11/19/2007
I’m still getting lots of feedback on “Son of Frankenstein” from this past Saturday night! I’m happy that “Franken-fall” has fallen into favor with so many of our loyal Sven viewers, and some new viewers of the show as well.
I’ve received some interesting information- Dan, who has sent me some great stuff about previous movies, had another helping of cool insight for me- he mentioned that Dwight Frye- the former “Renfield” from “Dracula” and the hunchback “Fritz” in the first “Frankenstein” film- did not appear in “Son of Frankenstein”- he was cast, but all his scenes were cut from the final print! According to Dan, Frye worked on the first five films, making his final appearance in “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (which conveniently runs this Saturday night on Sven)- and passed away before the very last few sequels were made.
As you may notice, Universal cast a lot of the same actors in each of its films- I’m sure many of them were under contract to them. Supposedly, the marketing people thought that having the same faces show up provided some continuity that the audience would enjoy. I know some of our viewers find it weird that actors show up in different roles, especially when they played someone who was killed in a previous movie! Granted, these movies were released with a span of a year or more between them, so, unlike us, watching them the next week, the audiences of that time maybe didn’t recall that they had seen the actor as a different character in a previous film.
(It’s just like when we show a couple Stooge shorts that contain duplicate footage on “Stooge-a-palooza”- there were probably many years between the two shorts in real life, unlike us showing them a week apart!)
Dan mentioned a couple other sidebar actors who show up in various films- Lionel Belmore and Michael Mark are both killed by the Monster in “Son of Frankenstein”- but, in “Ghost of Frankenstein” -both are still serving on the town council. Sounds like Chicago, where dead men can vote!
Also, in “Ghost of Frankenstein” (coming in two weeks on Sven) watch for Dwight Frye (formerly that hunchbacked assistant in the original) as a town person who feels that the Frankenstein Castle ought to be blown up! (Again, like Chicago politics- switching sides at a moment’s notice!)
Quickly, we talked about how we thought the origin of the Monster’s green face came from “Son of…” which was supposed to be in Technicolor originally- viewer Keith says he recalls reading an interview many years ago that stated the make-up department was trying to figure out how to make the Monster’s flesh look “dead”- since everyone’s skin tone in a black and white film looks gray- and came up with a greenish mixture of make-up that read as the tone they wanted on camera. Has anyone else ever read this somewhere? Let me know- svengoolie@wciu.com .I appreciate that Dan, Keith, and so many others of you share the information you’ve gained over the years as fans of these great movies!
I’ve received some interesting information- Dan, who has sent me some great stuff about previous movies, had another helping of cool insight for me- he mentioned that Dwight Frye- the former “Renfield” from “Dracula” and the hunchback “Fritz” in the first “Frankenstein” film- did not appear in “Son of Frankenstein”- he was cast, but all his scenes were cut from the final print! According to Dan, Frye worked on the first five films, making his final appearance in “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (which conveniently runs this Saturday night on Sven)- and passed away before the very last few sequels were made.
As you may notice, Universal cast a lot of the same actors in each of its films- I’m sure many of them were under contract to them. Supposedly, the marketing people thought that having the same faces show up provided some continuity that the audience would enjoy. I know some of our viewers find it weird that actors show up in different roles, especially when they played someone who was killed in a previous movie! Granted, these movies were released with a span of a year or more between them, so, unlike us, watching them the next week, the audiences of that time maybe didn’t recall that they had seen the actor as a different character in a previous film.
(It’s just like when we show a couple Stooge shorts that contain duplicate footage on “Stooge-a-palooza”- there were probably many years between the two shorts in real life, unlike us showing them a week apart!)
Dan mentioned a couple other sidebar actors who show up in various films- Lionel Belmore and Michael Mark are both killed by the Monster in “Son of Frankenstein”- but, in “Ghost of Frankenstein” -both are still serving on the town council. Sounds like Chicago, where dead men can vote!
Also, in “Ghost of Frankenstein” (coming in two weeks on Sven) watch for Dwight Frye (formerly that hunchbacked assistant in the original) as a town person who feels that the Frankenstein Castle ought to be blown up! (Again, like Chicago politics- switching sides at a moment’s notice!)
Quickly, we talked about how we thought the origin of the Monster’s green face came from “Son of…” which was supposed to be in Technicolor originally- viewer Keith says he recalls reading an interview many years ago that stated the make-up department was trying to figure out how to make the Monster’s flesh look “dead”- since everyone’s skin tone in a black and white film looks gray- and came up with a greenish mixture of make-up that read as the tone they wanted on camera. Has anyone else ever read this somewhere? Let me know- svengoolie@wciu.com .I appreciate that Dan, Keith, and so many others of you share the information you’ve gained over the years as fans of these great movies!
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