needing to take a series of odd jobs in order to help support his family. Sequestering away some extra money, he was able to attend night classes at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts, beginning his practice of the arts just before World War I began. When he became a POW in 1917 on the Western Front, Whale involved himself in the amateur theatrical productions in the prison camp, acting as a performer, writer, producer and set designer. When the war ended and Whale returned to England, he found himself reprising many of those jobs in the legitimate theatre, eventually working his way toward becoming a director. His successful production of \u201cJourney\u2019s End,\u201d a play about a WWI infantry unit, attracted the attention of Hollywood. After some involvement with other studios, Carl Laemmle at Universal signed Whale to a contract in 1931 shortly after the studio had struck box office gold that February with Tod Browning\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, a film adapted from both literary and theatrical sources. When given the choice to make his first film for the studio, Whale selected what would be their follow up to Dracula<\/em>: Frankenstein<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whale\u2019s 1931 film of Frankenstein<\/em> is not only based off of Mary Shelley\u2019s 1818 novel, but also Peggy Webling\u2019s 1927 stage adaptation of Shelley, giving the film a similar theatrical feeling to Dracula<\/em>. The translation from page to stage to screen yields similar quirks: character\u2019s names are switched, some events become condensed or revised, the locations are pared to a minimum, and so on. Yet unlike Browning\u2019s methodically paced movie, and despite the lack of underscore or any other pacing crutch, Whale\u2019s film moves dynamically. In conjunction with cinematographer Arthur Edeson, the camera glides through Charles D. Hall\u2019s Gothic-cum-Expressionist sets, breaking fourth walls as smoothly as one might on the stage. Whale made the brilliant choice of hiring Kenneth Strickfaden to provide Doctor Frankenstein\u2019s lab with futuristic equipment that flashes and sparks and otherwise dazzles. It all makes for a theatrical effect that would define the cinematic \u201cmad scientist\u201d for decades to come. Even Boris Karloff\u2019s performance as the Monster is in the pantomime and commedia dell\u2019arte traditions, while Fredrick Kerr\u2019s bumbling Baron Frankenstein is the first of several deliberately camp characters Whale would introduce into his horror films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If Frankenstein<\/em> is a film infused with theatrical elements, Whale\u2019s follow up for Universal, The Old Dark House<\/em>, feels like a stage play directly translated to the screen. Ironically, it\u2019s based not on a play but on a 1927 novel called \u201cBenighted\u201d by J.B. Priestly. Whale and his writers Benn Levy and R.C. Sherriff take the novel and make it into a ten-character single location mystery. That location, the titular old dark house, is inspired by Paul Leni\u2019s 1927 silent The Cat and the Canary<\/em>, a mystery story involving a spooky mansion filled with secrets. Whale solidified the archetype, bringing together a disparate group of characters to the location on a dark and stormy night, having the Everymen and women stumble onto a family of eccentrics hiding some dark secrets. In so doing, Whale created a new theatrical staple as well as a cinematic one: the long-running play \u201cThe Mousetrap\u201d by Agatha Christie (as well as some of Christie\u2019s other works) takes its cue from the setup, as does \u201cThe Addams Family\u201d television series and movies like Clue <\/em>(1985). Once again working with Edeson and Hall, Whale\u2019s visual style combines Gothic and Expressionist architecture and lighting with billowing curtains, huge fireplaces and ghastly makeups (courtesy of Universal makeup guru Jack Pierce). The director focuses so keenly on the banter and over-the-top qualities of the characters that it disguises the fact that not all that much happens in the film, a deft and very theatrical sleight-of-hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, quite a bit occurs in Whale\u2019s final two masterpieces of horror for the studio, The Invisible Man<\/em> and Bride of Frankenstein<\/em>. Filming H.G. Wells\u2019 1897 novel about a scientist who makes himself invisible was always going to be a massive task using techniques available in 1933, but Whale, in conjunction with Universal effects wizard John P. Fulton, applies his theatrical skills to make it work nearly seamlessly. The mad scientist appears to be \u201ceaten away,\u201d as one character puts it, thanks to a combination of a matte process (combining several shots of the same scene), wire work, and even puppetry. Devoid of facial expressions, Claude Rains\u2019 performance as the invisible man is bombastic via his signature voice and body language. Whale casts theatre actress Una O\u2019Connor in the film as an innkeeper whose performance is even more over the top than Rains\u2019, her shrieks both outrageously comic and unsettlingly wild. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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O\u2019Connor returns in Bride of Frankenstein<\/em> along with Ernest Thesiger (who had previously appeared in The Old Dark House<\/em>), just two notable members of Whale\u2019s growing repertory company. Bride<\/em> is the apotheosis of Whale\u2019s work within the horror genre, an arch meta-commentary on monster stories, while still subtextually rich and heartfelt. Practically begged by Universal to return for a Frankenstein<\/em> sequel, Whale uses his supreme creative control to run wild with the film, aggressively pushing its look while adding a great deal of subversive material. The creation of the Bride sequence sees Whale, cinematographer John J. Mescall, and editor Ted J. Kent putting together a series of bold, Expressionistic, chiaroscuro shots, extreme close-ups of faces and objects providing a brand new visual punch in addition to the return of Strickfaden\u2019s gadgetry. An openly gay man, Whale seems to delight in Thesiger\u2019s performance, perhaps using his character to introduce a queer subtext to the film (something the 1998 Whale biopic Gods and Monsters<\/em> explicitly encourages). Elsa Lanchester\u2019s performance as the title character is iconic, a feat accomplished in barely five minutes on screen, and one which once again relies heavily on body language and pantomime. In both Frankenstein<\/em> films, the surrounding cloudy sky in night exterior scenes is presented via a painted backdrop. Its artifice is rather noticeable, yet doesn\u2019t detract from the film, further enhancing its fantasy world in the same fashion as a set for a play on Broadway or the West End might. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whale\u2019s work within the horror genre was relatively brief, yet left a legacy that lasts to this day. His fusing of theatrical styles and elements with literary traditions and prior cinematic achievements showed the malleability and range of the genre, proving its ability to act as a playground for visual experimentation and rich themes that could not be as easily approached in other film genres. He acknowledged the camp silliness of the material without ever looking down on it, his macabre sense of humor and irreverence buying moments of genuine fear as well as warmth. Whale\u2019s horror films are chief among the reasons why the Universal Monsters are still remembered and revered to this day, allowing his work and his creations to be an ultimate gift for the artist: where the theatre is by nature ephemeral and transitory, film is forever. Through his own kind of alchemy, Whale achieved immortality\u2014as Doctor Frankenstein might say, he\u2019s still alive.\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u2018Frankenstein\u2019 director\u2019s distinctive style was instrumental to the look and feel of Universal\u2019s classic monster movies. It was a style he honed and perfected on the stage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":15202,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422,162],"class_list":["post-15199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22690,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15199\/revisions\/22690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}