Imagining Frankenstein Director's Last Days
Based on Christopher Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, Gods and Monsters imagines the final days of legendary Frankenstein director James Whale. Gods and Monsters opens just before Whale 's death in 1957 with Whale struggling to recover from a stroke.

Whale, played here by Ian McKellen in a bravura, Oscar-nominated performance that ranges from the playful to the poignant, has been left with his faculties mostly intact, but he suffers from blinding headaches and has no control over memories that flood over him, effectively blurring the line between past and present. Watching over him, serving as family, friend, and protector is his maid, the morally erect Hannah (Lynn Redgrave).

Into this already offbeat household comes the new yardman Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser). The gay elderly film director and the straight former Marine bond over their shared outsider status and unresolved conflicts with their fathers. And in the tall, well built Boone, Whale catches a glimpse of his old friend, Frankenstein's monster.

Director/screenwriter Bill Condon tells Whale's story through flashbacks triggered by his memory lapses, covering the major events of Whale's life: his childhood in the slums of England, his service in the trenches during World War I, and the making of perhaps Whale's finest horror film. The Bride of Frankenstein. The Bride of Frankenstein scenes are especially effective, blending together actual footage from that movie with stunningly recreated scenes featuring McKellen (looking much younger) taking his cast through their paces. Vivid dream sequences that alternate with the flashbacks and the sunny Technicolor world of Whale's ebbing present complete the picture of a fraying life.

Condon effectively blends tragedy and comedy in telling the story of a man determined to direct his own outcome, his artist's instincts with him until the end. McKellen and the underrated Fraser work marvelously together, playing off and up their differences, lending a prickly, humorous, touching depth to Whale and Boone's difficult friendship.

DVD Extras: An Enlightening Commentary and A Tantalizing Glimpse at Hollywood
The highlights among the extra features of the Gods and Monsters DVD are Condon's audio commentary and David J. Skal's 30-minute documentary The World of Gods and Monsters: A Journey with James Whale. Condon admits at the start of his commentary that he himself is a DVD collector, so he has definite ideas about what should go into an audio commentary. Condon's enthusiasm for his film fairly bubbles over and his discussion is wide-ranging: what went into making the film, his difficulties with finding a distributor, his actors' performances, Whale and his oeuvre, Whale's era in Hollywood, contemporary gay film, and so on. In between it all, he tries to point out things in the movie that the viewer might have missed. While he crams in so much information that he occasionally gets behind the action in the film (though he always apologizes when he does), Bill Condon is one director who definitely understands that the purpose of these commentaries is to both enlighten and entertain. His is a terrific commentary.

The World of Gods and Monsters similarly attempts to enlighten and entertain. Narrated by that cuddly Liverpudlian horror maven (and Gods and Monsters' executive producer) Clive Barker, this documentary looks at both Whale and his career, and the making of Gods and Monsters. With participation from Whale's friend, director Curtis Harrington, and former leading lady Gloria Stuart, and featuring Condon and the cast of Gods and Monsters, The World of Gods and Monsters offers a tantalizing glimpse at both old and new Hollywood.

Beyond the extra material, Gods and Monsters is an anamorphic widescreen dual layer disc in Dolby Digital Surround Sound, that looks and sounds great with a crisp, clear transfer.