From its confined settings and two hander (three if you count Lynn Redgrave) interchange between ageing James Whale Ian McKellan and yard worker Brendan Fraser, you might think it's theatrical in origin. But Christopher Bram's novel no doubt also provides the flashbacks to Whale the younger, at war, and on set. Had noticed that Fraser's flat head does resemble that of the monster's - thus when he becomes him it seems apt.
Not sure the attempted whatever-you-call-it which Whale does to try and make Clay strangle him is credible, especially as we've had the death by pills signalled early on.
Otherwise it's cohesive and interesting, nicely shot by Stephen M Katz in Panavision. (The BBC copy we had kindly cropped the image to 16x9. Apart from the compression of space this didn't hurt the compositions too much - which is maybe a bad sign. If you can crop your widescreen composition without a noticeable loss of information, maybe you're not framing it as well as you might?)
Rest of cast: Lolita Davidovich, David Dukes (playing film producer David Lewis - they were together till 1952, five years before this takes place), Jay Plotnick (gay fan), Rosalind Ayres (Elsa Lanchester), Jack Betts (Karloff).
His interpretations of his own classic Bride of Frankenstein make for interesting reading.
Condon's screenplay won the Oscar, McKellan and Redgrave were nominated, she also for the BAFTA.
Did not know Cukor was gay...
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