Directed by James Whale / Screenplay by Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh

Hot on the heels of Universal’s success with Dracula, the studio purchased the rights to a recent theatre adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, and it was from this play that Universal’s screenwriters forged the script for what was to become perhaps the most celebrated and influential horror movie of them all. The classic image of the lab-coated ‘mad scientist’, with his hunchbacked henchman and his gothic laboratory fizzing with electric coils and spark machines - all of these derive from Universal’s Frankenstein. None of them, however, derive from Mary Shelley’s original novel, which never actually explains the means by which Frankenstein breathes life into his creature. Being an adaptation of an adaptation, it’s perhaps not surprising that the film’s relationship with its source material is occasionally distant: far from the mute, lurching monster of cinema legend, Shelley’s creature is an articulate moral philosopher, taking his creator to task for daring to play God. And yet the greatness of this film lies in the extraordinary pathos and character it successfully imbues in its monster. The English actor Boris Karloff had already played small roles in more than eighty films before he was plucked from obscurity for Frankenstein by a fellow countryman, the young British director James Whale, who had arrived in Hollywood after making his name with the previous year’s film of the wartime play Journey’s End. Whale’s intelligent, classy direction creates the perfect environment for Karloff’s wordless, piteous performance - and, assisted by the remarkable prosthetics created by make-up maestro Jack Pierce, the result is the most enduring movie monster of them all, and the first chapter in arguably the greatest of Universal’s horror franchises.

Framed Dimensions: 330mm x 410mm

Acrylic on 300gsm Arches oil paper
Glazed, mounted and framed

Supplied with signed letter of authenticity from Barnaby.