Legends Podcast #784: Gods and Monsters (1998)
About this episode
The episode discusses the life and career of director James Whale and the film adaptation of Christopher Bram's novel about him.
Director James Whale brought Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to the big screen in 1931, and followed it up with classics like The Invisible Man, The Old Dark House, and Bride of Frankenstein. Throughout his Hollywood career, Whale lived as an openly gay man, something quite rare in the '20s and '30s. Along with his horror pictures, Whale directed Remember Last Night?, Show Boat, and The Man in the Iron Mask before retiring from filmmaking in 1942. One of his last major pictures, The Road Back, a sequel to the Great War movie All Quiet on the Western Front, was the victim of studio interference - and Nazi German influence - which contributed to Whale's decision to leave Hollywood. His sexuality, according to contemporaries, was well-known, but "nobody made a thing out of it." However, Whale's later life was marred by health problems leading up to his suicide in 1957 at age 67. Christopher Bram's 1995 novel, Father of Frankenstein, explored what his last days could have been like, with filmmaker Bill Condon penning and directing a 1998 adaptation starring Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, and Lynn Redgrave. Condon's script won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and McKellen and Redgrave…
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