Dwight Frye: Film History Series

Photographer Unknown, “Dwight Frye”, circa 1930s, Studio Photo, Gelatin Silver Print, Universal Pictures, Private Collection

Born in the central Kansas city of Salina in February of 1899, Dwight Frye was an American stage and screen actor who appeared in over sixty films during his career.

Born into the farming family of Charles Fry and Ella Dodd, a deeply devout member of the Christian Scientist church, Dwight Frye at an early age relocated with his family to Denver, Colorado where he spent his formative years. Already showing signs as a career musician, Frye gave his first solo recital on the piano at the age of fifteen. However by his senior high school year, he had developed a love for the theater and made the decision to pursue acting.

While working as a secretary in a Denver business firm, Frye spent his free time at the acting academy founded by stage and film actress Margaret Fealy. Recognized for his acting skill, he joined the Denham Stock Company and performed primarily in comedic and musical productions. Frye began touring with the company as its juvenile lead; however he soon became an actor much in demand. In 1918 during the influenza outbreak, Frye performed with the Woodward Players at theaters in Spokane, Washington where he was lauded as the local celebrity.

Dwight Frye relocated to New York City to seek success on its Broadway theater circuit. He played a romantic role in Hubert Osborne’s 1923 adaptation of Julian Street’s novel “Rita Coventry” at the Bijou Theatre. In 1924, Frye received recognition for his role in the production of Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” at the Princess Theatre. This was followed by the role of Melville Tuttle in Patrick Kearney’s 1925 three-act play “A Man’s Man” at the 52nd Street Theatre.

Frye’s acting career in Hollywood began with several uncredited roles in films produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers Pictures, and Fox Film Company between 1926 and 1930. With the advent of sound films, he became known for his portrayal of villains and unbalanced characters. Frye’s first role of note was the madman R. M. Renfield in Tod Browning’s 1931 “Dracula”, a Garrett Fort adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel for Universal Pictures.

In the 1930s, Dwight Frye had supporting roles within thirty-eight movies; he alternated his characters between horror, drama, adventure, and crime films. In 1931, Frye performed two of his better-known roles: Fritz, the hunchbacked assistant in James Whale’s “Frankenstein” for Universal Pictures, and gunman Wilmer Cook in Roy Del Ruth’s directorial film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon”. Frye also portrayed the suspected killer in “The Vampire Bat” and a reporter in “The Invisible Man”, both 1933 Universal Pictures productions. He later took the role of Dr. Thomas, playing opposite Erich von Stroheim’s Dr. Crespi, in John H. Auer’s 1935 horror film “The Crime of Dr. Crespi” produced by Liberty Pictures.

In 1935, Frye returned to Universal Pictures to take the supporting role of Karl in what became another Universal Pictures classic, James Whale’s “The Bride of Frankenstein”. Other films in the 1930s included two with James Cagney: the 1930 crime drama “The Doorway to Hell” and the role of Mr. Easton in the 1937 musical “Something to Sing About”. Other films include the 1937 action movie “Sea Devils”, the 1938 crime films “Invisible Enemies” and “The Night Hawk”, the 1938 South Seas adventure film “Sinners in Paradise”, and director James Whale’s 1939 historical drama “The Man in the Iron Mask”.

In the early 1940s, Dwight Frye performed in both film roles and stage productions that ranged from comedies to musicals; he also made an appearance in a Broadway stage production of “Dracula” with Bela Lugosi. In the early stages of World War II, Frye made a contribution to the war effort by working at night as a tool designer for the Lockheed Aircraft Company.

In the early 1940s, American screenwriter and producer Lamar Trotti was working on a screen play for a biopic about Woodrow Wilson, aided by the assistance of Wilson’s daughter Eleanor and journalist Ray Stannard Baker. After the role of President Wilson was cast, Frye was chosen for the role of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. A few days before his scheduled filming, Dwight Frye died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four on the seventh of November in 1943. His funeral service was held at the Utter-McKinley Mortuary and his body was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Notes: Produced by 20th Century-Fox, the 1944 “Wilson” received critical acclaim and earned ten nominations at the 17th Academy Awards, wining five including Best Writing and Original Screenplay.

Live Journal, a community publishing platform, has an excellent memorial article on Dwight Frye at its site: https://vintage-gold.livejournal.com/1366.html

Tales from the Border has a 2015 article entitled “What a Character! Blogathon: The Ballad of Dwight Frye” that has information not available on other sites: https://talesfromtheborder.com/2015/11/21/what-a-character-blogathon-the-ballad-of-dwight-frye/

Top Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Flandrin”, 1933, “The Circus Queen Murder”, Director Roy William Neill, Cinematography Joseph H. August, Columbia Pictures

Second Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Renfield”, 1931, “Dracula”, Director Tod Browning, Cinematography Karl Freund, Universal Pictures

Third Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Jessop”, 1931, “The Black Camel” (Charlie Chan Series), Director Hamilton MacFadden, Cinematography Joseph August and Daniel B. Clark, Fox Film Corporation

Bottom Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Wilmer Cook”, 1931, “The Maltese Falcon”, Director Roy Del Ruth, Cinematography William Rees, Warner Brothers Pictures

Tod Browning, “The Mystic”: Film History Series

Ira H. Morgan, “Actress Aileen Pringle as Zara”, Todd Browning’s 1925 silent “The Mystic”, Costume by Roman Petrovich Tyrtov (aka Erté)

“The Mystic” was a 1925 silent drama film directed by Tod Browning for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The script was co-written by Browning and Waldemar Young, who over the course of his career wrote screenplays for over eighty films. The film was produced by Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg who, two years before, had finished production on a drama film starring Lon Chaney, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. Although Chaney was Browning’s immediate choice for the role of Michael Nash, he was unable to hire Chaney for “The Mystic” due to scheduling issues.

“The Mystic” starred Aileen Pringle, a stage and film actress who had worked previously with Rudolph Valentino in the 1920 “Stolen Moments” and with Conrad Nagel in the 1924 adaptation of Elinor Glyn’s romance novel “Three Weeks”. Her co-star was Conway Tearle, who began his career as a stage actor in London and later on Broadway. Over his thirty-six year career, he appeared in over ninety films and, at one point, was thought to be the highest-paid actor in America.

The cinematography was done by Ira H. Morgan who later successfully transitioned from silent to sound films. He worked extensively over his long career with major studios including Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Morgan’s credits included Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, George W. Hill’s “Tell It to the Marines”, Sam Katzman’s East Side Kids “Bowery Champs” and the Screen Gems television series “The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin”, among others.

The gowns in “The Mystic”, worn by Aileen Pringle in her role of the gypsy Zara, were created by the well-known Russian-born French artist and designer Roman de Tirtoff, known to the world as Erté. Brought to the United States by Louis B. Mayer, Erté first designed the sets and costumes for the 1925 silent film “Paris”. He later did designs for such MGM silent films as “Ben-Hur”, “The Comedian” and “Dance Madness”, as well as William Randolph Hearst’s 1920 silent drama “The Restless Sex”.

Released in September of 1925, one print of “The Mystic” has survived. It has a running time of seventy minutes and has English inter-titles. It is available as a web file at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mystic_(1925)_by_Tod_Browning.webm

Bottom Insert Image: Ira H. Morgan, “Aileen Pringle and Conway Tearle”, 1925, Film Still from “The Mystic”, Director Tod Browning, MGM

Calender: February 14

A Year: Day to Day Men: 14th of February

Sports Attire

On February 14, 1931, the film “Dracula” directed by Tod Browning is released throughout the United States.

“Dracula”, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, was produced by Universal Studios and is based on the 1924 stage play “Dracula” written by Hamilton Deane and John L Balderston. The play was based loosely on the novel by Bram Stoker.

Bram Stoker’s novel had already been filmed without permission as “Nosferatu” in 1922 by the German expressionist film maker F.W. Murnau. Bram Stoker’s widow sued for plagiarism and copyright infringement, and the courts decided in her favor, essentially ordering that all prints of “Nosferatu” be destroyed. Enthusiastic young Hollywood producer Carl Laemmie, Jr. also saw the box office potential in Stoker’s gothic chiller, and he legally acquired the novel’s film rights.

Decision on casting the title role proved problematic. Initially, Laemmle was not at all interested in Lugosi, in spite of good reviews for his stage portrayal. Lugosi had played the role on Broadway, and to his good fortune, happened to be in Los Angeles with a touring company of the play when the film was being cast. Against the tide of studio opinion, Lugosi lobbied hard and ultimately won the executives over, thanks in part to him accepting a paltry $500 per week salary for seven weeks of work.

Due to the limitations of adding a musical score to a film’s soundtrack during 1930 and 1931, no score had ever been composed specifically for the film. The music heard during the opening credits, an excerpt from Act II of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was re-used in 1932 for another Universal horror film, “The Mummy”. During the theatre scene where Dracula meets Dr. Seward, Harker, Mina and Lucy, the end of the overture to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Numberg can also be heard.

Today, “Dracula” is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. It was ranked 79th on Bravo’s countdown of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi’s portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula.