The Breen Office ordered a number of changes in both the film's script and its original cut. One of the changes that was ordered was of the sound of the device that Baron Victor von Frankenstein used to dispose of the body parts that he was using to create his monster. The original grinding sound that the device made while doing so was considered too horrific, so it was replaced with the sound of a flushing toilet, which resulted in unintended laughter from audiences. This was believed for a long time to be the first time ever that the sound of a flushing toilet was heard in a U.S. film. UPDATE: A toilet was also flushed in the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940), which was released 18 years before this one.
This film was originally going to be titled "Frankenstein 1960," but that did not sound futuristic enough. It was also thought to be too far-fetched that an independent researcher could obtain his own atomic reactor in 1960.
The black falcon statuette from another classic film, namely The Maltese Falcon (1941), was used by the Warner Bros. prop department as part of the set of this film.
This was Boris Karloff's fifth Frankenstein film, and the first one in which he actually played a member of the Frankenstein family - in the films Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) he played the Frankenstein Monster (the role that made him a star for the rest of his life), and in the film House of Frankenstein (1944) he played a mad scientist named Dr. Gustav Niemann, a disciple of Henry Frankenstein, the Monster's creator in the Universal "Frankenstein" film series, who was dedicated to continuing his mentor's experiments after Frankenstein's death.
The film's interiors were part of a set on Warner Stage Three which had been constructed for the Errol Flynn/Dorothy Malone film Too Much, Too Soon (1958). In addition, budget-conscious producer Aubrey Schenck used cinematographer Carl Guthrie from the earlier film because his experience with the set allowed him to light the scenes quickly.
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