Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(1994)
By including the author’s name in the title, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
hopes to distinguish itself from previous film versions of the monster saga
by suggesting that, unlike those other incarnations of the classic tale,
this one is a faithful rendering of the original novel. According to the
legend, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein on a dare during a thunder and
lightning scarred night spent in the company of her lover, the blasphemous
poet Percy Blythe Shelley. The resulting story of an obsessed scientist who
creates life from the bits and pieces of dead men is one of the most famous
in literature, but once filmmakers got their hands on it, the amateur
authoress’ tale was given as many alterations as Dr. Frankenstein gave those
corpses he used in his experiments.
Frankenstein has held a strong fascination for filmmakers throughout the history of the cinema with the first screen version appearing in 1910 courtesy of none other than Thomas Edison. Twenty-one years later, Universal Pictures, which had only recently introduced audiences to the genre of the horror film with Dracula, produced what remains the definitive version of Shelley’s tale, a creaky black-and-white effort that brought stardom to a bit player named Boris Karloff whose sensitive, haunted eyes peered out from behind Jack Pierce’s brilliant makeup and made the creature an object of pity rather than scorn. As directed by James Whale, 1931’s Frankenstein took liberties with its source, as did the superior 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein, but the changes were minor compared to what was to come. In 1948, having already crossed paths with the Wolfman, the monster met Abbott and Costello, and, years later, he would do battle with a space monster in a made in Japan abomination that seemed to indicate that the creature had sunk much lower than the six feet of earth from which he had initially been exhumed. Much better, but of varying quality, was the series of low budget Technicolor films ground out by Britain’s Hammer productions from 1957 to 1974 starring Peter Cushing as the grave robbing scientist. This is only skimming the surface, but, if the press releases are to be believed, Shelley’s novel only made it to the screen in 1994 in the film that Francis Ford Coppola produced as a companion piece to his 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Turning the director’s reins over to Kenneth Branagh, the Irish actor-director whose Henry V picked up several Oscar nominations for 1989, proved to be a good decision. The casting of Robert DeNiro as the creature was not.
Working from a screenplay co-authored by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), Branagh’s camera is as restless as Dr. Frankenstein whom he plays with an appropriate mix of dignity and zeal. Shots from odd angles are the norm here, as are overhead shots of the obsessed doctor at work in his laboratory. The sets are striking, and the costumes sumptuous. Whether the script adheres to its source or not, the story is fascinating. It seems Frankenstein, who, as in the book, is named Victor (not Henry, as in the 1931 film), is obsessed with death due to his mother’s having died while giving him birth. The murder of the doctor who serves as his mentor (John Cleese) further fuels his desire to defeat death. The professor’s brain is popped into the skull of an executed thief, which may explain how quickly the creature learns to read. It is by reading Frankenstein’s journal that the creature discovers his identity after the disappointed doctor abandons his creation. The creature who has, by this time, murdered two people, demands that he be given a mate, and when Dr. Frankenstein refuses to grant his request, the creature casts his eyes on Elizabeth, the doctor’s fiancee, in a surprising, exciting, and eerie climax.
Unfortunately, the film, for all its merits, suffers due to the lack of a truly believable creature. There is no need for a man brought back from the dead to look as monstrous as Boris Karloff did, but Robert DeNiro’s creature looks like a drunken bum who spent too many nights in the gutter, not the grave. The mashed lip, the red scar across his face, and the shaved head only make DeNiro look like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. Even though the creature speaks very eloquently in Shelley’s novel, it’s strange to hear DeNiro’s monster utter such inane lines as "I keep my promises." The unimpressive makeup only adds to the failure of DeNiro’s performance. This isn’t a creature pieced together from dead men, only a run of the mill serial killer.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is, therefore, a film with a vacuum. Too bad. What surrounds that emptiness at the core is very impressive, as is most of the cast. Helena Bonham Carter is especially good as Elizabeth, but Branagh, Tom Hulce, and Aiden Quinn are also good, as is an almost unrecognizable John Cleese. The film’s biggest problem is not DeNiro, however, but Boris Karloff. Even though James Whale’s classic Frankenstein with the bolt necked Boris now looks crude in comparison with current horror films, it continues to cast a long shadow, one from which Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein cannot escape.
© Copyright 1999, Brian W. Fairbanks. All Rights Reserved.
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