Welcome welcome back, one and all, to Nightmare Fuel! Things are gonna look a tad bit different going forward, what with the lack of restrictions on when items will be posted and the inclusion of some other media beyond film, but it’s still the same ol’ Nightmare Fuel, I promise you. We’ve got an awful lot of horror to get through (almost 900 line items!), so let’s get started, shall we? And what better subject to kick things off with than an extremely early example of cinematic horror?
Made by Edison Studios (up, that Edison) in 1910, we’re looking at the first ever cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s seminal sci-fi classic. For those looking for the usual narrative, however, there’s little of it to be found here: Thanks to some of the locl hemming and hawing at the time, motion picture production companies were pressured to censor the contents of their films, so as not to offend tastes and cause societal disintegration and whatnot. In response, Edison Studios essentially created their own board of censors, including some high-minded folks of the local community, and pretty much began with Frankenstein to show their commitment to upholding the moral fiber of the country. The result is a version of Frankenstein wherein the producers, in their own words from the Edison Kinetogram catalog, “carefully tried to eliminate all actual repulsive situations and concentrate … upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale”. Notice anything off, they continue, “it is purely with the idea of elimination of what would be repulsive to a moving picture audience”. You know Edison: better to kowtow now than ever risk even the slightest shred of profit.
That being established, the film tells the story of young Frankenstein, who goes off to school to learn and all that. In the process, he somehow stumbles upon the secret to life and goes about creating life in his lab. Upon seeing his hideous creation, though, he wants nothing to do with it and flees, abandoning the poor mongrel to his new existential hell. Frankenstein tries to relax, to focus on his impending nuptials, but his monster follows him, tormenting him, until the fiancee’s purity makes the monster go away.
It’s a bare-bones as you can get with the story, kids, but, I mean, it is only about a reel (12-15 minutes) long. The film shows its age at various points, what with not quite having stage fighting down yet and the mildly Sweetums-looking costuming for the monster (dig those long, pointy shoes, though!), but the use of a large mirror to not only reflect the emotional state of the characters but also to expand the effective size of the frame in Frankenstein’s study and the rather effective creation sequence (done with reverse-cranking the film) show some definite skills on display here.
Indeed, this is the film that started the cinematic tradition of making the monster’s creation, which took about a paragraph or so to depict in the novel, one of the centerpieces of the visual narrative. Here, it feels like the longest scene in the film, almost going on too long for its own good, and the special effects are doing some heavy lifting in the orange-ish tint. Though Augustus Phillips kinda overdoes it a bit in his visible disgust toward his creation, it certainly gets the point across, and I tend to write some of those acting flourishes off as just being how silent films operated.
The film’s stated focus on the psychological issues involved in the story allows for an interesting take on Shelley’s narrative. One of the title cards informs us that Frankenstein’s drive to solve the biogenesis problem stems from “evil in his mind”, but we’re never really privy to what said “evil” actually entails/involves. If nothing else, we’re also starting the vague mad scientist trope here, I guess. But it’s the change to the monster that really hits me a strange way. In the book, the monster kills Frankenstein’s beloved as a way of hurting the scientist, of striking back at the creator who abandoned him in this lonely world of ours; in the film, though, the monster does indeed set upon Elizabeth, but it’s more out of curiosity and wonder than malice, and her apparently overflowing virtue and goodness prevent him from doing any real harm. So struck is the monster, in fact, that he seems to fade out of existence when confronted once again with the mirror. Part of me interpreted this as meaning that the monster was a manifestation of Frankenstein’s “evil” mind, that there never really was a corporeal creature but rather a set of thoughts and actions visually represented that way; this way, once he gets his “evil” dealt with (the literal struggle we see representing an emotional turmoil he’s been going through of late), he’s able to banish the bad thoughts and live happily ever after with his new wife. I say that part of me thinks this, because I kinda hate this interpretation: It’s not a bad message, necessarily, nor a bad method of presenting inner struggle, but it definitely misses the various points Shelley included in her story, thus making me wonder why they would even endeavor to adapt Frankenstein at all. I’m of two minds, and I can only hope one of those minds doesn’t burst forth and try to take me out.
Anyway, this is a quick watch, and though it’s not the greatest adaptation of the story out there, it’s an entertaining outing regardless, especially with the proper musical accompaniment (which includes selections from Rubinstein and Wagner). It can be found all over the place, what with it being in the public domain, so if you’ve got a quarter-hour to spare, feel free to give it a chance.
Allusions of Grandeur 