Eventually Henry realizes who’s at the front door and comes down to let them in. In another signature use of his dynamic lens, Whale follows Henry, passing the camera’s view across--and seemingly through--the wall separating the lab from the stairway in one fluid motion. He invites them in to view the creation of the monster; and what a creation it is! Kenneth Strickfaden’s awesome electrical apparatus sparks and arcs and crackles with brilliance as the body, stitched together from dead tissue, is raised to the heavens during the height of the storm. In a crescendo of lightning flashes, electrical discharges, crashing thunder, and anxious faces, the body is brought back down. Slowly, the lifeless hand is lifeless no more, and Henry utters the formerly censored words, “Now I know what it feels like to be God!” The monster is born.
But is Frankenstein’s monster really a monster, or is he just misunderstood? Henry and Dr. Waldman argue this point, and whether to keep the monster (Boris Karloff) alive, but before you can say “going to hell in a hand basket” everything goes quickly wrong when the monster makes his first onscreen appearance. First you hear his clumping footsteps ascending the stairs, then the door slowly opens as he enters facing backwards. Slowly he turns around, and two zooming close-ups reveal Jack Pierce’s creepy cotton and collodion makeup that surely must have made non-jaded hearts skip a beat in 1931. Directing the monster to sit down, Henry opens the skylight to let sunlight in. The monster reaches upward, attracted by the sudden brightness, trying to touch it. When Henry closes the skylight, making it dark again, the mute monster again expresses want with its hands. Karloff’s pantomime performance is poignant. Perhaps Dr. Waldman is wrong and--damn, what’s Fritz doing with that torch? As the composure of the monster turns from fear to rage, so does Henry’s reason begin to shatter and Waldman presses his argument.
Fritz really shouldn’t have mistreated the poor thing, though. Fire, whips, chains, such abuse is bound to make any monster inordinately angry. Henry should have fired Fritz on the spot, but he didn’t, and so the monster starts acting monstrously. A long scream of terror later, Fritz is found hanging by his own whip, courtesy of one really annoyed and fed-up monster. Making matters worse, Dr. Waldman gets all choked up over his work, permanently, before he can euthanize Henry’s once cherished creation.
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