Quote:
Originally Posted by neverending
Humbug!
Pierce's makeup was one of the most original creations on film, ever- certainly back then! The lab created by Strickfaden was the blueprint for mad doctor's labs for 30 years. And certainly Clive's portrayal set the template for mad scientists for... forever. And the biggest inovation- playing the monster for sympathy broke tradition. The film created an entire HORROR FILM INDUSTRY. This one film, because of being such a trend setter and for capturing the audience's heart so decisively assured that horror films as a genre would enjoy a long life.
FRANKENSTEIN'S influence cannot be overestimated.
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Yes, it did do all that. However, it also obliviated an originally humanistic and mature commentary on mankind and replaced it with a monster movie armed only with the intention of a "monster bad, man good" mindset.
Well, this complete mis-translation was an enormous success, and one that may have been responsible for an immediate stereotype that horror movies could not bare any kind of morale on life but instead were only created with the intention of showering their audiences with an appropriate amount of shock value followed by an inevitable victory by man.
I sincerely enjoy James Whale's
Frankenstein, but its complete disregard for the intention of its source material has always been a turn-off for me, and when it is pitted against a movie like
Pulp Fiction, it falls short.
If this were
King Kong, things would be different.