Frankenstein (1910)

Undescribable Perfection

terrible... so disappointed.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

"Frankenstein" from 1910 is probably one of the Edison Company's most well known efforts, outside "The Great Train Robbery" of course. At only 13 minutes long it is a long production for the time and is the first adaption of the Frankenstein story. If you were expecting it to be a monster movie then sadly you'd be disappointed at what you see here. The film is all too brief, and by today's standards, Charles Ogle doesn't even look scary! But this was 1910, and be glad this is still available to the public.I had not read the novel by Mary Shelley when I watched this short film, but I did have a faint idea about the story. Here, the adaption is so brief you cannot expect a detailed film, but instead we get a brief outline. Title cards were included too, making the action easier to follow. The print, sadly, is not so clean and is in fact a bit blurry, but it is still easy to follow what's happening. Basically a medical student, Frankenstein, creates a monster instead of a human being, and is so shocked that he refuses to have anything to do with him. From there on, the monster keeps appearing, at Frankenstein's wedding, and then, in a sudden, all-to-brief ending, the monster just vanishes, apparently because of seeing his image in a mirror. That's it.But, as being such a well-known film, I will say it does have some historical interest. First of all, it is probably the world's first monster movie. Very tame by today's standards, it'll probably make you laugh. However, at least things had improved by 1910--title cards were more frequently used and the shots were a bit closer to the actors. But, despite its being so primitive looking, it is certainly well worth 13 minutes of your time and can be viewed on YouTube. The most impressive scene is the creation of the monster, which is very interesting and still holds up well even all these years later.

The two amazing things about this first adaptation of Mary Shelley's book about the "Modern Prometheus" is seeing how Frankenstein is created here, and what he looks like and how he's portrayed. It's impossible to watch this without remembering what James Whale did with showing Dr. Frankenstein's process (aka as Gene Wilder would discover: "How I Did It") where Frankenstein gets the corpse up on a gurney, raises it up to face outside, and with wires and special connectors uses a lightning strike to reanimate the body so "IT'S ALIVE!" But the thing is this scene, which has influenced so much of popular culture, is a pure creation of Whale and his team - the Shelley book doesn't have a description of how Dr. Frankenstein brings his creation to life, it's skipped over because the good Doctor doesn't want anyone to copy him or to know the secret. So here, we have via J Searle Dawley a unique interpretation of showing this 'creation' had no description in the source: here, it's like the Monster is made in an oven, piece by piece and limb by limb, with the Doctor looking through a tiny window on the monster being made in slow but deliberate fashion. It's a wonderful sequence not just because I can finally get a different perspective on this iconic thing, but because it holds up over a century later as being genuinely creepy - it's a Frankenstein cake or something.The other thing is the actor playing the Monster, Charles Ogle, who is also not at all how we all picture a Frakenstein Monster to be ala Karloff: this guy looks more like a character that one might've seen being thrown out on his ass from Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars: a freakishly haired man with a giant forehead and radical features, hunched over (in a strange way it's almost like Igor, who isn't a character here by the way), and I thought it funny how the character of the Monster seems to be talking with Dr. Frankenstein (because, you know, silent movies did that). He's a true MONSTER, and he makes him a scary but vulnerable thing on screen: he comes into the room at one point and seems like a stumbling child more than some existential threat (the way he hides behind the curtain so the future wife won't see him for example).So a lot goes in 12 minutes of (today grainy which is what we can get and take) silent film, though it's obviously streamlined to the bare essentials, like a super-Cliff-Notes version of this story. I liked it a lot for being a totally alternative version of this story than seen before, and for fans of Frankenstein I highly recommend it.

Imagine yourself watching this in 1910. This Edison production features a terribly emotional Dr. Frankenstein who goes off to school and comes back with the idea of creating life. In a series of sequences moving forward in time, we see the monster born out of a vat as Dr. F looks through an opening in an enclosure. Unfortunately, what he thought would be a new Prometheus is a big ugly lunk with huge hands and feet and hair all deranged. He comes to know quickly that he isn't going to fit in very well. As usual, Frankenstein, the ultimate careless arrogant jerk, can only flop around in despair at what he has created. The monster runs off and everything is hunky dory for the time being. But the big guy keeps coming back. How the monster is ultimately dealt with is absurd and Frankenstein gets way more than he deserves.

Is this very first version of Frankenstein a great film? Not by any means.However it IS great to watch a movie made at the dawn of the film industry.Like most silent films made at the turn of the last century, acting is very "theatrical" and broad.Not realistic at all.Still Ogle, who plays the monster, is really creepy looking and effective.The version I saw had new titles, was 12 minutes long and had some scenes tinted.It also ended rather abruptly with a freeze frame so I'm not sure this was the entire movie.None the less, it was really cook to watch.