The rise of science

American Film Institute

Film poster for the 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester.

Within the last few decades, news stories about groundbreaking research and discoveries in the areas of stem cells, genetically engineered crops, cloning, organ and limb transplants and the creation of life in test tubes, have enabled the average layman to acquire some familiarity with advances in modern biogenetics. In the late 1990s, the cloned sheep "Dolly" became one of the best known animals in the world, while physicians and recipients of various transplant operations have been frequent guests on television talk shows.

From Louis Washkansky, the first human to receive a heart transplant in a revolutionary operation performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in 1967, to Robert Tools, the recipient of the first self-contained artificial heart in 2001, the realm of possibility for biogenetics has continued to expand. More recently, operations involving such heretofore impossible procedures as hand transplants and the implantation of animal or artificial organs into humans have made headlines.

Yet, while today's more informed general public may marvel at the medical and scientific results, they are also keenly aware of controversies surrounding some of these achievements. The news media, the Internet, religious groups, sociologists, lawyers and politicians have brought the ethical, moral and religious aspects of these advancements to worldwide attention.

American Film Institute

Film poster for the 1933 film The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains.

Such advances and subsequent debates over what is possible versus what is ethically and morally just may seem quite commonplace in the new millennium, but in the early to mid-twentieth century they were still in the realm of remote fantasy. Scientific and medical fiction were just that--fiction. The practical application of biogenetics was still many years in the future.

After scientific and medical advances of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, unrealized advances were at least within the realm of future possibilities. With the introduction of such common medical techniques as blood typing and the use of antiseptics, surgery entered the modern area. Tissue grafts were first performed at the end of the nineteenth century, and operations such as corneal transplants became possibilities in the early the twentieth century. During that era of great advances and hopes, coupled with uncertainty and ethical fears, some of the greatest films about the role of the biogeneticist were produced.

Science on the big screen
In the following sessions, two themes will be explored as they relate to biogenetic research as depicted in popular motion pictures: The good scientist (scientist as god) and the bad scientist (scientist as devil). Within the context of several key films described within each session, the social and moral climate of the era, known science and the development of ideas within standards of the time will be analyzed.

There have been films dramatizing what we now call biogenetics, either overtly or unintentionally, for almost one hundred years. The topic of a doctor/scientist interfering with the natural order was portrayed on the screen almost as soon as popular motion pictures began, somewhat stimulated by a fascination at the time with pure science versus mysticism and the occult.

	Filmography of movies discussed in seminar:
	The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Dir: James Whale Cast: Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester The Devil-Doll (1936) Dir: Tod Browning Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932) Dir: Rouben Mamoulian Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) Dir: Victor Fleming Cast: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner Frankenstein (1931) Dir: James Whale Cast: Colin Clive, Boris Karloff The Invisible Man (1933) Dir: James Whale Cast: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart Island of Lost Souls (1933) Dir: Erle C. Kenton Cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Bela Lugosi

In the 1910s and 1920s, scientists were not often portrayed, and when they were it was either as mad, eccentric or both. In the 1950s and 1960s, with a few notable exceptions, scientific experimentation within motion pictures generally centered on the feared effects of radiation that was unleashed after the development of the atom bomb, or alien invasions that emanated from well-publicized, though unsubstantiated reports of flying saucers. From the 1970s through the early 1990s, dramatized science ranged from eager high school students conducting science experiments gone wrong, to space exploration and computer technology, with the occasional entry into transplants or animation.

The key period for groundbreaking and popular films delving into the area of biogenetics, and the one that will become the basis of this seminar, extended from the early 1930s through the mid-1940s. That period is the richest in terms of motion pictures that dealt with the issue of what would or could happen when science is used to interfere with nature, either for a good purpose, or bad.

For those films based on earlier literary works, such as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, discussion within the two sessions will also focus on some key differences between the original literary works and the motion pictures, analyzing the changes as they relate to the vagaries of motion picture production, contemporary audience reactions, censorship and political and social changes of the time period.

Although early films did not generally include terms like DNA or genetics in the dialogue, what was dramatized can be viewed today as biogenetic research. Modern audiences can relate to these films on an entertainment level, and beyond that, they can also learn a great deal about the era by understanding how the films serve as historical and social commentaries of the time.