Victor Frankenstein after achieving the impossible and building a fucking person from scraps of the dead: Oh god, ew, ew it's ugly! Yucky! Yucky! Gross! Ew! Ew! Yucky! Yucky! Gross! Ew!
I had never seen an Abbott and Costello movie before and let me tell you. This was a fantastic one to start with! It's got all the fellas in it! Lon Chaney Jr. as Wolfman- Bela Lugosi as Dracula- Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster. Guys. The only thing better would've been if my boy Boris was the Monster.
It was SO silly and so light hearted that it makes me wish more movies could be like this. The moment I was sold was the moment when Wilbur chose to bark at the first woman's fur that was draped over her shoulder. To accompany it theres a moment at the end where he started running down the hallway and Chick stops him!
"Not that way!" He says "To the left!" To which Wilbur looks down at his hands, nods, and then runs directly left into the wall. I nearly passed out it was so funny.
I think this is the dumbest I’ve ever felt watching a movie and it’s not the movie’s fault. The lack of musical backing in tandem with the infrequent subtitle cards made it so hard to focus on this movie!
The link above is surprisingly clean footage, it’s just a challenging watch if you’re not overly familiar with the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. We might find a newer (like midcentury) remake and see if it’s worth checking out lol
“It is one of the strangest tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation: life and death. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now is your chance to, uh... well, we've warned you!”
It was immediately clear that it was completely anachronistic to the original timeline in the book, but also to itself. It’s clearly not the late 1920s/early 1930s when it would’ve been written and filmed, but it’s also definitely past 1899 (a grave was read out in Bride of Frankenstein that said death was in 1899).
It also didn’t have a clear idea of where it was based. Alpine Esq Village for sure, but I didn’t hear one town name. It was also very jarring that everyone had American accents even though Clive was British and Karloff was British too!
I do have some pretty minor beef about how they chose to portray the triad (Frankenstein, Clerval, and Elizabeth). Like why the fuck did Mr Whale decide to make Frankenstein’s first name be Henry, and then change Clerval’s name NOT JUST TO VICTOR! But to change his last name too?!? It makes it so confusing!!! (He also said something about being ‘very fond’ of Elizabeth, which clearly made Elizabeth uncomfortable but well sweep past that)
It’s hard to equate the creatures too. Because Karloff’s Creature is entirely misunderstood, and forced into being violent in a more physical way than the book. The book its all emotional pinning before the Creature is finally like ‘yeah fuck that guy for real’ and targeted specifically the family Frankenstein.
In the movie the Creature has a criminal’s brain (so funny to see that ~I fucked up the good version of This Organ so I have to just grab anything~ replayed in so many different iterations following this one) assuming some real phrenology bullshit, but removing that fact his actions still make sense. The Creature’s first murder is because Ygor is LITERALLY waving fire at him even though it’s agitating him. I would’ve killed his ass too!!!!
From then on the murders we see are all accidental! He doesn’t intend to drown that little girl! He doesn’t understand how this world works! She showed him that throwing things (flowers) in the water makes them float! He wanted her to get to float!
They describe the creature as ‘murdering across the mountains’ but I don’t know who he’s murdering! We only see the little girl and her body is revealed after that declaration. He saves the shepherdess too! They think he was trying to hurt her but he literally saved her and she lived so it couldn’t have been her.
After he comes back into Frankenstein’s house and comes after Elizabeth I assumed he was going to kill her. Like he’s going to be proven as the monster they claim him to be, but he didn’t even kill her! He just scared her, which might not have even been intentional.
It’s so wild. The timeline is so condensed in this movie that the creature hasn’t even really figured out how to communicate, or understand what he’s looking at yet and he’s already being blamed for murder. That’s another thing though! The monster is being seen and known as Frankenstein’s monster! But Frankenstein is not facing any consequences, he’s just irritated by that fact. He’s like ‘no I should kinda return to my studies bc I could’ve created a whole race of people. I could’ve figured out eternal life!’ When that was not at all the vibe from Book Victor. And the fact that immediately he showed the creature to Elizabeth and Victor (Henry) and a Professor is wild to me.
Either way. Karloff throwing Clive’s Dummy out of the windmill is still so funny to me and I replay it in my mind constantly.
As a movie I think it’s fun! I don’t think it’s scary or creepy and I think the set design is nostalgic for that Old Tyme Hollywood Vibe, and I think that’s wonderful. I did enjoy watching. Plus the amount of things in this movie that have become synonymous with Frankenstein and the story wherein makes it so iconic that you really can’t be mad about the changes.
As a Frankenstein Adaptation it’s a little more shaky lol. The Creature has absolutely no autonomy or self responsibility. He really is completely innocent and I think Frankenstein is more of a villain in this adaptation than even the book.
Anyway! It’s on the internet archive if you’re interested in watching 🫶
Frankenstein is a 1931 American pre-Code science fiction gothic horror film directed by James Whale, produced by Carl Laemmle Jr., and adapt
me: to really understand Frankenstein, we have to take into account that Mary Shelley was surrounded by creative men who really didn’t take her seriously, so in addition to sci-fi horror, it can also be read as an exploration of female creative frustration and-
The burglar that broke into my house: bodily autonomy?
I’m absolutely a bad Frankenstein fan for this but I am having SUCH a hard time allowing myself to commit so much time to the new Frankenstein movie. Part of me wants to read reviews to reassure me that I’ll like it just fine, but I see that run time and I’m like :/
We literally watched Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) last night as a double feature (reviews to come), and I enjoyed them both just fine! Idk why I can’t push myself into watching 2026. I load it up on TV and I’m like eh
I finished the book some time ago at this point. But I’m a preschool teacher and plans for the summer classes took priority over posting lol
Anyway!!!
There is SO much to put in this post but generally speaking. I’m fully on the side of the Creature. He was SO right to stop Victor from getting to have what he was so exclusively denied. I know that you’re supposed to be like ‘ooo oh no! The monster is killing Victor’s family and his friends and he must be stopped! Victor was just being cautious!’
Boooo fuck that. Victor was being a self absorbed asshole. If he didn’t want to take care of the thing he created then he shouldn’t have created it. Part of taking care of the creature could’ve been as easy as introducing him as a family friend and trying to ingratiate the Creature into the world of man. It might not have worked but the only reason the Creature went straight to wanting another of his kind is because of how repeatedly he faced violence just by existing near other people.
He was educated and well spoken and he told Victor how the fuck it was. He told Victor to double it and give it to the next person or he was gonna kill again. And you know what? He’s a man of his word.
I’m sorry Henry had to be dispatched like that and I wish Victor had gone to jail about it. I’m Victor’s number 1 hater.
ANYWAY. Victor chasing after the Creature across the entire earth is so funny to me. Like. Girl. You won't catch up with him. He's bigger, faster, and he can go longer without eating. He's not afraid of you. The part that was afraid was long gone by this point.
I will also say, there is this part of media literacy that makes me wonder what Mary was pulling from when she wrote this. Of course in modern day it can be seen as a Transgender/Ableist Allegory from the Parent's Perspective, right?
We can talk about it as Creating Something Pridefully and then Rejecting That Thing Because It's Not What You Wanted/Expected. Refusing it any sort of love or safety because it's "ugly" (replace Ugly with anything, trans- gay- higher needs- etc), then when the Guy You Made is telling you that they're being rejected everywhere they go you look at them and say "Yeah because you're _____". What a dick.
I do wonder what it was that she was thinking about in her social contexts. I know she was either just married or about to get married, and I know her mother was a huge feminist icon but I don't know much more than that. I'm definitely going to do more research on this, it's just what my general curiosity is stuck on.
Any thoughts are welcome, if I'm honest. I am so enraptured by this book and I am still trying to decide when we're going to double feature the 1930's Frankenstein and the 2026 Frankenstein.
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