Talk:James Whale

Note: The talk page previously at this location contained discussion only of the radio personality James Whale, so I have moved it to the corresponding location. --Paul A 02:19, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whale's Frame of Mind At Time Of Suicide

I tagged the "Suicide" section requesting citations of credible sources that give insight into Whale's frame of mind at the time of his suicide. I am sure most of his reasons for being depressed and suicidal (loneliness, ill health, memory problems) are perfectly true, but I do wonder about the statement that "he had trouble putting the war [World War One] behind him". Without any citations by biographers, one might be tempted to believe the Wiki article's source for believing he had troubling memories about WWI was the movie "Gods and Monsters", which portrays him remembering the war in his last days. Since "Gods and Monsters" is a partially fictionalized depiction of Whale's last days, these scenes cannot be taken as factual without some other verification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmyers1976 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC improvements

Hollywood section:
Paragraph 1:

• An introduction to Whale's start as a director
• An explanation of the studio systems, how they worked, and how directors (and perhaps actors) worked within them.
• Brief description of Whale's first films.
• Move the first introduction of Lewis unless you completely explain Lewis' reason for being introduced, such as "It was at around this time that Whale met David Lewis, with whom Whale would share his life for xx years".

Paragraph 2:

• More of his experience, focusing on the reception of his films, how they were both changed by and changing Hollywood, if that information is accessible.
• Don't include tidbits about films unless the factoids of his films are notable. For instance: "Colin Clive reprisied his role as Stanhope,[28] and David Manners was cast as Raleigh.[29] Filming got underway on 6 December 1929[30] and wrapped on 22 January 1930.[31] Journey's End was released in Great Britain on 14 April and in the United States on 15 April." The release dates aren't really notable, and it's not really clear why Clive and Stanhope's roles are either.
• What about something like, "Between 1930 and 1936, Whale made xx movies for Paramount studios. These include the commercially successful and critically acclaimed titles A, B, C, and D... However, titles X, Y, and Z... were considered flops." I'm coming back to these overarching themes. What was the Big Idea in Whale's life during this time? What was he concerned with? Your prose needs to focus on this theme. If there are more, such as professional achievement, continued success, artistic expression, or whatever, that's what needs to be the focus.
• If there are reasons to explain the plot outlines of the films, such as to illustrate the topics that Whale was drawn to, that should be done. But my concern is that there is a lot of detail in this section that should be focused.

Paragraph 3

• Whale's starting to define the horror genre with Frankenstein and some of the films that followed. Focus on how these films started to shape what was to follow. Why were they so popular? What did Whale do that specifically made his individual mark on film making?

If I'm talking out of my rear end here and you completely disagree or have no idea what I'm going on about, let me know. --Moni3 (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Lifelong hatred of Germany?

From footnote #11, Ella Taylor:

"Whale's homosexuality must in part have fed his sympathy for marginalized figures. But it was hardly the whole story, for the director was a man of complex affiliations. Despite the lifelong hatred he conceived for Germany while serving there as a prisoner of war during World War I (and where he put on the play that launched his London stage career), Whale was profoundly influenced both by German Expressionism and by the urbane wit of Ernst Lubitsch. Ravenous for absolute control, the unhinged scientists in The Invisible Man and the Frankenstein movies eerily prefigure and mock the Nazi dream of omniscience, omnipotence and eternal youth."

The above quotation is not exactly a basis for claiming a lifelong hatred for anything. Ella Taylor may be a fine journalist but she is hardly Whale's biographer. This sounds more like creative lit-crit interpretive speak than factual anything. I suggest removing the lifelong hatred for Germany bit. Dynasteria (talk) 04:46, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Read the following article. It throws the assertion into doubt: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/things-to-do/james-whale-exhibition-charts-the-life-384719 Dynasteria (talk) 04:59, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

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Non sequitur

He became increasingly disenchanted with his association with horror, and many of his non-horror films have fallen into obscurity.

This part of the lede does not strictly make sense, and does not seem to be represented in the main article either. Valetude (talk) 13:04, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. The two halves of the sentence are unconnected. Even if both halves are independently valid, they still need to be sourced. I'm sure there's something behind this, but unless somebody is able to come up with a reliable and clear source (and reword accordingly), I think the sentence should simply be deleted. GrindtXX (talk) 14:17, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

World War I

I'm a bit dubious about the statement "Although Whale had little interest in the politics behind the war, he realized that conscription was inevitable so he voluntarily enlisted just before it was introduced ...". It reads a bit too much like post-Vietnam rationalization. I don't think many Brits at the time had much "interest in the politics": they were either enthusiastic patriots, keen to do their bit; or less jingoistic, but still broadly supportive of the war effort; or, in a minority of cases, outright pacifists. I suspect Whale fell somewhere in the middle category. The implication seems to be that he only signed up in order to gain the (very minor) benefit of being a volunteer rather than a conscript: do we have any evidence for that? Can anyone clarify what Curtis or any of the other biographers actually says about this? GrindtXX (talk) 19:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)