Frankenstein - 1910

Country: United States

Language: English

Director: J. Searle Dawley

Writers: Mary Shelley (novel), J. Searle Dawley

Stars: Mary Fuller, Charles Ogle and Augustus Phillips

Release Date: 18 March 1910 (USA)

Production Co: Edison Manufacturing Company

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White (tinted)

Plot Keywords: Frankenstein | Mirror | Alchemy | Frankenstein's Monster | Experiment Gone Wrong | Gothic Horror | Horror Movie Remade | One Word Title | Doctor Frankenstein | Reverse Footage | Remade | Based On Novel | Character Name In Title

Genres: Short | Horror

Frankenstein, a young medical students, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster. A fight ensues but the monster, seeing himself in a mirror, is horrified and runs away. He later returns, entering the new bride's room, and finds her alone.

Trivia

Since its original release, the Thomas Edison "Frankenstein" had been listed as missing; no copies of the film existed. An original nitrate print finally turned up in Wisconsin in the mid-1970s.

Prior to the film's rediscovery, only a few images of Charles Ogle as The Monster were known to exist. Interestingly, Ogle looks a lot younger in the film than he does in the photographs.

This is one of the only Frankenstein films where the monster is truly created. All Frankenstein films that followed assembled body parts from various corpses to make the monster. In this film, Frankenstein uses chemicals and "potions" to create the monster. The "creation" scene was made by filming a monster-dummy burning, and then playing the footage backwards.

First filmed version of the story of Frankenstein's monster.