Cult Actors #10: Dwight Frye

By Tom Fallows / June 24, 2011

He had a laugh like fingernails down an icy spine and a 1000 watt stare that could power a crazy house. Dwight Frye, the effete character actor who made his name in films like DRACULA (1931) and FRANKENSTEIN (1931), was one of cinemas first lunatics. He giggled his way out of a world of gothic castles and macabre murders and left his demented precence locked inside the dark recesses of our minds. Its easy to imagine him waiting between takes in a straightjacket.

He was known as a crazy, but before heading west to Hollywood, Frye was acclaimed for his versatility on the Broadway stage. He could disappear into a role and turn his hand at anything from comedy and drama to musicals and vaudeville. His boyish looks saw him cast as, the son in a 1922 production of SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR and in 1926 he appeared opposite Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi in the comedy THE DEVIL AND THE CHEESE. Three years later Frye was voted by critics as one of the 10 best actors of the legitimate stage. He had the makings of a star. With such success behind him he raced to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Frye had a young family and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 left him worried about his financial stability. LA could give him security - and all the trappings that go along with that. After a few bit parts he ended up in the clutches of the vampiric Count, and here became the first victim of Dracula. In the 1931 adaptation of Bram Stokers novel, Frye plays Renfield, a prissy little lawyer journeying through Transylvania the land beyond the forest on business with the devil. He begins naïve and insignificant. He has no one back home to care for him but is trying to make his mark in a pristine suit and dapper white hat. But Renfield is weak, and stands emasculated by Draculas towering castle. Hes an insect caught in the spiders web. The drawing of blood from his white neck sends him insane. He helps the vampire board a ship to England and below deck whispers while the count sleeps.

Master, the sun is gone, he hisses through clenched teeth, while grovelling on his knees. You will see that I get lives? Not human lives, but small ones with blood in them.

The ship arrives in England with the entire crew dead. The coastguards board and amidst the deathly quiet can here a weird, ungodly noise from below deck. It sounds like laughing. They crack open the hatch and below, staring back at them, is Renfield. Light from above bleaches his deranged face and his eyes shine with murder. His mouth is gleaming in a lunatics smile and that laugh freezes the blood.

A-HeE hEe HeE hee hEe HEe hee hEE HEE hee hee HEE HEE HEE HEEE,

Bela Lugosis DRACULA may have won all the plaudits, but Frye is the films chief source of terror. His performance is a tour de force. He twists from perverse energy to creeping stillness; from brimming power to grovelling weakness; from a demon lusting after evil, to a decent man fighting for his soul. The actors pure uninhibited zeal was breathtaking and at one point allowed director Todd Browning to keep a scene from the book that was deemed unfilmable. In Stokers novel, Dracula is described as being linked to the dark forces of nature and is seen surrounded by a horde of rats. Neither the budget nor the special effects could realise this moment, so instead the scene is described by Renfield in a deliciously unhinged monologue.

A red mist spread over the lawn, coming on like a flame of fire, he begins. And then he parted it, and I could see that there were hundreds of rats, with their eyes blazing red like his, only smaller. Then he held up his hand and they all stopped. And I thought he seemed to be saying, rats. Rats. Rats. RATTTSSSSS!

To the producers at Universal Pictures (and to everyone else) Frye was a sensation and he was quickly cast in the up-and-coming FRANKENSTEIN. Based on the novel by Mary Shelley and directed by James Whale, the film told the story of a mad scientist (Colin Clive) and his attempts to play God by creating a man in his own image (Boris Karloff). Frye was given the role of Fritz, the hunchbacked assistant, a part not to dissimilar to Renfield. We first meet him in a graveyard, watching a funeral procession with greedy eyes and waiting to sneak in and dig up the body for his masters experiments. As the hunchback, Frye is wild and unshaven, his eyes pitch black. His work for Frankenstein boarders on evil, yet the actor plays him with a childlike mentality. Hes eager to please, afraid of lightning and nervous of his own shadow. During the attempt to give life to the creature he stops everything to pull up his socks a beautiful detail added by Frye that says everything. In another actors hands the character could easily have been an irredeemable beast, but Fryes performance is more complex. The character is often seen smiling, like hes happy to be in out of the storm. His morality is basic, but there is no one who cares enough to teach him right from wrong. He ends up hanging from the monsters noose. In 1931 Frye made several other films (including the original screen adaptation of THE MALTEASE FALCON, in a role later made famous by Elisha Cook Jr). But it was these two films for Universal Pictures both blockbusters of their day - that made his name. Two years later he stared in THE VAMPIRE BAT and in terms of typecasting it was another nail in his coffin. Here he portrayed Herman, another childlike imbecile, a man who is part Renfield, part Lenny from Steinbecks OF MICE AND MEN.

When vampiric like murders spring up in a small town, the villagers instantly suspect Herman, a man who, prowls around the streets at all hours of the night, and keeps bats as pets.

They soft like cats, he explains, of his winged pets. They not bite Herman.

Frye brings an amazing physicality to the role and uses his body and an outlet for his peculiarities. He scurries up lampposts and walks around half dazed. Herman isnt evil, hes just a misfit. And in the end thats all the superstitious villagers need to tear him apart. The mould was set and already people were having a hard time seeing Frye as anything but a madman. He was cast in a bit part as a reporter in THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) by his friend James Whale, and though the part was straight, it was something he could have done in his sleep. Whale utilised him to more effect in the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) where Frye appears twice in different roles: first in a flashback sequence as Fritz, and then as the murderer Karl who helps Dr Pretorius rifle cadavers from graves. Alongside his crony Ludwig, Frye gives a less sympathetic portrayal of the demented assistant. Here he is a Burke & Hare style gravedigger, one who looks like he hasnt taken a bath in months. You can almost smell the stale sweat, spilt ale and graveyard dirt reeking from his clothes. As Karl, he not insane, just corrupt, and eventually gets tired of scouring graveyards in search of corpses:

This is no life for murders, he proclaims and so instead he goes out onto the cobbled streets to get, a fresh one.

Karl is as close to real, human evil as Frye had ever played. The same year the actor took a rare, good guy role, in THE CRIMES OF DR. CRESPI (he even had a love interest) but the parts were already beginning to dry up. He was cut out of 1939s SON OF FRANKENSTEIN.He made forgettable cameos as an angry villager in GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942) and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943). Frye had been so expert at playing mania, that no one could see him as anything else. He played a shifty hood in 1937s BEWARE OF THE LADIES and anyone who cared to look could see how different he could be. While the part was virtually a rerun of his feeble villains, he deepened his high voice and changed his mannerisms to being smoother and more in control. No one cared.

"If God is good," said Frye of his typecasting. "I will be able to play comedy, in which I was featured on Broadway for eight seasons and in which no producer of motion pictures will give me a chance. And please God, may it be before I go screwy playing idiots, half-wits and lunatics on the talking screen."

He never got his wish. Following the outbreak of War in 1941 Frye tried to enlist, but had a heart condition that kept him on the home front. With film seemingly no longer interested in him (crazy or not), he began to work nights as a draftsman at aircraft company. Sure he still got the occasional bit part, but it was never enough to pay the bills. In 1943 Frye was set to star in a big budget biopic of President Woodrow Wilson (due to his likeness to then Secretary of War Newton D. Baker). But it wasnt to be. Frye succumbed to a fatal heart attack that year. He was only 44 years old. His death certificate listed his occupation as Tool Designer. In the cinema Frye was overlooked and perhaps never given a chance to show how versatile he could be. Yet the parts he did have turned him into an icon. Hes had songs written about him (notably Alice Coopers The Ballard of Dwight Fry) and is still today the archetypal image of Frankensteins assistant. Oddly enough, the character of Fritz is now referred to as Igor (which was the name of the assistant in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN played by Bela Lugosi) but the look and mannerisms are pure Frye. Check out next months animated film IGOR for further proof. As a result he will live forever as a legend of horror cinema. Those who know his work cant forget it - those mad eyes, that sickly laugh. Theyre enough to drive you insane. Tom Fallows is a well respected writer and soon to be published author when the pocket essential guide to George A. Romeros which you can purchase RIGHT NOW!This article is the tenth in the marvellous Cult Actors SeriesCult Actors #9 - Freddie Jones Cult Actors #8 -Ron Perlman Cult Actors #7 - Pam Grier Cult Actors #6 - Lee Van Cleef

Cult Actors #5 - Peter Weller

Cult Actors #4 - Yaphet Kotto

Cult Actors #3 - Rutger Hauer

Cult Actors #2 Adrienne Barbeau

Cult Actors #1: Brad Dourif