Over time, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has been brought to life on film numerous times with some interesting comparisons. The first was a 13 minute silent film produced in 1910. The film begins with Frankenstein going off to college where he quickly learns how to create life from dead tissue. The visual slide for the scene says, "the evil in Frankenstein's mind creates a monster." In Shelley's original text, it is not for evil but for good that Victor is intent to “renew life” after death (pg 54). However, at the same time, Victor relishes in the fact that others will owe him the glory of being their creator (pg 54, p 2). His pride and vanity may be construed as 'evil' while his intent was to benefit others through his scientific achievement. At the end of the film. The monster does not kill Elizabeth. Instead, in a fit of jealousy over the scene of Victor and Elizabeth together he is, "over come by love and disappears."
Frankenstein
the Book -v- the Movies
Perhaps the most famous film version of Frankenstein, was delivered into cinema in 1931 starring Boris Karloff as the "fiendish monster". In the film they changed the name of Victor to Henry and provided him with a hunchbacked assistant named Fritz. Later depictions revealed Doctor Frankenstein's assistant as Igor. Of course, in Shelley's novel Victor had no assistant and was determined to keep his work a secret until he achieved success.
Many comical depictions of Frankenstein's monster have graced the screen over the years including the 1960's television series The Munster's and Mel Brooks' infamous 1974 parody, Young Frankenstein. Starring Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein (Fronk-en-steen), grandson of the late Victor Frankenstein, the movie loosely follows Shelley's novel. Wilder follows in his grandfather's footsteps by giving life to a monster of his
creation. In the special features of the DVD, Brooks proudly used the actual laboratory set from the 1931 film. Elizabeth does not die, but falls in love with the monster after he kidnaps and ravishes her in a near by cave. Interestingly, Young Frankenstein is the one movie version that like Shelley's original text, offers the viewer a sympathetic look at the creature not as a monster but as a being deserving of humane treatment and love. Shelley's book offers a very compassionate look at the monster as someone capable of love, recognition of beauty, and one detesting the violence of our human past (pg 114-121). Wilder's Frankenstein refers to him as “a good boy” and “a mother's angel.” Compassion is offered to the creature by his creator. In the text, Victor abandons his creation in disgust and horror. The monster is quoted as saying, “No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses...” (pg 121).
The 1994 version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with Robert DeNiro and Helena Bonham Carter is acclaimed for being the closest depiction of Shelley's book put to film. In comparing Frankenstein the book and Frankenstein the movie, I found quite a few changes which boggled my mind as to there necessity in portraying the story. In the movie, Victor's mother dies in childbirth, his father is a doctor, Professor Waldman
introduces the idea of re-animation of tissue, and Clerval never dies at the hands of the monster. Clerval and Frankenstein are not childhood friends but classmates in the college at Ingolstadt where he assists Victor and has full knowledge of his intent to create a living being from "raw materials," as Victor Frankenstein refers to the body parts he collects.
The creatures story is severely cut short in the movie where his time spent observing the DeLacey family doesn't do justice to the book, leaving the viewer less sympathetic than when reading Shelley's novel. Some interesting changes were Victor's collection and use of amniotic fluid in creating life, the locket that young William wore to his death was a picture of Victor and not his mother, and the monster stated that his knowledge was more “things remembered” by Victor's raw materials used in his creation than things “learned.” The movie flows in sync with Shelley's original tale while incorporating an interesting twist to the ending. Victor reanimates Elizabeth who upon seeing herself as a monster, kills herself.