Laughter at a screening

Last time Bride of Frankenstein was on TCM, Robert Osbourne was discussing how Young Frankenstein ruined the scene with the old blind man for him. That he couldn't watch it without picturing the soup poured in the monster's lap. They also used this in a Cheerios commercial and the scene with Maria in a Twix commercial.

Well, that makes sense. It's funny when Fritz drops the normal brain, but I think it's supposed to be. Other scenes like Little Maria's death and the dungeon scene aren't supposed to be.

I'm in my 20's and just saw Frankenstein for the first time. I've seen a lot of horror movies, much gorier than this one, and while I expected to enjoy Frankenstein, I didn't expect it to scare or disturb me. I was wrong. It didn't scare me in the traditional jumping out of my seat kind of way, but I found some scenes so upsetting. Little Maria's death is the obvious example, but I found the dungeon scene where Fritz tortures the Creature particularly hard to watch. Despite his hulking form, the Creature is basically a newborn and Karloff's performance is so childlike. The sounds he makes are heartwrenching. He can't get away and he's clearly terrified, but there's nothing he can do. And Fritz is so cruel for absolutely no reason. It's not like he thinks he's in danger and is trying to protect himself. He wants to hurt/scare the Creature just because he can. I can't imagine laughing at that scene. I nearly cried.



A young girl passes / in a hurry. Hair uncombed. / Full of black devils. --Kelly Link

I've heard that story about Laemmle, and it's a HOOT! (Probably apocryphal, but a fun story, regardless.)

As I've said elsewhere (even on this film's boards) I think we're dealing with a two-fold problem here:

1. Kids aren't getting into moods anymore, they're solely interested in immediate gratification, meaning action...or gore.

2. It's becoming something of a rite of passage for them to look at things that affected us and "see through them." How on earth could we have been such simpletons that we took this stuff at face value? How could we not have recognized that it's only a movie? How could we (in this case) have been SCARED by them?

So it's become a natural thing for them to go into a film, especially an old film, with the first thought in mind being "It's only a movie," and wind up laughing at things instead of being horrified by them.

(That's another reason that they disregard old makeup jobs or even quality stop-motion animation. To them it's all fakery which we were fools to take seriously; only CGI does the trick. Of course, I'd hate to break it to them, but a lot of CGI looks every bit as fake as anything in older films.)

And I've got news for them: we knew they were only films, too! But we were willing to suspend disbelief...and they're missing out on a lot by refusing to do so.

However, this does bring to mind a "problem point" which I've been considering:

If you're going to condemn people for laughing at Frankenstein, what about those who laugh at Plan Nine from Outer Space?

Sure, the former is a masterpiece, one of the scariest films ever made. And of course the latter is relatively incompetent. But by today's standards even Whale's film is completely behind the times. And one must assume that Wood intended his film to be seen, at least to some extent, as convincing and scary.

Yet we decry those who laugh at Frankenstein, and yet will join right in with the hilarity when it comes to watching Plan 9.

So tell me...where's the line of demarcation? At what point, exactly, does it become allowable to laugh at a film instead of being scared by it?

Obviously it's not a matter of the film being so good that you can't help but be caught up in it, otherwise no one would be laughing at Frankenstein in the first place. (Hell, nowadays people laugh at "The Exorcist.")

And, just as obviously, I'm choosing two films from completely opposite ends of the spectrum here. But had I chosen two relatively mediocre films, which would you expect people to absorb themselves in, and which would it be okay to laugh at?

It's a serious and interesting question.

By the way, I have to put the blame for some of this on MST3K. Not regarding Frankenstein, per se, but as far as people finding humor in so many older films. Of course, they used to make fun of (for the most part) transparently bad films, but an entire generation defined those films as "old," and have wound up making fun of all old films ever since. (In all fairness, a scant few of the films on that show were actually pretty good, but I'll bet they've automatically lost at least a star in any popularity rating since then simply by virtue of having been made fun of on it. And Universal did "This Island Earth," its own classic sci-fi film, a monumental disservice by allowing them to use it for their movie. Like watching the blind man scenes in "Bride" once you've seen "Young Frankenstein," it's kind of hard appreciating This Island Earth as the classic it is once you've seen the bots deconstruct it.)

Of course, to give credit where it is (or isn't) due, horror film hosts have been having fun with monster movies for years now...but very few with the hipness and wit that MST3K put into it. (My apologies to Elvira and Sven!)

Just a quick note: supposedly Karloff HATED them cutting out the scene where Maria drowns. His intent (and so ably done!) was always to make the monster a sympathetic creature, lost and abandoned in a world not his own. That scene portrayed all of that in a very poignant light. But with that scene cut, audiences were left to think what they would of what had happened, and a lot of them thought he'd cold-bloodedly murdered her. (After all, that's what everyone on-screen thought.) I can understand him being a bit upset.


Losing your virginity, burying your pet and killing your sister...can take a lot out of a girl!