Frankenstein (film)

• Release Date: 1931
• Director(s): James Whale
• Writer(s): Francis Edward Faragoh; Garrett Fort
• Principal Actors and Roles: Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein); Boris Karloff (The Monster); John Boles (Victor Moritz); Mae Clarke (Elizabeth); Dwight Frye (Fritz); Marilyn Harris (Little Maria); Edward Van Sloan (Doctor Waldman)

Frankenstein is a black and white American horror film in which Doctor Frankenstein builds a monster from dead bodies and brings it to life. The film was a box office hit that was praised by the critics, and the New York Times named it one of the ten best films of 1931. Frankenstein is a classic in the horror genre and the images and characters from the film have been so frequently copied that they have become clichés.

Audiences found Frankenstein to be so scary that many fainted or ran out of the theater. Universal Pictures had to add a prologue to the film to warn timid viewers to leave the theater immediately. The film was frequently censored or banned for its scary scenes, and for the line "Now I know what it’s like to be God!" which was deemed blasphemous. The scene where the monster drops a little girl into the water was most frequently cut; this scene, along with others, was lost until 1987 when the footage was recovered.

Boris Karloff was an unknown actor before Frankenstein, but became a star for his portrayal of the monster. He was not the first choice, but Bela Lugosi turned down the role, as did John Carradine. Karloff wore boots weighing thirty pounds that made him seven and a half feet tall. He also wore metal bars on his legs so that he lurched when he walked. It took five hours to put on all his makeup and two hours to take it off. The monster was so memorable that most people associate the name Frankenstein with the monster, not the inventor.

Plot

The movie opens with an announcer who warns the audience that the story they are about to see is horrifying and the faint of heart should leave now. Doctor Henry Frankenstein and his assistant, Fritz, dig up fresh corpses and piece them together. Henry wants to create life, and only lacks a brain for his reconstructed man. Fritz sneaks into Henry’s old medical college and inadvertently steals the brain of a thief and murderer.

Elizabeth, Henry’s fiancée, shares her worries about Henry’s strange letters with her friend Victor, and Henry’s former medical professor, Dr. Waldman. They head to the old watchtower where Henry has his laboratory. There is a huge thunderstorm and Henry is about to bring his creation to life, using the electricity from lightning. At first he refuses to let them in but relents, allowing them to watch as he and Fritz raise the body to the top of the tower. When the body is lowered, its hand moves and Henry shouts that it is alive. He says that he knows how God must feel to have created life.

Elizabeth and Victor leave but Waldman stays and is amazed as the monster obeys simple commands to sit and stand. It reaches yearningly for sunlight but is kept in the dark. Fritz teases it with a torch and they think its frightened actions mean that it is attacking them. They lock up the monster but Fritz continues to tease it and it kills him. Henry is horrified and decides the monster must be destroyed. He and Waldman inject it with a drug and it falls unconscious.

Henry goes home to get ready for his wedding to Elizabeth but Waldman stays to study the monster. He prepares to do an autopsy when the monster wakes, kills him, and escapes from the watchtower. Wandering through the woods, it meets a little girl named Maria, who shows it how flowers float in the water. Delighted, it tosses in all the flowers and then tosses in Maria. Bewildered and upset when she does not float, it lumbers away.

Maria’s father brings her drowned body to the village where Henry and Elizabeth are about to be married. The villagers search through the night for the monster, who kills one of them and attacks Henry. The villagers pursue it as it carries Henry into a windmill. Henry fights and is tossed out the window, but his fall is broken by the vanes of the windmill and he survives. The villagers set fire to the windmill and wait while it burns.

Henry is alive and his father happily toasts the servants, hoping to soon have a grandchild.

Significance

Frankenstein was made for $250,000 and earned twelve million after its release. Its success caused other studios, as well as Universal, to make more horror movies.

Frankenstein is a milestone in the making of horror films. The strikingly atmospheric sets added to the evocation of horror that made the film a classic. Director James Whale used the influences of German Expressionist films likeMetropolis, to create the look of his film. There is no soundtrack to increase tension and suspense, and there is no excess dialogue. Karloff’s portrayal of the monster as a tragic figure made him memorable.

Jack Pierce was the makeup artist responsible for the monster’s look. He spent three months researching anatomy and other fields before creating it. In addition to the monster’s staggering gait and dangling hands, Pierce devised the flat head, prominent forehead, and the bolts sticking out of the neck. After the success of Frankenstein, he came up with the looks for more Universal movie creatures, such as the Mummy and the Wolfman.

Frankenstein was selected for the National Film Registry in 1991. The National Film Registry chooses films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to be preserved in the Library of Congress. In 1998 the American Film Institute (AFI) included Frankenstein on AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Movies, its list of the greatest American films of all time. It was ranked eighty-seventh. AFI also ranked Frankenstein fifty-sixth on AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Thrills, a 2001 list of the most thrilling American films of all time. A quote from the film is included on AFI’s list of the one hundred top film quotes of all time. "It’s alive! It’s alive!" is said by Henry Frankenstein when he first sees the monster’s hand move. Frankenstein is also included on the 2002 National Society of Film Critics’ list of one hundred essential films.

Several versions of the Frankenstein story were made before the Universal Pictures 1931 classic, and many were made after it, including Universal’s sequels Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), and Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). In 1974, Mel Brooks made a spoof called Young Frankenstein, which was nominated for two Academy Awards.

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