100 years ago, J. Searle Dawley wrote and directed Frankenstein.
It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actually shot in just one day).
It marked the first time that Mary Shelley’s literary creation was adapted to film.
And, somewhat notably, Thomas Edison had a hand (albeit it an indirect one) in making the film. The first Frankenstein was shot at Edison Studios, the production company owned by the famous inventor.
Quote:
“In making the film, the Edison Company has carefully tried to eliminate all the actually repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale."
— The Edison Kinetogram, March 1910
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The first Frankenstein film was released on March 18, 1910.
The 12-minute film was shot in January of 1910 at the Edison studios on Decatur Avenue, in The Bronx, New York. In an era when film were made in just one day, three whole days were lavished on this production, no doubt due to the demands of elaborate makeup and the special effects of the creation and mirror scenes.
Frankenstein was overseen by J. Searle Dawley, serving as producer, writer and director. A former actor, stage manager and vaudevillian, Dawley had been hired by Edwin S. Porter of the Edison Company in 1907, specifically to direct. He would later lay claim to the title of “the first motion picture director” because, until then, “the cameraman was in full charge”. Dawley would direct well over 200 silents, including Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1908), a thriller famous for its scene of a baby carried aloft by an eagle, and the acting debut of one D.W.Griffith.
The same year he made Frankenstein, Dawley traveled to California as one of the leaders of a movement that would see filmmaking in America switch to the West Coast. In 1917, he became the first secretary, under Alan Dwan, of the newly formed Motion Pictures Directors Association. Dawley quit films in 1927 to work in radio.
In Dawley’s Frankenstein, the scientist literally cooks up his Monster in a boiler-cabinet. A dummy of the Monster, complete with a movable arm, was set afire and the film was reversed so that we see The Monster apparently assemble itself in a cloud of roiling ash and smoke. Frankenstein is overcome with horror and remorse at the sight of his horrible, hairy creation. In the one scene straight out of Mary Shelley’s novel, The Monster appears at the bed curtains to hover balefully over the collapsed Frankenstein.
In the final scene, as he looks at himself in a full-length mirror, The Monster vanishes, but his reflection remains. Frankenstein enters and sees himself as The Monster in the mirror. The image of The Monster dissolves and is replaced by Frankenstein’s reflection. The title card reads:
“The creation of an evil mind is overcome by love and disappears". The concept of Frankenstein and his Monster as being intimately connected, perhaps even one and the same, has since been explored in countless retellings.
A truly historical moment in our genre. Come, let's relive those moments...
You can download the movie at the Internet Archive here -
http://www.archive.org/details/FrankensteinfullMovie
or watch the complete film here -
Frankenstein was just one of thirty films released by the Edison Trust that week. It seems that Frankenstein had the typically short distribution life that most films could hope for back then. Copies were sent through the exhibition circuit and soon returned to the Edison lab and destroyed, their silver content recycled. Cinema art and technology progressed rapidly in those days and, a mere five years later, the theatrics of Frankenstein were already old hat. The film was to be forgotten for half a century.
In 1963, a copy of the March 15, 1910 issue of The Edison Kinetogram trade magazine surfaced with a picture of the Ogle Frankenstein and a synopsis of the film. Among other sources, Famous Monsters of Filmland carried an article about it and, almost overnight, the film became one of the most sought after of all “lost film”. Against all expectations, it did not remain lost for long.
The film is usually referred to as “The Edison Frankenstein”, but the real-life scientist and experimenter, Thomas Edison, only ushered the fictional scientist, Frankenstein, into the world of films in his remote capacity as president of the Edison Kinetograph Company. There is no record of Edison himself mentioning the film or, for that matter, even seeing it, from among the veritable torrent of product his company churned out every week.
For more info about this film, please click below.
Source -
http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2...of-movies.html