Igor Finally Gets his Story Told!

Daniel Radcliffe as Igor and James McAvoy as Victor Frankenstein on set

A big budget retelling of the Frankenstein story has finished shooting and will be showing in theaters  November 25th (in the US) from 20^th Century Fox. The release date was recently pushed back from Halloween to Thanksgiving, switched with a Ridley Scott film, “Martian”. The project originated in 2011 and began filming at the end of 2013. The film stars James McAvoy as the titular Dr. Victor Frankenstein and Daniel Radcliffe as his assistant Igor, with Jessica Browne Findley from Downton Abbey as Lorelei. This version of the story from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” takes a revisionist twist, telling the tale of obsession and hubris from the point of view of Dr. Frankenstein’s friend and assistant, there to observe his downfall. The movie was originally titled just “Frankenstein”, but in a crowded field of like projects in advance of the 200^th Anniversary of the publishing in the novel in 1818, they went with a more specific Victor Frankenstein.

The story, (20^th Century-Fox official synopsis) tells “when Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his trusted assistant Igor go too far in their noble attempts to aid humanity, Victor’s obsession turns to madness. He then unleashes his final creation — a monstrous figure that holds unimaginable terror for anyone its path”. Some photo images from the production have been released of the actors on the set, but the monster creation has yet to make an appearance. See Trailer

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein novel did not have an assistant character named Igor, and Victor Frankenstein was not really a doctor, but a student at Ingolstadt University. The idea of an Igor assistant first appeared in Universal’s “Son of Frankenstein” movie, with Bela Lugosi playing a character name Ygor, with a hunched back. Universal needed something for their other horror star to do in the Frankenstein series, and Bela went on to play the monster as well, later. Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein” riffed off the assistant, now named “Igor” as a hunchback with a shifting hump, played hilariously by Marty Feldman, with his shifting eye to go with it.

I doubt there was any idea to give Daniel Radcliffe a humped back, and all images suggest a more urbane young gentleman, rather than an accented flunky, with the intent to give the age old, oft-told horror story the more recent “Sherlock Holmes” treatment, as a buddy movie of young idealistic scientist gone mad. Filming locations were all in the UK, and the characters suggest the heroes spend a good deal of time in the social club and theatrical world, between carousing and body parts hunting, so the German and Swiss settings of the novel appear changed to early 19^th Century England. The filming locations included the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Manchester Town Hall and Albert Square in Manchester, Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeen and Hatfield House in Hertfordshire

The script for Victor Frankenstein was written by Max Landis who came to the fore with the high budget “found footage” effect film “Chronicle” and is directed by Scottish director Paul McGuigan, known for “Lucky Number Sleven” and “Wicker Park” but has mostly been directing television, notably the “Sherlock” series and “Devious Maids”. The Victor Frankenstein film also features actors Andrew Scott and Mark Gatiss from the “Sherlock” tv series, with Callum Turner, Freddie Fox and Louise Brealey in a large cast.