DIRECTOR'S APPROACH; FILMMAKER WHALE'S ART AND LIFE EXPLORED IN `GODS AND MONSTERS'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

The surprise critical hit of the season is, ironically, a movie about a filmmaker who's never been properly appreciated.

``Gods and Monsters,'' an adaptation of Christopher Bram's novel ``Father of Frankenstein,'' is a fictionalized account of the last days of James Whale. One of the most influential directors in Hollywood history, Whale set the pattern for all horror films to come with the 1931 Universal production of ``Frankenstein.''

He made three other outstanding fright films - ``Bride of Frankenstein,'' ``The Old Dark House'' and ``The Invisible Man'' - that were marvels of expressionistic composition, wry wit and bizarre imagination. And like ``Frankenstein'' but unlike the majority of '30s films, they remain entertaining viewing today.

Permitted an unusual amount of creative freedom by Universal's production chief Carl Laemmle Jr., Whale also made the first, still impressive screen versions of the musical ``Show Boat,'' the sublimely soapy ``Waterloo Bridge,'' and the Dumas swashbuckler ``The Man in the Iron Mask,'' among other fine films.

But a change in studio ownership led to increased interference with his work. So the English-born Whale, who made a killing in real estate, retired comfortably in the early 1940s. By 1957, when his fully clothed body was found in the pool at his Pacific Palisades home, Whale was all but forgotten in film circles, though the monster he'd brought to life had attained a kind of pop-culture immortality.

Different theories

Those who did know Whale at the time of his death suspected foul play, that perhaps the openly gay director died at the hands of some angry lover or hustler.

``Gods and Monsters,'' which was adapted and directed by Bill Condon, proposes a different theory. Starring Sir Ian McKellen, in a performance many feel deserves an Oscar nomination, and Brendan Fraser, as Whale's hulking, handsome and entirely heterosexual gardener Clayton Boone, the film does suggest that Whale's death was connected to an odd relationship - but in a way that had nothing to do with sex or violence.

``The novel was just so rich thematically,'' says Condon, who directed the films ``Sister, Sister'' and ``Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh.'' ``It went beyond anything parochial about the story of a gay man. And it seemed like it would be an amazing opportunity to make a movie about Whale but, also, a tribute to what he did in movies. We added a lot of Whale touches as we went along.''

Filmed mostly in the flatly lit, wide-screen Technicolor that was popular at the time of Whale's death, the film also incorporates gothically staged flashback shards (the aftereffects of a stroke cause Whale to lose control of his memory, among other capabilities, throughout the story), bits from his movies and dead-on re-creations of '30s Hollywood film sets. Gradually, Condon and his director of photography Stephen M. Katz merge the widely divergent styles together as Whale and Boone's unlikely, sometimes difficult friendship deepens, and the film's themes interweave and crystalize.

Generations of horror

And what, exactly, are those themes? Executive producer Clive Barker, the horror writer and sometime filmmaker (``Hellraiser,'' ``Nightbreed'') who'd first worked with Condon on the ``Candyman'' thriller, agrees with the director that ``Gods and Monsters'' is more than just a tribute to a fellow gay frightmeister.

``I've long said that Whale was the great, unsung master,'' says Barker. ``And here was the chance to tell his story, albeit a sad slice of his life. But it has all of my favorite themes in it: mortality, the failure of flesh and the `Is it a man, is it a monster?' question. That's a big theme in my stuff: At what point does the man become monstrous and the monster become human?

``It's a wonderful two-way street in the movie. Whale is obviously reconfiguring Clayton in his imagination as the monster, but at the same time Clayton is revealing his own human complexity. It's wonderfully ambiguous.''

McKellen, too, brought much of his own experience to the role. But he also strove to capture Whale's personality as accurately as possible.

``Both Ian and I were concerned about staying true to the real person,'' Condon explains. ``Luckily, there are enough people we could talk to who knew him. They would all mention immediately Whale's kindness, his gentleness and generosity, and how he never took himself too seriously. We made adjustments just based on that.''

At least one informed viewer confirms that that side, at least, of a beloved former collaborator was captured perfectly. ``Titanic's'' Gloria Stuart, who after decades in retirement was nominated for an Academy Award this year, appeared in three Whale films, ``The Old Dark House,'' ``Invisible Man'' and ``The Kiss Before the Mirror.''

``It's a sort of cliche phrase, but the thing about James his movies express the most is his mordant wit,'' says Stuart. ``He was extremely witty, sharp and quick - (he) could cut you off at the pass with a word. It's not an affectionate attribute; he wasn't always amusing, he was cutting, and there isn't very much of that in the film.

``On the other hand, he was very kind, very considerate with me, and the film captures that. I loved him. I was not aware of his homosexuality at that time - it wouldn't have made any difference to me anyway, it never has - so that had no bearing on my affection for him. I think Bill Condon has done a very tasteful job with that.''

Some critics say too tasteful, to the director's amusement.

``There have been a few gay people who read it as pat that Clayton stays straight throughout the film,'' Condon says. ``Well, the fact is that he is straight; there is nothing interesting about reading this thing like, if it was 20 years later, they'd be in the sack together. They just don't want to believe that he's completely straight - and that's something that, from the straight point of view, can be nettlesome at best. It certainly is for Clayton in the movie.

``The common ground for these two is something so much more basic than sexuality. It's a recognition that they're both outcasts in some way, and that they've come to each other at a moment in time when they both need to be listened to and loved. The fact that they can overcome their vast differences and extend that to each other is what makes the story go beyond.''

Whale renaissance

With Stuart's comeback, James Curtis' new, nonfictionalized biography of Whale hitting bookstores, a collection of Universal's classic horror films touring the country (they hit the Nuart in West L.A. starting Dec. 4) and ``Gods and Monsters'' in circulation, Condon hopes that Whale is now finally taking his proper place in the cinematic pantheon.

A place that the ever-ironic Englishman would doubtless find amusing.

``I can't imagine what he would make of all this, 40 years after being completely obscure and forgotten,'' Condon says. ``But because his films so fully reflect his personality and his take on the world, because they are so odd and so out there, I think that's what keeps them so fresh.''

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Photo

Photo: Ian McKellen, left, as influential movie director James Whale (responsible for 1931's ``Frankenstein,'' ``The Invisible Man'' and other films), grows closer to Brendan Fraser's gardener in ``Gods and Monsters.''