Frankenstein Scene 6 Summary

  • The scene opens on the exterior of Henry's watchtower. There's a big old scary horror film storm brewing.
  • Switch to a very dramatic interior shot of the darkened watchtower, with Henry moving about amidst his equipment. Again, it's filmed from a fixed position with Henry moving around in the distance, as if on a stage set.
  • He orders Fritz about; do this, do that, get ready for some scary unspecified experiment that will make you shake in your boots.
  • Henry is relying on the storm for electricity, he says.
  • There's a corpse on a table in the center of the equipment; Henry pulls a sheet off its face to show that it's bandaged tightly about the head.
  • Henry says the brain Fritz stole is inside the body.
  • They do a test of the equipment, giving the film a chance to throw in some dramatic sparking special effect lights. (They still look pretty nifty, even today.)
  • The sparks stop sparking, and then there's a knock on the door.
  • Henry tells Fritz to send whoever it is away.
  • Fritz limps through the castle, in and out of shadows.
  • He opens the door and it's Dr. Waldman, Elizabeth, and Victor, but Fritz won't open up.
  • Henry looks down from a high window, and hears that it's Elizabeth .
  • So he troops downstairs, and finally lets them in.
  • But he's not happy about it.
  • He tries to get them to leave, but Victor says the magic words, "You're crazy."
  • All mad scientists react to those words by getting crazier, and Henry is no exception.
  • He takes it as a dare, and decides to show them his experiment.
  • So up they go to the lab.
  • Henry makes Victor and Elizabeth sit down. Waldman's about to uncover the body, but Fritz yells at him, and Henry stops him.
  • Henry then says he's discovered a super ray that's the basis of all life.
  • Dr. Waldman says essentially, "Sure, buddy, whatever."
  • Henry tells him that he's going to bring a monster to life just to prove it.
  • He also says the body is stitched together from other dead bodies. Everybody seems to think that's kind of gross.
  • Then he starts up all the special effects machinery again. Henry and Fritz uncover the body.
  • Why make a super strong large body? Why not make a small, easily handled body that can't hurt anyone?
  • Oh, well, too late now. In the most famous scene of the film, probably, the table with the body rises up through the darkness towards an open rectangular skylight.
  • Lights flash, thunder rolls, actors react with expressions of horror and fascination.
  • This goes on for a bit.
  • Then the table descends.
  • There's a close up of the monster's hand, which is moving. Henry does the famous cackling, shouting, "It's alive!" and comparing himself to God.
  • The others try to restrain him lest his overacting cause a chain reaction and destroy them all.