Frankenstein (1910)

***1/2 out of ****

The famous picture of Charles Ogle as the first cinematic Frankenstein monster, with his arms outstretched, his hair wild and unkempt, and his face displaying a wide-eyed, bizarre grimace, was until recently the only image available of Thomas Edison’s 1910 short, which is probably the first American horror film ever made. The discovery of this still in an advertisement for Edison’s revolutionary Kinetogram made it one of the most sought-after films of all time, and it is no small miracle that the film has finally been discovered and released on DVD.

Viewing Edison’s Frankenstein today, it is difficult to give it a fair rating. It is certainly crude filmmaking, made in a time when cameras had to be operated manually and Nickelodeons where part of the new, technological rave. To rate the quality of the film by today’s standards is certainly cheating, but it is also probably cheating to even rate it on the standard that D.W. Griffith created not five years later with The Birth of a Nation. It is amazing to note how much filmmaking improved in just five short years, between 1910 and 1915, but the historic elements of this early shocker cannot be overlooked. It is insight into the earliest chapters of cinema and the horror genre, before the archetypal, Hollywood Frankenstein clichés existed. It was in a time when the novel was not yet a century old and the story was still being taken seriously.

The input that Thomas Edison had in this film is difficult to say—we know that it was financed by his production company, Edison Manufacturing Company. Other than that, not much else is known about its origins. The film contains no credits, only a title card. The three stars—Charles Ogle (the Creature), Augustus Phillips (Victor Frankenstein), and Mary Fuller (Elizabeth)—are uncredited and would only be identified in later press releases. Its director, J. Searle Dawley, continued working as a film director through the mid-twenties, though his career was undistinguished. Consequently, when people recall this film, it is generally regarded simply as “the Edison Frankenstein” (and I suppose that’s fair, given Edison’s contribution to the technological revolution in western civilization).

The films’ poor film quality and typical-of-the-era, Méliès-inspired, underwhelming filming style aside (i.e., the picture confined to one set stage at a time that all fits into the unmoving camera, and the actors all captured in long shots with no close-ups or cuts ever implemented), how does the film hold up? Surprisingly very well. As it is only sixteen minutes in length, Mary Shelley’s novel has been stripped down to its most threadbare basics, yet it’s interesting to note what the filmmakers here considered to be the novel’s basics versus the later, more commercially-aware adaptations: After the Creature is created, he devotes his time to terrorizing Frankenstein and his wife, demanding that the doctor make a mate for him. The film plays down the horror for the romantic angle (the Creature’s eventual destruction also supports this notion), thus arguing that Frankenstein was wrong not for creating a monster, but for making him so hideous that no one could ever love him.

The film, then, remains closer at least to spirit to the novel than the next significant film version, Universal’s 1931 classic with the bolt-necked Boris Karloff, which is arguably the most influential horror film of all time (incidentally, two more silent versions, both lost, were made in between this one and its more famous incarnation: 1915’s Life with Soul, and an Italian film made in 1920 titled Il Mostro di Frankenstein). The Creature himself, as played by Ogle, is certainly as sympathetic as Karloff’s immortal, childlike creation, though he is not as innocent: He moves about like a heavyset troll, perfectly aware of his unholy origins and hoping that his aggressive temperament will eventually force Dr. Frankenstein to give into his wishes (I’ll admit that with this analysis, I’m probably reading too deeply into a simplistic film, but because this is the first of the cinematic Frankensteins, a close reading is both necessary and demanded).

One tradition seems to have found its roots here: Frankenstein films have only ever been as good as their over-the-top creation sequences, and the one here, consisting of probably one-third of the film, is an effective display of weird special effects that holds up today as an interesting and original variation of the legend. Remember: Lightening bolts, hunchbacked assistants, and stitched-up bodies may be staples to today’s Frankenstein legend, but we easily forget that they were not a part of the original book. Shelley’s novel reveals that Frankenstein assembled the Creature from corpses, but other than that, the hideous scars and the method of creation are all Hollywood’s invention. The 1931 film set the standard for the creation sequences, and ever since then, they have almost always featured the typical electric charges and terribly scarred monster. To my knowledge, only this version and a 1993 television movie provided a different method for the Creature’s birth.

Here, Frankenstein dumps body parts and potions into a gigantic vat, and the Creature literally constructs itself out of the blazing chemicals and steam. This is accomplished through a simple trick: The director shot an Ogle-like dummy that deconstructs piece by piece, and when it is slowed down and played it reverse, it looks as if the monster is assembling a bit at a time. The special effects must have blown the audience’s mind at the time, and are still genuinely creepy today, as a clump of formless tissue slowly gains skeletal and muscle tissue, and then flesh. The shots of the creation are crosscut with shots of an overjoyed Frankenstein, who watches the process in the other room through a peep-hole, a grinning skeleton his only companion. All of this creates plenty of legitimate suspense: By the time the doors to the creation room open and Ogle sticks out his malformed hand, no doubt this little film had the audience gasping in surprise. Today, it remains one of the great cinematic horror scenes.

This creation sequence downplays the science and indicates that the Creature was created more out of supernatural means—a notion also supported by the Creature’s ultimate fate. The vat-creation also resembles the reported experiments of alchemist Konrad Dipple, the early 18th century magician who is said to be Mary Shelley’s chief inspiration for Victor Frankenstein. Both Dipple and Edison’s film point to an argument concerning the original Shelley novel that I have insisted upon for years as a literary critic: That it is wrong to call the book a work of “science fiction.” While Frankenstein himself claims to be a scientist, Shelley’s novel dealt not with the consequences of science gone wrong, but rather the consequences of conquering the unknown mysteries of the Divine in an attempt to one-up the Creator Himself. Victor Frankenstein is closer in spirit to the constructors of the Tower of Babel than to Charles Darwin—his sins are the longing to be like God and a rebellious spirit that leads him to a fatal encounter with fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In the book, we learn that Frankenstein mixes science with witchcraft to create the Creature, but the process for creation is never revealed—a strict contrast to the scientific explanations for the fantasy provided in the works of Wells, Verne, and even the later Frankenstein films. Shelley ignores the science and is seemingly more interested in Victor’s fate for toiling with dark, unknown arts. It is interesting to note that this original Frankenstein film understood this, whereas the later versions apparently forgot it. As the science of Frankenstein grows more and more outlandish as each new version is made (the most recent theatrical version features the Creature entombed in a metal coffin filled with amniotic fluid while sting-rays bite him, charging him into existence), here is an interpretation of Frankenstein made before the clichés, and it truly understands and applies Shelley’s themes without all of the B-grade archetypes feeling an obligation to make an appearance. In my book, that counts for something: Edison’s Frankenstein is a nearly-lost gem of a nearly-forgotten age of filmmaking.

Cast:
Augustus Phillips: Victor Frankenstein
Charles Ogle: The Creature
Mary Fuller: Elizabeth

A film by Edison Manufacturing Company. Written and directed by J. Searle Dawley, from the novel by Mary Shelley. No M.P.A.A. rating (should be fine for kids). Running time: 16 minutes. Original United States theatrical release date: March 18, 1910.