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Drama, Horror, Science Fiction 70 min
Rotten Tomatoes94%Metacritic91IMDb
The man who made a monster.
Henry Frankenstein pieces together body parts in the hope of bringing a human-like creature to life. The mad scientist’s dreams are shattered by his monstrous creation awakening with rage to a world that hates and fears him.
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Bleak, meticulous, effortless and nostalgic.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
In this version, it's not "Victor" but "Henry Frankenstein" (Colin Clive) who is convinced that medical science is obstructing his visionary plans to create the very essence of life itself! Frustrated, he retreats to an eerie tower where, with the help of his loyal servant "Fritz" (Dwight Frye) and a few Burke and Hare types, he manages to reconstruct a corpse - complete with the appropriated brain of a criminal (they have distinctly different frontal lobes, you know...!) and is awaiting a thunderstorm to provide him with the the bolt of lightning he needs to kickstart his creation. Meantime, his love "Elizabeth" (Mae Clarke) and her pals "Moritz" (John Boles) and "Dr. Waldman" (Edward van Sloan) are determined to thwart what they see as his obsessive madness. She is horrified by the whole concept, but the scientists are also fascinated - especially when, well.... There are a great many black fades here, which can slow the pace down, but for the most part James Whale uses light, pyrotechnics and the pretty much constant storm to build a story that elicits emotions of fear, sadness - even sympathy as it quite literally lumbers to a denouement that is actually rather sad. The acting
Read the whole review on TMDB**_Iconic Gothic horror tragedy_** This Universal classic from 1931 was based on the 1927 play by Peggy Webling rather than Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. For those interested in versions fairly faithful to the book, I suggest Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version with De Niro as the creature or the 2004 version with Luke Goss as the monster, the latter of which runs almost 3 hours. Of course, the gist of Shelley’s story is here and this is the movie that set the standard for the proverbial "mad" scientist with a hunchbacked assistant. While I’m not a fan of B&W movies, it works here to give the illusion of a Bavarian village back in the day. Speaking of which, the director said the story takes place in an "alternate universe," which explains the peculiar mixing of technology & fashions from 1930 (when the film was shot) with elements of the early 1800s. At the end of the day, this is a truncated, but iconic version of the Frankenstein story, a Gothic horror tragedy highlighted by Boris Karloff’s unforgettable rendition of the monster. The movie runs 1 hour, 10 minutes, and was shot at Universal Studios and various spots in the greater Los Angeles area (Malibou Lake, Vasquez Rocks and Pasaden
Read the whole review on TMDBNot a totally faithful adaptation of the Mary Shelley book, still extremely important for not just horror movies, but movies as a whole. I thought about coming at this review from the perspective of what 1931's _Frankenstein_ meant for the future of cinema, and how it was still essentially in its infancy and doing anything even close to what _Frankenstein_ did, changing the culture forever and remaining in the zeitgeist even now, almost a hundred years later, is a monumental achievement and should be viewed as such. But that's never really been my jam. _Frankenstein_ might have been great for the time, I don't know, I wasn't there, but I personally only ever found it to be okay. Re-watching it this Halloween was, I think the fourth time I've given it a go, and it's really not as enthralling as people seem to give it credit for. My roommate fell asleep. It's not that it's black and white either, it just doesn't have as clear a philosophical intention as the book, nor as gripping an output as more modern offerings. _Final rating:★★½ - Not quite for me, but I definitely get the appeal._
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If you loved this film, the television, the book, the music, the game.
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