Frankenstein is a 1931 American horror film starring Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, and Boris Karloff, and directed by James Whale. The film is a very loose adaptation of English writer Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1818). Clive plays the scientist Henry Frankenstein, who builds a creature from the parts of dead bodies, and successfully brings it to life, but is unable to control the strong, simpleminded creation.
While it was not the first time the novel was filmed (there had been a few silent short films of Frankenstein in the 1910s and '20s), the 1931 version is certainly the most famous version, and remains an influential horror film in its own right.
Frankenstein in "Shtetl Days"[]
Frankenstein was one of two films that Veit Harlan watched the evening after he'd undergone a circumcision. The other was Bringing Up Baby. Although the film was in black and white, over a century old, and poorly dubbed into German, Harlan was thoroughly gripped by Frankenstein. The next day, he had an epiphany: the village of Wawolnice was a Frankenstein monster, created from the surviving scraps of Jewish culture by the German Reich. And now, the German actors had quietly become Jews themselves.
See also[]
- The Universal Monsters, for additional, minor references to Frankenstein and related films.
- Boris Karloff, who played Frankenstein's Monster in this film and two others.
- Bela Lugosi, who played both Ygor and the Monster himself in different Frankenstein sequels.
- Igor, a POV character in "Father of the Groom" who is based on a stock character from Frankenstein plays and movies.
- The 1931 film at the Frankenstein wiki.
- Harry Turtledove at the Frankenstein wiki
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