When I was watching Bride of Frankenstein tonight, I was intrigued by the monster’s repeated gesture of supplication (pictured below).

In class we briefly touched on how Karloff intentionally mimicked a toddler in his walk, and his uplifted, outstretched arms seem to communicate in much the same way as a nonverbal child, signifying a variety of phrases from “No, wait, let me explain,” to a simple “I want that.” However, I was initially curious about whether Karloff had integrated any actual sign language into his gesturing; when I searched around, I didn’t find any evidence of such fusing, but I did stumble onto an interesting article titled, “Rise of the Apes: of man, monkey and monster.”

Many are familiar with the name Andy Serkis and the intense lobbying for more Academy recognition of his CGI work (most notably Gollum in Lord of the Rings and more recently, Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes). The reason this article popped up in my search for “Boris Karloff monster sign language” is mostly this quote:

[Serkis'] Caesar is as poignant a creation as Karloff’s monster in Frankenstein, a misunderstood and ill-used creature that puts its tragedy on display through body language.

I think it’s incredibly ironic that Shelley’s monster, as portrayed by Karloff, is the basis of comparison for a computer-generated character in a modern day science-fiction movie. Especially in the sense of them both being “ill-used.” Beyond the violence of the villagers, the monster is indeed misused by Dr. Pretorius, who sort of weaponizes him in order to coerce Frankenstein into creating a female counterpart. He uses his physical force as a threat, then charges him with the task of kidnapping Elizabeth. This weaponization of Frankenstein’s creation is definitely a new concept, one only made possible by the addition of a non-sympathetic scientific outsider and a decrease in the monster’s own powers of self-realization and articulation. It seems that such adjustments to the story reflect a twist on the typical Neo-Luddite take, but I’ll stop before I infringe on the Bride of Frankenstein group’s territory! Just wanted to share the article and its interesting connections with Shelley’s monster.