YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-fM9meqfQ4
This was the first filmed version of Frankenstein, created by Thomas Edison in 1910. It starts off with young Frankenstein leaving for college, and two years later, he’s found the secret of life.
There’s an excellent scene of the monster’s creation, where they clearly made a dummy and set it on fire– then played the film backward to watch the creature assemble itself out of smoke. Very well done for those early days.
Of course, the monster escapes and terrorizes Frankenstein for a bit, sees his fiancé and falls in love. Frankenstein drives the monster back, and it somehow becomes trapped inside a mirror.
It’s only 13 minutes, and is, of course, a silent black-and-white film, but it hits the high points of the Frankenstein story at least as accurately as the Whale version in 1931.
