:05:04
The anticipatory mood is reflected
as the violins play the minuet col legno,
:05:08
tapping the wood of their bows
on the strings.
:05:10
The metre slows, the musical phrase
fails to complete,
:05:13
the key changes to minor
with drawn strings.
:05:23
In what period and place
is this story occurring?
:05:26
Post-Tesla generators,
telephonic electrical devices
:05:29
and 1930s marcelled hairstyles
:05:31
will coexist with a peasantry by Brueghel.
:05:34
Burgomasters and serfs
with Teutonic names like Hans and Karl
:05:38
speak in accents hailing from Glasgow,
County Cork and Pasadena.
:05:43
Quote: "I've taken the rest of the story
far into the future
:05:46
and made use of developments
which science will someday know,
:05:49
100 years to come", said Mary Shelley
in dialogue removed from the prologue,
:05:54
rationalising an alternate universe
peppered with anachronisms.
:05:58
Gilbert and Sullivan's
The Mikado takes place in a Japan
:06:01
that is suspiciously
like Victorian England.
:06:03
In similar fashion, the English-born
Whale has created a Goldstadt
:06:07
that is really a British never-never land.
:06:09
Several 1935 press squibs actually stated
that the locale for the picture is England.
:06:15
In a contemporary interview,
Whale explained.
:06:18
"The whole of the theatre,
both stage and screen, is unreal,
:06:22
and if, for 1½ hours,
the audience can be transported
:06:25
into a strange atmosphere
in which unnatural things happen,
:06:28
but appear to happen
naturally and believably,
:06:31
the object of the film producer
is accomplished."
:06:35
"While the intention is a thrilling
melodrama", states a production note,
:06:41
"it is punctuated by the comedy of
the burgomaster and the housekeeper,
:06:44
who voice the scepticism of the audience
in the manner of The Invisible Man."
:06:49
Whale knew during the writing
who would play these two.
:06:52
Essentially reprising their roles
from that 1933 film
:06:56
are Whale favourites
EE Clive as the burgomaster
:06:58
and Una O'Connor as Minnie,
the housekeeper.