We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Arresting Monstrosity: Polio, Frankenstein, and the Horror Film.
- Authors
CODR, DWIGHT
- Abstract
Early Hollywood horror, and Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in particular, must be understood as cultural products of the age of polio. Polio survivors have drawn attention to kinetic similarities between their experiences and Karloff's gait, but horror and polio culture also share interests in experiments on simians, shadowy medical research, and ambiguously paralytic states. As well as locating the origins of some of horror's formal conventions, this essay draws attention to a dangerous gambit played by medical authorities in 1947, when, to energize the public in the fight against polio, they exploited those conventions for an educational horror film.
- Subjects
KARLOFF, Boris, 1887-1969; MOTION picture actors &; actresses; FRANKENSTEIN'S monster (Fictional character); HORROR films; POLIO
- Publication
PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 2014, Vol 129, Issue 2, p171
- ISSN
0030-8129
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1632/pmla.2014.129.2.171