Boris Karloff

FRANKENSTEIN

Universal, 1931. Directed by James Whale.  Camera:  Arthur Edeson, Paul Ivano.  With Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Marilyn Harris.

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In a prologue, an announcer steps from behind a curtain to warn the audience of the horrifying nature of the film they are about to see.  In the main story, at a funeral, Fritz, a dwarf, and young scientist Henry Frankenstein dig up a freshly buried body, claiming that the corpse is waiting for a new life.  They also remove a man hanging from a gibbet, but his broken neck requires that a new brain be found.  After Doctor Waldman's lecture at Goldstadt Medical College, Fritz sneaks in and, after dropping a bottle containing a normal brain, leaves with one containing the brain of a criminal.

Meanwhile, in Henry's hometown, Victor Moritz visits Elizabeth, whom he loves.  She has received a strange note from Henry her fiancée, who writes that his experiments preclude her from joining him.  Concerned, Victor and Elizabeth visit Waldman, Henry's former professor, who explains that Henry had left the college to pursue a mad dream of recreating human life.  Together the three go to Henry's laboratory, a watchtower in the mountains.

There, Henry and Fritz are preparing to use the power of lightning to charge their electrical mechanisms and give life to a body they have pieced together.  Henry agrees to let his friends observe and explains his scientific theories as his creation comes to life.  Later Victor and Elizabeth attempt to pacify Henry's doubting father, Baron Frankenstein, who is only interested in promoting the date of his son's wedding.

At the laboratory, while Waldman tells Henry of the monster's criminal brain, Fritz torments the monster and the monster kills him.  After a fight, Henry and Waldman sedate the monster just as the baron approaches the lab.  The exhausted Henry is taken home after Waldman promises to destroy the monster but, instead, Waldman is killed by the escaping monster.

As the wedding of Elizabeth and Henry is celebrated, the monster drowns Little Maria, a village child who plays with him, then menaces Elizabeth.  Ludwig, Maria's father, carries his daughter's body into town, and an angry search party is formed.  They go through the mountains by torchlight until Henry finds the monster, and the two engage in a struggle that continues in an abandoned mill, where the monster has fled.  The mob sets the mill ablaze, and the monster hurls Henry to the ground before being engulfed by flames.  Later, the baron celebrates the wedding of his recovered son with a toast to a future grandchild.

American Film Institute Catalog

Poster artwork courtesy of Dieter, Pete and Rikke.  Additional photos courtesy of Gary.