THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
It is one thing to encounter a monster, but Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has proven it is a whole other ballgame to make one.
PLOT
Based on the 1818 novel, the 1931 film follows scientist Henry Frankenstein and his hunchback assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) piece together human body parts (a mix of recently buried & hanged). In his laboratory outside his home, he is using these body parts to assemble a body an give life to it with electrical devices. The last thing he collects for the experiment is a brain that belongs to the class of his mentor, Doctor Waldman. Fritz is sent to retrieve it, but accidentally damages it along the way and takes another that is in better condition. Henry's fiance Elizabeth Lavenza and his best friend Victor Moritz (John Boles) both feel worried of his recent act of seclusion until Waldman shares with him the doctor's recent obsession on creating life. Together, they visit him and see the body he's assembled before he would raise it on the operating table above the tower, exposing it to a lightning storm that officially makes it come alive. Although the monster appears grotesque, Henry sees that it has a childlike behavior and is frightened of fire. When Fritz uses a torch to restrain it, the monster retaliates by hanging him alive. Understanding how dangerous his creation is, Henry & Waldman inject it with a drug intended to euthanize it. They seem to have pulled it off when it falls onto the floor unconscious, but it's proven temporary because when Henry goes home, Waldman gets killed by the creature when trying to examine it on his own. When it escapes the watch tower where the laboratory is, he continues leaving an unintentional trail of blood when accidentally drowning a girl he was playing with named Maria (Marilyn Harris). Henry's wedding with Elizabeth gets halted when it finds their home and chooses to approach the lady. The encounter causes her to scream and when this alerts everyone around the same time the village discovers of Maria's death, Henry is all the more determined to destroy his creation for good. He follows it back to the top of the tower and their encounter becomes so intense that the monster throws him from above. Thankfully, the wooden blades of the windmill save his life when he lands on it and when he gets taken back home, the lynch mob retaliates by burning down the tower while the monster is still inside. The film ends with Henry's father Baron toasting his son's troubles appear to be over with his marriage going forward as they hoped.
THOUGHTS
Monsters have always interested me as a kid because each one is different from one another and this movie has stuck with me for proving such. Even after reading the book in my adulthood, I've grown to appreciate it much more than before because director James Whale is able to show such a boundary pushing story in what kind of consequences you'll get when wanting to play god and think you won't deal with it unscathed. Science is a powerful force for good and its result of any invention can be effectively dangerous like a double edged sword because you can't guarantee everything about it going your way. And just because you know you can do it does not mean you should. All of these layers are incredibly captured through the dynamic between the man and his creation. Colin Clive was naturally amazing as Henry Frankenstein because he was off the charts with his ambition to the point of isolating himself to ensure his personal mission becomes a success and that is what makes this narrative so scary because he doesn't think of what can go wrong until it's too late. He does show regret and creates redemption when wanting to finish what he started, but it of course does not undo the damage he made. Enter Boris Karloff who brings an extraordinary amount of life to the infamous Monster itself. Thanks to captivating makeup by Jack Pierce, this character becomes intriguing to see from the start. And despite the physique, we see how fragile of a being he is. From all the body language without even speaking, we come to understand this creature does not want to harm others nor does he enjoy it, but seeks connection and purpose. He thought to have gotten the former when bonding with Maria, but one fatal mistake would instantly shun him from society. Although the creature would go on to survive the incident as proven in the sequels, you honestly can't blame the village for doing so since they were under the loops of Frankenstein's creation and were far from prepared from what it was capable of. Before the young child though, she was not the only victim to see the monster's unlikely wrath. Edward Van Sloan showed Waldman to be understanding toward Henry's motives because in his eyes, every breakthrough in science is important and must be appreciated to the fullest. I don't blame him walking into his own death because in his shoes, even I would've been as sure as he was in trusting the drug to have stopped the monster for good until it didn't. Elizabeth was definitely a victim of circumstance as well the way Mae Clarke portrays her because she supported her husband's life work, but was not prepared for any possibility of encountering the monster which makes it a miracle she was not harmed at all compared to everyone else. Even though this was not the end of the monster itself, it is nice to know she and her husband had a moment of prosperity before chaos resumed. In conclusion, James Whale's Frankenstein is the be all end all of sci fi horror for defining exactly how awry adventuring into the unknown can be. If monster flicks are your jam, see this now.
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