Igor

So the way this goes is Karloff plays Dr. Gustav Niemann, who is in prison for being sort of a Frankenstein acolyte, trying some of Frankenstein's surgeries and experiments.

And he has a helper there, Daniel, who is played by J. Carol Nash, who's sort of an Igor-type hunchback.

And Something happens, storm, part of the prison disintegrates, and Dr. Neiman escapes.

And they come across a traveling caravan, a show called Professor Lampini's Chamber of Horrors.

You know the flathead, the neck electrodes, the laboratory full of sparking electrical equipment, and of course the cry of, it's alive.

Somewhere in your memory, there's probably also a hunchback named Igor wandering around carrying a brain, although we'll straighten out that particular piece of cultural confusion a little later.

The actual Frankenstein is considerably stranger and sadder than the collection of pop culture memories that grew around it, because beneath all the lightning and the grave robbing is the story of a man who becomes obsessed with creating life and apparently spends no time considering what he's supposed to do with it once he succeeds.

Frankenstein was released by Universal in 1931, the same year the studio had already found enormous success with Dracula.

So, the film's influence is so enormous that nearly a century of sequels, cartoons, costumes, and parodies have created this, I'd say, a more popular version of Frankenstein.

that doesn't actually entirely exist in this movie.

The most obvious example is Henry's assistant, because the man helping him rob graves and steal brains is Fritz, not Igor.

The Universal series eventually does give us an Igor in Son of Frankenstein, where Bela Lugosi plays him.

Bela Lugosi was back in Son of Frankenstein and in a completely off-track role for him.

As Igor, the demented blacksmith, he created a characterization which was a great verbal triumph.

A far cry from the sinister, albeit highly sophisticated, Count Dracula, inhuman vampire, was the cruel, gruff Igor.

Listen now to the well-disguised voice of my friend as he describes how he cheated the hangman's noose and lived.

My name is Igor.

Let me go, Frankenstein.

You see that? They hanged me once, Langstein.

They said...

Yeah, I agree.

Igor, Marty Feldman, his hump keeps changing from one side to the other.

It does.

It goes from one to the other.

Yeah, she became like, what's the guy's name? Dracula's like assistant guy.

Like Igor.

Or Renfrew? Renhold? Yeah,

Renfield.

is Frankenstein's monster.

No, Igor is young Frankenstein.

Oh,