SOURCE: "The Frankenstein Films," in In Search of Frankenstein, Warner Books, 1975, pp. 257-62.

In the following excerpt, Florescu compares Whale's Frankenstein to his sequel Bride of Frankenstein.

In 1931 Universal had scored a spectacular film triumph with Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Anxious to capitalize on their new-found star, the studio sought an equally impressive story to use as a follow-up. Director Robert Florey suggested Frankenstein and the studio assigned him to fashion a screenplay loosely based on Shelley's novel (but with a creature more horrible than she had described). In the finished script that Florey and Garrett Fort wrote, Lugosi was visualized as portraying "Henry" (rather than "Victor") Frankenstein. The only link to the novel was the premise of a man creating life from parts of dead bodies. Universal, however, felt that the public associated their new star with pure horror and wanted him to play the creation rather...