Draft:Henry Frankenstein (Universal Series)
| Heinrich Frankenstein | |
|---|---|
| Universal Classic Monsters character | |
 Henry (left) looks as The Monster lunges for the Bride and Pretorius stops him. | |
| First appearance | Frankenstein |
| Last appearance | The Ghost of Frankenstein |
| Portrayed by | Colin Clive |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | male |
| Occupation | Baron Scientist |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Lavenza |
| Relatives | Alphonse Frankenstein (father) unnamed mother Wolf Frankenstein (son) Ludwig Frankenstein (son) Elsa Frankenstein 1 (daughter-in-law) Peter Frankenstein (grandson) Elsa Frankenstein 2 (granddaughter) |
| Nationality | German |
| Status | Deceased |
Henry Frankenstein is the main character of the original Universal Frankenstein series played by Colin Clive in the original Frankenstein and its sequel Bride of Frankenstein along with making cameo appearances in Son of Frankenstein and The Ghost of Frankenstein.
History
[edit]Early life
[edit]Henry Frankenstein was born to Baron Alphonse Frankenstein and an unnamed mother, as a child, he became friends with local aristocrat Victor Moritz and showed a key interest in science but kept it secret from his father and mother. His mother died 1 day and made his father widowed. Henry was also a college student of Dr. Waldman however his unorthodox experiments made him leave the university. During this time he also met Dr. Septimus Pretorius, his philosophy teacher who got kicked out of the university because of his experiments as well. A few years later, Henry was arranged to be married to local girl, Elizabeth Lavenza by his father but instead ran away from his home unbeknownst to his relatives. Over there, he met hunchbacked body snatcher Fritz and enlisted him to create and revive a human being with body parts of other deceased people from the local graveyard, having done the same experiments to animals. Frankenstein also found his base of operations in an abandoned light tower on the outskirts of the village and decided to complete and create all the body parts and revive his human being when the night of thunder and lightning came.
Creating a Monster
[edit]In 1899, Henry was putting the final touches on his experiment by getting a body for his new human being from the graveyard and then commanding Fritz to get a brain for it, after Fritz got it, the 2 went to work stitching all the body parts together and putting the bed the human was lying on, hoisting it up to were the lightning and thunder was, ready to harness it. Unbeknownst to them, Elizabeth, Victor and Waldman came knocking at the light tower's door from outside, wanting to know what was happening to Henry, Fritz let them in and showed them upstairs to Henry who showed them his experiment to them. Waldman and Victor called him mad and Elizabeth told him that she was worried about what he has become, Frankenstein told them however that once lightning strikes, his human will show them what new species has been formed, Frankenstein then told Waldman that the latter's theories were wrong before lightning finally struck at the lifeless body, Frankenstein then hoisted it down and looked at it, when it started moving a hand or 2, Henry screamed proudly that he has now harnessed the power of god but was restrained by Waldman and Victor.
The next day, Elizabeth and Victor had left the light tower and only Frankenstein, Waldman and Fritz were there, Waldman told Frankenstein that the monster's brain was that of a criminal but Henry disbelieved him and then introduced the monster to Waldman who was disgusted by it's ugly appearance. Henry then controlled and commanded the monster before Fritz came with a fire torch which caused the monster to scream with fury and attack him, Henry and Waldman, thinking that it was going to kill the both of them next, grabbed the creature and subdued him before putting him in a room locked with chains. In there, Henry saw Fritz whip the monster and told him to stop before leaving, but the hunchback didn't listen and still whipped it.
A few hours later, Henry and Waldman heard Fritz's screams and went inside to see that the monster had killed and hanged him and had also escaped from the chains, attacking the 2 however Waldman again subdued it, hiding it this time around and telling Frankenstein to check who is at the gate. Elizabeth, Victor and Alphonse Frankenstein had arrived and were standing outside, Waldman opened the door and they went upstairs to see Henry bedridden and almost unconscious, he told them what happened and promised to come back and attend his wedding with Elizabeth, later leaving the light tower, Waldman promised him that he was going to kill the monster and then attend his wedding.
The day before the wedding, Henry promises Elizabeth that he is going to stop his experiments and focus more attention on her and their future together. The day of the wedding finally came were in it, Henry was ready to marry Elizabeth with Victor as his best man, he was still waiting for Waldman to come and later got the news that his dead body was found in the light tower, Henry then realises that The Monster is alive and killed Waldman. He then tells Elizabeth along side Victor that since his creation is roaming the village and is very dangerous, he is going to keep her locked in her room to rescue her, however, after The Monster finds his way into Elizabeth's room and scares her, Henry decides to join the town mob and abort the wedding for now to finally kill his monstrous creation.
Henry, alongside the Burgomaster, town villager Ludwig and the rest of the mob, go to the local windmill on the outskirts of the village were they see The Monster and chase him to the windmill, Henry runs into his creation and gets easily knocked out by it, he later wakes up at the top floor of the windmill where he faces off against The Monster and is thrown down by him, getting wheeled away to the mansion suffering from injuries whilst the town mob burn the windmill, apparently killing The Monster. The next day, Alphonse tells the housemaids that Henry is alright and alive and toasts to a potential future grandchild for him.
A Bride for Frankenstein's Monster
[edit]After The Monster is presumed to be dead in the windmill, the injured Henry is taken back to the castle where he is put on bedrest and where he communicates with Elizabeth for most of the time, telling her that now he is going to stop his experiments and focus more on their marriage, Elizabeth however becomes hysterical when she starts speaking about the Monster causing Henry to calm her down.
That night however changes when Henry's maid Minnie tells him that Dr. Pretorius has come to see him, Henry tells her to tell him to go away but Minnie says that he insists to talk to him, causing Henry to go with Pretorius to his house. When the 2 arrive there, Pretorius shows Henry his experiments which are tiny midgets including a tiny king, tiny queen, tiny ballerina and many more with Pretorius then toasting to Henry, saying a future of gods and monsters. After that, he tells Henry that he wants to make a bride to his creation, the Frankenstein Monster the same way Henry created the latter however Henry refuses, saying that he is done with his unorthodox experiments and wants to secure a future with himself and Elizabeth more than focus on experiments.
A few weeks later, Henry and Elizabeth are all set to leave away from the village Ingolstadt, were they live, however as Elizabeth is getting her makeup ready in another room, Henry again meets Pretorius at his doorstep who tells him that he has to make the bride, Henry refuses once again so Pretorius sends and commands The Original Monster to provide backup and threaten Henry to make him a bride, Henry agrees and Pretorius then commands The Monster to go outside which it does but it also kidnaps Elizabeth secretly as Pretorius planned, causing Henry to go to the castle to create the bride just to ensure Elizabeth's safety.
At Dr. Pretorius's new lair (which is also the light tower where Henry created The Monster), Pretorius and Henry start creating the perfect bride for the monster, assisted by Pretorius's henchman Ludwig and overseen by the original Frankenstein Monster from the top. After Henry creates the heart, Pretorius blackmails him by telling him that if he doesn't complete the bride by night, then his other henchman Karl will kill Elizabeth, Henry listens to Elizabeth's voice from Pretorius's phone (however it is revealed on the other line that it is actually a village girl Karl kidnapped to impersonate Elizabeth and the real Elizabeth is captured upstairs in the light tower unkown to Henry). Henry finally agrees but thinks Elizabeth is dead when he thinks he hears her scream (actually it is the village girl's who Karl killed), Henry continues on the experiment as Karl returns and goes up the light tower to see the lightning and thunder strike it, The Monster however is also there and throws him to his death, after Pretorius pays Ludwig and he leaves, him and Henry stitch the body parts and hoist the bed carrying the body up to harness the thunder and lightning, after the harnessing has been done, Henry hoists the bed back down again and the bride fully awakens wrapped in bandages.
After getting rid of the bandages and dressing her up, Henry and Pretorius introduce The Monster to his bride however she rejects it and seems to have a crush on Henry which causes The Monster to angrily destroy the lab and scientific equipment and angrily say that he is going to kill Pretorius for "decieving" him, Elizabeth appears at the gate's end, telling Henry to come and run away with her as the light tower starts to collapse. The Monster holds the lever on the tower, telling Henry and Elizabeth to run quickly and after they escape, telling Pretorius and The Bride that the 3 of them die, as he pulls the lever down and blows up the light tower as Henry and Elizabeth run away to the ground near the tower and hug each other lovingly, rejoicing their survival as The Monster, The Bride and Pretorius die and the light tower collapses.
A New Assistant
[edit]Sometime after the light tower collapsed, Elizabeth gave birth to her and Henry's 2 sons, Wolf & Ludwig Frankenstein, during this time, Henry would again become obsessed with creating his own human being once again and would recruit local shepherd Ygor to get bodies for him, Ygor would do so however 1 day would be found by the villagers of Ingolstadt who would hang him, thinking that he's dead, however he would miraculously survive and swear to get revenge on 8 jurors who hanged him, Henry at the time would also meet a Dr. Gustav Niemann who would've been his original assistant Fritz's brother and would be later arrested in the town of Visaria for trying brain transplantations on animals, swearing revenge on the Burgomaster there and his 2 former assistants, Strauss and Ullman. At this time, the Ingolstadt villagers would also start to form hatred towards the Frankenstein family and make them pariahs in the now broken village.
The Return of the Monster
[edit]At the same time as those other events, Ygor, Henry and Niemann probably would discover the still alive but now mute body of the Frankenstein Monster (alongside the dead bodies of Dr. Pretorius and The Bride) who would try to once again kill Henry and his family, causing Frankenstein to send Elizabeth and his 2 sons to live in England whilst he faced off and eventually survived from The Monster and Ygor. Niemann would probably be in jail at this time and Henry would've lived in his castle until his death which caused his inheritance to go to his now grown up sons whilst Ygor would send The Monster to go kill the jurors with 6 out of the 8 jurors being killed before 1 day, lightning would strike onto The Monster and leave him in an unconscious coma for a while. The Monster during this time before his coma would also kill Inspector Krogh's father and break his arm, causing him to get a robotic arm.
The Legacy Continued
[edit]After his death, Henry's inheritance would be passed onto his son Ludwig who would instead give it to Wolf, who would then arrive at the now broken down and Frankenstein hating Ingolstadt and live in the run down Frankenstein castle, Wolf would discover The Monster and Ygor there, The Monster would be woken from it's coma and would kill the last 2 jurors and would finally try to kill Wolf's son in the end after Wolf apparently killed Ygor which instead ends with Wolf kicking The Monster down into a sulphur pit and then a few days later, leaving the village and taking his and his father's scientific documents to his brother Ludwig in Visaria where he would secretly keep it.
3 years later, Ludwig's daughter Elsa would find the documents and see how Henry made The Monster come to life, Ygor and The Monster would be at their doorstep, wanting to swap the latter's brain with the former's brain however Ludwig would instead tell Ygor that he is not going to put his murderous mind in The Monster's, however Ludwig's colleague Dr. Bohmer would agree with Ygor and swap his brain with The Monster's, ending with Ludwig's chateau being burned by the Visaria town mob, Ludwig and Bohmer getting killed by The Ygor-Monster who would become blind and burn as well, the Frankenstein documents still surviving and Elsa and her boyfriend Erik escaping the burning chateau.
1 year later, The Ygor-Monster (now mute) would be found in an ice pocket by Larry Talbot (better known as The Wolf Man) at the now run down Visaria chateau, who would revive it back to life accidentally and find the Wolf, Henry and now Ludwig Frankenstein documents inside, Larry would also go to Elsa to help him cure his lycanthropy using the documents and do the brain swapping thing with The Monster this time around, Elsa would be helped by Dr. Frank Mannering, who would later accidentally make The Monster too powerful so it would break out however Talbot would transform into The Wolf Man at the same time and fight The Monster as Elsa and Frank would escape and the villagers would dynamite the chateau, causing it to flood away into the waterfall, carrying Talbot/The Wolf Man and The Frankenstein Monster with it as the Visaria villagers and Frank and Elsa would watch.
1 or 2 more years would pass by were the Wolf Man and Monster would end up frozen in ice pockets inside Henry Frankenstein's destroyed Frankenstein castle in a now already destroyed Ingolstadt village. Here, an escaped Dr. Niemann and his hunchbacked assistant Daniel arrive at the castle and accidentally revive Larry Talbot and the Frankenstein Monster back from the dead even though The Monster is unconscious and in a coma once again. Niemann would then take them all to the town of Riegelberg where he would read the 3 Frankenstein's documents and kidnap Strauss and Ullman to swap their brains with the Wolf Man and Frankenstein Monster, however that idea never succeeded as the Wolf Man was shot by a silver bullet and The Monster and Niemann accidentally drowned in quicksand in the end whilst being chased by the town mob.
2 More followups would showcase the Frankenstein documents being found and end with the monsters all dying and the documents being destroyed in the end, ending but also continuing in a way, Henry Frankenstein's massive legacy.
Development and in popular culture
[edit]Originally, the third Frankenstein movie after Bride of Frankenstein was supposed to feature Henry but Colin Clive sadly passed away of acute alcoholism in 1937. In Son of Frankenstein, a portrait using Clive's likeness is seen hanging on the wall in the Frankenstein Castle. In The Ghost of Frankenstein, an actual ghost of Henry speaks to his son Ludwig and tells him to let The Monster have the brain of a smart scientist to make it more human and a genius, this causes Ludwig to try and transplant the deceased Dr. Kettering's brain inside The Frankenstein Monster's body. Also when Elsa is looking at the Frankenstein family records, a flashback to the original film using stock footage, shows Colin Clive as Henry and Dwight Frye as Fritz, making The Monster and the events of the film happening.
In Victor Frankenstein, it is mentioned by Victor that he has a deceased brother named Henry in reference to the original Universal films were the character is named Henry Frankenstein.
Henry's quote, "It's Alive! It's Alive!", is known as the most famous quote in a Frankenstein film and is remade, mentioned and parodied in many other films Frankenstein or not.
See also
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References
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