11/18/2007
I believe “Son of Frankenstein” was a hit last night! I need to qualify something I wrote yesterday- that this was the longest of the Universal horror films. Actually, the Spanish-language version of “Dracula” was a little longer- so, let me say that “Son of…” is the longest ENGLISH LANGUAGE horror film!
You have to love Bela Lugosi’s characterization of Ygor- which became almost as legendary as his “Dracula!” It certainly shows what a wonderful character actor Lugosi could be! Amazingly, the character was NOT in the original version of the screenplay! He was added in later, Bela, who didn’t seem very adept at getting jobs, agreed to play the part for an embarrassingly low salary. The director, Roland Lee, felt sorry for the proud star, and had the script adapted and re-written several times, increasing Bela’s screen time, and making him more important to the story- so that Bela would get a MUCH larger payday for his work in the film. It’s hard to imagine the film without Ygor, especially without him as such a pivotal character! He was significant enough to return in the film “Ghost of Frankenstein”- which we will be showing, but somewhat out of sequence, unfortunately- since Universal has the films scheduled out of order.
As I mentioned, this was the film that established the Monster’s skin color as a gangrene green- mainly because Universal had, at first, planned on it being a color feature- so, Boris’ make-up, as applied by the great Jack Pierce, was as green as the Wicked Witch of the West! The only existing film of the green goliath in color are in some home movies owned by Boris daughter Sarah (who, coincidentally, was BORN during the filming of this flick- no, she wasn’t born with a home movie camera in her hands- someone else, more adult, shot the movies!) There is a rumor that a reel of a Technicolor test scene of the green Monster was found in the Universal film vaults during the 1980s- but it mysteriously disappeared
from the desk of a Universal executive.(Too bad “Son of” star Basil Rathbone wasn’t around to play Sherlock Holmes and find out where it went!)
Yep, this was Boris’ last go-round as the Monster- but, he hasn’t abandoned the Frankenstein clan all together- he’ll be back, as a different character, as “Franken-Fall” rolls on- when we present “House of Frankenstein” at a later date. Next Saturday- it’s a slugfest between the hairy and the scary- but- We’ll tell you about that later on in the upcoming week…
You have to love Bela Lugosi’s characterization of Ygor- which became almost as legendary as his “Dracula!” It certainly shows what a wonderful character actor Lugosi could be! Amazingly, the character was NOT in the original version of the screenplay! He was added in later, Bela, who didn’t seem very adept at getting jobs, agreed to play the part for an embarrassingly low salary. The director, Roland Lee, felt sorry for the proud star, and had the script adapted and re-written several times, increasing Bela’s screen time, and making him more important to the story- so that Bela would get a MUCH larger payday for his work in the film. It’s hard to imagine the film without Ygor, especially without him as such a pivotal character! He was significant enough to return in the film “Ghost of Frankenstein”- which we will be showing, but somewhat out of sequence, unfortunately- since Universal has the films scheduled out of order.
As I mentioned, this was the film that established the Monster’s skin color as a gangrene green- mainly because Universal had, at first, planned on it being a color feature- so, Boris’ make-up, as applied by the great Jack Pierce, was as green as the Wicked Witch of the West! The only existing film of the green goliath in color are in some home movies owned by Boris daughter Sarah (who, coincidentally, was BORN during the filming of this flick- no, she wasn’t born with a home movie camera in her hands- someone else, more adult, shot the movies!) There is a rumor that a reel of a Technicolor test scene of the green Monster was found in the Universal film vaults during the 1980s- but it mysteriously disappeared
from the desk of a Universal executive.(Too bad “Son of” star Basil Rathbone wasn’t around to play Sherlock Holmes and find out where it went!)
Yep, this was Boris’ last go-round as the Monster- but, he hasn’t abandoned the Frankenstein clan all together- he’ll be back, as a different character, as “Franken-Fall” rolls on- when we present “House of Frankenstein” at a later date. Next Saturday- it’s a slugfest between the hairy and the scary- but- We’ll tell you about that later on in the upcoming week…
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