Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
she is played by the same actress, Elsa Lanchester, as Mary Shelley) is
striking but not hideous and she immediately rejects the Monster who in
despair electrocutes her, Dr Pretorius, and himself. In this film Franken-
stein has become entirely absolved of guilt, and the role of the evil scien-
tist bent on creating life, has passed to the alchemist-like Pretorius.
Bride of Frankenstein
was followed by a long succession of Franken-
stein derivatives whose titles are sufficiently indicative of their content
and of the way in which Frankenstein has been integrated into Western
culture as an ever-contemporary by-word, almost as a real person, engag-
ing in dialogue with other characters both real and imaginary.
5
At differ-
ent periods the emphasis falls variously on horror, space travel, sexuality,
or comedy associated with the figure of the scientist. One of the most in-
teresting films in terms of the application of the Frankenstein story to a
contemporary scientific debate is
Frankenstein 1970
(1958) in which Bo-
ris Karloff returns to the screen as the disfigured Victor Frankenstein,
victim of Nazi torture. By means of an atomic reactor he raises to life the
Monster from his ancestor's 1757 experiment, but they both die a horri-
ble death from radioactivity when the reactor blows up. Only then is the
Monster's face revealed. It is the face of a youthful Victor Frankenstein,
symbolizing in startling visual imagery the identification of creator and
creature, in this case the atomic scientist and his dangerous and faulty
creation, atomic power.
5.
The Endurance of the Alchemist Stereotype
It may seem anomalous that, after the rise of the great scientific societies
in the seventeenth century and the European Enlightenment of the eigh-
teenth century with its emphasis on rationality, this archetype has en-
5
Son of Frankenstein
(1938),
The Ghost of Frankenstein
(1942),
Frankenstein Meets
the Wolf Man
(1943),
House of Frankenstein
(1944),
Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein
(1948),
I was a Teenage Frankenstein
(1957),
The Curse of Franken-
stein
(1957),
The Revenge of Frankenstein
(1958),
Frankenstein's Daughter
(1958),
Frankenstein 1970
(1958),
El Testamento del Frankenstein
(1964),
The Evil of
Frankenstein
(1964),
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter
(1965),
Franken-
stein Conquers the World
(1965),
Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster
(1965),
Frankenstein Created Woman
(1967),
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed
(1969),
Gothic
(1986),
Frankenstein, the Real Story
(1993).
