The Son of Frankenstein (1939)

No such thing as diminishing returns in Universal's Frankenstein series, it seems. Son is not the zany phantasmagoria Bride is, nor is it the somber character study the original is, but it has a mixture of both and one hell of a lot of spunk. The credit for this goes to whoever wrote these odd characters--truly some of the oddest people I've ever seen interacting this side of a David Lynch film--and the fantastic performances given by svelt young Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, an absolutely demented Bela Lugosi, and Lionel Atwill.

To write a glowing review of Son of Frankenstein for horror fans, I could have simply listed those four names and clicked 'Post'--mission accomplished. But movies like this really grab my interest. It reminds me very much of Tod Browning's The Devil-Doll, not in the plot points, but in the manic energy. It's as if Rathbone, Atwill, and Lugosi all decided to try and upstage one another. It's pretty hard to upstage a monster, but actually Karloff's monster is the most lowkey of the four. Bela Lugosi steals scenes from a monster. And Lionel Atwill almost steals the movie, were it not for the most nervy performance I've ever scene oozing from Rathbone.

The plot concerns the new Baron Frankenstein, son of the monster-maker, who also happens to be a scientist. He initially strikes one as a jovial fellow, but as the film progresses and his 'bundle-of-nerves' quality soars to heights possibly unparallel, I really had to wonder what this guy is really like. He seems to have the best of intentions; but it doesn't take much coaxing to have him raising a monster from the dead and killing a man. I think, actually, they were going for a return of the original Frankenstein theme: hubris. He frequently says things like, "Nothing in nature you understand needs be feared," and "I am afraid of nothing." He's a decent man with cosmic aspirations that end up putting his son in jeopardy (or do they?).

The townspeople have it in for Baron Frankenstein from the moment he arrives. He tries to greet them warmly, but they'll have none of it. There are some great moments showing the council of village elders discussing the vileness of 'the Frankenstein name.' This enough to unnerve anyone. And a major part of Frankenstein's motivations in this film are to vindicate both his family name and his father.

Enter Bela Lugosi as Ygor, about the polar opposite of the charming Dracula. Ygor is unkempt, vile, hateful, and played to the hilt by Lugosi; I hardly recognized him. He's been hiding the monster, using it to kill, and since it was struck by lightning, sheltering the comatose body. Somehow he's earned the monster's adoration, even though his concern for it doesn't strike me as anything but selfish and proprietal. He is a nasty, murderous creature who managed to survive a hanging. But since he was pronounced dead by the local physician--who is never wrong--he can't be hanged to death again. This leaves him with a distinctive broken neck. Ygor gets most of the film's best lines: a series of dark one-liners involving his own hanging, his neck ("Got a bone stuck in my throat"), and his murders. His presence puts the Frankenstein name at risk, because he is using the monster for evil.

Lionel Atwill's Inspector Krogh is the zany center of the film, kind of like Dr. Pretorius was in Bride. Polite, stiff, gentlemanly, and sharp, the Inspector's kindness and concern for the Baron quickly make him a thorn in his side. He has a wooden arm and a monocle. The original arm was lost to the monster: "One does not easily forget, Herr Baron, an arm torn out by the roots." In various scenes he uses the wooden arm to do things, like hold his monocle, while he wipes it, but neither he nor anyone else every mention it; it's just something he does. There is an incredible moment when the Inspector and the Baron are having a sort of passive aggressive showdown, talking to one another politely and angrily at the same time; it's so very odd, but it somehow encapsulates the film's essence: seemingly gentle and zany, yet it packs quite a whollop and is actually pretty macabre.

The last of the key players is Karloff's monster. Certainly the moral center of the film. He's killing because Ygor tells him to, but when he finally is overcome with wrath, it's not clear what his intentions are. Thinking on his own, does he make a moral decision? You can see the enormous influence on George Romero in this film. There's a moment when it looks like the monster is going to kill someone, but he doesn't; it's not clear if he ever intended to kill or if he changed his mind right there. I think it's the latter; the monster learns to make moral choices. The monster is still a child, really, but Rathbone can't bring himself to see it as anything other than an experiment; that's part of the tragedy here.

Son of Frankenstein is probably not for everyone. It's a love-it or hate-it sort of movie, I'd imagine, because it's so crazy. The film is filled with images of crumbling and decay: missing arms, broken necks, half-destroyed buildings, as if he natural progression of Frankenstein's experiments have tainted the environment around him. To my mind, this makes it the perfect third entry in the Frankenstein series. I love this movie and it's odd characters, Inspector Krogh most of all. It's not the equal to Bride or the original, but I think I might have enjoyed watching it even more than I did those.