Played by: Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein), Lon Chaney Jr. (The Ghost of Frankenstein), Bela Lugosi (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man), Glenn Strange (House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) Who is he? The greatest of all Universal monster series, Frankenstein was the product of a number of great talents coming together. Producer Laemmle wanted to replicate the success of Dracula, so looked for a stage adaptation of a similar stature gothic classic. He hired Dracula playwright John L. Balderston to adapt Peggy Webling's play of Mary Shelley's novel. Meanwhile, Universal had given highly regarded director James Whale his pick of the studio's projects. Whale picked Frankenstein and had the script re-written to his liking. Universal had wanted Lugosi for the lead, in order to capitalise on Dracula's success, but his lack of acting range saw him downgraded from doctor to monster and eventually removed from the project entirely. (Lugosi would finally play the monster in the crossover Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, but only because preferred choice Lon Chaney Jr. couldn't play both monsters. Chaney actually would later play both, filling in uncredited for Glenn Strange in some sequences during Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). Instead Whale settled on the experienced hands of Colin Clive for Frankenstein and Boris Karloff (credited as ? in the film's opening titles) for his creation. Even under the layers of Jack Pierce's iconic make up design, Karloff gives a performance of poignancy and pathos, which makes Frankenstein one of the more tragic monster movies. Whale, meanwhile, directs with a gothic elan far removed from Tod Browning's rather pedestrian work on Dracula. If anything, Whale's stranger, funnier sequel Bride of Frankenstein is even more highly regarded than its predecessor. In Elsa Lanchester's Bride, with her electric white streaks in her hair, it introduces another of the studio's iconic creations before destroying her in a finale more emotional than the first. Karloff's final turn as the monster, without Whale or Clive, is still worth a watch, with Karloff playing opposite Basil Rathbone as Son of Frankenstein. After Karloff wanted more various and interesting roles, his signature character suffered through being played by a number of lesser actors as a lumbering mute in a series of plotless crossovers (during which time Universal basically decided that the nameless monster shared his creator's name like father and son). The legacy of the timeless classic early Frankenstein films, however, will always go on. After the classic era: The Karloff films have proved hard to match for the various other studios attempting their own Frankenstein. Universal's only real attempt at reviving the monster was Van Helsing, which (like beloved childhood monster mash-up The Monster Squad, not made by Universal but a love letter to them) at least appreciated that the monster is a sympathetic creature more on our side than Dracula's. Talk of a new Universal monster cycle post-Dracula Untold has inevitably led to speculation about a new Frankenstein, but it won't beat Fox's new version (with James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe) to our screens.
