Frankenstein lives, p.9
Frankenstein Lives, page 9
The comedy-horror mash-up was such a success (grossing over $2 million in 1948) that Abbott and Costello would later go on to meet the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in their own films. But before encountering more Universal monsters, they met another famed Frankenstein performer. In Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, Costello’s character is falsely accused of murder, with Abbott trying to help prove his innocence. Karloff plays Swami Talpur, a character who (spoiler alert) is not the titular killer. In fact, it’s a little unclear if Karloff’s name was intended to be part of the title of the film or just the actor’s credit—although the film poster seems to indicate the former. Karloff would later team up again with the comedic duo as the titular doctor in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, expanding on his horror résumé.
FAMILY MATTERS
September 1964 saw the debut of two new—and dramatically different—versions of Frankenstein’s monster on television. They premiered within a week of one another in the most unlikely of places: half-hour family sitcoms. One had an established history in print. The other came with a pedigree tied directly to the Universal Studios horror films. Neither lasted for long on television, but they both continue to hold their place in pop culture today.
A promotional photo of the whole family together, in costume. The Addams Family featured, clockwise from the top left, Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), Gomez Addams (John Astin), Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock), Lurch (Ted Cassidy), Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), Morticia (Carolyn Jones), and Wednesday (Lisa Loring). Not pictured is Cousin Itt.
The Hanna-Barbera animated series The Addams Family (1992) was a popular Saturday morning cartoon option.
The Addams Family was the brainchild of Charles Addams, a cartoonist and a prolific contributor to The New Yorker magazine. His single-panel drawings relied on dark humor and included members of a macabre family that were more at home in a funeral parlor than in a living room. That basic concept evolved into the television series that would finally give them flesh and names. Headed by Morticia and Gomez Addams, the family included children Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Grandmama Addams, Thing, Cousin Itt, and their Frankenstein-like butler, Lurch.
It is never outwardly stated that Lurch—as played by Ted Cassidy—is an undead creature stitched together in some kind of science experiment. In fact, Addams went on the record, distancing Lurch from the famed monster. But that didn’t stop the TV show writers—and writers on subsequent productions—from making several allusions to the monster. The supernatural ties of the rest of the family members are kept vague as well, with them being more different than defined. But the inspiration for Lurch is obvious as soon as he appears. The almost-seven-foot-tall butler is clearly intelligent, possessing the full power of speech, but his lines are generally minimal and sometimes his responses are little more than grunts. He has a particular affection for children, looking after Wednesday and Pugsley in much the way that Frankenstein’s monster befriends Maria in the 1931 film (before the tragic turn of events). And, of course, his name comes from the style of movement most associated with the Frankenstein monster since Karloff’s earliest performance of the creature on film.
The Addams Family ran on ABC for only two seasons, but it clearly made its mark. Lurch was a breakout character, with Cassidy appearing as the family’s butler for a cameo on the TV series Batman. As The Addams Family theme music plays while Batman and the Boy Wonder scale a building, Lurch pops out of a window, which is a running gag on the show. Cassidy also recorded a song called “The Lurch” in 1965, appearing on the ABC dance show Shindig! to promote it and the dance move it inspired.
Lurch lived on beyond that show as did The Addams Family. The series spawned a pilot for a variety show, a reboot in the eighties with The New Addams Family, two animated series (in the seventies and nineties), a pair of motion pictures (The Addams Family and Addams Family Values), a direct-to-video movie, and even a Broadway musical in 2010. Lurch was there through it all, expanding on the mythology of Frankenstein with nary a mention of the monster, its creator, or any of the usual trappings.
Lurch and family—specifically one family member in particular—returned to the small screen again in 2022 with the Netflix series Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega. Though Lurch, played by George Burcea, only appears briefly in the series, the allusions to Frankenstein’s monster do not begin and end with what is essentially a cameo. Literary references abound throughout the series, which is largely set at Nevermore Academy, named in honor of horror master Edgar Allan Poe.
Wednesday takes center stage in Netflix's popular adaptation of the macabre teen.
Mary Shelley and her work make an appearance early on in the series when the botany teacher, Ms. Thornhill—played by Christina Ricci, Wednesday Addams in the original film—hands the protagonist a copy of the classic novel. Wednesday likens herself to Mary Shelley, whom she considers a “literary hero and nemesis” because she too is writing a novel and is envious of the fact that Shelley completed her seminal work by age nineteen. There are, of course, more direct allusions to the novel in the first season as Ms. Thornhill is later revealed to be the villain collecting body parts from the deceased in an attempt to resurrect the founder of the local town, making her reading recommendation a foreshadowing.
Beyond the allusions and the direct references in the first season, the Netflix series seemed poised to bring in even more of the monster into its second season. A casting announcement from the streaming site revealed a character named Karloff, who was described as a “young, athletic male teen” portrayed by an actor who would have to wear prosthetics. Although unclear at the time if the name was real or a temporary placeholder intended to inspire speculation, it was hard not to make the connection to Boris Karloff, the actor most associated with the Frankenstein monster in film history. Months after the casting announcement, it was revealed that the character would be played by Owen Painter, who was best known for his work in the Hulu miniseries Tiny Beautiful Things.
While the Addamses were somewhat outside of the normal nuclear family and possessed certain traits that clearly tied them to the supernatural, the core family members could pass as average humans, at least in appearance. Though the Frankensteinian Lurch would stand out in a crowd in more ways than one, he was also still overarchingly human. The family on the competing series, The Munsters, more physically resembled . . . well, monsters. This was, of course, by design. The situation comedy, which premiered less than a week after The Addams Family, was produced by Universal Television, sister company to the film division that brought classic creatures into public consciousness in the twentieth century.
The Munsters fused horror themes with the mundane. The Munster family didn't find themselves much different from their non-monstrous neighbors.
The head of the household, Herman Munster, was Frankenstein’s monster through and through. The flattop head, jagged scar on the temple, and bolts in the neck were clear callbacks to Pierce’s famous trademarked design. The makeup also allowed actor Fred Gwynne’s open and expressive face to shine through as he portrayed a character who possessed some of the creature’s traditional naivete, but with full possession of speech and mental faculties. Though his wife, Lily (Yvonne De Carlo), was the daughter of Count Dracula—known lovingly as Grandpa in the series—her long raven-black hair originally contained a streak of white, a nod to Frankenstein’s film bride. The family was completed by a werewolf-vampire son and the conventionally attractive cousin Marilyn, a beloved family member who was a black sheep due to her outsider appearance.
The series, created by the producers of Leave It to Beaver, followed a traditional format, save for the fact that this particular family living at 1313 Mockingbird Lane did not necessarily fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. But the Munsters weren’t actual monsters, and Herman was more goofy than grotesque. His affable manner and slightly oblivious air were at the core of the show’s humor. Herman’s gullibility and genuine confusion over his interactions with people outside the family served as the inciting plot point for many episodes. The broad humor of the series often came from the reactions of those around a family that didn’t really see themselves as all that different from their neighbors. Where The Addams Family often centered on dry, black humor—an element highlighted in the motion pictures based on the show—The Munsters was a lighthearted comedy.
The CBS television series was not a breakout hit at the time and, like The Addams Family, was canceled after two seasons. The studio didn’t give up on the series entirely though, releasing the theatrical film Munster, Go Home! in 1966. Starring most of the original cast, the movie was intended to introduce foreign audiences to the characters, taking the black-and-white series into color. The movie was not a hit, but, like so many other genre shows of the time, the story of The Munsters did not end with the termination of the original production.
In syndication, the series came back to life. It found a new audience and grew immensely more popular. With only seventy episodes and the one movie produced, audiences were clamoring for more. Producers delivered with an animated episode of The Mini-Munsters in 1973 and a TV movie reuniting the adult members of the original cast for The Munsters Revenge in 1981. Entirely new casts populated the relaunched TV series The Munsters Today (1988) and new TV movies in the nineties with Here Come the Munsters and The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas. Popular TV writer-producer Bryan Fuller also took a stab at the classic characters in 2012 with the series Mockingbird Lane. Although the show wasn’t picked up, the pilot movie did air on NBC, with Jerry O’Connell presenting a much more human-looking version of Herman Munster.
FRANKENSTEIN REMADE
It wasn’t produced by Universal. It didn’t share a cast, or a production team, for that matter, with the classic films. But there is no question that the 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein owes its existence to the famed film series that premiered in 1931. The popular Mel Brooks movie took the mythology of Frankenstein that was created by Mary Shelley and cemented in pop culture by James Whale’s two Universal Films (Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein) and twisted it into a horror spoof for the ages.
The idea was born from the mind of actor Gene Wilder. It came to Brooks’s attention when he saw the title in Wilder’s scrawl at the top of a yellow legal pad while they were working on the film Blazing Saddles. After filming completed that day, the pair stayed up until five in the morning hashing out the concept for a comedic take on the Frankenstein legend. When production wrapped on Blazing Saddles, Brooks immediately turned his full attention to writing and directing their idea. Both films came out in 1974 and are considered by many to be the most memorable films of his stellar career.
Presented in black-and-white like the classics it pokes loving fun at, Young Frankenstein stars Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced Frahnkon-STEEN), grandson of the original Dr. Victor Frankenstein, taking the character’s name from the novel, not the film. A college professor and a scientist in his own right, Frederick has spent his life trying to live down his grandfather’s reputation. But fate would intervene when he inherits his family estate, a castle in Transylvania that comes with a staff as well as his grandfather’s notes on his experiments reanimating the dead. That staff includes a tour de force comedic cast with a buxom assistant, Inga (Teri Garr); intimidating housekeeper, Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman); and servant, Igor (Marty Feldman) in what could very well be the first time a character named Igor appeared in a Frankenstein story.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) embraces his creation (Peter Boyle) in Young Frankenstein.
Quickly inspired by his grandfather’s work, Frederick takes Igor with him on a mission to steal a corpse and then sends Igor out to find the perfect brain. Much like how Fritz made the mistake of destroying the proper brain and replacing it with an abnormal one in 1931, Igor does the same by choosing a brain he later refers to as belonging to one Abbie Normal. The creature they give life to, played by Peter Boyle, escapes the castle to go on adventures that mirror his predecessor’s, though with less deadly results. For much of the film, the monster plays the role straight as the situations around it are filled with comedic characters; the humor comes from its limited understanding of the world. Still, the monster manages to get in on the fun by taking part in a song-and-dance routine with Frederick as they try to convince their audience that Frankenstein’s work was to be appreciated, not feared. This fails when a stage light blows, frightening the creature and sending it on a rampage that only ends with the police taking it into custody.
The monster escapes and unexpectedly unites with Frederick’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), who is so impressed by its sexual prowess that she falls in love with it. A sexual encounter with the monster results in her hairstyle immediately changing to mirror that of the bride in the original Bride of Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Frederick transfers some of his intellect into the monster, making it more erudite. It doesn’t exactly echo the manner in which the creature grows and learns in Shelley’s tale, but the end result is the same. In this story, all the characters live happily ever after, including Frederick, who not only winds up with Inga but inherits a bit of the monster as well.
Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) in his laboratory in Young Frankenstein (1974). Much of the laboratory equipment was originally used in the 1931 James Whale version of Frankenstein.
The story seamlessly blends Shelley’s work and Whale’s two films, while turning them on their heads. Key moments hearken back to the novel, beyond just the return of the original Dr. Frankenstein’s first name. For instance, when Frederick reads from his grandfather’s notes, he is reading an excerpt from the original text. The movie also includes visual throwbacks to the Whale films through the reuse of the actual sets. The production crew had gotten in touch with the special-effects artist Kenneth Strickfaden, who happened to have some of the original set pieces in his Santa Monica garage, and he rented it to the production for a reasonable fee.
This version of Frankenstein’s monster is slightly deformed, but not as overtly horrific as previous film versions. For a nice touch of humor, it includes a functioning zipper on its neck. Peter Boyle watched many of the classic Frankenstein films and styled his performance after the master, Karloff. It was a breakout performance for the actor, who would go on to later fame playing the patriarch of the Barone family in Everybody Loves Raymond.
In his book on the making of the film, producer-director Brooks admits that the initial two-hour-and-twenty-two-minute test screening for Fox studio personnel was not well received. They got laughs only about half the time. He asked the audience to come back in a few weeks, and immediately set to cutting the film down to ninety-five minutes. The audience returned to the tighter movie and loved every minute.
The true test of the film came with an audience that wasn’t made up of studio employees, and it passed. The screenings for the general public were a success, and the trimmed-down film opened well when it premiered on December 15, 1974, ultimately earning $86 million domestically and Academy Award nominations for adapted screenplay and sound—all very notable achievements considering the film opened a day after The Towering Inferno and less than a week before The Godfather II. It only went on to grow in popularity as the years passed, with Brooks ultimately turning it into a successful Broadway musical in 2007, starring Shuler Hensley as the monster in a cast that included Broadway veterans Roger Bart, Megan Mullally, Sutton Foster, Christopher Fitzgerald, Fred Applegate, and Andrea Martin. The monster had come full circle on stage, starting out in a musical production of Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein and rounding it out by “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
Helping hands: Marty Feldman plays Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, in Young Frankenstein (1974).
A ROCKIER HORROR
Around the time Young Frankenstein was being conceived, the monster got one of its most extreme—and sexiest—makeovers thanks to a play that would become a film and then grow into one of the most beloved cult classics in history. Where Young Frankenstein was a tribute to the Universal monster movies, parody took on a new dimension in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The rock musical was a ribald spoof of the B movies in the style of Hammer Films, pumping everything up to eleven with absurd characters playing out a ridiculous science-fiction plot.
The 1973 play The Rocky Horror Show was a surprise smash in London and proved to be popular in Los Angeles as well. When it hit Broadway in 1975, however, its fortunes came to an end. The New York production ran for only forty-five performances. Likewise, the 20th Century Fox film that also came out in 1975 was critically panned and initially failed at the box office.
The story is a complex send-up of B-movie science-fiction and horror films that begins when Janet and Brad, a seemingly typical couple played by Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, experience some car trouble in a driving rainstorm. They seek shelter in the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), “a sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania.” It is the night of the Annual Transylvania Convention and the time that the esteemed Dr. Furter—dressed in a corset and fishnet stockings—succeeds in bringing his own creation to life in a perfect specimen of a man named Rocky Horror. Through a series of deceptions and mistaken identities, Frank-N-Furter seduces both Janet and Brad, kills Rocky’s partial brain donor, Eddie, and occasionally breaks into manically choreographed song-and-dance routines. Frank-N-Furter and his sister, Columbia, are killed when it is revealed that they and the servant characters of Magenta and Riff Raff are actually aliens. The “monster” Rocky then ascends the castle tower, carrying Frank’s body with him as he plunges to his death.
