Masterful Movie

Good concept, poorly executed.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Being a film so old that it is a mark and part of the cinema history, I know I should be more benevolent in my evaluation, but this film only served the greedy interests of Thomas Edison and 15 minutes are not enough to report the Frankenstein story. Having such a tycoon and his own film studio behind it, I expected something much better produced, reported and detailed. I know it was the beginning of cinema and somehow it had to start somewhere so this adaptation would be made sooner or later, but I did not find anything scary or environmental, unlike the 1931 version, but that's another story. Even the performances are too theatrical and comical, and the monster looks more like a vagabond from the woods than some scary creature. The scene of the creation of the monster in the cauldron, yes, was innovative for the time but nothing more. Of interest only to cinema fanatics or historians.

They could have come up with something more like book when made this. They did not have do something so confusing and hard to follow. One good thing I can say about this movie. If it had not been made. And been the s.u.k.s.e.s that it was the 1931 remake would never have been made. But when I think about. This movie is pooh pooh. Don't see it. Pooh pooh. pooh pooh, pooh pooh. pooh pooh. Don't see it don't see it don't see it don't see it. The book was easy to follow so the movie should have been easy to follow. But it was not. Pooh pooh pooh pooh pooh pooh. Don't see it. It is not scary. It is pooh. The Book is scary and the 1931 remake is scary.

According to all known sources, this was the first attempt to film Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. J. Searle Dawley both wrote and directed this 16 minute film. At the time, it was billed as a "liberal adaptation of Mrs. Shelley's tale" that tried to "eliminate all the actually repulsive situations and concentrate upon the mystic and psychological problems found in this weird tale". Like the novel, the monster is created without any form of electricity. The film has a sustained dark mood until its finale. Once James Whale made his Universal version of FRANKENSTEIN, most subsequent versions featured this same feeling...a sad, gloomy tale of a man challenging the forces of the universe in order to prove that he was on their level...only to find that there was no way for this to happen. Even in this version, though the monster is grotesque, he is simply a pawn and not actually an evil entity. The YouTube version only runs 12:41. The beginning of this film, and certain other scenes, has serious nitrate decomposition but is still watchable. One unique element is that a title card suggests that "the evil in Frankenstein's mind created a monster". I won't give away how they did it, but the creation of "the monster" is very clever, especially for its time! Charles Ogle's monster in no way, shape, or form resembles Boris Karloff in the same role. The film contains some clever editing and switches between tinting to achieve some rather poetic shock effects. Edison's role in this production was credited as "Producer".

This twelve minute adaptation of Mary Shelley's tale has an element that the later versions don't have. In this version Frankenstein apparently uses some kind of potion to create the monster in a large pot. You then get to see the monster emerge from the pot, first as a skeleton, and then skin and even clothing form over the skeleton. This was filmed by starting with a model of the monster, melting the form, and then filming the reverse of this melting as the creation of the monster.The story starts with Frankenstein going to college. Here he never becomes a doctor, but apparently two years into his studies he has discovered the secret of life and death and is ready to create a perfect human being. Instead he forms an extremely mishapened creature. The creature then follows Frankenstein around, even becoming jealous of Frankenstein's bride-to-be. How the monster is eliminated is very odd, and I'll let you see it for yourself to find out how it ends. Just let me say that there are no crowds of villagers with torches and pitchforks in this one. Instead the ending is very Victorian and even magical.This is very much worth looking at if you get the chance.