Product: Gods and Monsters (1998)
Rating: 5.0
Sir Ian in his best role ever
To be sure, there are a few clunky moments in "Gods and Monsters," a pretty low budget piece of historical fiction about the final days of Hollywood's legendary director of horror, James Whale. The clunky moments usually have Brendan Fraser in them. He's the new "yard man," Clayton Boone, at James Whale's estate, and he agrees to pose for Whale, played to a phosphorescent brilliance by Ian McKellen, because Whale tells Boone that his face has a remarkable architecture! Sure. It's McKellen at his horny old codger best.While Boone poses, Whale reminisces about everything from the trench Warfare of WWI where he was an officer to the days on the set of "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frakenstein." He includes tidbits about other Hollywood directors of the 1930's, particularly George Cukor and his wild Sunday pool parties to which only men where invited. Whale had been open about his homosexuality, and it's hinted that his openness may have been his undoing in hypocritical "Tinsel Town." The yard boy only "gets" Whale's sexual orientation when the loyal housemaid of twenty years tells Boon, "Mr. Whale is a bugger." Oh, says Boon, an ex-Marine: "A homo!" (Since the movie is set in 1957, the word "Gay" didn't exist.) I defy you to recognize Lynn Redgrave as the Hungarian housekeeper. She, like Ian, plays her part extraordinarily well. Two of Britian's greatest actors in the same film is reason enough to own this film.Since Whale has had a stroke, memories flood over him uncontrollably and he doesn't always take his medication that would tone these flashes down because it reduces the wit and brilliance that were his life-long trademark. Nonetheless, the superb screenplay and the savvy direction of Bill Condon, allow McKellen, a trained Shakesperian, to show why he is, without exception, the world's finest actor.In the greatest scene I may have ever watched in film, Whale and Boone go to a Cukor party where Princess Margaret is being feted. Cukor is standing by the princess in the receiving line, and Whale, impeccably dressed, introduces the obviously out-of-his-element yard boy to the princess. There is some tension between the two old directors, and Whale snaps that tension by declaring: "Yes. Clayton hasn't met many princess, but he knows a great many Queens."In the film's climactic moment, Boone agrees to pose fully nude for Whale and what ensues is a brilliant moment that is erotic yet as sad-as-sad-could-ever-be.Whale, in my interpretation of the film, is the outcast just as his creation, Frankenstein, was an outcast looking for love and companionship. He doesn't find love, but Clayton Boone provided companionship.This is a truly great film.