Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931) is about a scientist assembling a man from parts taken out of graves. What he makes does not speak, is frightened, and reaches for the light. The film runs seventy minutes and never resolves the question of who the monster is. After the success of Dracula, Bela Lugosi hoped to play Henry Frankenstein; producer Carl Laemmle Jr. expected him to play the creature instead. When James Whale came onto the project he cast Boris Karloff. Lugosi's objection has been quoted ever since: he had been a star in his own country and would not be a scarecrow here. He and the original director Robert Florey were given Murders in the Rue Morgue as compensation. Karloff's name does not appear in the opening credits. A single question mark stands in its place, to keep both the creature's appearance and who played him a secret. Jack Pierce created the makeup, and that design became the standard for every Universal film that followed. The scene by the lake with the little girl Maria was censored immediately. State boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York cut the drowning, and Kansas demanded 32 scenes be removed. The missing footage was found in the British national film archive in the 1980s and restored to current prints. Through all its releases up to 1953 it grossed twelve million dollars. It runs 70 minutes. Good for: classic horror, the Universal monsters, and short concentrated storytelling. Less good for: the acting carries the exaggeration of the silent era and, the laboratory sequence aside, the visual effect is limited. It has very little to do with Mary Shelley's novel, where the creature speaks and reads.