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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 5, No. 46 |
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THE MONSTER THAT JUST WON'T GO AWAY
Vincent Perez, left, as Deucalion, the 200-year-old original Monster; At right, Ivana Milicevic as Erika, the man-made wife of Dr. Helios, who's constantly being re-manufactured in a quest for perfection. Both are leading characters in the USA Network's re-spinning of "Frankenstein" by horror novelist Dean C. Koontz. |
Each new generation gets
its own 'Frankenstein'
of TheColumnists.com
Pity the young moviegoers of the silent movie years. They had no real "Frankenstein" movies to watch unless you want to count a few lame, embarrassing versions, such as Thomas Edison's 1908 "Frankenstein" starring the immortal Charles Ogle as The Monster. From the sketchy remains of that film still around, Ogle was about as scary as your Grandpa sleepwalking in his long underwear.
But from 1931 to the present time, each new generation of Americans has been treated to a new and worthy attempt to breathe new life into the 19th century story conceived by Mary W. Shelley on what was rumored to be a very dark and stormy night.
If you're wondering, "Who cares?," then you probably shouldn't be exploring the Dark Corridors pages of this website. Regular readers know and understand that most young American boys need and, in fact, require a good monster to root for while growing up. These days a good number of young American girls also have this pressing need.
This is a character-building thing. A good monster is misunderstood and, generally, despised. Remember that Frankenstein's Monster was a newborn thing. It didn't know from nothing. But, because it was big and strong, people ran from it or threw rocks at it or chased it around, waving torches.
When I first saw Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in my adolescent years, I felt sorry for the poor sod. He was eager to learn from that nice little girl who tore the petals off a daisy and threw them into the river. Naturally, he thought you were supposed to hold pretty things in your hands, tear them apart and then throw them in the river. Once he did that, those pesky villagers were after him with torches.
The important lessons implicit in "Frankenstein" were not lost on me. I felt pity for the grotesque creature because he couldn't help looking the way he did. I think that re-inforced what I'd been taught in my childhood: That one should be friendly to grotesque creatures because their road in life was extra difficult.
When his man-made mate, played by Elsa Lanchester, rejected his attentions in "The Bride of Frankenstein," I also learned that it was a waste of time for ugly guys to assume ugly girls would be grateful to have their company. That taught me never to take women for granted. That lesson probably saved me a lot of heartache over the years.
In 1931, Universal pictures released the original "Frankenstein" and Karloff became a great box office attraction overnight. His performance as The Monster was dramatic and poignant. He became an icon. There was the "look" that makeup wizard Jack Pierce gave him--the flat-top head, the built-up forehead, the "bolts" on each side of his neck. There was the wardrobe he wore--giant, thick-soled boots and loose-fitting black pants and shirt, cut several sizes too small for him. They created a "Frankenstein" look that remains the definitive look for The Monster, even though it had little to do with the look of the character Mary Shelley envisioned in her famous novel.
Karloff's Frankenstein Monster dominated my generation of Americans. When Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. and Glenn Strange took on the role after Karloff's three appearances, they all wore the Karloff look.
By the late 1950s, America had changed. A new generation of boys had grown up reading the ghoulish E.C. comic books like "Vault of Horror," "Tales From the Crypt" and "The Haunt of Fear." The monsters in those books weren't very sympathetic. They were downright scary.
That's when the English studio Hammer Films began to remake the original Universal monster movies for a new generation that had never seen them in color nor with the free-flow of blood now permitted on the movie screen. Their "Frankenstein," released in America as "The Curse of Frankenstein" by Warner Bros. in 1957, featured a new look for The Monster. Tall, physically imposing Christopher Lee was made up like a ghastly mistake of science. His face was scabrous and lumpy, his flesh a sickly shade toward green. He engendered no sympathy. He hated being what he was and wanted to kill whatever had shocked him into life.
That's when the studio decided against bringing Lee's monster back in a series of films the way Universal had done in the 1930s and 1940s. His Monster wasn't likeable enough. Instead, they brought back Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) each time--the madman-hero, always looking for a new place to conduct his experiments, always failing to get it quite right.
The strong message of the Hammer "Frankenstein" films, which lasted into the mid-70s, was a warning: Don't mess with Mother Nature. Boys of that generation probably learned that science is a serious business, which is why mavericks don't last very long trying to make a living at it. They learned what happens when you step outside the approved structure: You run the risk that you'll be all alone, without liability insurance, when the villagers come for you with torches.
By the late 1970s, another trend was under way: A Back to Basics thing. ABC-TV started it in 1973 when it presented the two-part movie called "Frankenstein: The True Story," which flirted with following the original Shelley novel. No other "Frankenstein" movie had been faithful to the book. Neither was this one, though it did end in the Arctic ice floes, as the book does. It starred a matinee idol-type as The Creature--handsome Michael Sarrazin.
Several other worthy attempts were made to present a faithful "Frankenstein," foremost among them "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," directed by British stage and screen star Kenneth Branagh, who also played Dr. Frankenstein. As his Monster he cast two-time Academy Award winner Robert DeNiro, one of the smallest and most ethnic looking ;of all the "monsters."
We are still in that same trend, though it's now shape-shifting in a new direction, trying to steep itself in the murky, cult-attracting ambience of weirdness that characterized David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" and the cluttered, decadent and sickly realistic atmosphere of David Fincher's 1995 serial killer movie called "Se7en."
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They're all in USA's "Frankenstein," soon to be a weekly series. |
Best example of that is the USA cable network's "Frankenstein," the movie that was first shown Oct. 10, but is expected to return soon as a weekly series. Re-spun by best-selling horror novelist Dean C. Koontz, the story purports to tell us about the real mad scientist who inspired Mary Shelley's original novel: Dr. Victor Helios (Thomas Kretschmann), who has used his own weird science to prolong his life by 200 years--and is now continuing his experiments in contemporary New Orleans.
With obvious influence from novelist Anne Rice, Fincher's serial killer movie and the complete works of David Lynch, Koontz and the USA team have concocted a dark, shadowy, cultish storyline that seems designed to present the bad guys as cult heroes and their cop-pursuers as "ultra cool" characters who act like they're fresh from the loony bin.
Two skanky police detectives--Carson O'Conner (Parker Posey) and Michael Sloane (Adam Goldberg)--are investigating crimes by The Surgeon, a serial killer who extracts organs from his murder victims. Also on the force is Detective Harker (Michael Madsen), who just happens to be a previous creation of Dr. Helios, the modern Dr. Frankenstein.
O'Conner and Sloane ultimately discover they're really after Dr. Helios, who needs lots of fresh body parts. He has a lovely fashion model wife named Erika (Ivana Milicevic) that he put together from what appears to be some very choice body parts. Trouble is he has to occasionally send her back to the cauldron and re-vivify her with new parts. When we first meet her she's model #4.
Also pursuing Dr. Helios is his original creation, now known as Deucalion (Vincent Perez). This is not exactly like a Model T trying to track down Henry Ford. Deucalion, like Michael Sarrazin, is a monster/hunk. Sure, he has lots of scars and electricity seems to zip and zap here and there on his torso, but he definitely has curb appeal. Before long, he's helping the skanky cops in their search for Helios.
USA's "Frankenstein" was the second of two new "Frankenstein" movies on cable during the same week in October. (The other was on the Hallmark channel.) It's the one that may have a future.
What do members of the
current kid generation learn from watching the USA "Frankenstein"?
Well, first they have to learn how to unlock the kiddie control
gadgets on the cable system, so they can watch it. After that,
I think they're very likely to learn some nasty tricks.
For one thing, Erika, the dead babe who looks like she just stepped
off the cover of Vogue before being hit by a truck, may encourage
the practice of necrophilia among youngsters. If graves start
being disturbed in your community, look no further for the answer.
Parker Posey and Adam Goldberg also serve as icky role models who may appeal to the leftover punksters of America. Posey is a sort of dark-haired, anorexic Tuesday Weld for her generation. Goldberg, who was lovably geeky in ABC's short-lived 1996-97 romantic series "Relativity," is just geeky in "Frankenstein." Both have an inexplicable appeal, probably because they seem to reverse all leading man/leading lady expectations, yet are both talented actors always interesting to watch. They both seem to have taken something that keeps them calm in the face of monsters. Perhaps that's the message for kid viewers: Find out what they're taking and get some quick.
If I seem to be saying
"Frankenstein" is getting sicker with each new generation,
I think you've been paying attention after all. Sick or not,
though, it's kind of nice to have the old story go around every
now and then. One of these days they may get it right.
©2004 by Ron Miller.
The photos are courtesy of the USA Network.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
teaches classes in mystery and related topics at Whatcom Community
College and Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
He's now a columnist specializing in movies and television for
MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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