Created in 1910, the Thomas Edison-produced FRANKENSTEIN is an almost impossible movie to evaluate. It's objectively bad by every definition of the word and rests on a disjointed narrative that suggests director J. Searle Dawley had only recently discovered the concept of storytelling. Running at a brisk 16 minutes in length, the movie still manages to waste the audience's time by including moments so unnecessary that even Peter Jackson would have left them on the cutting room floor (and that guy wastes NOTHING.)
Yet, it's place in history as the earliest adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel guarantees it will always have an audience, but first isn't always best. It's clear the idea of cinematic storytelling was still considered a novelty in 1910, and as artistically relevant in the eyes of some as the stereoscope. It might have been a fun ways to spend a few minutes, but nobody thought of it as art.
The movie opens with the inter-title card FRANKENSTEIN LEAVES FOR COLLEGE, and is followed just a few seconds later with TWO YEARS LATER FRANKENSTEIN HAS DISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. Not only does this revise the definition of "economical storytelling," it also seems to misunderstand what the word "discovered" means. Any asshole can "discover" a mystery ... it's not much of an accomplishment. Tripping over a dead body while jogging in Central Park doesn't make you Sherlock Holmes. It makes you an extra in a cold opening for LAW & ORDER.
Even though silent movies are, by necessity, about "show don't tell," the movie goes to great lengths to tell us everything instead of showing. The title cards tell us Frankenstein's mind is "evil" but we're expected to take its word for it because the doctor doesn't do or say much of anything. I was thrown for a loop by how much of the story was cut for expediency. Yes, the medium of filmmaking was in its fetal stages in 1910, but goddamn, Edison ... invent some sense of cinematic scale, already.
What the movie gets right, and the primary reason why people still seek it out, is the presentation of the "monster." Here, the creature is a bizarre, androgynous freak, a being who was - all jokes aside - shortchanged in the genetic department by its "parent." It's a far cry from the monstrous superman of the Universal Pictures series. With a nice set of clothes and some clever accessorizing, Boris Karloff's monster could probably pass for human in modern society. The same certainly couldn't be said for Edison's monster, who's a misshapen hodgepodge of lifeforms. He's a sad, pathetic wretch, and the performance by Charles Ogle (as well as the inventive, if overlong, "creation sequence") are worth the time you'll put into watching the movie.
Frankensteinia, the flagship blog for all things FRANKENSTEIN, has an interesting look at the "roving" props for this film, which can be seen on screen in at least one other Edison production.
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