PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

MisterWhiplash 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.

Leofwine_draca This short has a place in film history, due to the fact that it is the first filmed version of the FRANKENSTEIN story. The piece will be familiar to any horror fan, with the creator making his creature which then terrorises lover Elizabeth.The acting is over the top and the film is crudely simple, yet it holds a certain charm due to the period in which it was made. Although the special effects are extremely primitive, there is a spooky moment of a flesh-covered skeleton waving at Frankenstein out of a creation bath.The Monster is a strange looking beast, played in a stilted manner typical of the era by Charles Ogle, and its appearance is unlike any other screen monster, the bushy hair and dirty clothing a total contrast to Karloff's black-clad and deathly pale figure. Although this film is too short to summon up anything other than some ghastly imagery and a few moments of atmosphere, it's a must for horror fans interested in the evolution of the genre.

raymond_chandler I recently found the Restored version of this silent homage to the Mary Shelley classic tale on YouTube. All quoted passages are taken verbatim from the novel.The animating of the Creature sequence (3:00 - 6:45) in this short film is unique, I believe. Note the human skeleton prominently displayed therein. I never understood how Frankenstein could make a vigorous eight-foot-tall humanoid from the rotting corpses of normal-sized 19th Century men."When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organisation; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking; but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed....It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature; that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination, and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began....These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realise. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal, to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic, impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel-houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation: my eye-balls were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion."Shelley specifically states that intact re-animation of the already-dead would be the second phase of the experiments."Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption."This 14-minute piece is a grand early work, and the accompanying music sets the tone brilliantly. The way J. Searle Dawley ends the story is unique and surprisingly poetic.

Hitchcoc Imagine yourself watching this in 1910. This Edison production features a terribly emotional Dr. Frankenstein who goes off to school and comes back with the idea of creating life. In a series of sequences moving forward in time, we see the monster born out of a vat as Dr. F looks through an opening in an enclosure. Unfortunately, what he thought would be a new Prometheus is a big ugly lunk with huge hands and feet and hair all deranged. He comes to know quickly that he isn't going to fit in very well. As usual, Frankenstein, the ultimate careless arrogant jerk, can only flop around in despair at what he has created. The monster runs off and everything is hunky dory for the time being. But the big guy keeps coming back. How the monster is ultimately dealt with is absurd and Frankenstein gets way more than he deserves.