A02 - Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein was released in the USA on the 21st of November 1931 with a budget of $291,000. It was produced by Universal Pictures and based on the novel written by Mary Shelly. The story is centered around an enthusiastic and passionate doctor called Henry Frankenstein who is trying to discover a way to make the dead come back to life. He succeeds and creates a monster that has to deal with living again. Frankenstein ideas are still used in the media today.


At the very beginning of the film a warning is given to the audience, the warning is given by a man (Edward Van Sloan) in a smart suit in front of a stage almost symbolizing a narrator. This opening sequence adds meaning to the scene by use of stars. Edward Van Sloan is known for starring in top horror films so the audience know immediately after Edward walks onto the set that this is going to be a good film. The opening credits of the film last just under one minute and the monster who is played by Boris Carloff is not named in the opening title sequence. However is in the end.
The film starts in a graveyard with great mise en scene, the audience are immediately aware that the location is a graveyard due to alot of panning shots and a funeral is occurring. Alot of sound is used in the opening scene to create a tense atmosphere, people are crying around a coffin which signifys the audience about the funeral, the church bell is ringing and the audience can hear the dirt hitting the coffin. This scene has very little lighting to make it "scarier" and abit of low key lighting to make shadows. The lighting may also be
dark as part of symbolism as Henry Frankenstein is about to steal the dead body. In Frankenstein there is alot of representation of the "class system" the rich and the poor. also stereotypes women slightly such as when all the men hunt for the monster leaving all females at home.
Universal produced the movie Frankenstein who were big producers of the horror genre in the 1930's also producing "Dracula" "The Invisible Man" "The Bride Of Frankenstein" and "The Son Of Frankenstein" however now universal tend to produce other genres of film.


James Whale the director of Frankenstien is most known for Directing this Frankenstien movie which was the 4th movie he has ever directed even after directing 20 movies between 1930 and 1940. between the 1930's and 1940's (and onwards) where the "Great Depression" was occurring which was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II . Here is a graph showing how

bad the Great Depression was and how it effected movies as well as everything else at the time.
Alot of meaning is created in Frankenstein through Image and sound, the sound orchestra plays a huge part in the film making a more tense atmosphere when needed and works well with low key lighting. Borris Carloff played Frankenstein very well throughout the film and was a great use of star by universal as he is now known for playing Frankenstein on a numerous occasions.
I believe that Henry Frankenstein is represented throughout the opening of the film as a "Bad Doctor" or "Mad scientist" who was taught by Dr. Waldman Represented with a positive effect almost like a role model to Henry. The audience are first aware that Henry was taught by Dr. Waldman when Victor and Elizabeth were talking about Henry's mysterious experiments Victor says "dont worry ill go to Dr. Waldman, Henrys old proffessor in medical school, perhaps he can come in more about all this"
Frankenstien was distributed during the time of the "Studio System" by Universal studios which was not a top studio at the time, However MGM Stuidos, Paramount and Fox were. Frankenstien would of been distributed mainly in america in 1931 playing in cinemas and obviously was not released on dvd due to it being so long ago.
During the middle of the film while the "monster" is alive, he meets a young girl in quite a shocking scene, the young girl is innocentley playing on her own next to a lake with flowers, she sees Frankenstien, takes him by the hand and walks down towards the lake with him to play. The little girl throws a head of a flower into the lake to watch it float off. Frankenstein stats to throw the heads of flowers into the lake until their is none left. he then looks at the small girl and picks her up, horrifying the audience he then throws the small girl who cant swim into the lake which leads to her death. due to censorship of the Hays office at the time this scene was cut out and in all american prints of the movie the scene ends befor the little girl is thrown into the lake because the censors objected to the violent end of the girl. However, the scene was restored in the dvd re-issue