Contents Index

James Whale

James Whale, 1893-1957, English film director.

Whale had already produced several acclaimed adaptations of plays -- R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End (1930), Robert Emmett Sherwood's Waterloo Bridge (1931) -- before he was chosen by Carl Laemmle to direct Universal's film version of Frankenstein in 1931. Whale, impressed with his work in The Criminal Code (1931), chose Boris Karloff to play the part of the Monster.

Whale, Karloff, and Colin Clive worked together four years later in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), although he did not work on the third Universal movie, Son of Frankenstein (1939).

Whale's films include:

Whale is played by Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters (1998), Bill Condon's story of the days before Whale's suicide by drowning.