Frankenstein
Directed by:
James WhaleComposer:
Bernhard KaunCast:
Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff, Edward Van Sloan, Frederick Kerr, Dwight Frye, Cecilia Parker, Arletta Duncan, Pauline Moore, Jack Curtis (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
In a prologue, an announcer steps from behind a curtain to warn the audience of the horrifying nature of the film they are about to see. In the main story, at a funeral, Fritz, a dwarf, and young scientist Henry Frankenstein dig up a freshly buried body, claiming that the corpse is waiting for a new life. They also remove a man hanging from a gibbet, but his broken neck requires that a new brain be found. After Doctor Waldman's lecture at Goldstadt Medical College, Fritz sneaks in and, after dropping a bottle containing a normal brain, leaves with one containing the brain of a criminal. Meanwhile, in Henry's hometown, Victor Moritz visits Elizabeth, whom he loves. She has received a strange note from Henry her fiancé, who writes that his experiments preclude her from joining him. Concerned, Victor and Elizabeth visit Waldman, Henry's former professor, who explains that Henry had left the college to pursue a mad dream of recreating human life. Together the three go to Henry's laboratory, a watchtower in the mountains. There, Henry and Fritz are preparing to use the power of lightning to charge their electrical mechanisms and give life to a body they have pieced together. Henry agrees to let his friends observe and explains his scientific theories as his creation comes to life. Later Victor and Elizabeth attempt to pacify Henry's doubting father, Baron Frankenstein, who is only interested in promoting the date of his son's wedding. At the laboratory, while Waldman tells Henry of the monster's criminal brain, Fritz torments the monster and the monster kills him. After a fight, Henry and Waldman sedate the monster just as the baron approaches the lab. The exhausted Henry is taken home after Waldman promises to destroy the monster, but instead Waldman is killed by the escaping monster. As the wedding of Elizabeth and Henry is celebrated, the monster drowns Little Maria, a village child who plays with him, then menaces Elizabeth. Ludwig, Maria's father, carries his daughter's body into town, and an angry search party is formed. They go through the mountains by torchlight until Henry finds the monster, and the two engage in a struggle that continues in an abandoned mill, where the monster has fled. The mob sets the mill ablaze, and the monster hurls Henry to the ground before being engulfed by flames. Later, the baron celebrates the wedding of his recovered son with a toast to a future grandchild. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (5)
An inconsistent classic. Boris Karloff is great and the individual scenes are brilliantly shot, but they are somehow mechanically, uninterestingly patched together into a single bland whole whose cardinal handicap is the absence of music. Besides the emotional charge of the film, music would have definitely increased the compactness of its ungainly editing. The sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, is a major step forward in every respect.
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Spectacular, of course. The backdrop, full of expressionist nonlinearity and innovation, may seem ridiculous to today's viewer, but anyone with a love for black-and-white magic will succumb to the magic of Whale's film. Boris Karloff's performance is absolutely unforgettable, the way he breathed life into the monster so that it scares (his entrée in the film is grandiose) and at the same time arouses emotions (his futile desire to understand humanity!), this is acting mastery... James Whale created a classic of world horror and a film that will probably forever be written in the annals of cinema. What would film monsters be without Boris Karloff's unforgettable (originally supposedly greenish) mask? Even all the imperfections of the film today complete Frankenstein's myth...
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For me, despite its qualities, Frankenstein is rather disappointing. Even though at first glance everything is as it should be. After all these years it isn’t even ridiculous for a moment, all roles are acted outstandingly, it’s well filmed, has a pleasant Universal Studios look about it and it isn’t even tedious. From the point of view of today’s spoiled viewer I could object a little to the absence of music, but that wouldn’t be altogether fair. The core of the problem is that it’s badly written (I won’t say “adapted", since it has almost nothing to do with the book). And nothing happens the whole way through. Nothing at all. Which indicates that there a few “big" scenes missing. Of course, with the exception in the form of the notorious and also perfect scene of “Frankie meets little girl". But this scene is so perfect that it does the movie a disservice in that it emphasizes just how much potential remains wasted elsewhere. Which changes nothing about the fact that it is a perfectly made picture that is rightly considered to be a gem of world cinema.
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I don't know what it is, but I remember Frankenstein being much more impressive... The opening half hour in particular is almost boring in places. But with Boris Karloff, my need to yawn disappears, the scene with the little girl makes me shudder, and the finale with the mill is perfect. And did you know that it was only today that I realized that there is no music in the film?__P.S. Again, I know the comparison is unfair, but the version made by Kenneth Branagh is unbeatable.
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A time-honoured classic that doesn’t have much to offer today. If you don't know about it, I’d recommend Brannagh's 1994 remake, which has a better cast, is more psychologically precise and more emotionally varied as a result. This is rather another mandatory entry in the textbook, one that everyone skips without being noticed and without punishment. 60%
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