FRANKENSTEIN: THREE SILENT FILMS

Halloween Month continues with this look at the three silent movie versions of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

FRANKENSTEIN (1910) – This first ever cinematic depiction of the classic horror story was produced by Edison Studios, as in Thomas Edison. Luckily Frankenstein has survived, and existing copies run from 11 minutes to 16 minutes.

The movie opens on a scene with a painted backdrop and with Victor Frankenstein (Augustus Phillips) parting with his fiancee Elizabeth (Mary Fuller) and his father as he goes off to attend college.

Edison Studios efforts were known for their slipshod, seat of their pants nature, and Frankenstein serves up my all-time favorite back-to-back dialogue boards. “Frankenstein leaves for college.” followed by “Two years later Frankenstein has discovered the mystery of life.” (… And Frankenstein Created Cram School)

We get the exaggerated pantomime acting typical of such early silent films as Victor is excited at the thought of employing “the mystery of life” to create what he claims to Elizabeth will be the most perfect being ever.

The scene of Frankenstein in his laboratory creating the monster looks more like depictions of witches dropping ingredients into their cauldron as Victor puts a few chemical concoctions in a combination cauldron/ foundry furnace. Closing the furnace door, Frankenstein watches his monster come into being through the safety glass. 

The elements of life come together before his – and our – eyes as first a skeleton takes shape, then flesh, organs and muscles. This scene is still fairly ghastly, so 1910 audiences must have been floored.

Once fully formed, the Monster (Charles Ogle) emerges from the forge and its horrific, misshapen nature causes Victor to panic. He flees the Monster, but as we all know, his creation won’t let him off that easily.

The Monster shows up repeatedly, terrorizing Victor, who struggles to prevent his creation from revealing itself to his father and Elizabeth. Ultimately, a fight breaks out between Frankenstein and his Monster. Victor is about to be killed when the creature catches sight of his reflection in a mirror and runs off in fear. 

Cut to the night of Victor and Elizabeth’s wedding. After the last of the reception guests leave the Frankenstein home, the Monster accosts the new bride in the bedroom. Amid the resulting chaos, it becomes transfixed by its own reflection this time, rather than immediately fleeing.

The physical form of the Monster vanishes, leaving only the reflection in the mirror. In a nice artistic bit, the pursuing Victor arrives, only to see the remaining monstrous image in the mirror as if it is his own reflection. Soon, it fades, replaced with his real reflection and the household is relieved that the ordeal is over.

Obviously, this flick took considerable liberties with the story, and it peaked far too early with the macabre creation scene, but its historical and novelty value make it worth seeing at least once.

LIFE WITHOUT SOUL (1915) – This 70-minute movie is among the many, many silent films which have not survived, unfortunately. From reviews and promotional materials a bit of the storyline can be reconstructed. The story was set in the modern day.

This production discarded the name Frankenstein and instead made the mad scientist’s name William Frawley. (I KNEW Fred Mertz was bad news!) William Cohill played Frawley, Lucy Cotton played Elizabeth and Percy Standing played “The Creation” also called “The Brute Man.”

As this artificial man who has no soul due to its unnatural creation, Standing looks mostly normal, albeit large. Its differences with the man who made it eventually result in it killing the doctor’s sister Claudia (Pauline Curley) on her wedding night.

From there the creator chases his creation throughout Europe and in their final confrontation the mad doctor pumps the Brute Man full of lead, killing it. The audience was shown that this entire affair was just someone reading from a book. 

Life Without Soul was a financial failure and it would be six years before the Frankenstein story was again adapted for the big screen. 

IL MOSTRO DI FRANKENSTEIN (1921) – Sadly, this 39-minute film version of the Mary Shelley story has also been lost to us. Even less is known about it than the 1915 adaption, with all that remains being some promotional information, a single still photo and one lone review in the Italian publication Kine.

Italian movie star Luciano Albertini portrayed Baron von Frankenstein, with Umberto Guarracino as the Monster and Linda Albertini as Elizabeth. The surviving still photo shows the Monster killing a woman (see below). 

FOR MY LOOK AT OVER TWENTY MORE SILENT HORROR MOVIES CLICK HERE.