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.
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.