:19:00
With Hurlbut, Whale re-engineered
the story on fanciful, witty lines.
:19:04
Dr Pretorius, his miniature creations,
Minnie, and the burgomaster, were born.
:19:10
Balderston's piety was rather suspect.
:19:12
In his finale, the monster
jealously kills Henry and the mate.
:19:16
In an unbelievably maudlin scene,
a priest, Father Gerard,
:19:20
convinces the monster to accept God -
and indeed, he proves his love
:19:23
by dispatching the hapless brute
with a lightning bolt. Deus ex machina.
:19:27
With Hurlbut, Whale developed
the spiritual subtext
:19:30
into something meaningful and special.
:19:42
To a new world of gods and monsters.
:19:47
The perfect line, the perfect staging:
:19:49
English gin in a chemist's retort,
as drunken science toasts itself.
:20:14
The cabinet of Dr Pretorius.
He has donned a medieval skullcap,
:20:18
an archaic fashion
associated with alchemy,
:20:21
as depicted in Murnau's Faust
and Paul Wegener's The Golem.
:20:25
More like black magic than science.
:20:27
Pretorius is wardrobed in black, with high,
white, nearly clerical collar and cuffs,
:20:32
like an English country vicar.
:20:34
The skullcap makes
the image discordant:
:20:36
The Reverend Dr Pretorius,
High Priest of Satanic Arts.
:20:42
Special effects men
John Fulton and David Horsley
:20:45
shot the little people over two days
in full-scale jars against black velvet.
:20:49
This was meticulously lined up
to match the production plates
:20:52
of Thesiger, Clive and the practical jars.
:20:55
The film, or foreground plate,
of the tiny people was rotoscoped,
:20:58
then matted into the background plate.