James Whale

For the British radio presenter, see James Whale (radio).

James Whale (July 22, 1889 – May 29, 1957) was a ground-breaking Hollywood film director, best known for his work in the horror genre, making such momentous and iconic pictures as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man.

Early life

Whale was born in Dudley, England, the sixth of the seven children of a blast furnaceman and a nurse. He was thought not strong enough to follow his brothers into the local heavy industries and started work as a cobbler. He realised some talent for signwriting and used his additional income to pay for evening classes at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts.

In October 1915, World War I underway, he enlisted for the Army and was commissioned second lieutenant. He was taken a prisoner of war in August 1917 and, while imprisoned, discovered a talent for staging theatrical productions.

Beginnings in the theatre

After the armistice he returned to Birmingham and embarked on a professional stage career. In 1928 he was offered the opportunity to direct two fringe performances of R. C. Sherriff's, then unknown, play Journey's End starring the young, and hardly better known, Laurence Olivier. The play was a remarkable success and transferred to the West End where it played for 600 performances. Whale was invited to direct the transfer to Broadway and a Hollywood film version.

Hollywood career

Whale was best known for his work in the horror genre, making such momentous and iconic pictures as Frankenstein, where he was one of the first directors ever to move the camera through the shot, (the German silent cinema, and especially the films of F. W. Murnau, seem to have heavily influenced Whale in their use of the fluidly moving camera). Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man. Universal Pictures owed its stellar success in the 30s much in part to the huge box-office receipts of these three blockbusters. Further, these pictures established the screen careers of Gloria Stuart, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff, Una Merkel, and Claude Rains, to name just a few; most of whom Whale had known previously in England and had personally selected for their roles in his films. Whale was also responsible for such major films as Waterloo Bridge, (the 1931 version, not the more frequently shown 1940 one with Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor), The Old Dark House (1932), Show Boat (the 1936 version), and The Man in the Iron Mask, which he made for independent producer Edward Small. Whale directed The Road Back in 1937, starring Richard Cromwell and Noah Beery, Jr. It was the ill-fated sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. Much to Whale's protest, The Road Back was re-cut and shortened to the studio's liking before it was released, and then when it (not surprisingly) fared poorly at the box-office, Whale left Universal. He then made The Great Garrick at Warner Brothers - his only film there. A fictional comedy about the actor David Garrick, it featured an astoundingly detailed reconstruction of the eighteenth century, but was another flop. So was Port of Seven Seas, Whale's only film at MGM, a somewhat disguised film version in English of Marcel Pagnol's Fanny trilogy. Whale made only one more successful film - The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) , starring Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett. The rest were films that have faded into obscurity.

Whale is the subject of the novel Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram, which was the basis for the 1998 film Gods and Monsters. The film, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, starred Ian McKellen as Whale. Biographies of Whale have been written by Mark Gatiss ( 'James Whale: A Biography', or 'James Whale: the would-be gentleman') and James Curtis (James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters).

In his later days, Whale experienced difficulty with his memory due to a debilitating stroke. He became lonely and suffered from depression and had difficulty putting the war behind him. He committed suicide by drowning himself in his swimming pool on May 29, 1957 at the age of 67. As his suicide note was originally withheld (and first published in James Curtis's biography of the director), circumstances of his death were not known until years later. His suicide note read, "The future is just old age and illness and pain... I must have peace and this is the only way."

It later became public information that Whale was a closet homosexual. The film "Gods and Monsters" in 1998 focused on this part of his personality, starring Ian McKellen as Whale.

A memorial statue was erected for Whale in 2002 in the grounds of a new multiplex cinema of his home town, Dudley, England. The statue depicts a roll of film with the face of Frankenstein's monster engraved into the cells and the names of his most famous films etched into the film-tin shaped base-stone.

Filmography

Journey's End (1930)
Waterloo Bridge (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Impatient Maiden (1932)
The Old Dark House (1932)
The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933)
The Invisible Man (1933)
By Candlelight (1933)
One More River (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Remember Last Night? (1935)
Show Boat (1936)
The Road Back (1937)
The Great Garrick (1937)
Sinners in Paradise (1938)
Wives Under Suspicion (1938)
Port of Seven Seas (1938)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)
Green Hell (1940)
They Dare Not Love (1941)
Hello Out There (1949) released

Sources

James Whale Biography

External links

James Whale's Gravesite