SON OF FRANKENSTEIN

US, 1939, 92 minutes, Black and white.
Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Josephine Hutchinson.
Directed by Rowland V. Lee.

Son of Frankenstein is the third Frankenstein film with Boris Karloff as the monster. Frankenstein was a great commercial success in 1931, directed by James Whale. Whale continued the series with the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein which also received critical acclaim.

Basil Rathbone is the baron in this film with Bela Lugosi as the sinister Ygor. Lionel Atwill is the local policeman investigating strange goings-on. Boris Karloff appears as the monster for the last time – but in a supporting role, wreaking vengeance – but seemingly controlled by Ygor.

The film is less Gothic atmospheric than the original two films – but is effective in its own way. It was directed by Rowland V. Lee who had made The Count of Monte Cristo, was to make The Tower of London with Boris Karloff in the same year and direct The Son of Monte Cristo as well as The Bridges of San Luis Rey. His final film was Captain Kidd with Charles Laughton.

1 What presuppositions do audiences bring to a Frankenstein film? Did this film presuppose continuity with the original Frankenstein?

2. What importance does the modern setting give to such Frankenstein films? (Later films were set in the 19th century.)

3. How was the son of Frankenstein presented in this film? The overtones of the son of the mad scientiest father? Presupposing the hostility of the village people and their memory of the monster? Did this add an atmosphere of menace to the film?

4. How was this balanced by the family picture of Dr. Frankensteir? The homely touch versus the horror and the threat from the village?

5. How well was the town presented with its hostility? Especially their memories and then the new murders of the monster? Was there too much of hysteria in the villagers' hostility?

6. How was the monster presented in this film? Sympathetically at all? Or just a picture of horror? Which
sequences illustrated this best?

7. The character of Eagle. What did he add to the film? Any horror? Sinister? His relationship with the monster?

8. What was the audience’s response to the deaths when the monster started killing? Did it lose sympathy for the monster?

9. How important was the theme of Dr. Frankenstein as the mad scientist? The nature of his obsessions? The memory of his father? The fact that he wanted to play God and create life? Is this an important theme of science fiction? What judgment is made on this theme in this film?

10. How did the police inspector and his investigations give a tone of sanity to counterbalance the horror?

11. The importance of the sequence of Eagle's death? response to the grief of the monster for Eagle? How important was this?

12. How did it contrast with the murder of and the sanity point of view?

13. The impact of the finale: the pursuit of the monster, the disappearance of the child and the anxiety of the mother, the fact that the child felt at home with the monster (how well was this prepared beforehand, by the visits of the child to the monster, the secret passages?) The danger to the child?

14. Was Dr. Frankenstein’s dilemma clearly posed? Wanting to save his creation and yet the need to kill it to protect his child?

15. How satisfying was the ending? The death of the monster, yet the villagers seemed to forgive the doctor who in many ways had been responsible for the murders? How else could the film have ended?

16. Comment on the horror styles of the films of the 30s. The use of black and white photography, the nature of the sets, (the impression ... sets here)? The monster and Eagle, the balance between normality and the atmosphere of the monster?