Rating: 
Summary: The Ultimate Monster Movie
Review: No class on horror films would be complete without this movie. It was one of the first and still one of the best ever made. The movie that made Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. Jack Pierce provides the best make-up since Chaney's Phantom of the Opera.Superb directing! See the uncut version if you can.
Rating: 
Summary: Frankenstein 1931
Review: Boris Karloff is the only Frankenstein. This movie brings back memories of Nightmare Theater in Dallas in the early 1960's on TV channel 11. Most notable are the electrical spark machines that bring the monster to life. The film quality was not as good as I thought it would be on tape or DVD, but the story and spookiness does overcome this. The B&W adds to the spookie atmosphere. One drawback - the movie only lasts about 70 minutes. I would rate the movie much higher if the clarity were better and it lasted longer, but this an all time collector's movie. Always great to watch around Hallowe'en and with the kids late at night with pizza or nachos.
Rating: 
Summary: "Alive!" & Chilling Universal Horror Flick
Review: The Monster - ?
That's how the credits give recognition to the great Boris Karloff. This is a chilling film starring Colin Clive as 'Henry Frankenstein', Mae Clarke as 'Elizabeth', the incomprable KARLOFF as 'The Monster, with Dwight Frye as 'Fritz'. This is a strange movie with scenes not in the original release including the savage murder of the young girl, Maria. The film is disturbing and has amazing effects. The film has a great cast with a spellbinding beginning, a weird middle, and the famous second to last scene in the burning windmill. "IT'S ALIVE!"
Rating:
Summary: Over-Acted Mary Shelly Story -- 1935 Sequel MUCH Better!
Review: Boris Karloff gives birth to his legendary "Monster" creature. Dark and dreary with many effects considered tops in its day. The painful over-dramatic acting by Colin Clive (Dr. Frankenstein) and most others in this film takes away from the powerful message the author had intended. Rather than a commentary on man's inhumanity to man, we are left with a campy horror flick. The 1935 sequel "Bride of Frankenstein" is a great improvement on the Original project, much preferable to this one. Still considered a Classic, "Frankenstein" delivers the chills today as it did more than 70s years ago. Close your curtains tight and check under your beds before retiring at night...the monster is on the loose!***
Rating:
Summary: A Horror Movie Masterpiece
Review: Frankenstein is the kind of horror movie that I remember watching on late Saturday nights growing up. These old-time horror movies relied on psychological terror and strong acting performances rather than blood and guts to captivate an audience. Frankenstein succeeds on both of these counts. Colin Clive stars as Dr. Henry Frankenstein and Dwight Frye stars as his hunch-backed assistant Fritz. Dr. Frankenstein has taken to robbing graves in his effort to create his own human being. In his search for a human brain, Fritz inadvertantly steals a brain from an evil person. Frankenstein is unaware of this as he transplants the brain into his human. What results is Boris Karloff's monster. However, Frankenstein's monster isn't the "killing machine" that we see in today's horror movies. Rather, the monster seems to be searching for his own identity (witness the scene with the little girl near the river). The people of the town perceive him to be evil when perhaps he is merely searching for acceptance. The acting in the movie is excellent. Colin Clive does a masterful job as Dr. Frankenstein, while Dwight Frye is excellent as Fritz. The scenework, such as the shots of Dr. Frankenstein's castle and the final scene at the windmill are captivating as well. I highly recommend this movie along with other classic horror movies of this time period. They will bring back memories of sitting around the TV on dark Saturday nights and jumping up from your seat at each scary scene.
Rating:
Summary: An entertaining literary inaccuracy!
Review: Ridiculous? Absolutely! Literarily inaccurate? For sure! ...but, from a 1931 viewer's perspective, was it entertaining? Without a doubt! What I want to know is ...who is "Henry" Frankenstein anyway? Is he a bizarre combination of Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval from Mary Shelly's tale? Or perhaps Hollywood felt that Henry is a better name for the protagonist and the name Victor should be reserved for the handsome family friend (???). Also - what about the hunchbacked Fritz ... I seemed to remember Victor Frankenstein's journey into his mad obsession to be a solitary one. ...And so forth and so on! Despite all of this, I still think this is a must watch for classic movie buffs and Mary Shelly fans.
Rating:
Summary: Karloff was, is and always will be one of the greatest!
Review: Say what you want about the creakiness of the plot and some of the seriously dated performance techniques that are quite laughable. Say too what you may about the fact that this film has little in common with the gorgeous, poetic and romantic novel that brilliantly set up the 21st century debate of man versus technology. But please enjoy Boris Karloff, possibly the most overlooked and underrated actor in film history presenting a masterful performance worthy of study and celebration. Karloff's creation is simply one of the finest performances ever captured on film. It is one of the two or three great performances never nominated for the Oscar. Largely a carefully crafted pantomime creation from an actor trained on stage, the creature is not only terrifying, but hauntingly human and tragic. What Karloff is able to do with just the simplest of gesture or roll of the eye is what acting is all about: telling a truthful, electrifying and emotional story. The academy and the industry underutilized this expert craftsman. Because of his odd looks, there was admittedly a limited market for him. However in many respects he was as good as Sir Olivier and could have been used in oh so many ways. I urge all to take a look at this film if for no other reason than to savor an expert example of acting for film.
Rating:
Summary: The Allegory of the Two Frankensteins
Review: *** Contains mild/vague spoilers ***
Mary Shelley's Gothic novel, Frankenstein, was transformed into a black and white motion picture in 1931, but the book still provides us with a better "cautionary tale against overweening presumption" (Shelley iii). Although James Whale's adaptation of Shelley's masterpiece is, as 1930's movies go, a wonderful specimen it could never eclipse the brilliance and talent of the author's original story.
The first of the many inconsistancies begins almost immediately. The picture's introduction, by the renowned "Dracula" actor, Bela Lugosi, was mysterious and ominous. The book's introduction, written by Mary Shelley, is calm and realistic. Shelley's tale of a "hideous phantasm of a man" (viii) is written in a way that can almost be believed, where as the movie is quite the opposite. To be led by the hand into a world that Lugosi openly admits to being fictional, and as he implies, impossible is one thing. To have the door thrown wide open to a horrible premonition of what might be, what very well could be... Ah, blissful terror.
Whale's "Frankenstein" includes minute changes that are often bemusing. The change of names for example, Shelley's Victor Frankenstein becomes Henry Frankenstein and Victor's best friend Henry, now called Victor, recieves its own share of blinks and blank stares but does not altogether ruin the experience. However, adding tedious and unnecessary details where once there were only obscure hints dims the allure and quiets the terror one feels when confronted with the mystery of the novel and the creature's unknown origins. Whale unvieled the secrets that the audience did not want to hear and spoiled the delicious bite of fear, the tingle that comes when something goes, "Bump!" in the dark of night.
There are a few more changes which will inevitably bring ire to the forefront. In James Whale's own "Frankenstein" little can be said of the ending, except that it is typically trite in true Hollywood form. If Whale's "Frankenstein" were as interesting in body, had been as full and complex as the real Frankenstein is then maybe the final product would be a little less miserably happy.
Something else to irritate a critic would be the lack of secrecy, the missing solitude of our tragic heros, that we find in Mary Sheley's Modern Prometheus, but which is absent from Whale's "Frankenstein." From the very beginning of the motion picture Victor "Henry" Frankenstein is not alone in he knowledge that such an abomination exists, or even that this abomination is own own first son. James Whale brings to the laboratory the professor, the best friend, and the fiancée. It is with their help that Victor bears tragedies that follow his Monster's abnormal birth, but these tragedies do not touch so close to our main character's heart as the did previously.
In the end it lies with the critic, with the reader, with the viewer. The question is not which piece is the better work, or even which artist is better creator, the question is for those who pick up the book and play the movie. The question is yours to answer. Are you more suited to Hollywood's happy endings and rose colored glasses? Or are you willing - nay, eager, to walk into Mary Shelley's sorrow, her grief, her wild terror and mind numbing horror? Watch the movie, then read the book. It it my personal opinion that proceeding in the opposite order would be unwise, you would spoil the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Where is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
Review: I was delighted to receive the video in the mail today. What timing! My class of high school seniors has finished reading Mary Shelley's novel and will be taking their final tomorrow. Afterwards, I thought they would really enjoy the film. Unfortunately, I just finished viewing it and am sick. This adaptation is nothing like the book. I am scrambling around looking for one that is! I honestly feel I have wasted $...---and on my miserable salary that's painful! The acting, sets, script, camera work, and editing are ridiculously crude. I wish I had saved my money and spent it elsewhere!
Rating:
Summary: Frankenstein
Review: A classic. A truly scary movie and sad without the graphics and
video manipulation of todays movies.
Any real collector must have a copy of this movie.
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