Rating of
3/4
A horror classic with few flaws
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/01/08
Based on the Mary Shelley 1817 novel, "Frankenstein" is one of Universal Studio's classic horror monsters, even though "Frankenstein" is actually the creator.
Colin Clive plays the "mad scientist" obsessed with creating life with his own hands. However, he is unaware his hunchbacked assistant "Fritz" brings to him a murderous, violent brain to control the body he created from corpses he collected from graves and gallows.
Boris Karloff is wonderful as "The Monster". He was very good at making "The Monster" a sympathetic character.
Other actors are good at their performances. The only one I did not like was Frederick Kerr's performance as "Baron Frankenstein". He seemed to be dazed and struggling through his lines most of the time.
Another minor problem was audio quality. In wide-shots that showed the actors performing in a distance from the camera, they could be barely heard. It is quite obvious that there was no microphone close enough so they could be heard clearly. Another scene has Colin Clive deliver a line with a thunder-clap sound effect masking his line, but that was done to please the censors of the time since it was blasphemous at the time to talk about God (the line was "Now I know what it means to be God!!").
The flaws are totally forgettable, since this movie is done so very well. "Frankenstein" is good enough for children, but they should be old enough to understand this is just a movie.
