After watching the Mummy, furthermore, feeling a bit mixed on the emotions I decided to watch another one of Boris Karloff's films that made him a monster movie legend and really the greatest one of all the classic monsters movies, Frankenstein. Now, everyone has that one movie that introduced them into the world of Frankenstein and sadly it wasn't the original Frankenstein it was actually Young Frankenstein from Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, and I can remember watching the original film and realizing wow a lot of references and to keep this short will get to Young Frankenstein in a little bit because it's marked a 50th Anniversary of the release of the film so, for right now let’s get Boris Karloff's greatest performance.
The film follows the obsessed scientist, Dr. Henry Frankenstein, as he attempts to create life by assembling a creature from body parts of the deceased. Aided by his loyal misshapen assistant, Fritz, Frankenstein succeeds in animating his monster, but it escapes into the countryside and begins to wreak havoc. Frankenstein searches for the elusive being and eventually must confront his tormented creation.
During the midst of 1930, Universal Studio's lost 2.2 million dollars in revenues and with the successes of Dracula things really started to change in Universal gained more of their money back in around 48 hours. So, there's no question Frankenstein really became the next chapter in Universals success through the thirties. Now if I had to pick in terms of which is the best of Boris Karloff's performances between Frankenstein's monster or The Mummy it would most certainly be Frankenstein's monster for many reasons it's really him combined with the great makeup as well as his acting and to me his performance alone is what makes the movie, and really is yes a monster but not necessarily a monster the way he's able to portray the monster as a victim and gentle giant you feel more for his character as a misunderstood monster and yet the real monster is his creator Henry Frankenstein who made him out of wanting to feel like God but through the course of the movie realizes his mistake for which sure you can tweak with the script in order to fix that mistake but let’s face it if you did then we wouldn't have Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein. Karloff is most certainly the star of the movie but the supporting cast is also great as well for which includes Colin Clive playing Henry Frankenstein, and the opening part of that whole movie where he's beginning to assemble his creation is just outstanding especially close ups of him being totally delirious moreover insane about wanting to bring life in the world and when I first watch the iconic scene of him delivering the line "it's alive" I just had full goosebumps like it’s just the feel of wanting to watch the scene over and over again and the way Clive delivers that line is so great that it puts a smile on my face just thinking about it while I'm writing this review and more importantly his performance in the first act of the film should be an important example of finding that way to crazy madman performance if you're in actor finding a role. Like all of the classic monster movies from the 1930's for sure their great and excellent but there's always the flaws and plot holes and to be honest I think what confuses me is when the creature begins to wreak havoc everyone is not blaming Henry Frankenstein furthermore not having moments of his own father shaming him for creating this monster and yet he realizes his mistake and helps the crowd search for the monster and again he doesn't get any blame for this but then again there many reasons why they went with this story but then again the more you think about it the more you begin to lose your own mind and reality. No question I would rank the original Frankenstein as one of the greatest monster movies and yet I feel the need to watch Bela Lugosi's Dracula but will most certainly leave that for another time. Like, the Mummy I would highly recommend watching Frankenstein though you can try having your kids watch these movies to test their attention span but, I'm not sure they can go though it but then again, these movies are 73 minutes long so, it could be worth a try.
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