James Whale

This article is about the English-born Hollywood film director. For the British radio presenter, see James Whale (radio).

James Whale

James Whale poses with a model of Frankenstein's monster on the set of Bride of Frankenstein, 1935.
Born (1889-07-22)22 July 1889
Dudley, Worcestershire, England
Died 29 May 1957(1957-05-29) (aged 67)
Hollywood, California, U.S.
Resting place Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
Occupation Film director
Theatre director
Years active 1919–52
Partner(s) David Lewis
Pierre Foegel

James Whale (22 July 1889 – 29 May 1957) was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Whale also directed films in other genres, including what is considered the definitive film version of the musical Show Boat (1936). He became increasingly disenchanted with his association with horror, but many of his non-horror films have fallen into obscurity.

Whale was born into a large family in Dudley, in the Black Country area of the English West Midlands. He discovered his artistic talent early on and studied art. With the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted in the British Army and became an officer. He was captured by the Germans and during his time as a prisoner of war he realized he was interested in drama. Following his release at the end of the war he became an actor, set designer and director. His success directing the 1928 play Journey's End led to his move to the United States, first to direct the play on Broadway and then to Hollywood to direct motion pictures. He lived in Hollywood for the rest of his life, most of that time with his longtime companion, producer David Lewis. Apart from Journey's End (1930), which was released by Tiffany Films, and Hell's Angels (1930), released by United Artists, he directed a dozen films for Universal Studios between 1931 and 1937, developing a style characterized by the influence of German Expressionism and a highly mobile camera.

At the height of his career as a director, Whale directed The Road Back (1937), a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. Studio interference, possibly spurred by political pressure from Nazi Germany, led to the film's being altered from Whale's vision and The Road Back was a critical and commercial failure. A run of similar box-office disappointments followed and, while he would make one final short film in 1950, by 1941 his film directing career was over. He continued to direct for the stage and also rediscovered his love for painting and travel. His investments made him wealthy and he lived a comfortable retirement until suffering strokes in 1956 that robbed him of his vigor and left him in pain. He committed suicide on 29 May 1957 by drowning himself in his swimming pool.

Whale was openly gay throughout his career, something that was very unusual in the 1920s and 1930s. As knowledge of his sexual orientation has become more common, some of his films, Bride of Frankenstein in particular, have been interpreted as having a gay subtext and it has been claimed that his refusal to remain in the closet led to the end of his career. However, his associates dismissed the notions that his sexuality informed his work or that it cost him his career.

Early years

Whale was born in Dudley, England, the sixth of the seven children of William, a blast furnaceman,[1] and Sarah, a nurse.[2] He attended Kates Hill Board School, followed by Bayliss Charity School and finally Dudley Blue Coat School. His attendance stopped in his teenage years because the cost would have been prohibitive and his labor was needed to help support the family. Thought not physically strong enough to follow his brothers into the local heavy industries, Whale started work as a cobbler, reclaiming the nails he recovered from replaced soles and selling them for scrap for extra money. He discovered he had some artistic ability and earned additional money lettering signs and price tags for his neighbors.[3] Whale used his additional income to pay for evening classes at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts.[4]

Cartoon by Whale of theatrical rehearsals in Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp

World War I broke out in 1914. Although Whale had little interest in the politics behind the war, he realized that conscription was inevitable so he enlisted in the Army. Considered because of his age a good candidate for officer training, Whale joined the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps in October 1915 and was stationed in Bristol. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Worcestershire Regiment in July 1916.[5] He was taken a prisoner of war on the Western Front in Flanders in August 1917 and was held at Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp, where he remained until December 1918.[6][7] While imprisoned, he became actively involved, as an actor, writer, producer, and set-designer, in the amateur theatrical productions which took place in the camp, finding them "a source of great pleasure and amusement".[8][9] He also developed a talent for poker, and after the war he cashed in the chits and IOUs from his fellow prisoners to serve as a nest egg.[10]

Career

Theatre

After the armistice he returned to Birmingham and tried to find work as a cartoonist. He sold two cartoons to the Bystander in 1919 but was unable to secure a permanent position.[10] Later in 1919 Whale embarked on a professional stage career. Under the tutelage of actor-manager Nigel Playfair, he worked as an actor, set designer and builder, "stage director" (akin to a stage manager) and director.[11] In 1922, while with Playfair, he met Doris Zinkeisen. The two were considered a couple for some two years, despite Whale's living as an openly gay man. The couple was reportedly engaged in 1924 but by 1925 the engagement was off.[12]

In 1928 Whale was offered the opportunity to direct two private performances of R. C. Sherriff's then-unknown play Journey's End for the Incorporated Stage Society, a theatre society that mounted private Sunday performances of plays.[13] Set over a four-day period in March 1918 in the trenches at Saint-Quentin, France, Journey's End gives a glimpse into the experiences of the officers of a British Army infantry company in World War I. The key conflict is between Captain Stanhope, the company commander, and Lieutenant Raleigh, the brother of Stanhope's fiancée.[14] Whale offered the part of Stanhope to the then-barely known Laurence Olivier. Olivier initially declined the role,[15] but after meeting the playwright agreed to take it on.[16] Maurice Evans was cast as Raleigh.[17] The play was well received and transferred to the Savoy Theatre in London's West End, opening on 21 January 1929.[13] A young Colin Clive was now in the lead role,[18] Olivier having accepted an offer to take the lead in a production of Beau Geste.[16] The play was a tremendous success, with critics uniform and effusive in their praise and with audiences sometimes sitting in stunned silence following its conclusion only to burst into thunderous ovations.[19] As Whale biographer James Curtis wrote, the play "managed to coalesce, at the right time and in the right manner, the impressions of a whole generation of men who were in the war and who had found it impossible, through words or deeds, to adequately express to their friends and families what the trenches had been like".[20] After three weeks at the Savoy, Journey's End transferred to the Prince of Wales Theatre,[13] where it ran for the next two years.[21]

Colin Clive in Whale's 1929 stage production of Journey's End

With the success of Journey's End at home, Broadway producer Gilbert Miller acquired the rights to mount a New York production with an all-British cast headed by Colin Keith-Johnston as Stanhope and Derek Williams as Raleigh.[22] Whale also directed this version, which premiered at Henry Miller's Theatre on 22 March 1929.[13] The play ran for over a year and cemented its reputation as the greatest play about World War I.[22]

Early work in Hollywood

The success of the various productions of Journey's End brought Whale to the attention of film producers. Coming at a time when motion pictures were making the transition from silent to talking, producers were interested in hiring actors and directors with experience with dialogue. Whale traveled to Hollywood in 1929 and signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. He was assigned as "dialogue director" for a film called The Love Doctor (1929).[23] Whale completed work on the film in 15 days and his contract was allowed to expire. It was at around this time that he met David Lewis.[24]

Whale was hired by independent film producer and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, who planned to turn the previously silent Hughes production Hell's Angels (1930) into a talkie. He directed the dialogue sequences.[25] When his work for Hughes was completed, Whale headed to Chicago to direct another production of Journey's End.[26]

Having purchased the film rights to Journey's End, British producers Michael Balcon and Thomas Welsh agreed that Whale's experience directing the London and Broadway productions of the play made him the best choice to direct the film. The two partnered with a small American studio, Tiffany-Stahl, to shoot the film in New York.[27] Colin Clive reprised his role as Stanhope,[28] and David Manners was cast as Raleigh.[29] Filming got underway on 6 December 1929[30] and wrapped on 22 January 1930.[31] Journey's End was released in Great Britain on 14 April and in the United States on 15 April.[32] On both sides of the Atlantic the film was a tremendous critical and commercial success.[33]

With the Laemmles at Universal

Universal Studios signed Whale to a five-year contract in 1931 and his first project was Waterloo Bridge.[34] Based on the Broadway play by Robert E. Sherwood, the film stars Mae Clarke as Myra, a chorus girl in World War I London who becomes a prostitute. It too was a critical and popular success. At around this time, Whale and Lewis began living together.[35]

In 1931, Universal chief Carl Laemmle, Jr. offered Whale his choice of any property the studio owned. Whale chose Frankenstein, mostly because none of Universal's other properties particularly interested him and he wanted to make something other than a war picture.[36] While the novel itself was in the public domain, Universal owned the filming rights to a stage adaptation by Peggy Webling. Whale cast Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Mae Clarke as his fiancée Elizabeth. For the Monster, he turned to an unknown actor named Boris Karloff. Shooting began on 24 August 1931 and wrapped on 3 October.[37] Previews were held 29 October,[38] with wide release on 21 November.[39] Frankenstein was an instant hit with critics and the public. The film received glowing reviews and shattered box office records across the United States,[40] earning Universal $12 million on first release.[37]

Next from Whale were The Impatient Maiden and The Old Dark House (both 1932). The Impatient Maiden made little impression but The Old Dark House is credited with reinventing the "dark house" subgenre of horror films.[41] Thought lost for some years, a print was found by filmmaker Curtis Harrington in the Universal vaults in 1968 and restored by George Eastman House.[42]

Whale's next film was The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), a critical success but a box-office failure. He returned to horror with The Invisible Man (1933). Shot from a script approved by H. G. Wells,[43] the film was a blended horror with humor and confounding visual effects. It was critically acclaimed, with The New York Times listing it as one of the ten best films of the year,[44] and broke box-office records in cities across America. So highly regarded was the film that France, which restricted the number of theatres in which undubbed American films could play, granted it a special waiver because of its "extraordinary artistic merit".[45]

Also in 1933 Whale directed the romantic comedy By Candlelight which gained good reviews and was a modest box office hit.[46] In 1934 he directed One More River, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by John Galsworthy. The film tells the story of a woman desperate to escape her abusive marriage to a member of the British aristocracy. This was the first of Whale's films for which Production Code Administration approval was required and Universal had a difficult time securing that approval because of the elements of sexual sadism implicit in the husband's abusive behavior.[47]

Boris Karloff dressed as Frankenstein
Whale directed the iconic horror film Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was Whale's next project. He had resisted making a sequel to Frankenstein as he feared being pigeonholed as a horror director. Bride hearkened back to an episode from Mary Shelley's original novel in which the Monster promises to leave Frankenstein and humanity alone if Frankenstein makes him a mate. He does, but the mate is repelled by the monster who then, setting Frankenstein and his wife free to live, chooses to destroy himself and his "bride." The film was a critical and box office success, having earned some $2 million for Universal by 1943.[48] Lauded as "the finest of all gothic horror movies",[49] Bride is frequently hailed as Whale's masterpiece.[50][51]

With the success of Bride Laemmle was eager to put Whale to work on Dracula's Daughter (1936), the sequel to Universal's first big horror hit of the sound era. Whale, wary of doing two horror films in a row and concerned that directing Dracula's Daughter could interfere with his plans for the first all-sound version of Show Boat, (previously filmed as a part-talkie by Harry A. Pollard), instead convinced Laemmle to buy the rights to a novel called The Hangover Murders. The novel is a comedy-mystery in the style of The Thin Man, about a group of friends who were so drunk the night one of them was murdered that none can remember anything.[52] Retitled Remember Last Night?, the film was one of Whale's personal favorites,[42] but met with sharply divided reviews and commercial disinterest.[53]

With the completion of Remember Last Night? Whale immediately went to work on Show Boat (1936). Whale gathered as many of those as he could who had been involved in one production or another of the musical, including Helen Morgan, Paul Robeson, Charles Winninger, Sammy White, conductor Victor Baravalle, orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, and, as Magnolia, Irene Dunne, who believed that Whale was the wrong director for the piece.[54] The 1936 version of Show Boat, faithfully adapted from the original stage production, is believed to be the definitive film version of the musical by many critics.[55][56] but became unavailable following the 1951 remake.[54] Warner's has remastered this version and is presently offering stamped DVDs for a limited time; thereafter, this version will be available on a DVD-on-demand basis using DVD-Rs.

This was the last of Whale's films to be produced under the Laemmle family. The studio was now bankrupt, and the Laemmles lost control to J. Cheever Cowdin, head of the Standard Capital Corporation, and Charles R. Rogers, who was installed in Junior Laemmle's old job.[57]

Career in decline

Whale's career went into sharp decline following the release of his next film, The Road Back (1937). The sequel to Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which Universal had filmed in 1930, the novel and film follow the lives of several young German men who have returned from the trenches of World War I and their struggles to re-integrate into society. The Los Angeles consul for Nazi Germany, George Gyssling, learned that the film was in production. He protested to PCA enforcer Joseph Breen, arguing that the film gave an "untrue and distorted picture of the German people".[58] Gyssling eventually met Whale, but nothing came of it.[59] Gyssling then sent letters to members of the cast, threatening that their participation in the film might lead to difficulties in obtaining German filming permits for them and for anyone associated in a film with them.[60] While the low volume of business conducted by Universal in Germany made such threats largely hollow, the State Department, under pressure from the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Screen Actors Guild,[61] stepped in and the German government backed down.[62] Whale's original cut of the film was given generally positive reviews, but sometime between preview screenings and the film's general release, Rogers capitulated to the Germans, ordering that cuts be made and additional scenes be shot and inserted.[35] Whale was furious,[63] and the altered film was banned in Germany anyway.[64] The Germans were successful in persuading China, Greece, Italy and Switzerland to ban the film as well.[60]

Following the debacle of The Road Back, Charles Rogers tried to get out of his contract with Whale; Whale refused. Rogers then assigned him to a string of B movies to run out his contractual obligation. Whale only made one additional successful feature film, The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), before retiring from the film industry in 1941.[4]

Post-film life

With his film career behind him, Whale found himself at a loose end. He was offered the occasional job, including the opportunity to direct Since You Went Away for David O. Selznick,[65] but turned them down.[66] Lewis, meanwhile, was busier than ever with his production duties and often worked late hours, leaving Whale lonely and bored. Lewis bought him a supply of paint and canvasses and Whale re-discovered his love of painting. Eventually he built a large studio for himself.[67]

With the outbreak of World War II, Whale volunteered his services to make a training film for the United States Army. He shot the film, called Personnel Placement in the Army, in February 1942. Later that year, in association with actress Claire DuBrey, he created the Brentwood Service Players.[68] The Players took over a 100–seat theatre. Sixty seats were provided free of charge to service personnel; the remaining were sold to the public, with the box office proceeds donated to wartime charities.[69] The group expanded to the Playtime Theatre during the summer, where a series of shows ran through October.[70]

Whale returned to Broadway in 1944 to direct the psychological thriller Hand in Glove.[71] It was his first return to Broadway since his failed One, Two, Three! in 1930.[72] Hand in Glove would fare no better than his earlier play, running the same number of performances, 40.[73]

Whale directed his final film in 1950, a short subject based on the William Saroyan one-act play Hello Out There. The film, financed by supermarket heir Huntington Hartford, was the story of a man in a Texas jail falsely accused of rape and the woman who cleans the jail. Hartford intended for the short to be part of an anthology film along the lines of Quartet.[74] However, attempts to find appropriate short fiction companion pieces to adapt were unsuccessful and Hello Out There was never commercially released.[75]

Whale's last professional engagement was directing Pagan in the Parlour, a farce about two New England spinster sisters who are visited by a Polynesian whom their father, when shipwrecked years earlier, had married. The production was mounted in Pasadena for two weeks in 1951. Plans were made to take it to New York, but Whale suggested taking the play to London first.[76] Before opening the play in England, Whale decided to tour the art museums of Europe. In France he renewed his acquaintanceship with Curtis Harrington, whom he had met in 1947. While visiting Harrington in Paris, he went to some gay bars. At one he met a 25-year-old bartender named Pierre Foegel,[4] whom Harrington believed was nothing but "a hustler out for what he could get".[42] The 62-year-old Whale was smitten with the younger man and hired him as his chauffeur.[77]

A provincial tour of Pagan in the Parlour began in September 1952 and it appeared that the play would be a hit. However, Hermione Baddeley, starring in the play as the cannibal "Noo-ga", was drinking heavily and began engaging in bizarre antics and disrupting performances. Because she had a run of the play contract she could not be replaced and so producers were forced to close the show.[78]

Whale returned to California in November 1952 and advised David Lewis that he planned to bring Foegel over early the following year. Appalled, Lewis moved out of their home.[79] While this ended their 23-year romantic relationship, the two men remained friends. Lewis bought a small house and dug a swimming pool, prompting Whale to have his own pool dug, although he did not himself swim in it. He began throwing all-male swim parties and would watch the young men cavort in and around the pool.[80] Foegel moved in with Whale in early 1953 and remained there for several months before returning to France. He returned in 1954 permanently,[80] and Whale installed him as manager of a gas station that he owned.[81]

Whale and Foegel settled into a quiet routine until the spring of 1956, when Whale suffered a small stroke. A few months later he suffered a larger stroke and was hospitalized.[81] While in the hospital he was treated for depression with shock treatments.[82]

Upon his release, Whale hired one of the male nurses from the hospital to be his personal live-in nurse.[83] A jealous Foegel maneuvered the nurse out of the house and hired a female nurse as a non live-in replacement.[84] Whale suffered from mood swings and grew increasingly and frustratingly more dependent on others as his mental faculties were diminishing.[85]

Death

Whale committed suicide by drowning himself in his Pacific Palisades swimming pool on 29 May 1957 at the age of 67.[86] He left a suicide note, which Lewis withheld until shortly before his own death decades later. Because the note was suppressed, the death was initially ruled accidental.[87] The note read in part:

To ALL I LOVE,

Do not grieve for me. My nerves are all shot and for the last year I have been in agony day and night—except when I sleep with sleeping pills—and any peace I have by day is when I am drugged by pills.

I have had a wonderful life but it is over and my nerves get worse and I am afraid they will have to take me away. So please forgive me, all those I love and may God forgive me too, but I cannot bear the agony and it [is] best for everyone this way. The future is just old age and illness and pain. Goodbye and thank you for all your love. I must have peace and this is the only way.

— Jimmy.[88]

Whale was cremated per his request and his ashes were interred in the Columbarium of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.[89] Because of his habit of periodically revising his date of birth, his niche lists the incorrect date of 1893.[90] When his longtime companion David Lewis died in 1987, his executor and Whale biographer James Curtis had his ashes interred in a niche across from Whale's.[91]

Sexual orientation

James Whale lived as an openly homosexual man throughout his career in the British theatre and in Hollywood, something that was virtually unheard of in the 1920s and 1930s. He and David Lewis lived together as a couple from around 1930 to 1952. While he did not go out of his way to publicize his homosexuality, he did not do anything to conceal it either. As filmmaker Curtis Harrington, a friend and confidant of Whale's, put it, "Not in the sense of screaming it from the rooftops or coming out. But yes, he was openly homosexual. Any sophisticated person who knew him knew he was gay."[42] While there have been suggestions that Whale's career was terminated because of homophobia,[92][93] and Whale was supposedly dubbed "The Queen of Hollywood",[94] Harrington states that "nobody made a thing out of it as far as I could perceive".[42]

With knowledge of his sexuality becoming more common beginning in the 1970s, some film historians and gay studies scholars have detected homosexual themes in Whale's work, particularly in Bride of Frankenstein in which a number of the creative people associated with the cast, including Ernest Thesiger and Colin Clive,[95] were alleged to be gay or bisexual. Scholars have identified a gay sensibility suffused through the film, especially a camp sensibility,[96] particularly embodied in the character of Pretorius (Thesiger) and his relationship with Henry Frankenstein (Clive).

Gay film historian Vito Russo, in considering Pretorius, stops short of identifying the character as gay, instead referring to him as "sissified"[97] ("sissy" itself being Hollywood code for "homosexual"). Pretorius serves as a "gay Mephistopheles",[98] a figure of seduction and temptation, going so far as to pull Frankenstein away from his bride on their wedding night to engage in the unnatural act of non-procreative life. A novelisation of the film published in England made the implication clear, having Pretorius say to Frankenstein "'Be fruitful and multiply.' Let us obey the Biblical injunction: you of course, have the choice of natural means; but as for me, I am afraid that there is no course open to me but the scientific way."[99] Russo goes so far as to suggest that Whale's homosexuality is expressed in both Frankenstein and Bride as "a vision both films had of the monster as an antisocial figure in the same way that gay people were 'things' that should not have happened".[100]

The Monster, whose affections for the male hermit and the female Bride he discusses with identical language ("friend"), has been read as sexually "unsettled" and bisexual.[95] Writes gender studies author Elizabeth Young: "He has no innate understanding that the male-female bond he is to forge with the bride is assumed to be the primary one or that it carries a different sexual valence from his relationships with [Pretorius and the hermit]: all affective relationships are as easily 'friendships' as 'marriages'."[101] Indeed, his relationship with the hermit has been interpreted as a same-sex marriage that heterosexual society will not tolerate: "No mistake—this is a marriage, and a viable one", writes cultural critic Gary Morris for Bright Lights Film Journal. "But Whale reminds us quickly that society does not approve. The monster—the outsider—is driven from his scene of domestic pleasure by two gun-toting rubes who happen upon this startling alliance and quickly, instinctively, proceed to destroy it."[95] The creation of the Bride scene has been called "Whale's reminder to the audience—his Hollywood bosses, peers, and everyone watching—of the majesty and power of the homosexual creator".[95]

However, Harrington dismisses this as "a younger critic's evaluation. All artists do work that comes out of the unconscious mind and later on you can analyze it and say the symbolism may mean something, but artists don't think that way and I would bet my life that James Whale would never have had such concepts in mind."[42] Specifically in response to the "majesty and power" reading, Harrington states "My opinion is that's just pure bullshit. That's a critical interpretation that has nothing to do with the original inspiration."[42] He concludes, "I think the closest you can come to a homosexual metaphor in his films is to identify that certain sort of camp humor."[42]

Whale's companion David Lewis stated flatly that Whale's sexual orientation was "not germane" to his filmmaking. "Jimmy was first and foremost an artist, and his films represent the work of an artist—not a gay artist, but an artist."[102] Whale's biographer Curtis rejects the notion that Whale would have identified with the Monster from a homosexual perspective,[103] stating that if the highly class-conscious Whale felt himself to be an antisocial figure, it would have been based not in his sexuality but in his origin in the lower classes.[104]

Film style

Whale was heavily influenced by German Expressionism. He was a particular admirer of the films of Paul Leni, combining as they did elements of gothic horror and comedy. This influence was most evident in Bride of Frankenstein.[105] Expressionist influence is also in evidence in Frankenstein, drawn in part from the work of Paul Wegener and his films The Golem (1915) and The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920)[106] along with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) from Robert Wiene, which Whale reportedly screened repeatedly while preparing to shoot Frankenstein.[107] Frankenstein roughly alternates between distorted expressionistic shots and more conventional styles, with the character of Dr. Waldman serving as "a bridge between everyday and expressionist spaces".[108] Expressionist influence is also evident in the acting, costuming and the design of the Monster.[109] Whale and makeup artist Jack Pierce may also have been influenced by the Bauhaus school of design.[110] The expressionist influence lasted throughout Whale's career, with Whale's final film, Hello Out There, praised by Sight & Sound as "a virtuoso pattern of light and shade, a piece of fully blown expressionist filmmaking plonked down unceremoniously in the midst of neo-realism's heyday".[111]

Whale was known for his use of camera movement. He is credited with being the first director to use a 360-degree panning shot in a feature film, included in Frankenstein.[112] Whale used a similar technique during the Ol' Man River sequence in Show Boat, in which the camera tracked around Paul Robeson as he sang the song. (The sequence also uses expressionist montages illustrating some of the lyrics.) Often singled out for praise in Frankenstein is the series of shots used to introduce the Monster: "Nothing can ever quite efface the thrill of watching the successive views Whale's mobile camera allows us of the lumbering figure".[113] These shots, starting with a medium shot and culminating in two close-ups of the Monster's face, were repeated by Whale to introduce Griffin in The Invisible Man and the abusive husband in One More River. Modified to a single cut rather than two, Whale uses the same technique in The Road Back to signal the instability of a returning World War I veteran.[54]

Legacy

James Whale memorial sculpture in Dudley, England

Influential film critic Andrew Sarris, in his 1968 ranking of directors, lists Whale as "lightly likable". Noting that Whale's reputation has been subsumed by the "Karloff cult", Sarris cites Bride of Frankenstein as the "true gem" of the Frankenstein series and concludes that Whale's career "reflects the stylistic ambitions and dramatic disappointments of an expressionist in the studio-controlled Hollywood of the thirties".[114]

Whale's final months are the subject of the novel Father of Frankenstein (1995) by Christopher Bram. The novel focuses on the relationship between Whale and a fictional gardener named Clayton Boone. Father of Frankenstein served as the basis of the 1998 film Gods and Monsters with Ian McKellen as Whale and Brendan Fraser as Boone.[115] McKellen was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Whale.[116] Bram's novel has also been adapted as a play which premiered in London at the Southwark Playhouse in February 2015.

Only two of Whale's films received any sort of Oscar recognition: The Man in the Iron Mask (for its musical score),[117] and Bride of Frankenstein (for its sound recording).[118] Neither film actually won; in fact, no Whale film ever won an Oscar.

A memorial statue was erected for Whale in 2002 on the grounds of a new multiplex cinema in his home town of Dudley. The statue, by Charles Hadcock, depicts a roll of film with the face of Frankenstein's monster engraved into the frames, and the names of his most famous films etched into a cast concrete base in the shape of film canisters.[119]

Horror in Hollywood: The James Whale Story, a retrospective of Whale's artwork, opened at the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in October 2012 and is scheduled to run through January 2013.[120]

Filmography

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Curtis, p. 8
  2. ↑ Ellis, p. 20
  3. ↑ Curtis, p. 11
  4. 1 2 3 "Gods and Monsters: The Search for the Right Whale". Cineaste. 22 September 1999. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  5. ↑ Curtis, p. 17
  6. ↑ Curtis, p. 20
  7. ↑ "Actual War Service Desirable Attribute". Cumberland Evening Times. 30 July 1930. p. 7.
  8. ↑ Whale 1919, p. 318.
  9. ↑ Early, pp. 140–41
  10. 1 2 Curtis, p. 25
  11. ↑ Skal, et al., p. 50
  12. ↑ Curtis, p. 32
  13. 1 2 3 4 ""Journey's End", A First Play, Brings Clerk-Author $10,000 Week Royalties". Wisconsin State Journal. 5 June 1930. p. 14.
  14. ↑ Green, et al., p. 272
  15. ↑ Cottrell, p. 53
  16. 1 2 Coleman, p. 31
  17. ↑ "Maurice Evans, Stage Actor, Dies at 87". The New York Times. 14 March 1989. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  18. ↑ Williamson, p. 29
  19. ↑ Curtis, p. 70
  20. ↑ Curtis, p. 71
  21. ↑ Coleman, p. 32
  22. 1 2 Bordman, p. 381
  23. ↑ Curtis, p. 79
  24. ↑ Curtis, p. 81
  25. ↑ "Millionaire Producer Faces Big Losses". Waterloo (IA) Evening Courier. United Press. 2 November 1929. p. 8.
  26. ↑ Curtis, p. 83
  27. ↑ Low, et al. p. 171
  28. ↑ "The New Pictures". Time. 21 April 1930.
  29. ↑ Kelly (1997), p. 65
  30. ↑ Curtis, p. 98
  31. ↑ Curtis, p. 102
  32. ↑ Curtis, p. 104
  33. ↑ Curtis, pp 104–05
  34. ↑ Parsons, Louella (11 March 1931). "James Whale Will Direct For Universal". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  35. 1 2 Anger, p. 210
  36. ↑ Skal, p. 129
  37. 1 2 Buehrer, p. 89
  38. ↑ Curtis, p. 151
  39. ↑ Curtis, p. 153
  40. ↑ Curtis, p. 157
  41. ↑ Bansak, et al., p. 95
  42. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Del Valle, David (7 August 2008). "Curtis Harrington on James Whale". Films in Review.
  43. ↑ Skal, et al., p. 71
  44. ↑ Hall, Mordaunt (31 December 1933). "The Outstanding Pictorial Features of 1933". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
  45. ↑ Curtis, p. 221
  46. ↑ Curtis, p. 219
  47. ↑ Curtis, pp. 224–25
  48. ↑ Curtis, p. 251
  49. ↑ French, Philip (2 December 2007). "Films of the Day: The Bride of Frankenstein". The Observer.
  50. ↑ Gifford, p. 55
  51. ↑ Graham, Bob (9 October 1998). "'Bride' Is as Lovely as Ever". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
  52. ↑ Curtis, pp. 254–55
  53. ↑ Curtis, p. 259
  54. 1 2 3 Lugowski, David. "James Whale". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
  55. ↑ Anger, p. 209. "Whale's is by far the best of the three screen versions of Jerome Kern's musical."
  56. ↑ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Show Boat". The Chicago Reader. Retrieved 15 January 2009. ... infinitely superior to the dull 1951 MGM Technicolor remake ...
  57. ↑ "Universal to Cowdin". TIME Magazine. 23 March 1936. Retrieved 14 January 2009.
  58. ↑ Glancy, p. 45
  59. ↑ Curtis, p. 296
  60. 1 2 Glancy, p. 46
  61. ↑ Kelly (1997), p. 141
  62. ↑ Curtis, p. 299
  63. ↑ Curtis, p. 306
  64. ↑ Kelly (2001), p. 144
  65. ↑ Hofler, p. 97
  66. ↑ "James Whal". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
  67. ↑ Curtis, p. 347
  68. ↑ Curtis, p. 350
  69. ↑ "Hollywood Today". The Kingsport News. 26 June 1943. p. 8.
  70. ↑ Curtis, p. 351
  71. ↑ Garver, Jack (21 December 1944). "Up and Down Broadway". San Mateo Times. United Press. p. 12.
  72. ↑ Curtis, p. 353
  73. ↑ Curtis, p. 421
  74. ↑ Parsons, Louella (27 April 1950). "Hollywood April 27". The Lowell (KS) Sun. INS. p. 27.
  75. ↑ Curtis, p. 367
  76. ↑ Curtis, pp. 369–71
  77. ↑ Curtis, p. 374
  78. ↑ Curtis, p. 375–76
  79. ↑ Curtis, pp. 376–77
  80. 1 2 Curtis, p. 377–78
  81. 1 2 Curtis, p. 380
  82. ↑ Anger, p. 211
  83. ↑ Curtis, p. 381
  84. ↑ Curtis, p. 383–84
  85. ↑ Curtis, p. 383
  86. ↑ Staff writers (30 May 1957). "Film Producer Dead: James Whale Falls Into Pool: Directed 'Frankenstein'". The New York Times. p. 33. Retrieved 4 November 2008.
  87. ↑ "Ex-Director James Whale Dies in Pool". Corpus Christi Times. Associated Press. 30 May 1957. p. 14-B.
  88. ↑ "anger211"
  89. ↑ James Whale at Find a Grave
  90. ↑ Curtis, p. 387
  91. ↑ Curtis, p. 389
  92. ↑ Bryant, p. 46
  93. ↑ Russo, p. 50–51
  94. ↑ Benshoff, p. 41
  95. 1 2 3 4 Morris, Gary (July 1997). "Sexual Subversion: The Bride of Frankenstein". Bright Lights Film Journal (19). Retrieved 7 January 2008.
  96. ↑ Skal, p. 184
  97. ↑ Russo, p. 50
  98. ↑ Skal, p. 185
  99. ↑ Egremont, Michael, quoted in Skal, p. 189
  100. ↑ Russo, p. 49
  101. ↑ Young, p. 134
  102. ↑ Quoted in Curtis, p. 144
  103. ↑ Curtis, p. 144
  104. ↑ Curtis, p. 143
  105. ↑ Worland, p. 66
  106. ↑ Young, et al., p. 188
  107. ↑ Curtis, p. 149
  108. ↑ Worland, p. 163
  109. ↑ Worland, p. 168
  110. ↑ Skal, p. 130
  111. ↑ Quoted in Curtis, p. 364
  112. ↑ Robertson, p. 126
  113. ↑ Prawer, p. 28
  114. ↑ Sarris, p. 187
  115. ↑ Hartl, John (9 September 1998). "The Seattle Times' Guide To Fall Arts – Movies". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
  116. ↑ Wilson, Benji (15 December 2008). "Ian McKellen: a free man". The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
  117. ↑ Awards for The Man in the Iron Mask at the Internet Movie Database
  118. ↑ Awards for The Bride of Frankenstein at the Internet Movie Database
  119. ↑ Noszlopy, et al., p. 51
  120. ↑ Shaw, Dan (18 October 2012). "Dudley's James Whale: A life in pictures". Black Country Bugle. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
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