:17:00
He tempts us by giving voice
to our worst impulses.
:17:04
He controls destiny, irresponsibly
and without consequence.
:17:08
Disdainful of women,
contemptuous of mankind and God,
:17:12
utterly self-absorbed,
ingenuous about vice,
:17:15
Pretorius is literally one hell of a guy.
:17:18
He is the climax of a noble line
of cinematic Mephistos
:17:21
that include Mr Scratch
in All That Money Can Buy
:17:23
and Emil Jannings' primordial
Mephistopheles in FW Murnau's Faust.
:17:30
The return of Frankenstein malingered
while Whale shot One More River
:17:33
and developed A Trip To Mars,
which was ultimately abandoned.
:17:37
He asked RC Sherriff to work
on the sequel of Frankenstein,
:17:40
but Sherriff refused, as he said,
"to spend his summer writing pulp".
:17:45
Whale conceived a prologue
with Mary Shelley as a frame,
:17:49
and Edmund Pearson
wrote the earliest treatment.
:17:53
Whale hired John Balderston, coauthor
of the Dracula and Frankenstein plays,
:17:57
and coauthor of the film The Mummy.
:18:00
Now Hollywood's horror specialist,
Balderston would contribute to such films
:18:04
as Mad Love, Dracula's Daughter
and Mark of the Vampire.
:18:08
Raised in the Quaker faith,
John Balderston balanced grim brutality
:18:11
and equally grim
religious moralising in his stories.
:18:15
He worked through June and July 1934
on a workmanlike but unmagical script
:18:20
that supplies a road map but no gas.
:18:23
Rough narrative lines are there,
but no spirit.
:18:26
Elsa Lanchester is indicated as the player
for Mary Shelley and the monster's mate.
:18:31
The soul of the picture arrived
with William Hurlbut in November 1934.
:18:36
Born in Illinois in 1886, Hurlbut had been
a New York playwright for 30 years.
:18:41
He arrived at Universal
as a dialogue writer -
:18:43
on pictures such as The Cat Creeps -
when talkies came in.
:18:46
Trained as an illustrator, background
in theatre, a confirmed bachelor,
:18:50
Hurlbut and Whale
shared much common ground.
:18:52
Whale wanted to treat the film as a hoot,
:18:54
and he found the idea
of a female monster delirious.
:18:57
He preferred the title
"Bride of Frankenstein".