Frankenstein (1931 film) in "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942) after his apparent murder in the earlier film). This character — a deranged blacksmith whose neck was broken and twisted due to a botched hanging — befriends the monster and later helps Dr. Wolf Frankenstein, leading to the "hunchbacked assistant" called "Igor" commonly associated with "Frankenstein" in popular culture. Frye also appears in later films in the series, such as in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943). Guillermo del Toro had expressed interest in directing the reboot film for Universal. Del Toro said his "Frankenstein" would be a faithful "Miltonian tragedy", citing Frank Darabont's
Tales of Frankenstein Who Could Cheat Death" the following year. Since the series was intended for an American audience, Columbia rejected all six of Hammer's scripts in favor of one written in-house. The film was co-written by Henry Kuttner and his wife C.L. Moore with Curt Siodmak, a veteran of Universal horror films including "The Wolf Man", who also directed. Another script, "Frankenstein meets Dr. Varno", was written by Jerome Bixby. The Monster was the flat-headed Universal Pictures version popularized by Boris Karloff, and was played by Don Megowan, primarily a western actor. Megowan also played the creature known as the Gill-man on