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James Whale: Beyond Gods and Monsters

Neglected works from a master whose range exceeds the terror and wonder of the Frankenstein pictures.

The English director James Whale has sustained his present reputation through the enthusiasm of two groups: gay cinephiles and horror buffs. The least closeted Hollywood director of the Golden Age, Whale’s defiant homosexuality (celebrated in the biopic Gods and Monsters) proved less problematic than his proficiency with the horror genre – with such masterpieces as Frankenstein and The Invisible Man on his resume, he had to plead for the chance to direct more high-class projects when Universal would have rather assigned him Dracula’s Daughter. Though we can now appreciate, say, The Bride of Frankenstein for the dazzling, delicate self-parody that it probably always was, recognition for Whale’s non-horror output remains belated. more

For the first half of the 1930s, Whale was Universal’s ace director, rivaled at that studio only by John M. Stahl. Though often overbudget and over-schedule, he worked with his own stock company of technicians and British expat actors to deliver tasteful, virtuosic pictures that simultaneously elevated and belied the mark of that remarkable nepotismaddled mini-major Universal Studios that financed its films the way an average family might buy a new stove with the hope that a miraculous pay raise might meet the installment demands. Whale’s greatest success Show Boat (4/6) served as a fitting capstone to the studio’s finest era, a surefire blockbuster whose impressive receipts still could not keep the creditors from toppling the Laemmle regime. Whale had to fight to make that picture, as the Kern and Hammerstein musical was easily Universal’s most valuable property, but Whale’s panoramic ode to American popular culture proved a stirring, expansive fusion of music and pathos. Though Irene Dunne hated Whale, Paul Robeson found him to be the only Hollywood director who gave him any respect. Fittingly, the Whale-Robeson rendition of “Ol’ Man River” is a canonical moment of cinema and of Americana.

Whale’s other Universal features are sorely neglected, but each demonstrated a facet of his remarkable range. His pre-Production Code duo, The Impatient Maiden and The Kiss Before the Mirror (4/13) are especially notable: Whale applies his trademark pictorial polish to scanty trifles that ride along on racy sensibility instead of solid characterizations. The Impatient Maiden (based upon a smutty contemporary novel called The Impatient Virgin – a title that even the lax Hays Office of 1932 would not approve!) is filled with claptrap about Mae Clarke’s doubts about the need for marriage, but Whale turns a routine appendectomy examination into a saucy tryst and an operation sequence into an exercise in montage. The Kiss Before the Mirror (which benefited from the expertise of Karl Freund, particularly with a 360° camera pan) constantly defies audience expectation, turning a routine rendez-vous into a pretext for murder; the murderer finds counsel in a friend whose obsession with the case leads him to suspect that his own wife has grown unfaithful.

The masterpiece of this period may well be One More River (4/20), adapted from the last novel of Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga. It treats the platonic relationship that Diana Wynyard begins on a cruise ship with Frank Lawton after being brutalized by her husband Colin Clive. The divorce trial that ensues is among the most exacting and least histrionic in the cinema, aptly condemning the puritanism of the British legal system. This handsome production represented the last gasp of mature storytelling that the Code soon snuffed out.

His comedies By Candlelight (4/27) and Remember Last Night? (5/4) owe debts, respectively, to the continental Lubitsch comedies (Monte Carlo, Trouble in Paradise) and The Thin Man. By Candlelight just zips contently along from one mistaken identity or string of innuendo to another, a butler en route to a villa pretending to be a prince for a maid with the grace of a princess. Remember Last Night? may be a detective story, but it cultivates incoherence as insistently as The Big Sleep. Whale cared more about the fun he could have making the picture, blithely defying the newly-enforced Hays Production Code, celebrating alcohol and intimating all manner of sin. Variety called it “all faintly unwholesome.”

Whale’s projects became more sporadic and compromised after his Laemmle patrons were ejected from Universal. The Great Garrick (5/11), the result of a one-picture contract with Warners, was a period farce about a match of wits between famous eighteenthcentury actor David Garrick and the members of the Comédie Française. Whale invested The Great Garrick with an immense feeling for milieu, grafting memories of his own theatrical background at the Playfair on to the plot; the picture flopped. His only box office success from this period was The Man in the Iron Mask, though even that was a blow as that independent production had been taken away from him and re-fashioned by its spend-thrift producer. Whale’s verdict aside, his adaptation remains a stylish hoot with a wonderful cast. The same might be said of his final picture for the re-structured Universal Studios – Green Hell (5/18), a jungle adventure with the good fortune of Joan Bennet, Vincent Price, George Bancroft, and Alan Hale, as well as elegant cinematography. Whale’s remaining output was either completely unsatisfying (They Dare Not Love) or aborted (Hello Out There). He died, a suicide, in 1957. KW close

Showboat
James Whale, 1936 - 110 min.

Universal’s decision to assign a British director who’d made his name on Frankenstein and The Invisible Man to their lavish screen treatment of Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat aroused much skepticism. Whale, aided by the largest budget granted him to that time, strove to bring this panoramic ode to American popular culture to the screen with the utmost authenticity. Irene Dunne hated Whale, but few today would argue with the results: a stirring, expansive fusion of music and pathos. Paul Robeson’s rendition of “Ol’ Man River” is justly remembered as one of the high points of cinema. 16mm.

The Impatient Maiden & The Kiss Before the Mirror
James Whale, 1932, 1933 - 78 & 69 min.

Two racy early Whale films demonstrate the director’s range and devotion to virtuosic pictorial treatment, irrespective of subject matter. The Impatient Maiden, adapted from a smutty novel, stars Mae Clarke as a woman who refuses to keep her sexual desire within the confines of marriage. In a pure pre-Code moment, even an appendectomy examination becomes a pretext for a tryst. The Kiss Before the Mirror, photographed by Karl Freund, follows an attorney who begins to suspect his wife of infidelity while defending a friend who murdered his wife over same. 35mm.

One More River
James Whale, 1934 - 90 min.

The most handsomely British film ever made in Hollywood and perhaps the most unjustly overlooked film of Whale’s career, One More River was elegantly adapted from the last novel of Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga. It treats the platonic relationship that Diana Wynyard begins on a cruise ship with Frank Lawton after being brutalized by her husband Colin Clive. The divorce trial that ensues is among the most exacting and least histrionic in the cinema, aptly condemning the puritanism of the British legal system. One More River typifies the kind of mature storytelling that the Production Code soon snuffed out. 35mm.

By Candlelight
James Whale, 1933 - 70 min.

Whale took over By Candlelight from Robert Wyler but the dominant influence here is Lubitsch. By Candlelight just zips contently along from one mistaken identity or string of innuendo to another. Playboy prince Nils Asther finds himself en route to Monte Carlo after one ill-fated candle-lit rendez-vous (his butler Paul Lukas feigned an electrical outage) with another man’s wife. Lukas meets the frisky Marie on the train to Monte Carlo. Mistaking Lukas for a prince on the basis of his employer’s luggage crest, Marie follows Lukas to Asther’s new pad, forcing Asther to play the role of the butler. Archival 35mm.

Remember Last Night?
James Whale, 1935 - 81 min.

A vaguely manic soufflé in the mold of The Thin Man, Remember Last Night? features Robert Young and Constance Cummings as a hard-drinking, mystery-solving couple who awaken hungover one morning after a ‘Jubilee Binge’ to find their high-class friend George Meeker dead. Whale blithely defied the Production Code, celebrating alcohol and intimating all manner of sin. Variety called it “all faintly unwholesome.” But Whale enjoyed making this raucous frivolity, which, per William K. Everson, “goes like an express train in all directions ... as deliberately incoherent and complicated as The Big Sleep.” 16mm.

The Great Garrick
James Whale, 1937 - 89 min.

Following Laemmle’s departure from Universal Whale signed a one-picture deal with Warner Brothers. The result was The Great Garrick, a period farce about a match of wits between the famous eighteenth-century actor David Garrick and the members of the Comédie Française who lampoon his pomposity by taking over a local inn. Whale invested The Great Garrick with an immense feeling for milieu, grafting memories of his own theatrical background at the Playfair onto his historical plot. Audiences stayed away in droves, but the film garnered a critical following that remains strong. 16mm.

Green Hell
James Whale, 1940 - 87 min.

Whale hoped to resurrect his career with this jungle adventure, but budget cuts and an old-fashioned script by intertitle scribe Frances Marion assured his ultimate defeat. Constrained by cheap sets, Whale developed a suspenseful style that anticipated Val Lewton’s work. The story is nothing more than a yarn about buried treasure and the like, but Karl Freund contributed some sleek cinematography and the cast includes Joan Bennett, Vincent Price, George Bancroft, and Alan Hale. Called ‘the best worst picture of the year’ by the Times, Green Hell flopped with audiences who guffawed at its overripe dialogue. Archival 35mm.

Daniel Sefik Presents Nosferatu
F.W. Murnau, 1922 - 90 min.

An unauthorized translation of Stoker’s Dracula made for a shortlived Weimar studio, Murnau’s Nosferatu has survived lawsuits, truncation, and piracy to become the greatest of all vampire films. Unlike German fantastic cinema that relied on Expressionist sets, Murnau’s film locates the uncanny en plein air, creating a countryside of terror. Max Schreck’s landmark performance – attuned to the gruesomeness of Stoker’s novel, not the suavity of later cinematic vampires – fueled speculation that the mysterious actor was a vampire. 35mm.
Live piano accompaniment by Daniel Sefik.

Daniel Sefik Presents Metropolis
Fritz Lang, 1927 - 126 min.

Probably the most iconic silent film ever made, Fritz Lang’s futuristic superproduction fuses socialism and sci-fi to create a startling vision of a society that has lost its human core. The bold contraptions and contradictions of Lang’s film assured in a place in both mainstream and avant-garde film canons, inspiring animation, experimental art, and horror and science fiction cinema. Long available only in a severely re-edited version, the present restoration attempts to approach the beauty of the Berlin premiere version. 35mm.
Live piano accompaniment by Daniel Sefik.