Comments on: Behind-the-screams photos!

By: Muir Hewitt

Muir Hewitt — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:35:25 +0000

Yes what a fabulous photograph of Whale and Thesiger both great characters !!
What an incredible amazing atmosphere there must have been on that set in The Bride of Frankenstein with all the British ex pats : James Whale , Elsa Lanchester , Colin Clive , Boris Karloff , Ernest Thesiger!

It is high time that Universal gave a completely remastered version of The Bride Of Frankenstein on DVD and Blu Ray this movie is a major Top 100 film and fully deserving of being preserved in the best version possible – what a pity Warner Bros don’t own the rights to The Bride as it would have been done best by them they are masters at remastering!

By: Dane

Dane — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:59:30 +0000

My favorite part is this: “this picture perfectly sums up the life that is always in evidence even among the death-obsessed.” You really get it.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:33:44 +0000

Great pics, but I agree that my fave of this bunch that you’ve shown is director James Whale and Ernest Thesiger taking a tea break on that coffin.

By: Pierre Fournier

Pierre Fournier — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:06:11 +0000

I made a post some time back about the Walter Mitty Frankenstein: http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2007/12/1-event-of-2007-lost-karloff.html

By: Medusa

Medusa — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:19:22 +0000

Now, how come I’m a lifelong Danny Kaye fan and never heard about the Karloff Monster sequence? I’ve just been searching the web and there’s precious little info, but it does seem to be now accepted as true. I have some stills from one of the excised dream sequences — Mitty as an Irish informer, where he was supposed to sing “Molly Malone” — but sure have never seen anything like a Frankenstein monster dream! Wow! Somebody’s got to get to the bottom of this! Fascinating!

As for Morlockjeff’s news that his old brain went to a gorilla, be on the lookout for a large simian listening to Yma Sumac!

What a fun topic this is!

By: morlockjeff

morlockjeff — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:35:33 +0000

Please sir, may we have some more? The Karloff in monster makeup could be a commercial for Tetley tea or Wonderbread. Great product endorsement. By the way, they recently implanted a marketeer’s brain in my body and the old one went to a gorilla.

By: Pierre Fournier

Pierre Fournier — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:08:58 +0000

I hate to think I have the final word or that I’m an expert on anything (by the way, that pencil eraser is a Staedler model 850), but here goes… The bangs, the mullet and the smooth finish all over indicate SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939). What makes this one look a bit off is that he’s not wearing the heavy, lizard-stare eyelids.

I checked some blowups from the baseball game footage (1940), and while the makeup is very similar to this, the bangs appear to be trimmed short and even. Also, I don’t think they bothered with wrist scars and the arm clamp for the baseball stunt.

On the WALTER MITTY photos (shot in 1946), Karloff looks a bit ragged and much older, with eye bags even more pronounced.

By: Richard Harland Smith

Richard Harland Smith — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:00:11 +0000

Moira… I never have seen Ernest Thesiger’s book but you’ve gotta know if I had come across it back in the day I would’ve snapped it up in a trice!

By: Richard Harland Smith

Richard Harland Smith — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:56:41 +0000

Earl, you raise an interesting point. When I bought the photo years ago I assumed that it was a behind-the-scenes shot from Karloff's cameo as the Frankenstein monster on the "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing" episode of Route 66. Upon closer inspection, I realized Karloff wasn't as old lin the photo as I had thought and that it was a much earlier shot. It's not from Karloff's 1940 baseball game public appearance (for which Jack Pierce did do the make-up) and you might just be right. Anyway, before I posted this I shot an e-mail off to Frankie expert Pierre Fournier and his word will likely be the final one.

By: Earl B

Earl B — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:43:33 +0000

Love the photos! One question, though: something about the Boris at tea-time pic looks a little off to me. He’s not quite as full in the face as he was in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and his eye bags are more pronounced. I’m probably wrong, but any chance this pic comes from the excised fantasy sequence from THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY?