When I asked Leigh W. Rutledge about reprinting this article from Mandate, he hesitated for fear that some of his facts might have been superceded in recent decades by the many writers who have scrutinized the life and work of James Whale. As I expected, however, only one correction was needed. From Leigh’s recent email:
I’ve just finished fact-checking the entire James Whale article. Everything in it is absolutely correct -- except for one small but important thing. The article says he was born in 1896 -- it has since been ascertained he was born in 1889.
“JAMES WHALE: FRANKENSTEIN’S STEPFATHER” might strike you as an odd choice for Easter…until you stop to think that the Frankenstein story, from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, to Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein in 1974, right up to this year’s Lisa Frankenstein — they’re all about resurrection, although of a frightfully grotesque sort.
Perhaps you prefer…………………“I could write a sonnet, about your Easter bonnet”……………