Director Trademark: [Ken Russell] [snake] Director Cameo: [Ken Russell] [with family] on the tour boat at the end of the film. The painting that Mary Shelley sees on the wall, and that subsequently comes to life in her dream, is Henri Fuseli's "Nightmare." Gabriel Byrne walks with a limp and carries a cane because the real Lord Byron had a club foot. Polidori's line "Sleep is nature's balm" comes from a poem by Keats, a contemporary and close friend of both Shelley a ...[Read Story ]