Still in 1931, we have Boris Karloff as the infamous Dr. Frankenstein's attempt to play God, only to face punishment. The film opens on Edward Van Sloan warning viewers that they are about to see something shocking. We then transition to a funeral, where Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) wait and dig up the body. They haul it away and Henry has Fritz cut down a hanged man's body, only to find that the neck was snapped and his brain is useless. At the Goldstadt Medical College, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan) is giving a lecture comparing normal and abnormal brains. Noting that the abnormal brain is from a man who led a violent life, he leaves the brains for students to inspect as he dismisses them. Fritz sneaks in through a window, but a loud noise startles him when he swipes the normal brain, causing him to drop it. He hurriedly grabs the abnormal brain and makes his escape. Elsewhere, Henry's fiancee Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) worries about Henry; he delved into his work when they got engaged, and she doesn't understand why he is going to such lengths to complete it. Their friend Victor (John Boles) reveals he saw Henry recently; he asked to see his friend's lab, and Henry became angry and said no one could. Victor and Elizabeth decide to speak with Waldman, Henry's former teacher, and the man explains that Henry's studies were advanced and becoming dangerous. He tells them he has become interested in creating life, and made macabre demands that they provide him with human bodies however possible to test. Despite his reluctance, Elizabeth is able to convince Waldman to come with them to Henry to get him help. Over at Henry's lab, he and Fritz are busy preparing their machinery as thunder crashes above, scaring Fritz. Fritz points out the arm of their creation, but Henry says it's fine; it just has a few stitches, and marvels at the idea of a dead brain coming back to life. After Fritz flips the switches, Henry decides they just need to wait 15 minutes, but the others suddenly arrive. He tells Fritz to send them away, and they cover the body. Fritz shoos them immediately, so they call out to Henry. He comes down himself upon realizing Elizabeth is below, and though he wants them to leave, he allows them in to take shelter. Henry assures Elizabeth he's fine but needs to finish his work, and becomes indignant when Victor calls him crazy, finally letting them up. He takes them to the lab after a final warning, insisting they sit down. Fritz yells at Waldman after noticing the old man searching their table, and Henry seats him. Henry says he learned a lot about the UV ray at school, but says he's since found a ray that's stronger and brings life to the world; his experiment will be the proof. He reveals he once kept a dead human heart beating for three weeks and will now bring this body to life. He claims it never lived before as he stitched it together from dead bodies he found anywhere he could. Henry allows them a peek, pointing out how three sane spectators are watching a "crazy" doctor, and Fritz points out the time has come. They hoist the body into the air, and after it is electrocuted, he brings it back down. The hand moves, causing him to cry out "It's alive" and proclaim that he knows what it's like to be God. Later, Elizabeth and Victor meet with Henry's father Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr), and though they assure him Victor is fine and just finishing his work, he points out how ridiculous it is for his son to be experimenting in a windmill when he has a nice home and a beautiful fiancee. He believes Henry is just having an affair, but Elizabeth stays firm that he's wrong, and the maid enters to say the Burgomaster, Herr Vogel (Lionel Belmore), is there. The Baron wants him gone, but Vogel enters anyway, wanting to know when Henry and Elizabeth will be married. Still believing Henry is cheating, his father says there probably won't be a wedding, refusing to say why, and Vogel angrily leaves. The Baron leaves as well, determined to find the "other woman" and bring his son back, not caring about his son's "work." Henry, int he meantime, is celebrating his success, but Waldman says his creation should be kept under guard, claiming it'll be dangerous. Henry says people always call you crazy if you wonder about the world, and that if he could discover one thing, he wouldn't care if they said so. Waldman counters that his success has left him blind to what he's done, and when Henry says it'll be fine, pointing out the brain came from his lab, Waldman surprises him with the news that the stolen brain was a criminal's. Henry ultimately shrugs it off, but Waldman says he's created a monster that will destroy him. Saying that Elizabeth believes in him like his father doesn't, Henry says he needs to experiment further, but their conversation is interrupted when the creature (Boris Karloff) lumbers into the room. A striking but grotesque figure, the creature follows Henry's every instruction, including sitting down and reacting to sunlight. He seems to ask for a hug after the light is closed off, but Henry simply tell him to sit, and he again complies. Fritz enters with a torch, wanting to see the monster, but he recoils in fear of it as the creature does the same, frightened by the flame. He becomes upset and attacks the men, so Henry decides they must tie him up and put him in the cellar. There, the monster continues his rampage, so Fritz comes down with a whip. Henry enters as well with a torch, which he sets down, and takes the whip, telling Fritz to leave the creature alone. Once Henry has left with the whip, however, Fritz picks up the torch and begins terrorizing the creature again. Henry and Waldman later hear Fritz cry out, and when they investigate, the creature becomes angry and violent again, forcing them to retreat. Once safe, Waldman suggests they kill the "savage animal," so Henry reluctantly fetches a hypodermic needle. They get the creature out and Waldman sedates him, but the creature knocks him out in the process, then collapses while wrestling with Henry. Knocking upstairs draws Henry's attention once he knows Waldman is okay; Victor has arrived to warn Henry about his father. They hide the creature back in the cellar, and Henry goes up to wash as his father waits impatiently at the door until Victor lets him in. Baron Frankenstein meets Waldman, who urges him to take Henry away, and they go upstairs and find Henry just as he collapses. Once they've helped him, the Baron announces he's taking his son home, and Waldman assures Henry that his research will be preserved and the creature will be painlessly killed. When he is later inspecting the creature, however, planning to dissect him, he awakens, as he has high drug tolerance. His arms free, he chokes Waldman. He makes his way to the ground floor and escapes, while Victor is relaxing with Elizabeth, talking about the long nights conducting his research. They decide to focus on their wedding, and we fade to them at the event, where Baron Frankenstein is overjoyed. While seemingly the whole town is happy, elsewhere the monster is having happy adventures of his own, but he will soon face some conflict from the people. Much like Dracula, Frankenstein has an old-fashioned charm to it and clear thought put into making the movie as great as possible with the technology they had.
Like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff was the perfect choice to play the monster, giving off the kind of bewildered, childlike amazement with things the monster should have. Whenever he sees something as simple as sunlight, the blank expression he bears becomes one of curious wonder as he tries to comprehend it. He seems a rather physical learner, often reaching out to grab things he doesn't understand and seemingly longing for physical contact. He also has a strange, lumbering gait that perfectly shows how the creature is trying to get used to his body, especially since the body is made of parts from multiple bodies that likely aren't entirely perfect together. You can tell as he's walking that he doesn't have the best balance, as along with stiffly stumbling along, he tends to lean forward as he moves. Of course, along with his well-known strange walk, he also grunts while attempting to communicate, as he doesn't know how to actually talk, though in the book, the creature eventually does learn. While watching the creature try to interact with those around him, you really get the sense that he's just an innocent, puzzled creature trying to understand the world. His appearance and lack of speaking ability prevents this, however, as those around him are so afraid they immediately assume he's a violent monster. Karloff played him perfectly so that you will get this feeling while watching him lumber around, and it makes him much more sympathetic. The fact that the others don't really care about him and how he's suffering is shown best later in the film, as they happily plan a wedding while Waldman plans to dissect the creature. After watching Dracula, we see a return for Dwight Frye as Fritz, and he does just as entertaining job as the crazy, somewhat bumbling sidekick type as before. He doesn't have as pronounced a hump as people usually give Dr. Frankenstein's assistant, but he has a hunched over way of walking that makes up for it. Seeing this movie was, for me, also a fun way to learn where certain pop culture jokes are from, especially from Mel Brooks's parody classic Young Frankenstein, a favorite movie of mine. Particularly great was getting to see the origin of Igor dropping the normal brain and grabbing one he later calls "Abby Normal's." The effects and makeup in this movie are fantastic, especially for the time, with a great lab for Henry and an incredible, famous creature design. Boris Karloff's look as the monster is the most iconic, giving us the flat-top head and the bolts in his neck. A dark, dreary makeup goes perfectly with the expression on Karloff's face, making him appear rather creepy. Another classic monster movie, Frankenstein shows us why we shouldn't be so quick to be cruel, and is the best example of a sympathetic monster.
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