Movie: Frankenstein (1931)

Trailer to Frankenstein

Our lazy afternoon viewing was James Whale's 1931 "horror classic." What makes a movie a "classic?" Innovative camera work, mainly. Frankenstein has some truly incredible visual offerings: burying a man out in a creepy graveyard, complete with angel of death. A windmill out on a precipice. Arcs of electricity in a mad scientist's lab. The appearance of the monster. A scene in which the monster kills a little girl.

But perhaps the deepest lesson to get from watching Frankenstein, or any "classic" movie, is about maintaining your love of craft in a world that best appreciates convention. There are horrible character actors here: the guy playing Dr. Frankenstein's dad is just terrible, and even Boris Karloff's own performance is, for me, overrated. The story has been mangled twice over since "Mrs. Percy Shelley" (yes, that's what it says in the opening credits!), leaving us with a version in which Frankenstein's murderous nature can be explained by installation of the wrong brain, and both Dr. Frankenstein and his fiancée Elizabeth live to the end, presumably happily ever after. The evidence is clear: Hollywood made a blockbuster out of the Frankenstein story, and they very likely distorted Whale's directorial vision as well. But Whale is a professional, which means here that he fills the picture with just the conventions the audience wants, with just a touch here and there of features that might possibly challenge the viewer (Frankenstein says he knows what it means "to be God," little girl murder, Swiss wedding dances). He didn't abandon his project because he had to compromise on his vision. That's certainly a lesson for the young person.