No, I am not trolling. Not only it deviates horibly from the monster's personallity in the book, but anyone can play a robotic, expressionless character full of makeup. On the other hand, portraying the complex, Miltonian character form Shelley's book, is no easy work. De Niro was better.
Karloff was a great actor, but Frankenstein's monster is far from being his best performance. It's his most iconic, but not his best.
To be fair this movie was based on a play. Nobody involved in the film had read the book nor did they care about it. Though in the 30s nobody could really do the book justice cause the most interesting aspects were too violent to be done on film at the time. To be honest I haven't seen the Denero one in years but remember hating it for changing it from the book by having the monster kill his wife then ask him to bring her back from the dead to be his wife. Which he does only to have them fight causing one of them to knock over a lantern which catches fire to the whole room. Then she commits suicide by walking into the fire. That was so dumb.
1, 2 Freddy's coming for you. 3, 4 better lock your door.
That's not the point. The point is that everyone talks about Karloff's acting as if it were Oscarworthy, when practically, anyone can play the monster the way he did. The only thing he does is grawling and screaming. Even I can play the monster that way. Everybody else's acting (especially Clive's as the good doctor) were trully superior.
It's obvious that it's been a long time since you last saw the 1994 film. The monster kills Frankenstein's wife, but doesn't ask him to bring her back from the dead: Frankenstein does it at will and not for the monster but for himself. And De Niro's acting is much better than Karloff's.
It's obvious that it's been a long time since you last saw the 1994 film. The monster kills Frankenstein's wife, but doesn't ask him to bring her back from the dead: Frankenstein does it at will and not for the monster but for himself. And De Niro's acting is much better than Karloff's.
I did watch Bride of Frankenstein, and yes, it does have more elements from the book. I admit that KArloff improved his acting. The scene with the blind man always gets me emotional.
I was not comlpaining about the acting, just staing that Karloff's acting in the first film was overrated, not bad. And I understand why the film looks so theatrical.
-A character in a book has nothing to do with Karloff's performance. He was playing a character from a screenplay that wasn't even trying to recreate the original story.
-Robotic expressionless acting: that describes everybody who played the Universal version of the character EXCEPT Karloff. Watch when he's playing with Maria or when he's screaming in terror in the burning windmill. Nothing robotic or expressionless there.
-I like that 1994 movie but I think DeNiro was a miscast. Or maybe Branagh just didn't direct him well. Either way, he wasn't always convincing.
I notice you haven't received a reply from agusmaga, but I honestly don't know what to say about anyone who gets only "a robotic, expressionless character full of makeup" from that performance. As you've suggested, subsequent portrayals by Chaney, Lugosi and Strange illustrate the inaccuracy of the statement, "anyone can play the monster the way he did." Clearly, no one has.
As we've both perceived, Karloff displays a full range of emotions from wonder and confusion, wariness and anger, to desperation, delight and terror, and does it all without benefit of any dialogue, making his task an even greater accomplishment.
Karloff's face, voice and manner have surely been among the most instantly identifiable and well-known for nearly a century, but after more viewings of the film than I can count in over 50 years, it's still difficult for me to find the gently-spoken and cultured man with whom generations have become so familiar within that characterization; so complete is his transformation into and subsumption by it.
Among Karloff's very best performances, those in The Body Snatcher and The Black Room for instance, it's his work in this film that's truly transcendent, and has the power to astonish to this day.
How agusmaga or anyone else could miss all that is a mystery to me.
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I just watched The Body Snatcher the other day and Karloff was great in it. I like how they made a point of showing him being really nice to the little girl at the beginning. Sort of tricked me into thinking he wouldn't end up being such a bad guy.
shareAnd he was probably no more charming than when entertaining Joseph (Lugosi) just before demonstrating "Burking." By then, of course, we already knew how dangerous he was, making his charm all the more menacing.
Poe! You are...avenged!
For what the monster was in this movie, Boris Karloff played him very well. As a "new born" creation, the creature was not able to walk very well at first, nor speak. You are basing your remarks only on this one which is not fair. A more fair assessment of this character is done when considering the next movie, The Bride of Frankenstein. In it the creature talks, moves quite well and also has many expressions.
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He was sympathetic. The monster was frightening and could be like a child. While he didn't have a challenging role, he didn't phone it in.
shareThe movie is not the book. If it had been intended for it to be like the book, Karloff could just as well have played it that way. But he played it like the film's writers and director told him to, and he did a great job of it.
shareI always thought his best and most iconic performance was as the evil Dr Nieman in House of Frankenstein
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