REVIEW: Frankenstein (1910)
"All Frankenstein films that followed assembled body parts from various corpses to make the monster. This is the only one where the monster is truly created"
In the 1950s, collector Alois F. Dettlaff acquired a film print from his mother-in-law of the first cinematographic adaptation of Mary Shelley's popular novel Frankenstein.1 The homonymous film, produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company in 1910, was considered lost for decades. It is said that Dettlaff wasn't aware of the film's significance until the American Film Institute, in 1980, included it in a list of "top 10 most wanted lost films". At some point, he managed to transfer the movie on DVD and sold copies during public appearances—but he never gave the print up for restoration, not even to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Defflaff died in 2005 surrounded by his film collection—where Frankenstein remained still until the Library of Congress bought it in 2014 and started the restoration process.2
For many years, the only visual record of the film was to be found in the film catalogue The Edison Kinetogram (Vol. 2, No. 4, 1910), where people could read the story and get a glimpse of the creature through production stills. Today, there's even a book available that traces the making of the film.3 The Edison Kinetogram reads: "In making the film the Edison Co. has carefully tried to eliminate all actual repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale. Wherever, therefore, the film differs from the original story it is purely with the idea of eliminating what would be repulsive to a moving picture audience".4
Today, censoring things is back in fashion—or, dare I say, it has never gone away. Luckily, our "evolved" sensibilities didn't eliminate the surviving copy of this film and it's now available on the Library of Congress' YouTube channel without a "cultural warning".5 It lasts approximately 14 minutes. Its opening credits are straightforward: "A liberal adaptation from Mrs Shelley's famous story" (17s). It's that liberal, that Frankenstein, having discovered the "mystery of life", writes to his sweetheart: "Tonight my ambition will be accomplished. I have discovered the secret of life and death and in a few hours, I shall create into life the most perfect human being that the world has yet known" (1m 53s). A man playing God, unsurprisingly, is a tried-and-tested recipe to push the moral buttons of some members of The Religious Orthodoxy.6
It's 2022. We are a "superior" moral species and to modern sensibilities, there's virtually nothing incendiary to eliminate. Anyway, the film tells the story of not-so-young Frankenstein (Augustus Phillips) eagerly departing to college. He has fallen in love with Elizabeth (Mary Fuller) and hopes to return someday and "claim [her] as [his] bride" (1m 53s). Two years after his departure, he makes a great discovery, and contrary to his expectations, everything turns sour. He has created an "awful, ghastly, abhorrent monster" (Charles Ogle) that will terrorise him for the foreseeable future.
In a sense, the film is a showcase vehicle for visual effects. The experiment scene (2m 33s), for example, is given more screen time than any prior scene, signaling its clear relevance to the film-makers. Written in 1910, the Kinetogram states: "[T]he formation of the hideous monster from the blazing chemicals of a huge cauldron in Frankenstein’s laboratory is probably the most weird, mystifying and fascinating scene ever shown on film".7 It also tells us that the effect was created by filming a monster-dummy burning and then playing the footage backwards8—which at first glance, "sounds" and "looks" consistent with the version presented by the Library of Congress.
The other signature scene takes place at the end, where the monster vanishes through the mirror (11m 40s). This effect seems to have been accomplished either by a cut or by stopping the camera, letting the actor leave the frame, and then restarting it. On a technical level, these effects are unremarkable. When The Edison Kinetogram tells us: "[Regarding the closing scene, that the vanishing of the creature] has probably never been surpassed in anything shown on the moving picture screen", it's evident that the text is hyperbole. By 1910, these techniques were normal in many of the trick films imported from Europe and were already present in local fare as early as 1895.9
I want to highlight the use of the mirror (7m 14s; 7m 55s) to present characters in and off the frame at the same time. While it's not an innovation, is a nice touch in a rather dull stage direction that was fairly common at the time. For contemporary viewers, more than the tricks and effects, it seems that part of the "impact" came with the subject matter and the possible emotional unrest that could generate. For us in the 21st century, who are supposed to be the morally "superior" beings, it seems like a curiosity. After all, it's considered the first Frankenstein movie in the history of cinema.
Loohaus, Jackie (18 Mar 1985). "Step aside, Boris, Edison's Frankenstein was the first", The Milwaukee Journal. Retrieved 19 Jul 2020. Link
C. Wiebel Jr., Frederick, Edison’s Frankenstein (BearManor Media, 2009)
Uploaded by The Library of Congress official YouTube channel on 17 Dec 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2020. Click Link
"It has also been reported that in some communities there was objections to the film due to its perceived blasphemous content. Debates were ongoing around the country over Darwinism and a film that could be seen as mocking the creative power of God was sure to draw fire from the pulpit"
See reference 4. The author of the article doesn't provide a source, so I’m a bit sceptical, but I believe the idea "man playing God" will still likely bother a group of religious individuals to the extent of raising a complaint.
"Frankenstein (1910 film)", Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Cited in Ackerman, Forrest J, ed. (January 1964), "The Return of Frankens-ten", Famous Monsters of Filmland, No. 26 (Philadelphia: Warren Publishing Co.), p. 57. Link
Look at Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), directed for Edison by Alfred Clarke and which is a strong candidate of being the first visual effects film in the history of cinema. That's 15 years before the first Frankenstein! In the film, which lasts less than 30 seconds, the audience is shown Mary's beheading. To accomplish the effect, Clarke used the aforementioned stop/resume camera technique in order to replace the actor for a dummy. This technique will later be used in Europe by George Méliès in Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin (A Lady's Trick in the House of Robert Houdin, 1896)
Source: Carmona, Ramón, "From the origins of photography to the Edison factory: The birth of cinema in the United States", General History of Cinema Vol. 1: Origins of Cinema (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra S.A., 1998), Jenaro Talens, Santos Zunzunegui (coord.), p.65. | Original (in Spanish): Carmona, Ramón, "De los orígenes de la fotografía a la factoría Edison. El nacimiento del cine en los Estados Unidos", Historia General del Cine Vol. 1: Orígenes del cine (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra S.A., 1998), Jenaro Talens, Santos Zunzunegui (coord.), p.65.