The
film Gods and Monsters, which won an Oscar for
best screenplay, portrays the true story of the last days
of James Whale, the director of the first few Frankenstein
movies, based on Christopher Bram’s book Father of Frankenstein.
The title is a line from the film Bride of Frankenstein,
one of many clips from Whale’s films during the movie. Whale
(played by Ian McKellen) has had a stroke recently and is
convinced that he does not have long to live. Despite efforts
of his moralistic and protective housekeeper Hanna (played
by Lynn Redgrave), who would lose her lucrative job if Whale
dies, he insists on living life to the full to the end, which
came through suicide in 1957. However, since he is gay, Whale
directs his attention to seducing males. He asks a gay biographer
to strip, but the man is too campy to be of interest. Whale
next ogles at gardeners on his property, and the money attracts
one in particular, Clayton Boone (played by Brendan Fraser),
to pose topless. Although the gardener is unaware that his
face is strangely like Frankenstein, he soon finds out that
Whale is gay, and he draws the line at sex with Whale while
becoming his friend at a time when his heterosexual relationships
are going sour. For Whale, this is a sign of the gardener’s
latent homosexuality, and the gardener does not realize that
he least providing Whale with enticing male companionship
and unusual dialog, perhaps all that Whale could handle anyway.
While the person-to-person plot develops, which is perhaps
the essence of the film—a final seduction, however unsuccessful—,
we learn that Whale’s openly gay lifestyle resulted in ostracism
within Hollywood, whereas gay George Cukor (director of A
Star Is Born and more than sixty other films) keeps
his lifestyle in the closet Mondays through Fridays, has naked
studs over for weekend swims, and prospers. Whale’s revenge
at Cukor consists of bringing his gardener to a reception
held by Cukor, who drools at the sight of Whale’s apparent
"kept boy." Gods and Monsters parallels the
film version of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice,
wherein an elderly man goes on vacation knowing that his lifeforce
is receding but enjoying his last days by flirting with a
young boy at the beach, albeit without the satisfaction of
having a single conversation exchanged between them. Moviegoers
will perhaps better understand in more depth from Gods
and Monsters than from any film yet made the tragedy
that befalls a decent human being when he is cast in the role
of "dirty old man" by conventional society. MH
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