1931… ahhh, the first year of the Universal monsters. One of my favorite “genres” of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s is the monster movie, specifically all the Universal monster movies. Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, The Creature From The Black Lagoon. And all the sequels. These are classics through and through, marvelously entertaining. I haven’t seen some of them, and those I have seen I have little to zero memory of. There are three films, however, that I have a pretty good memory of, and they are Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Dracula. I’ve often called The Bride of Frankenstein one of my favorite films, and I’m excited to watch it again in coming weeks. Dracula I remember being a sumptuous gothic feast… I will be looking at it soon.

Taking a look at Frankenstein again after all these years was an interesting experience. There are some movies that are so iconic it’s hard at times to just forget everything you know about it and just watch it as a movie. When I thought back on Frankenstein, I thought of the classic scenes… the creation, the monster’s entrance, the little girl by the lake, the destruction of the wind mill. And they all still work very well. What surprised me in watching the movie again is how caught up I got into the story. The completely straightforward narrative is still chilling after all these years, and the theme is forever haunting. What happens when an overambitious scientist tries to play God but giving a dead “creation” life?

The memorable moments here are endless. Even the strange opening monologue, not really part of the movie per say, is creepy and weird. A man walks out from behind a curtain to warn the audience that the preceding film “may horrify you,” and yet his telling me this actually is a little scary. The laboratory is the best set piece in the movie… it’s huge and fantastic. My favorite scene in the film remains the scene with the little girl. It’s something that could’ve been played for laughs by another director, but the genius James Whale keeps the tone at just the right level. You feel sad for what happens to the girl but also sympathetic for the monster, because he doesn’t really know any better. That kind of sympathy is brought out even more in different scenes of Bride of Frankenstein, but the idea is still used a great deal here. It’s a special scene because it’s basically the only time that the monster is allowed to befriend a human, until he meets a blind character in the sequel. She can see him, but she is unafraid of him, and that kind of human contact brings joy out in the monster. When he kills the little girl, he is just having fun. It takes no more than two seconds to realize that the fun is over, and he runs screaming away from the lake. Just this scene would make the movie a memorable one. The big finale on the wind mill is probably the sequence that holds up the least, mostly because the fate of the monster is slightly ambiguous, and I disagree with the fate of the Frankenstein character. It appears as if Frankenstein is killed when the monster throws him over the edge, getting flung onto the wind mill like a rag doll. But he’s fine… he’s just sent home to rest up. While I’m happy he lives in a sense so that he can be part of the sequel and the big, important finale of the sequel, it feels as though this would be a more complete story if Frankenstein died by the wind mill, the monster killing his creator. Again, this material will be realized in the sequel, but there should’ve at least been the presumption that Frankenstein died in this one.

In looking at Frankenstein again after all these years, I discovered there isn’t one iconic performance in this movie… there are two. Boris Karloff is the image everyone knows. He makes the character far more than just a stick of a monster, giving him real humanity and more personality than some of the human characters in the movie. His sense of frustration at the end of the movie is truly sad… This may be one of the most famous performances in the history of film, and he really does deliver nearly over seventy-five years later. The other great performance, the one I remember being a little overdone, is that of Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein, the completely crazed scientist who will stop at nothing to make his creation. The moment when he responds to the notion that he’s crazy is a beautiful one. He also plays the arc of his character really well, believable as both an obsessed scientist and a caring fiancee. He also shares a special moment with the monster in the finale, one that is pretty hard to miss for all those who watch the film.

Frankenstein isn’t a perfect movie, and there are some flaws to discuss. The biggest problem I have with the movie is that it’s so damn short. There’s a famous phrase that says that no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short. This is a great film that works both as a horror film and as a morality tale, but I feel like it would have more punch if it were a good thirty minutes longer. There is a lot more that could’ve been done with this material. Thankfully, the wish for more came true four years later with The Bride of Frankenstein, which in some ways can work as a continuation of this story, making one two-and-a-half hour movie. How come we live in a world where Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is three hours long, yet the original Frankenstein is barely over an hour? Even so, there are a handful of scenes that drag in this movie, basically anything with characters outside of Henry Frankenstein and the Monster. The fiancee character is fine, but the lug who plays her friend is kind of a pointless character. And there is an awkward editing technique that exists throughout the entire movie that is amusing, not really in a good way. The editor will at times cut from a giant wide to a close-up, and the cut will be awkward for two reasons. One, the continuity doesn’t match. And two, the close-up isn’t really warranted in any way. There will be a wide, then a quick close-up, then back to the wide. Why? Sometimes it works fine but other times it’s clearly for no other reason than to just give the scene a little bit more variety of shots. There is one scene where Henry Frankenstein and Elizabeth embrace, and their faces are practically touching. Then the wide cuts to close-ups of both characters, and they are completely alone in their frames. Cut back to the wide to see that their faces are close together again. Today, something like this would completely take me out of the movie. Seeing it in a 1931 movie, however, makes it kind of amusing. Almost, anyway.

I’ve often thought of Frankenstein as just the prelude to the more daring and moving Bride of Frankenstein, but in looking at the original again, I see that this film is terrific in its own way. Watching movies like this really take me back to when I was a kid, when my dad would show me new and old horror movies on VHS on 80’s television sets. I was fascinated then, and I’m fascinated now. All hail James Whale and Boris Karloff for their masterful work!