What's The (Gray) Matter?

 A three day weekend can offer one quite a lot of time to wonder. 

For example, somewhere in the midst of Labor Day weekend, I found myself wondering about that whole switched-brain bit in the 1931 version of Frankenstein. I am certain this came about after I had watched a trailer for Guillermo del Toro's version. I was curious which path Guillermo would take: the abnormal brain transplant or the misunderstood romantic creature found in Mary Shelly's novel. 

I was made aware of this mild Hollywood conceit when I was still quite young. As I was a rabid follower of the Universal monster movies, I was also brought up to read the classics and besides reading the Classics Illustrated adaptation of Ms. Shelly's work, I worked my way through her novel as a pre-teen just like I absorbed Bram Stoker's Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A grounding in the source material was made important to me by my mother, a voracious reader. She was also a movie fanatic, so I was encouraged to wade into all of those nightmares with her blessing. 

But now back to that brain: I was made aware, in an article I found in Famous Monsters Of Filmland, of makeup artist Jack Pierce's inspiration for the flat headed look of the creature when it came time to decide on a look for the 1931 film. He had reasoned that Henry Frankenstein (renamed from Victor in the novel to avoid any trouble with the German haters) would not be first and foremost a clever surgeon. He was stitching together a bunch of corpses, and when it came time to install a brain, the easiest option would be to open the skull like a lid and then clamp it shut. Jack Pierce delivered. Now, how about that brain?

As it turns out, the poet Walt Whitman chose to offer up his brain, after his death, to science. It was hoped that over the course of time, scientists could examine and study great men's gray matter to determine just what exactly made them tick. Unfortunately, when it came time to move Walt's brain from one container to another vessel for safekeeping, there was an accident. Brains, it turns out are actually pretty hefty and quite slippery. 

Oops. 

Of course, Mister Whitman's cerebrum was not destined for the cranium of a meat puppet created by some mad scientist in an abandoned castle somewhere in the hills of Bavaria. It was a cervelle destined for the compost. No need for the hunchback assistant to pull a bait and switch. Just a wet clean up on aisle five. 

Can't wait for Columbus Day to see what I can figure out then.