James Whale
James Whale | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 29 May 1957 | (aged 67)
Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) |
Education | The Blue Coat School, Dudley |
Occupations | |
Years active | 1919–1952 |
Partners |
|
James Whale (22 July 1889 – 29 May 1957) was an English film director, theatre director and actor, who spent the greater part of his career in Hollywood. He is best remembered for several horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), all considered classics. Whale also directed films in other genres, including the 1936 film version of the musical Show Boat.
Whale was born into a large family in
At the height of his career as a director, Whale directed The Road Back (1937), a sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front. Studio interference, possibly spurred by political pressure from Nazi Germany, led to the film's being altered from Whale's vision, and it was a critical failure. A run of box-office disappointments followed and, while he would make one final short film in 1950, by 1941 his film directing career was effectively over. He continued to direct for the stage and also rediscovered his love for painting and travel. His investments made him wealthy and he lived a comfortable retirement until suffering strokes in 1956 that robbed him of his vigor and left him in pain. He took his own life on 29 May 1957 by drowning himself in his swimming pool.
Whale was openly gay throughout his career, something that was very rare in the 1920s and 1930s. As knowledge of his sexual orientation has become more widespread, some of his films, Bride of Frankenstein in particular, have been interpreted as having a gay subtext and it has been claimed that his refusal to remain in the closet led to the end of his career. Other commentators have contended that his retirement was provoked by a succession of poorly received projects with which Whale was growing personally dissatisfied (particularly deleterious to his career was The Road Back, which went through development hell at multiple stages, whereafter the buck was perceived to stop with Whale as principal director).[1][2]
Early years
Whale was born in
World War I broke out in early August 1914. Although Whale had little interest in the politics behind the war, he realized that conscription was inevitable, so he voluntarily enlisted just before it was introduced, into the British Army's Inns of Court Officer Training Corps in October 1915, and was stationed initially at Bristol. He was subsequently commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Worcestershire Regiment in July 1916.[7] He was taken prisoner of war in battle on the Western Front in Flanders in August 1917, and was held at Holzminden Officers' Camp, where he remained until the war's end, being repatriated to England in December 1918.[8][9] While imprisoned he became actively involved, as an actor, writer, producer and set-designer, in the amateur theatrical productions that took place in the camp, finding them "a source of great pleasure and amusement".[10][11] He also developed a talent for poker, and after the war he cashed in the chits and IOUs from his fellow prisoners that he had amassed in gambling to provide himself with finances for re-entry into civilian life.[12]
Career
Theatre
After the
In 1928 Whale was offered the opportunity to direct two private performances of
With the success of Journey's End at home,
Early work in Hollywood
The success of the various productions of Journey's End brought Whale to the attention of movie producers. Coming at a time when motion pictures were making the transition from silent to talking, producers were interested in hiring actors and directors with experience with dialogue. Whale traveled to Hollywood in 1929 and signed a contract with Paramount Pictures. He was assigned as "dialogue director" for a film called The Love Doctor (1929).[25] He completed work on the film in 15 days and his contract was allowed to expire. It was at around this time that he met David Lewis.[26]
Whale was hired by independent film producer and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, who planned to turn the previously silent Hughes production Hell's Angels (1930) into a talkie. Whale directed the dialogue sequences.[27] When his work for Hughes was completed, he headed to Chicago to direct another production of Journey's End.[28]
Having purchased the film rights to Journey's End, British producers Michael Balcon and Thomas Welsh agreed that Whale's experience directing the London and Broadway productions of the play made him the best choice to direct the film. The two partnered with a small American studio, Tiffany-Stahl, to shoot it in New York.[29] Colin Clive reprised his role as Stanhope,[30] and David Manners was cast as Raleigh.[31] Filming got underway on 6 December 1929[32] and wrapped on 22 January 1930.[33] Journey's End was released in Great Britain on 14 April and in the United States on 15 April.[34] On both sides of the Atlantic the film was a tremendous critical and commercial success.[35]
With the Laemmles at Universal
In 1931, Universal chief
Next from Whale were
Whale's next film was The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), a critical success but a box-office failure. He returned to horror with The Invisible Man (1933). Shot from a script approved by H. G. Wells,[45] the film blended horror with humor and confounding visual effects. Much admired, The New York Times placed it in their list of the ten best films of the year,[46] and the film broke box-office records in cities across America. So highly regarded was the film that France, which restricted the number of theatres in which undubbed American films could play, granted it a special waiver because of its "extraordinary artistic merit".[47]
Also in 1933 Whale directed the romantic comedy By Candlelight which gained good reviews and was a modest box office hit.
With the success of Bride, Laemmle was eager to put Whale to work on Dracula's Daughter (1936), the sequel to Universal's first big horror hit of the sound era. Whale, wary of doing two horror films in a row and concerned that directing Dracula's Daughter could interfere with his plans for the first all-sound version of Show Boat (previously filmed as a part-talkie by Harry A. Pollard), instead convinced Laemmle to buy the rights to a novel called The Hangover Murders. The novel is a comedy-mystery in the style of The Thin Man, about a group of friends who were so drunk the night one of them was murdered that none can remember anything.[54] Retitled Remember Last Night?, the film was one of Whale's personal favorites,[44] but met with sharply divided reviews and commercial uninterest.[55]
With the completion of Remember Last Night? Whale immediately went to work on
Show Boat was the last of Whale's films to be produced under the Laemmle family. The studio was now bankrupt, and the Laemmles lost control to
Career decline
Whale's career went into sharp decline following the release of his next film, The Road Back (1937). The sequel to Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which Universal had filmed in 1930, the novel and film follow the lives of several young German men who have returned from the trenches of World War I and their struggles to re-integrate into society. The Los Angeles consul for Nazi Germany, Georg Gyssling, learned that the film was in production. He protested to PCA enforcer Joseph Breen, arguing that the film gave an "untrue and distorted picture of the German people".[62] Gyssling eventually met Whale, but nothing came of it.[63] Gyssling then sent letters to members of the cast, threatening that their participation in the film might lead to difficulties in obtaining German filming permits for them and for anyone associated in a film with them.[64] While the low volume of business conducted by Universal in Germany made such threats largely hollow, the State Department, under pressure from the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Screen Actors Guild,[65] stepped in and the German government backed down.[66] Whale's original cut of the film was given generally positive reviews, but some time between preview screenings and the film's general release, Rogers capitulated to the Germans, ordering that cuts be made and additional scenes be shot and inserted.[37] Whale was furious,[67] and the altered film was banned in Germany anyway.[68] The Germans were successful in persuading China, Greece, Italy and Switzerland to ban the film as well.[64]
Following the debacle of The Road Back, Charles Rogers tried to get out of his contract with Whale; Whale refused. Rogers then assigned him to a string of B movies to run out his contractual obligation. Whale only made one additional successful feature film, The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), before retiring from the film industry in 1942.[6]
Post-film life
With his film career behind him, Whale found himself at a loose end. He was offered the occasional job, including the opportunity to direct Since You Went Away for David O. Selznick,[69] but turned them down.[70] Lewis, meanwhile, was busier than ever with his production duties and often worked late hours, leaving Whale lonely and bored. Lewis bought him a supply of paint and canvasses and Whale re-discovered his love of painting. Eventually he built a large studio for himself.[71]
With the outbreak of
Whale returned to Broadway in 1944 to direct the psychological thriller Hand in Glove.[75] It was his first return to Broadway since his failed One, Two, Three! in 1930.[76] Hand in Glove would fare no better than his earlier play, running the same number of performances, 40.[77]
Whale directed his final film in 1950, a short subject based on the
Whale's last professional engagement was directing Pagan in the Parlour, a farce about two New England spinster sisters who are visited by a Polynesian whom their father, when shipwrecked years earlier, had married. The production was mounted in
A provincial tour of Pagan in the Parlour began in September 1952 and it appeared that the play would be a hit. However, Hermione Baddeley, starring in the play as the cannibal "Noo-ga", was drinking heavily and began engaging in bizarre antics and disrupting performances. Because she had a run of the play contract she could not be replaced and so producers were forced to close the show.[82]
Whale returned to California in November 1952 and advised David Lewis that he planned to bring Foegel over early the following year. Appalled, Lewis moved out of their home.[83] While this ended their 23-year romantic relationship, the two men remained friends. Lewis bought a small house and dug a swimming pool, prompting Whale to have his own pool dug, although he did not himself swim in it. He began throwing all-male swim parties and would watch the young men cavort in and around the pool.[84] Foegel moved in with Whale in early 1953 and remained there for several months before returning to France. He returned in 1954 permanently,[84] and Whale installed him as manager of a gas station that he owned.[85]
Whale and Foegel settled into a quiet routine until the spring of 1956, when Whale suffered a small stroke. A few months later he suffered a larger stroke and was hospitalized.[85] While in the hospital he was treated for depression with shock treatments.[86]
Upon his release, Whale hired one of the male nurses from the hospital to be his personal live-in nurse.[87] A jealous Foegel maneuvered the nurse out of the house and hired a female nurse as a non-live-in replacement.[88] Whale suffered from mood swings and grew increasingly and frustratingly more dependent on others as his mental faculties were diminishing.[89]
Death
Whale died by suicide by drowning himself in his
To ALL I LOVE,
Do not grieve for me. My nerves are all shot and for the last year I have been in agony day and night—except when I sleep with sleeping pills—and any peace I have by day is when I am drugged by pills.
I have had a wonderful life but it is over and my nerves get worse and I am afraid they will have to take me away. So please forgive me, all those I love and may God forgive me too, but I cannot bear the agony and it [is] best for everyone this way. The future is just old age and illness and pain. Goodbye and thank you for all your love. I must have peace and this is the only way.
— Jimmy.[92]
Whale's body was cremated per his request, and his ashes were interred in the
Sexual orientation
James Whale lived as an openly gay man throughout his career in the British theatre and in Hollywood, something that was virtually unheard of in that era. He and David Lewis lived together as a couple from around 1930 to 1952. While he did not go out of his way to publicize his homosexuality, he did not do anything to conceal it either. As filmmaker Curtis Harrington, a friend and confidant of Whale's, put it, "Not in the sense of screaming it from the rooftops or coming out. But yes, he was openly homosexual. Any sophisticated person who knew him knew he was gay."[44] While there have been suggestions that Whale's career was terminated because of homophobia,[96][97] and Whale was supposedly dubbed "The Queen of Hollywood",[98] Harrington states that "nobody made a thing out of it as far as I could perceive".[44]
With knowledge of his sexuality becoming more common beginning in the 1970s, some film historians and gay studies scholars have detected homosexual themes in Whale's work, particularly in Bride of Frankenstein in which a number of the creative people associated with the cast, including Ernest Thesiger and Colin Clive,[99] were alleged to be gay or bisexual. Scholars have identified a gay sensibility suffused through the film, especially a camp sensibility,[100] particularly embodied in the character of Pretorius (Thesiger) and his relationship with Henry Frankenstein (Clive). Minnie introduces Pretorius to Frankenstein with the line, "He's a very queer-looking old gentleman, sir...." at 16:56 in the film.
Gay film historian Vito Russo, in considering Pretorius, stops short of identifying the character as gay, instead referring to him as "sissified"[101] ("sissy" itself being a Hollywood's gay stock character[102]). Pretorius serves as a "gay Mephistopheles",[103] a figure of seduction and temptation, going so far as to pull Frankenstein away from his bride on their wedding night to engage in the unnatural act of non-procreative life. A novelisation of the film published in England made the implication clear, having Pretorius say to Frankenstein "'Be fruitful and multiply.' Let us obey the Biblical injunction: you of course, have the choice of natural means; but as for me, I am afraid that there is no course open to me but the scientific way."[104] Russo goes so far as to suggest that Whale's homosexuality is expressed in both Frankenstein and Bride as "a vision both films had of the monster as an antisocial figure in the same way that gay people were 'things' that should not have happened".[105]
Whale's partner David Lewis stated flatly that Whale's sexual orientation was "not germane" to his filmmaking. "Jimmy was first and foremost an artist, and his films represent the work of an artist—not a gay artist, but an artist."[106] Whale's biographer Curtis rejects the notion that Whale would have identified with the Monster from a homosexual perspective,[107] stating that if the highly class-conscious Whale felt himself to be an antisocial figure, it would have been based not in his sexuality but in his origin in the lower classes.[108]
Film style
Whale was heavily influenced by
Whale was known for his use of camera movement. He is credited with being the first director to use a 360-degree panning shot in a feature film, included in Frankenstein.[116] Whale used a similar technique during the Ol' Man River sequence in Show Boat, in which the camera tracked around Paul Robeson as he sang the song. (The sequence also uses expressionist montages illustrating some of the lyrics.) Often singled out for praise in Frankenstein is the series of shots used to introduce the Monster: "Nothing can ever quite efface the thrill of watching the successive views Whale's mobile camera allows us of the lumbering figure".[117] These shots, starting with a medium shot and culminating in two close-ups of the Monster's face, were repeated by Whale to introduce Griffin in The Invisible Man and the abusive husband in One More River. Modified to a single cut rather than two, Whale uses the same technique in The Road Back to signal the instability of a returning World War I veteran.[56]
Legacy
Influential film critic Andrew Sarris, in his 1968 ranking of directors, lists Whale as "lightly likable". Noting that Whale's reputation has been subsumed by the "Karloff cult", Sarris cites Bride of Frankenstein as the "true gem" of the Frankenstein series and concludes that Whale's career "reflects the stylistic ambitions and dramatic disappointments of an expressionist in the studio-controlled Hollywood of the thirties".[118]
Whale's final months are the subject of the novel
Only two of Whale's films received Oscar nominations: The Man in the Iron Mask (for its musical score), and Bride of Frankenstein (for its sound recording).
A memorial sculpture was erected for Whale in September 2001 on the grounds of a new multiplex cinema in his home town of Dudley. The sculpture, by Charles Hadcock, depicts a roll of film with the face of Frankenstein's monster engraved into the frames, and the names of his most famous films etched into a cast concrete base in the shape of film canisters. Other sculptures related to Whale's cinema career were planned, referencing his early work in a local sheet metal factory, but none had been installed as of 2019.[122]
Horror in Hollywood: The James Whale Story, a retrospective of Whale's artwork, opened at the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in October 2012 and ran through to January 2013.[123]
Filmography
Title | Year | Notes |
---|---|---|
Journey's End | 1930 | directorial debut |
Hell's Angels | 1930 | (directed dialogue) |
Waterloo Bridge | 1931 | |
Frankenstein | 1931 | |
The Impatient Maiden | 1932 | |
The Old Dark House | 1932 | |
The Kiss Before the Mirror | 1933 | |
The Invisible Man | 1933 | |
By Candlelight | 1933 | |
One More River | 1934 | One of the first films subject to the Production Code Administration's censorship[124]
|
Bride of Frankenstein | 1935 | |
Remember Last Night? | 1935 | |
Show Boat | 1936 | |
The Road Back | 1937 | |
The Great Garrick | 1937 | |
Port of Seven Seas | 1938 | |
Sinners in Paradise | 1938 | |
Wives Under Suspicion | 1938 | |
The Man in the Iron Mask | 1939 | |
Green Hell | 1940 | |
They Dare Not Love | 1941 | final film |
References
- ^ "Bringing THE ROAD BACK Back | Cinematheque".
- ^ "Director Retrospective: James Whale, Part Two". 6 June 2013.
- ^ Curtis, p. 8.
- ^ Ellis, p. 20.
- ^ Curtis, p. 11.
- ^ a b c "Gods and Monsters: The Search for the Right Whale". Cineaste. 22 September 1999. Retrieved 17 January 2009.[dead link]
- ^ Curtis, p. 17.
- ^ Curtis, p. 20.
- ^ "Actual War Service Desirable Attribute". Cumberland Evening Times. 30 July 1930. p. 7.
- ^ Whale 1919, p. 318.
- ^ Early, pp. 140–41.
- ^ a b Curtis, p. 25.
- ^ Skal, et al., p. 50.
- ^ Curtis, p. 32.
- ^ a b c d ""Journey's End", A First Play, Brings Clerk-Author $10,000 Week Royalties". Wisconsin State Journal. 5 June 1930. p. 14.
- ^ Green, et al., p. 272.
- ^ Cottrell, p. 53.
- ^ a b Coleman, p. 31.
- ^ "Maurice Evans, Stage Actor, Dies at 87". The New York Times. 14 March 1989. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
- ^ Williamson, p. 29.
- ^ Curtis, p. 70.
- ^ Curtis, p. 71.
- ^ Coleman, p. 32.
- ^ a b Bordman, p. 381.
- ^ Curtis, p. 79.
- ^ Curtis, p. 81.
- ^ "Millionaire Producer Faces Big Losses". Waterloo (IA) Evening Courier. United Press. 2 November 1929. p. 8.
- ^ Curtis, p. 83.
- ^ Low, et al. p. 171.
- ^ "The New Pictures". Time. 21 April 1930. Archived from the original on 17 July 2010.
- ^ Kelly (1997), p. 65.
- ^ Curtis, p. 98.
- ^ Curtis, p. 102.
- ^ Curtis, p. 104.
- ^ Curtis, pp 104–05
- ^ Parsons, Louella (11 March 1931). "James Whale Will Direct For Universal". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 17 January 2009.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b Anger, p. 210.
- ^ Skal, p. 129.
- ^ a b Buehrer, p. 89.
- ^ Curtis, p. 151.
- ^ Curtis, p. 153.
- ^ Curtis, p. 157.
- ^ Bansak, et al., p. 95.
- ^ a b c d e Del Valle, David (7 August 2008). "Curtis Harrington on James Whale". Films in Review. Archived from the original on 3 September 2008.
- ^ Skal, et al., p. 71.
- ISBN 9780405066498. Retrieved 26 December 2008.
- ^ Curtis, p. 221.
- ^ Curtis, p. 219.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 224–25.
- ^ Curtis, p. 251.
- ^ French, Philip (2 December 2007). "Films of the Day: The Bride of Frankenstein". The Observer.
- ^ Gifford, p. 55.
- ^ Graham, Bob (9 October 1998). "'Bride' Is as Lovely as Ever". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 254–55.
- ^ Curtis, p. 259.
- ^ a b c Lugowski, David. "James Whale". Senses of Cinema. Archived from the original on 17 April 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
- ^ Anger, p. 209. "Whale's is by far the best of the three screen versions of Jerome Kern's musical."
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Show Boat". The Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 6 June 2009. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
... infinitely superior to the dull 1951 MGM Technicolor remake ...
- ^ "Show Boat (1936) (MOD)". WBShop.com. Archived from the original on 25 February 2014.
- ^ "Show Boat (1936) - The Criterion Collection". criterion.com. Archived from the original on 20 April 2020. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
- ^ "Universal to Cowdin". TIME Magazine. 23 March 1936. Archived from the original on 15 December 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2009.
- ^ Glancy, p. 45.
- ^ Curtis, p. 296.
- ^ a b Glancy, p. 46.
- ^ Kelly (1997), p. 141.
- ^ Curtis, p. 299.
- ^ Curtis, p. 306.
- ^ Kelly (2001), p. 144.
- ^ Hofler, p. 97.
- ^ "James Whal". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 15 January 2009.
- ^ Curtis, p. 347.
- ^ Curtis, p. 350.
- ^ "Hollywood Today". The Kingsport News. 26 June 1943. p. 8.
- ^ Curtis, p. 351.
- ^ Garver, Jack (21 December 1944). "Up and Down Broadway". San Mateo Times. United Press. p. 12.
- ^ Curtis, p. 353.
- ^ Curtis, p. 421.
- ^ Parsons, Louella (27 April 1950). "Hollywood April 27". The Lowell (KS) Sun. INS. p. 27.
- ^ Curtis, p. 367.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 369–71.
- ^ Curtis, p. 374.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 375–76.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 376–77.
- ^ a b Curtis, pp. 377–78.
- ^ a b Curtis, p. 380.
- ^ Anger, p. 211.
- ^ Curtis, p. 381.
- ^ Curtis, pp. 383–84.
- ^ Curtis, p. 383.
- ^ Staff writers (30 May 1957). "Film Producer Dead: James Whale Falls into Pool: Directed 'Frankenstein'". The New York Times. p. 33. Retrieved 4 November 2008.
- ^ "Ex-Director James Whale Dies in Pool". Corpus Christi Times. Associated Press. 30 May 1957. p. 14-B.
- ^ "anger211"
- ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 50421-50422). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Curtis, p. 387.
- ^ Curtis, p. 389.
- ^ Bryant, p. 46.
- ^ Russo, pp. 50–51.
- ^ Benshoff, p. 41.
- ^ Morris, Gary (July 1997). "Sexual Subversion: The Bride of Frankenstein". Bright Lights Film Journal (19). Archived from the original on 13 September 2002. Retrieved 7 January 2008.
- ^ Skal, p. 184.
- ^ Russo, p. 50.
- ^ Mislak, Mikayla (1 August 2015). "From Sissies to Secrecy: The Evolution of the Hays Code Queer". Filmic. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
- ^ Skal, p. 185.
- ^ Egremont, Michael, quoted in Skal, p. 189.
- ^ Russo, p. 49.
- ^ Quoted in Curtis, p. 144.
- ^ Curtis, p. 144.
- ^ Curtis, p. 143.
- ^ Worland, p. 66.
- ^ Young, et al., p. 188.
- ^ Curtis, p. 149.
- ^ Worland, p. 163.
- ^ Worland, p. 168.
- ^ Skal, p. 130.
- ^ Quoted in Curtis, p. 364.
- ^ Robertson, p. 126.
- ^ Prawer, p. 28.
- ^ Sarris, p. 187.
- ^ Hartl, John (9 September 1998). "The Seattle Times' Guide To Fall Arts – Movies". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
- ^ Wilson, Benji (15 December 2008). "Ian McKellen: a free man". The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
- ^ "Gods and Monsters | Southwark Playhouse | Theatre and Bar". Southwark Playhouse | Theatre and Bar. 5 February 2015. Archived from the original on 31 January 2018. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ^ Noszlopy, et al., p. 51.
- ^ Shaw, Dan (18 October 2012). "Dudley's James Whale: A life in pictures". Black Country Bugle. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ "One More River (1934)". Turner Classic Movies. 30 January 2012. Archived from the original on 30 January 2012. Retrieved 16 October 2022.
Bibliography
- Anger, Kenneth (1984). Hollywood Babylon II. Dutton.
- Bansak, Edmund G. and Robert Wise (2003). Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1709-9.
- Benshoff, Harry M. (1997). Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-4472-3.
- Bordman, Gerald Martin (1995). American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914–1930. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-509078-0.
- Bryant, Wayne (1997). Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anaïs to Zee. Haworth Press. ISBN 0-7890-0142-X.
- Buehrer, Beverly Bare (1993). Boris Karloff: A Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-27715-X.
- Coleman, Terry (2005). Olivier. Macmillan. ISBN 0-8050-7536-4.
- ISBN 0-571-19285-8.
- Early, Emmett (2003). The War Veteran in Film. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-1471-5.
- Ellis, Reed (1979). A Journey into Darkness: The Art of James Whale's Horror Films. University of Florida.
- ISBN 0-304-32863-4.
- Gifford, Denis (1973) Karloff: The Man, The Monster, The Movies. Film Fan Monthly.
- Glancy, Mark (1999). When Hollywood Loved Britain: The Hollywood "British" Film 1939–1945 Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-4853-2.
- Green, S. J. D. and R. C. Whiting (2002). The Boundaries of the State in Modern Britain. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52222-6.
- Hofler, Robert (2006). The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-1802-1.
- Kelly, Andrew (1997) Cinema and the Great War. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-05203-3.
- Kelly, Andrew (2001) 'All Quiet on the Western Front': The Story of a Film. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-656-5.
- Kemp, Philip (2011) [2004]. "Whale, James (1889–1957)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/57320. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Low, Rachael, Roger Manvell and Jeffrey Richards (2005). History of British Film. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15649-1.
- Noszlopy, George Thomas and Fiona Waterhouse (2005). Public Sculpture of Staffordshire and the Black Country. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-989-4.
- Prawer, Siegbert Salomon (1989). Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80347-X.
- Robertson, Patrick (2001). Film Facts. Watson-Guptill. ISBN 0-8230-7943-0.
- Russo, Vito (1987). The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (revised edition). New York, HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-096132-5.
- Sarris, Andrew (1996). The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80728-9.
- Skal, David J. (1993). The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-024002-0.
- Skal, David J. and Jessica Rains (2008). Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2432-8.
- Whale, J. (July 1919). "Our Life at Holzminden". Wide World Magazine. 43: 314–19.
- Williamson, Audrey (1951). Theatre of two decades. Rockliff.
- Worland, Rick (2007). The Horror Film: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-4051-3901-3.
- Young, Elizabeth. "Here Comes The Bride". Collected in Gelder, Ken (ed.) (2000). The Horror Reader. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-21356-8.
- Young, William H. and Nancy K. Young (2007). The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-33521-4.
External links
- James Whale at IMDb