#56: FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

TW: Child death

THRILL SCALE 1-10

8

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never

BEST SEQUENCE

When the monster from his slab began to rise. The windmill finale is also very exciting and impressive

BEST LINE

"It's alive...it's alive! IT'S ALIVE! Oh, in the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

94%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Still unnerving to this day, Frankenstein adroitly explores the fine line between genius and madness, and features Boris Karloff's legendary, frightening performance as the monster."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses."

DIRECTOR

James Whale

MAIN CAST

Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Frederick Kerr, Dwight Frye

THOUGHTS

• It may not be 100% necessary to compare Frankenstein to Dracula, but they're two of the earliest horror movies ever made, both released by Universal in 1931, so comparisons are going to be inevitable and I'm going to do it anyway. Frankenstein is better. Scarier, more exciting, better written, better acted, better directed. Dracula had its strong points, and Lugosi's charismatic performance as Dracula was excellent, but I agree with the AFI. Frankenstein is the better movie
• Boris Karloff is perfect as the Monster, with his sunken cheeks and heavy eyelids. He has a bluntly brutal physicality that indeed comes across as extremely dangerous; it's no stretch to believe that he's capable of killing at will, which he does several times. It's not a gory movie, and a fair amount of the violence happens offscreen, but for an older movie I was surprised by how unflinching it was; the Monster kills a little girl by drowning, and even if he did it unintentionally, the scene of the girl's father carrying her body through the streets of town was a true gut punch
• I also really liked Colin Clive as the good doctor, Henry Frankenstein (not Victor, the name from the book, which took me by surprise; apparently Victor sounded too severe and unfriendly to American audiences at the time). Clive has such a knack for playing a crazed scientist that I was a little disappointed that he became less crazed in the latter half of the movie. Speaking of crazed, I also liked Dwight Frye as Frankenstein's assistant, Fritz (not Igor, which, again, took me totally by surprise. Apparently there's no Igor in the book either, though, so that one I might have to blame on Young Frankenstein alone). Dwight Frye seemed to have found his niche in 1931, he also played Renfield in Dracula
• The sets are impressive, and the camerawork is innovative. The climax involves a windmill being set ablaze, which seemed to have been filmed by just setting a windmill ablaze - it feels legitimately dangerous, although it's then followed by a very unnecessary little lighthearted coda, I guess to give the audience a happier ending
• Finally, I haven't read the book Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, but I know there's a lot to admire there - written by Mary Shelley when she was in her late teens, and published in 1818 when she was 20, it's considered one of the very first definitive examples of science fiction, and it originated the trope of the mad scientist. For such a groundbreaking work, one would hope that the credit was given where it was due, right? Well, I regret to inform you that this is what we get in the opening credits: "From the novel by Mrs. Percy B. Shelley". That's right. She was credited under her husband's name

Up next: According to some, the sequel is even better than the original, so we'll be supplementing the list with Bride of Frankenstein from 1935