Frankenstein

Frankenstein Movie (1931)

An obsessed scientist assembles a living being from parts of exhumed corpses.

Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again.
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Movie Comments & Discussion (2)

Unknown
Hey, you can talk all you like about how great modern special effects are, the results you can get from modern make-up techniques blah blah blah, I dont care. I will simply stick the 1931 version of Frankenstein on tv and ask you if that can be bettered and you will have to admit NO.

Why then, why does a film over 75 years old still reign supreme (along with its sequel Bride of Frankenstein) as the ultimate film portrayal of the literary masterpiece. Simple, talent. You had the greatest make-up man working at that time Jack Pierce, a man who still is held up as some sort of god by modern make-up men, you had an Englishman with a keen eye for design/theatrical elements of production thanks to his years directing stage productions in the form of director James Whale and you had 2 more Englishmen at the top of their game, Boris Karloff as the creature and Colin Clive as the tormented scientist Frankenstein (and if you read about him, Clive was an extremely tormented man in real life also...a personality that clearly spilled out into his performance).

Horror as a genre wasnt a clearly defined one at the time, the way it is today...oh yes you had the odd silent film to use as reference points such as The Phantom Of The Opera but on the whole it was a new concept for all involved and they let their imaginations run wild. Humour was kept to a minimum (unlike modern horrors), campness was slightly implied rather then thrust in your face (unlike modern horrors) and as for a musical soundtrack, well Whale clearly wanted the visuals to have the impact so no cheap frights from eerie music in this film.

Thats what makes this film scary to me, the stripped down sparseness of it, the silence in many places so you can just hear the creatures footsteps before you see him for the first time, the odd details such as the fact the creature enters the room backwards for the first time before turning and how about the superb Dwight Frye as Fritz with a ludicrously short walking stick, stopping to pull up his sock whilst climbing up a staircase, brilliant! and of course it unnerves you in a way modern horrors can only dream of with its slightly warped sets that are clearly influenced by early German cinema.

This has to be one of the most amazing films ever made, it has lasted the passage of time more then its partner in crime Dracula (which keeps its reputation mainly due to Lugosis performance) and it even gets creepier with time, now that we know all involved are dead....EEK!
eaglesoar
As a huge fan of the Universal Horror series The Bride of Frankenstein holds out as one of the greatest horror films of all time.And Boris Karloff is magnificent in his portrayal of the misunderstood creature.Highly recommended as is any line up in the Universal horror library.
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Henry Frankenstein is a doctor who is trying to discover a way to make the dead walk. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again.
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by Unknown
Mar 2009
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Last Viewed: Mar 23
Last Commented: Feb 2010

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