W. Scott Poole on Journey's End
Dec. 25th, 2018 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
too_much_in_the_sunW. Scott Poole's book Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror has only been out a couple months, but I feel comfortable saying it's a good survey of how the experience of WWI shaped horror fiction in the decades immediately following.
The choice of topic means Poole is virtually obligated to talk about James Whale's Frankenstein (and he does), but he also takes a detour into discussing Journey's End. This is that detour [runs from page 221 to 223 in the hardcover, by the way]:
Before Frankenstein, most American audiences knew Clive as Captain Stanhope from James Whale's film version of R. C. Sherriff's play Journey's End (1930). The film garnered close to the same interest in Britain and the United States as did All Quiet on the Western Front, made the same year. In that era, the two films had a relationship perhaps a bit like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket for post-Vietnam American audiences.
Clive proved absolutely wrenching in his portrayal of Stanhope. In the original play and film, he incarnates the British soldier teetering on the edge of a complete nervous collapse. Stanhope attempts to hide this by drinking heavily to steady himself and insisting that his men, often against better sense, do their duty. In one particularly powerful scene, he breaks down and cries with another soldier just after accusing him of shirking and suggesting that the soldier's alleged illness can't be worse than "being shot for desertion." Film historian James Curtis sees the characters of Stanhope and Frankenstein connected in that both are "on a collision course with fate, tortured by personal demons and powerless to prevent [their] own destruction."
In other words, Stanhope as played by Clive appears as the ghost at the feast of war commemoration. He embodies the horrifying truths about the conflict that all the sentimental doggerel about the British Tommy and his sacrifice tries to hide from us; the "poppy porn" that still infests the remembrance of the war dead.
Noël Coward called Whale's production "a nasty little vilification of the war" that he believed offered a much-needed antidote to sentimentalism and inspired his own play Post Mortem. The tragedy of Raleigh, a young officer led by Stanhope, capped the film's message and joined it firmly to some of Whale's decisions in Frankenstein. Stanhope and Raleigh have a troubled and complex relationship, set off in part by Raleigh's grief over the loss of his friend Osborne, whose dead body lies somewhere twisted in the barbed wire of no-man's-land. Stanhope, having known Osborne far longer and doing his best not to feel anything, finds Raleigh's grief grating. The film ends, however, with news that Raleigh has received a spine injury and has to be moved into the officers' dugout, where much of the claustrophobic film occurs. Stanhope comforts him as he dies, though in the final scene the tortured captain rushes forth to take part in an assault just as a shell collapses the dugout and buries Raleigh in the rubble.
The catastrophic entombment of Raleigh appears again in the flaming collapse of the windmill that buries Frankenstein's Monster, a scene Whale chose as the most appropriate end for his film. Indeed, the monster dies entombed again, this time with his Bride, in the explosive collapse of Dr. Frankenstein's tower in the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein. Whale never fully let go of the image, played out again and again on almost all fronts of the Great War, of bodies being buried beneath the carnage of trenches, the living and the dead sealed beneath the collapse of thousands of pounds of dirt and concrete from shells and sap mines.
Clive captured the unsettling energy of Stanhope nearly perfectly, perhaps in part because of his own demons. The actor likely would be diagnosed today with some form of anxiety disorder. During the 1930s, he became infamous for self-medicating with heavy drinking, often on set. This may have actually aided his portrayal of Stanhope, who also appears terrified, angry, and drunk. Audiences who, about a year later, then saw Clive as the deeply tormented Dr. Frankenstein, sweating, eyes darting fearfully, seemingly running in terror even as he leads a mob to destroy his dangerous creation, could not help but remember the tragic, broken Captain Stanhope.
Overall I'd recommend buying this book, though I have a couple small qualms*. Here's a link to the publisher's website, which offers a couple ways to get your hands on a copy.
* Namely, I wish there were an index, and I mildly disagree with his assessment that At the Mountains of Madness was Lovecraft's only novel. However, Poole has written and published a biography of Lovecraft, and I, uh, have a blog, so...
The choice of topic means Poole is virtually obligated to talk about James Whale's Frankenstein (and he does), but he also takes a detour into discussing Journey's End. This is that detour [runs from page 221 to 223 in the hardcover, by the way]:
Colin Clive as Dr. Frankenstein played almost as much of a role in reactions to the film as the Monster did. Whale apparently saw the doctor as the central character, far more important than Karloff. Although his manic scream "It's alive! It's alive! It's alive!" justly remains one of the most famous moments in film history, contemporary viewers are perhaps too familiar with overacted mad scientists to feel the anxious, strained edge that Clive gives to the entirety of the film.
Before Frankenstein, most American audiences knew Clive as Captain Stanhope from James Whale's film version of R. C. Sherriff's play Journey's End (1930). The film garnered close to the same interest in Britain and the United States as did All Quiet on the Western Front, made the same year. In that era, the two films had a relationship perhaps a bit like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket for post-Vietnam American audiences.
Clive proved absolutely wrenching in his portrayal of Stanhope. In the original play and film, he incarnates the British soldier teetering on the edge of a complete nervous collapse. Stanhope attempts to hide this by drinking heavily to steady himself and insisting that his men, often against better sense, do their duty. In one particularly powerful scene, he breaks down and cries with another soldier just after accusing him of shirking and suggesting that the soldier's alleged illness can't be worse than "being shot for desertion." Film historian James Curtis sees the characters of Stanhope and Frankenstein connected in that both are "on a collision course with fate, tortured by personal demons and powerless to prevent [their] own destruction."
In other words, Stanhope as played by Clive appears as the ghost at the feast of war commemoration. He embodies the horrifying truths about the conflict that all the sentimental doggerel about the British Tommy and his sacrifice tries to hide from us; the "poppy porn" that still infests the remembrance of the war dead.
Noël Coward called Whale's production "a nasty little vilification of the war" that he believed offered a much-needed antidote to sentimentalism and inspired his own play Post Mortem. The tragedy of Raleigh, a young officer led by Stanhope, capped the film's message and joined it firmly to some of Whale's decisions in Frankenstein. Stanhope and Raleigh have a troubled and complex relationship, set off in part by Raleigh's grief over the loss of his friend Osborne, whose dead body lies somewhere twisted in the barbed wire of no-man's-land. Stanhope, having known Osborne far longer and doing his best not to feel anything, finds Raleigh's grief grating. The film ends, however, with news that Raleigh has received a spine injury and has to be moved into the officers' dugout, where much of the claustrophobic film occurs. Stanhope comforts him as he dies, though in the final scene the tortured captain rushes forth to take part in an assault just as a shell collapses the dugout and buries Raleigh in the rubble.
The catastrophic entombment of Raleigh appears again in the flaming collapse of the windmill that buries Frankenstein's Monster, a scene Whale chose as the most appropriate end for his film. Indeed, the monster dies entombed again, this time with his Bride, in the explosive collapse of Dr. Frankenstein's tower in the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein. Whale never fully let go of the image, played out again and again on almost all fronts of the Great War, of bodies being buried beneath the carnage of trenches, the living and the dead sealed beneath the collapse of thousands of pounds of dirt and concrete from shells and sap mines.
Clive captured the unsettling energy of Stanhope nearly perfectly, perhaps in part because of his own demons. The actor likely would be diagnosed today with some form of anxiety disorder. During the 1930s, he became infamous for self-medicating with heavy drinking, often on set. This may have actually aided his portrayal of Stanhope, who also appears terrified, angry, and drunk. Audiences who, about a year later, then saw Clive as the deeply tormented Dr. Frankenstein, sweating, eyes darting fearfully, seemingly running in terror even as he leads a mob to destroy his dangerous creation, could not help but remember the tragic, broken Captain Stanhope.
Overall I'd recommend buying this book, though I have a couple small qualms*. Here's a link to the publisher's website, which offers a couple ways to get your hands on a copy.
* Namely, I wish there were an index, and I mildly disagree with his assessment that At the Mountains of Madness was Lovecraft's only novel. However, Poole has written and published a biography of Lovecraft, and I, uh, have a blog, so...
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Date: 2018-12-26 06:34 am (UTC)