| | Gary Westfahl's Bio-Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film: Boris Karloff |
 | | As the story goes, James WHALE decided to cast Karloff as the monster in Frankenstein because he saw a look of suffering in his eyes; and certainly, the genius of his performance in that film was that the monster was both genuinely horrifying and easy to sympathize with. |
 | | But with the monster firmly suspended between the inhuman and the human, there was no way to further develop the character, which is why that film for the first time shifts its primary attention to the other characters. |
 | | The decline of the monster in later films is typically, and correctly, explained by the fact that Karloff abandoned the role to other, lesser performers; but part of the reason the monster became little more than a colorful prop also was, paradoxically, Karloff's original devotion to the integrity of its divided character. |
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