Monsters, Mobs, and the Law: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

It's Spooky season! Tune in for analysis of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, with grave robbing, police led mobs, conspiracy to commit suicide, attempted murder, and domestic terrorism. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Spooky Season Setup
• 0:22 Crossover Cinema’s Legal Sandbox
• 0:37 Grave Robbing Then and Now
• 2:22 Procedure at the Crypt
• 4:16 Mobs, Policing, and Due Process
• 8:23 Riot, Unlawful Assembly, and Authority
• 9:49 Chasing the Wolf: Medical Ethics
• 12:33 Assisted Death vs. Suicide Laws
• 14:24 Murder, Conspiracy, and No Fiduciary Duty

Transcript

Josh Gilliland: 0:05

Hello everyone, it is October and thus spooky season. It gives us an opportunity to look at classic horror movies from the 20th century. First up is Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. This was the first time movie characters had a crossover event in a connected universe. The film has brought together many legal issues that lawyers have enjoyed and howled at for decades. First up is the issue of grave robbing. And for those not familiar with The Wolfman, it's a movie that was made in the early 1940s, so uh spoilers ahead if you are not caught up with The Wolfman. So Lawrence Talbot was dead at the end of the first movie, put down by his own father. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman begins with two men who entered the Talbot family tomb and opened Lawrence's crypt four years after his death to steal off of Larry's corpse cash, a ring, and a watch off of his body. This is the literal definition of grave robbing, but there are some historical twists. Nineteenth century cases pertaining to grave robbing centered on the removal of a body with the purpose of selling the remains for medical experimentation. In the case of Larry Talbot, the robbers clearly trespassed into the crypt with the intention of committing a crime, but it would not be the ancient view of grave robbing. These older laws would clearly prohibit the conduct by any of the doctor Frankensteins who dug up body for medical experiments in the other universal monster movies. Cause if you watch the original Frankenstein, it's one of the doctors, and then we're dealing with like brothers taking place. It's it's weird. So it goes like father, son, son. A lot there. But that we'll talk about that another time. Modern laws clearly prohibit the conduct of the men who tried to rob a dead body. Idaho prohibits the desecration of a place of burial. Entering the tomb and opening the crypt would qualify as desecrating the grave of Lawrence Talbot. Nevada specifically includes that anyone who removes an article interned with a body is guilty of a felony. Talbot's watch, ring, and cash were clearly interned uh with the intention of its staying with his corpse, as those items were buried with him. Which I get the watch and ring. I I understand that. Burying someone with cash seems a little weird, unless you're expecting them to come back. Like this isn't like they need to pay the boatman to cross the river into the underworld. It's it's just weird. However, the two grave robbers do not get arrested and prosecuted, uh, but they do suffer extrajudicial punishment from a reanimated corpse that turns into a wolf. Fun observation later in the film, when the doctor and uh police officer from a neighboring town go and visit the crypt to find out if it indeed contains the corpse of Larry Talbot, they do find the body of one of the grave robbers. And the police chief makes mention of don't touch it, it's evidence. Which is nice to actually see some semblance of criminal procedure taking place, even though it's before an era of rubber gloves and chalk outlines and all the other elements that we're used to in police procedurals. Police-led mobs are bad for society. So let's jump to the village from Frankenstein. We see a distraught father who's carrying the body of his dead daughter killed by the wolf man to the town square, and the public's following him, very similar to the father of Little Maria following that father with the corpse of Little Maria in the original Frankenstein. This is not how things should should operate, because that automatically enrages people, you know, that a police investigation should be done to ensure justice takes place, not an angry mob running through the village and countryside. So Vasick, the dad, uh, goes through the town square, and the public response was to form a mob led by the chief of police. The angry mob quickly found Malva, the uh gypsy, who is racially profiled as a gypsy, and she was told to speak up old witch, and then is thrown in a jail cell for an extended period of time. So the idea of a probable cause, or appearing before a magistrate to have charges read against her, any semblance of the Fourth Amendment is out the window. She's held indefinitely. The angry villagers start chasing after the wolf man, which at best would be an unlawful assembly, which is when two or more people do an unlawful act or do a lawful act in a violent, boisterous, or tumultuous manner. Such assembly is an unlawful assembly. That's California Penal Code Section 407. The plausible argument for unlawful assembly is the villagers were seeking a dangerous animal that killed a human being, yet we're doing so in a violent manner. The villagers pursuing the wolf man could arguably be a riot, which is when there is an use of force or violence, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use force or violence if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by two or more persons acting together and without authority of law, is a riot, and that's California Penal Code Section 404. There is an argument that the villagers were acting under the authority of the police. Moreover, in times of public calamity, a governor could call for volunteers to act in an unorganized militia. There is a colorable but not strong argument that the mayor did call for volunteers, and the villagers acted as an unorganized militia in response to the public calamity of a wolf that killed a girl and thus was now stalking villagers. There are multiple instances of riots being urged, and those calling for a riot could be prosecuted, and that's California Penal Code Section 404.6. Moreover, when there are two or more people who make an attempt to riot, if they had actually committed the act, they could be prosecuted for committing a rout. And that's California Penal Code Section 406. And actually, the crimes of urging riot and rout were committed in a town bar by individuals drinking alcohol. So, like this is not informed decision making. This is angry people at a bar who decide, let's go out and kill whatever is out in the woods, which is not the best decision-making process. Let's talk about medical ethics. So early in the film, when Larry Talbot's uh awakened in a hospital far from home, he's being treated by a doctor named Mannering. Now, this doctor chases down Larry Talbot across Europe by looking at newspaper reports of people killed by a large animal. Dr. Mannering confronts Larry Talbot at the new wine festival in this European town. And through a chain of events, Dr. Mannering agreed to help the villagers by killing Frankenstein's creature with science. And after reviewing the diary of Dr. Frankenstein, Mannering agreed to help Larry Talbot commit suicide. There's a lot of medical ethics at play here, because this is super problematic for any doctor. The Hippocratic Oath states do no harm and that a doctor would not administer a poison to anyone who asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. And that's from the Hippocratic Oath that's quoted in case law and a variety of other sources. Medical ethics states that doctors participating in state-ordered executions violate their duties as doctors. In the case of Dr. Mannering, this is especially problematic because he is helping Talbot kill himself and a promise to kill Frankenstein's creature. That's two different conspiracies at play. Now, by way of comparison, California has an end-of-life law that allows a person with a terminal illness who has mental capacity to request a prescription for them to self-administer for an aid in dying drug if they meet specific residency requirements. Residency requirements aside, Talbot does not meet the requirement of having a terminal disease. If anything, the curse of the werewolf brought Talbot back from the dead, so it's difficult to call it a terminal illness if you can't die. Turning into a werewolf is a horrible physical condition, but not one that could be called terminal. Now, California has had a law in the book since 2019 that makes it a felony to deliberately aid, advise, or encourage another to commit suicide. And that's California Penal Code Section 401. Dr. Mannering, Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, and Malva all aided in Talbot's goal to commit suicide. While the plan was not successful, Dr. Mannering violated medical ethics and engaged in conduct that would be a felony. The issue of Dr. Frankenstein's creature is more black and white. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice aforethought, and that's California Penal Code Section 187. Draining all of the life out of the creature would have been murder if Dr. Mannering had gone through with it. Instead, the doctor could not risk resist going all mad scientist and opted to make the creature stronger because he wanted to see what it'd be like. Now some might wonder, like, hey, didn't the doctor have a fiduciary duty to those in this joint venture to r kill the creature? And the answer is no, that's not a joint venture, that's a conspiracy. A joint venture could be going out to find Dr. Frankenstein's diary. Having found it, and you decide to re-end somebody's life, that's now a conspiracy to commit murder. You have no fiduciary duties to each other because that goes against public policy, because we don't want people to have conspiracies to commit murder and then start suing each other when they don't try murdering someone. No, that goes against public policy. Now let's go back to the distraugd, who spends most of the movie trying to get others to agree with him to go out and kill the creature and all of those associated with the wolf man. So Vazik sought revenge on the Doctor, Talbot, the Baroness, Melva, and the creature, because his daughter died. His logic is not based on reason, but prejudice. In order to kill everyone at Castle Frankenstein, the distraught father decided to blow up the dam that provided hydroelectric power to the castle and flood the area. He tries to recruit others naturally at the bar, including the mayor, to blow up the dam. Domestic terrorism is any act that is dangerous to human life that is a violation of the law. Blowing up dams is not like illegal parking. Society cannot survive when individuals leverage self-help means for their grievances. Blowing up a dam to murder multiple people is a reckless action that could endanger the lives of everyone in town. While the death of Vazic's daughter is tragic, murdering multiple people would not bring her back. This is eye for the eye justice, and at the end of the day everyone ends up blind. Because blowing up the dam, what if you take out the town? And now you've killed other people and you have more people seeking revenge. It's it's just bad policy because it's based on revenge, not one of thoughtfulness. Frankenstein meets the wolf man. It's fun. And it's not a versus movie. It's the two meet. They they could have had a barbecue, hung out, had drinks, because both know what it's like to be chased by an angry um r mob trying to kill them. So on one level, it's like, do will these two get along because they have common experiences, they can relate to each other, because they're used to being the other and having due process thrown out the window uh with people trying to commit harm upon them instead of any semblance of due process, equal protection under the law, and a trial. Like that's that's what society is based upon, so we don't devolve into rioters trying to harm each other. That said, it's a fun film. I encourage you to watch it or re-watch it if you haven't seen it since childhood. And stay tuned for more fun coverage of classic horror movies for October. Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay geeky.