Source: Monster Island News on Youtube
Boris Karloff arrived in Hollywood in 1917 and began a career as a bit player in several films before James Whale spotted him in the Universal commissary eating lunch. His silent portrayal as the monster in “Frankenstein” would catapult him to the “A” list of Hollywood horror actors. In real life however Karloff was anything but a monster. He was always noted as being a gentle, kind man who loved to entertain children.
When Universal released “Frankenstein” in 1931 the film was a very unique piece to watch. The film has always been regarded as a black and white classic when it was nothing of the sort. When audiences originally saw the film in theatres the daylight scenes were in amber, the night in pale blue, the eerie scenes in green and the fiery climax in red. Universal also thought it was necessary to hype the film up a bit. As if the film wasn’t scary enough on its own the studio found it in their best interest to park an ambulance out in front of many theatres and to keep two nurses on hand in the lobby to raise the chill factor. They even went as far as to place an actress in the audience during every showing who would, at the scariest moment in the film, scream, jump out of her seat, and run up the aisle and out of the theatre. Too bad we don’t see theatrics like that anymore.
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