The Silent Frankenstein's Roving Props

The Edison Kinetograph Company’s Frankenstein was released 102 years ago today, on March 18, in 1910. It is the only one of three Frankenstein films from the silent era to have survived for us to appreciate. It has been heavily studied, interpreted and analyzed, yet we find that we can still discover new things about it. Case in point, props from Frankenstein were used in at least one other Edison film, and therein might hide a clue to the singular appearance of The Monster in Frankenstein.

The film in question, embedded here, is A Trip to Mars, released on February 18, exactly one month before Frankenstein.

Director Ashley Miller made over 100 short films, many for Edison’s company, eventually working in different productions with Frankenstein alumni Augustus Phillips, Mary Fuller and Charles Ogle (in a film intriguingly called Van Bibber’s Experiment (1911). A Trip to Mars was no doubt inspired by Georges Méliès’ wildly successful A Trip to the Moon of 1902, still influential after nearly a decade. A Trip to Mars, however, is not a copy of the earlier film. Its Martian tableaus are whimsical, but its photographic tricks are not nearly as elaborate or magical as those staged by Méliès.

Both films borrow from H.G.Wells’ “The First Men in the Moon”. Méliès’ lunar explorers encountered Wells’ flowering moonscape and insect-like Selenites, while the Edison film used Wells’ propulsion system, Cavorite, here called “Reverse Gravity”. Like Wells’ Professor Cavor, Edison’s scientist tests his chemicals on a chair, causing it to hit to the ceiling. The scientist then douses himself with Reverse Gravity Powder and floats out the window and across space to Mars.

The obvious shared prop is a laboratory skeleton. It is prominent in Frankenstein, providing a touch of the macabre, sitting like a long forgotten guest in the foreground, in front of the witches’ cabinet where the scientist boils up his Monster. The same skeleton, with its distinctive ribcage and flat pelvis, hangs decoratively on the back wall of the Mars Voyager’s lab. Probably papier-mâché, it resembles a Dia de Muertos figure. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this skeleton used in other films as a standard prop for experimental labs and doctor’s offices.

The second shared prop is more of a guess, a possibility, but the evidence is compelling…

On Mars, the Voyager encounters fantastical sights. One short scene has him stumbling through a forest of grotesque, giant Ent-like living trees. They sway and waved their claw-like hands in mild menace. On the left-hand side, highlighted here in a screen cap, one of the tree giants has long, branch-like fingers that are strikingly similar to the Frankenstein Monster’s bizarre hands. Note the shape and length of the fingers, and the curiously bent thumb. Are these the Frankenstein Monster’s hands?

Both films were shot close together, this much is certain. Kinetograph films were routinely shot, edited and in release within a few short weeks. Frankenstein lensed in January, but I could not find any shooting details for A Trip to Mars. Mars was released before Frankenstein, suggesting but not proving that it was made before Frankenstein. The question, of course, is which film came first, providing ready-made props for the other.

I have always thought of The Monster’s inexplicably curious hands as branch-like, and it would certainly explain things if actor Charles Ogle, donning his extreme makeup for Frankenstein, used the recently made and readily available Mars prop gloves for effect.

Compare images, compare films, A Trip to Mars posted above, and Frankenstein here. The question is posed: Were the Frankenstein Monster’s curious hands really Martian appendages?

Next up this week, information and rare photographs from the 1915 Frankenstein epic: LIFE WITHOUT SOUL.

Silent Frankenstein Week!

From the pages of the local Daily Herald, May 14, 1910, the New Lyric Theatre of Palestine, Texas, presents the High-Class Comedy, Songs and Dances of Ball & Dorris, the music of the seven-piece Triece’s Orchestra, and a program of High Art Motion Photographs, led by Edison’s feature film, Frankenstein.

Starting Sunday, and running all week, we will be celebrating the Silent Movie Frankensteins: Edison’s Frankenstein (1910), Life Without Soul (1915), and Il Mostro di Frankenstein (1920).

Turn off the sound and join us for High-Quality Motographic Archeology, High-Class Discoveries, High-Falutin’ Revelations, and Rare, High-Eye-Popping Photographs!

It starts right here, tomorrow!

Related Posts:

Edison’s Frankenstein:The First Frankenstein of the MoviesA Physicalogical Phantasy!A Weird, Fantastic Conception!After FrankensteinAll Posts about Edison’s Frankenstein

Life Without Soul:The Silent Frankensteins

Il Mostro di Frankenstein:A poster from 1922Il Mostro: A 1926 Playbill

Edison's Frankenstein: A Physicalogical Phantasy

A hundred and one years ago, when the first Frankenstein film came to Bemidji, Minnesota, the Majestic Theatre advertised it as “A Physicalogical Phantasy”. What that means is anybody’s guess.

The Majestic Theater, inaugurated in December 1909, was one of a new wave of movie houses that would replace the fast-fading storefront Nickelodeons. The local paper reported that, “Mr. Currie”, then manager, “has the very best movie-making machine that Edison has ever devised, and with his personal knowledge of every intricate movement of the machine, the results are indeed splendid.”

The Frankenstein ad appeared on May 6, 1910, in the Daily Pioneer. On the same page, the Social and Personal column, a random collection of gossip, community news and product placement, ran a plug for the film as “one of the interesting and fascinating pictures ever thrown upon the screen. See it tonight…”

The evening’s entertainment kicked off with a fancy Overture featuring Miss Hazel Fellows. A song, no doubt, accompanied by the pianist who would play through the evening, providing music for the films. Miss Fellows, a frequent performer at the Majestic, was probably local talent. By the following year, she’d changed her first name to Hazelle, which certainly sounded more artistique. I’d like to think that Miss Fellows provided some novelty, playing a banjo or the ukulele, maybe working in a few dance steps.

The Edison Kinetograph’s Frankenstein was up next. Shot on a Brooklyn rooftop just four months prior, the film went into circulation on May 18. Its stars, Charles Ogle, Augustus Phillips and Mary Fuller were Kinetograph regulars, miss Fuller on her way to silent-era stardom. The film has miraculously survived for us to judge, but what a thrill it must have been to see it when it was new, and pristine.

Next came an “illustrated song”, in which a popular song was either performed live or a recording played while a dozen or so glass slides were projected, “illustrating” the lyrics. The elaborately posed photographs, lavishly hand colored, bankrolled by sheet music vendors, were the music videos of the times. A vastly popular form of entertainment, some Nickelodeons played nothing but illustrated songs, with vaudeville performers and future film stars such as Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor and Fatty Arbuckle appearing as models. Audiences would often demand repeat viewings. Sing-alongs were encouraged.

“I’m Going to Do What I Please”, written by music publisher Ted Snyder and lyricist Alfred Bryan was one of the most popular songs of its day. Snyder, a future songwriting Hall of Famer, also wrote The Sheik of Araby and Who’s Sorry Now?, and famously gave Irving Berlin his first break.

Rounding up the evening’s entertainment, “Another Of Those Thrilling Wild West Stories”, was The Girl and the Fugitive, starring Gilbert Anderson, the original Bronco Bill, the movie’s first cowboy star. Anderson had appeared, playing three different roles, in Edwin S. Porter’s seminal The Great Train Robbery (1903). He went on to write, direct, produce and star in his own movies. In 1907, he co-founded the famous Essanay Studios where he made some 300 short films, half of them westerns. The Girl and the Fugitive, released on March 9, 1910, was just one of the 44 Bronco Bill films made that year.

All told, the Majestic’s complete program ran about an hour. Not bad for ten cents. Children paid a nickel. I wonder if any kids were upset by Ogle’s scarecrow-like Frankenstein Monster.

And I wonder if anyone ever made out what a Physicalogical Phantasy was.

Related:
Watch the Edison Kinetoscope Frankenstein of 1910
The First Frankenstein of the Movies
After Frankenstein
A Weird, Fantastic Conception: Edison’s Frankenstein in New Zealand
The Silent Frankensteins

The Art of Frankenstein : 4gottenlore

The forever striking image of Charles Ogle’s Frankenstein Monster, celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year, is revisited and refreshed by the young American artist known as 4gottenlore.

The artist, who describes himself as a “guerilla voyeur of vintage fright photoplays”, produces elegant, beautifully colored digital art based on the monsters of the silent and early talkie eras. Subjects include Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera, the tongue-wagging devil from Haxan, King Kong, and robots from Metropolis and The Phantom Creeps

Compare 4gottenlore’s art to its inspiration, an original poster from the 1931 Frankenstein, to fully appreciate the quality of his interpretations.

You’ll enjoy 4gottenlore’s creations, on display at his DeviantArt page.

Edison's Frankenstein: Alternatives

“Edison’s Frankenstein” is a popular name for the first Frankenstein film, made 100 years ago by the Thomas Edison Company. It is also the title of a superb short story by Chris Roberson, currently nominated for a Sidewise Award, honoring Alternative History fiction.

No reference to the movie here, but a judicious title nonetheless for a story set in an alternate timeline where a miraculous substance called Prometheum has made Edison’s electricity useless. Author Roberson generously makes Edison’s Frankenstein available to everyone on his website. It’s a terrific read.

The story was originally published in the December 2009 issue, No. 20/21, of Postscripts, with a cover by Vincent Chong. It is also included in The Year’s Best Science-Fiction #27, edited by Gardner Dozois, to be published in July by St. Martin’s Press.

On a related note, artist-writer-director-actor Noel Tanti who adapted and starred as The Monster in the Maltese-language version of Frankenstein, posted an insightful review of the 1910 Edison Company film on his blog. Another good read.

Read Edison's Frankenstein by Chris Roberson.

Read Noel Tanti's review of the 1910 film.

Related:
More great Frankenstein-inspired fiction: The Bride of Frankenstein, by Michael Resnick,
Pride and Prometheus, by John Kessel, and The Mad Scientist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss.

Noel Tanti's Maltese Frankenstein

After Frankenstein

Once they were done shooting Frankenstein, in 1910, the film’s three principals, Augustus Phillips (Frankenstein), Mary Fuller (Fiancée) and Charles Ogle (Monster), would go on to spend most of their film careers with the Edison Company, their paths crisscrossing through the years. As an example, a newspaper item in The Reading Eagle for August 27, 1913, listing Edison films released that week, shows Mary Fuller starring in Who Will Marry Mary?, while Augustus Phillips and Charles Ogle were reunited in a two-reeler whodunit, The Mystery of West Sedgwick.

In those early days of the American movie star system, Edison targeted newspapers with short fluff pieces about their main performers, with an inevitable plug for the studio carefully squeezed in. Articles about Phillips and Ogle read as almost interchangeable. An April 1913 item about Augustus Phillips called Takes Life Easy; Always Content says, “No one who see the films with the ring around the ‘E’ (the Edison logo) can forget Phillips, for he is always starring in some big picture in some new character”. He is reported to be “as pleasant to talk with as he is to look at… a contended man, pleased with his surroundings and at ease with the world.” Of his films, “There is no need to name pictures in which he has and is appearing. The list would fill a book. Besides, every one knows, anyway.”

A very similar item about Charles Ogle appeared in March 1914.

Under the title You Can Always Bank On Seeing Him In Pictures, we are told that “Nearly all the best Edison pictures seem to include Charles Ogle in some role or other. He is a big fellow, with a kindly eye and a ready, sympathetic smile. He makes friends everywhere.” Of the parts he plays, “… you will often see him in some character which seems to require a lot of milk of human kindness to make it convincing.”

Mary Fuller, by the mid-1910s, had become Edison’s top leading lady and a movie star of the first magnitude. In May, 1915, The Pittsburgh Press ran a series of articles purportedly written by Fuller herself. The pieces are nicely written and Fuller was an experienced writer of film scripts, six of which were produced.

In a item called Star Tells Thrills of Initial Appearance in Screen Production, Fuller remembered sitting in an audience and seeing herself onscreen for the first time. “Could that little figure flit-flit-flitting across the white sheet in that intense black and white be myself?” Overcoming “the feeling of strangeness” at seeing herself, she “began critically to watch the pictures… and made mental notes of how to cure the defects.”

In time, Mary writes, “my dreams were gradually realized. I was ‘featured’ and finally ‘starred’ in the movies. I did not fully realize the last happy state until one day I passed a theater where one of my films was being shown. The front of the place was plastered with my name, with my photos and with lithographs of me. Then I realized that, in a measure, I had really ‘arrived’. It’s a delightful feeling and sends a lovely little shiver all over you. And the pleasure never palls.”

There is no record of the actors ever mentioning the early Frankenstein. Back in 1910, it had been just another gig for the Edison trio, just another film in an endless series churned out by the film factory. Surely, they must have been aware of Whale’s Frankenstein, a box-office sensation in 1931. Perhaps then, they reminisced about those long-ago days on the rooftop sets, open to sunlight, out on Decatur Avenue in The Bronx, when they had made the first Frankenstein movie, but there were no interviews given, no recollections recorded.

Charles Ogle passed away in 1940, Augusts Phillips in 1944. Writer-director J. Searle Dawley died in 1949. By then, Universal’s Frankenstein films were known the world over, but the Edison original had spiraled into obscurity.

Mary Fuller lived until 1973. Photos from the Edison Frankenstein had been rediscovered ten years earlier — the film was still considered lost — but Mary Fuller was forgotten, never to tell her story. She had lived a troubled, secluded life. When she passed away, she had been institutionalized for a quarter of a century and there was no family, nobody left to claim her body. Once a world-famous movie star, she was laid to rest in an unmarked grave. The last living witness to the Edison Frankenstein, forever as silent as her screen image, was gone.

Related:
All posts about the Edison Frankenstein

A Weird, Fantastic Conception: Edison's Frankenstein in New Zealand

Back when the Edison Frankenstein was released in March 1910, movie theaters had yet to fully come into their own.

Films were mostly played as complements to Vaudeville shows. A typical evening’s entertainment would feature a headliner or two, supported by generous and highly eclectic assortment of acts that could include Chinese acrobats and novelty dancers, magicians and hypnotists, “blackface travesty artists”, boxing exhibitions, comedy sketches, dog acts, warbling soubrettes and, as the newspaper ads of the day would say, “the usual complement of moving pictures”. Titles rarely given, these one-reelers would include travelogues, newsreels, historical reconstructions, slapstick comedies and tearjerking melodramas, all enjoying ephemeral careers as programming would change, on average, twice a week.

An early specialist in film presentations and promotion was John Fuller’s His Majesty Theatre — “The People’s Picture House!” — in Wellington, New Zealand, where Frankenstein was given special attention.

The film was ballyhooed — FRANKENSTEIN! FRANKENSTEIN! FRANKENSTEIN! — in the theater’s large column ad in The Evening Post on opening night, July 6, and an accompanying article on current “amusements” in town singled out the Edison film. “Among the innovations… to be presented to-night” the copy read, “prominence must be given to ‘Frankenstein,’ a picture representation of Mary Shelley’s great novel. The film, an Edison production, is described as a weird and fantastic conception, and marks a further advance in the kinematographer’s art, being quite unlike anything ever shown here before.”

The film program also included a bullfighter drama, a newsboy adventure, a western romance, scenic views of a Danish lake, and “some interesting glimpses of the London Fish Markets”. Perhaps the best-known performer onscreen that evening was André Deed, billed as Foolshead, also known as Cretinetti, in Foolshead’s Unwilling Marriage. The comic, who had started in films with George Méliès, made hundreds of shorts in France and Italy. Competition in town that week included a popular stage presentation of The Manxman, a celebrated vaudevillian trio from Sydney, and a new Max Linder comedy. All houses, including His Majesty’s, announced “new views” of King Edward VII’s funeral.

The next day, July 7, the Evening Post reported on the previous evening’s entertainment at His Majesty’s, expounding on the “magnificent” footage of the King’ funeral and giving Gallaher, the newsboy film, the best review: “Its American swing captured the fancy of the house.” The Fish Market subject was said to be “cleverly descriptive” and the Foolshead short was hailed as “a comic extravagance that is not too absurd to afford a healthy amusement.” Frankenstein was relegated to the last, terse line of the article, “a ‘monster’ series of ‘Frankenstein’ type is not without points of cleverness.”

His Majesty’s Theatre, popularly referred to as “Fuller’s Vaudeville”, was on its last legs when Frankenstein played its weeklong engagement. Declared a fire hazard in November 1911, the theater was torn down and rebuilt to world-class specifications. It survives today as the St. James Theater, a spectacular and busy performance space and the home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

The Edison Frankenstein: 100 Years Ago Today

If you’ve never seen it, now’s the time. Here, 100 years to the day after it was first released, is the Edison Frankenstein. Hang in, the picture quality gets better after the first few moments.

As would become usual for a Frankenstein film, The Monster steals the show. Its ingredients mixed in a saucepan, and eerily burned to life in a tub, Charles Ogle shuffles around on big bandaged feet, skulks menacingly, rears up in surprise and strikes hieroglyphic poses. With crooked claw pantomime, he points towards Elizabeth just gone offscreen, then to himself. The Monster demands a mate.

The film is theatrical, you almost expect a curtain to go up and down between tableaux, but the mirror scene is very inventive, characters appearing in the mirror before they step onscreen, and the dissolving reflections are simple, early, but very effective special effects.

Enjoy.

Edison's Frankenstein In The Round

One hundred years ago, the startling Monster in the Kinetograph Frankenstein drew its aesthetic inspiration from theatrical tradition harking all the way back to 1823, when T.P.Cooke first leapt onstage wearing a belted toga, a “counselor’s” wig, and blue greasepaint on his face. Cooke’s imitators and successors copied and perpetuated the look.

By the time Charles Ogle donned the tunic and wig of The Monster at the Edison studios in 1910, he stood in a direct line of shaggy Frankenstein monsters, the image of The Monster in the first half of its performance life, as dominant then as the radically different Pierce and Karloff version has been since 1931.

Charles Ogle’s grimacing Monster is an irresistible inspiration for figure and mask art interpretations. The best of the bunch is William Paquet’s superb sculpt, originally produced as a resin kit by Monstrology Models and reissued in 2009 by Fritz Frising. The figurine is beautifully detailed, with wild crepe hair and realistic drool.

An earlier resin kit produced by Bruce Turner’s Cinema Art Models, captured the Ogle Monster in his trademark hula dancer pose.

A bizarre re-imagining of the Edison Frankenstein was produced by Aztech Toys and issued by Mezco as part of the Silent Screamers series that included the Metropolis Robot, the Golem and Nosferatu, all given an altogether unnecessary makeover.

Finally, a brand-new, one-of piece is the fabulous 100^th Anniversary Tribute Display Mask created by sculptor and makeup artist Tony Pitocco on a special commission from mask expert and collector extraordinaire Bill Luciani. It’s a perfect, stunning likeness of the saucer-eyed Monster, seen here for the first time.

There can be no doubt, Ogle’s Monster will continue to inspire for another hundred years.

Related:
Bill Luciani's 100 Heads of Frankenstein
All posts about Edison's Frankenstein

Repost: The First Frankenstein of the Movies

It was a century ago this week that the above title card first flickered on a screen as the first Frankenstein film unspooled. Click HERE and watch the Edison Frankenstein!

Here’s a repost, with slight tweaks, of my article on the making of, and the principals involved in the Edison Frankenstein. Here is The First Frankenstein of the Movies...

“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

The first Frankenstein film was released on March 18, 1910. The image above announces the later release of the film in England.

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.

The part of Frankenstein is essayed with gesticulating fervor by Augustus Phillips, an actor whose otherwise unremarkable film career spanned the next ten years. The small part of Elizabeth was secured by Mary Fuller, an actress whose popularity would go on to match that of Lillian Gish or Mary Pickford, albeit briefly. She retired, abruptly, in 1917, and lived the rest of her life as a recluse.

The Monster of the film is played by Charles Ogle, a respected and prolific character actor who would appear in over 300 silents. It is assumed he designed the makeup for The Monster, though helping hands must have been recruited to assemble it. The grimacing Monster has a deformed skull, wild hair, big bandaged feet and hands like dead tree branches. He wears rags slung with ropes.

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.

An eccentric collector and archivist, Alois F. Dettlaff, Sr., revealed that he owned a complete print of the now famous film. While some historians are grateful to Dettlaff for preserving the film, there are others who accused him of hoarding an historical artifact. Dettlaff circulated copies with proprietary markings on the screen, and is said to have lobbied the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar in recognition of his work saving the film. It was all for nothing. Dettlaff passed away, alone, in 2005, and since then the film has become an ubiquitous download on Internet film sites.

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.

Charles Ogle is now remembered as the first Frankenstein Monster of the Movies. Humorously, perhaps, the actor who made a his career in silent films lends his name to the Ogle Awards for Best Fantasy/Horror Audio Production of the Year, sponsored by the American Society for Science Fiction Audio.

Related:
Silent Frankensteins
The Art of Frankenstein: Jeff Heermann
The Titles of Frankenstein

View or download the film on Archive.org.

Review and analysis of the film on And You Call Yourself a Scientist, and a good, in-depth article on Film Buff On Line.

The Wikipedia page for the film carries the plot writeup from the original Edison Kinetogram.

Obituary of Alois Dettlaff on Film Buff On Line.

The Titles of Frankenstein

On his blog, Shadowplay, film critic David Cairns writes:

“One of the many agreeably odd things about the Edison Company’s 1910 FRANKENSTEIN is the way the story is told entirely in a series of intertitles, with the imagery merely fleshing out the textual description.”

This astute observation is followed by a very entertaining "reading" of the venerable film.

I also recommend Cairns' sharp and funny review of the distinctively Frankensteinian science-fiction thriller, The Colossus of New York (1958).

Shadowplay is always a great read.

First Frankenstein Movie Opened 99 Years Ago

The first Frankenstein film ever made was released on March 18, in 1910. The 12-minute film was thought lost for over fifty years, but a copy miraculously survived and, today, it is available for all to see on the net.

For more details about the film, see my post on The First Frankenstein of the Movies.

Watch the 1910 Frankenstein online at Archive.org.

Related:
Silent Frankenstein Movies

The Art of Frankenstein : Jeff Heermann

Here’s the 1910 Edison Frankenstein program cover recast as an engaging illustration by San Francisco-based artist Jeff Heermann.

Though the film was given a graphic novel adaptation, cartoonists’ takes on Charles Ogle’s expressive Monster remain relatively rare. Heermann’s sketchy brushwork suits Charles Ogle’s wildman Monster well.

Check out Heermann’s website, blog and flickr stream.

Related
The First Frankenstein of the Movies
Silent Frankensteins

The First Frankenstein of the Movies

“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

The first Frankenstein film was released on March 18, 1910. The image above announces the later release of the film in England.

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.

The part of Frankenstein is essayed with gesticulating fervor by Augustus Phillips, an actor whose otherwise unremarkable film career spanned the next ten years. The small part of Elizabeth was secured by Mary Fuller, an actress whose popularity would go on to match that of Lillian Gish or Mary Pickford, albeit briefly. She retired, abruptly, in 1917, and lived the rest of her life as a recluse.

The Monster of the film is played by Charles Ogle, a respected and prolific character actor who would appear in over 300 silents. It is assumed he designed the makeup for The Monster, though helping hands must have been recruited to assemble it. The grimacing Monster has a deformed skull, wild hair, big bandaged feet and hands like dead tree branches. He wears rags slung with ropes.

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.

An eccentric collector and archivist, Alois F. Dettlaff, Sr., revealed that he owned a complete print of the now famous film. While some historians are grateful to Dettlaff for preserving the film, there are others who accused him of hoarding an historical artifact. Dettlaff circulated copies with proprietary markings on the screen, and is said to have lobbied the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar in recognition of his work saving the film. It was all for nothing. Dettlaff passed away, alone, in 2005, and since then the film has become an ubiquitous download on Internet film sites.

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.

Charles Ogle is now remembered as the first Frankenstein Monster of the Movies. Humorously, perhaps, the actor who made a his career in silent films lends his name to the Ogle Awards for Best Fantasy/Horror Audio Production of the Year, sponsored by the American Society for Science Fiction Audio.

View or download the film on Archive.org.

Review and analysis of the film on And You Call Yourself a Scientist, and a good, in-depth article on Film Buff On Line.

The Wikipedia page for the film carries the plot writeup from the original Edison Kinetogram.

Obituary of Alois Dettlaff on Film Buff On Line.

Silent Frankensteins

Here’s a trivia question I’ve stumped film buff friends with: Who was the fourth actor to play the Frankenstein Monster in the movies?

The answer is: Boris Karloff. The most famous of all Frankenstein Monsters was preceded by 3 silent era actors.

The first was Charles Ogle, the scarecrow-like Monster in the so-called “Edison” Frankenstein of 1910. The film was lost and forgotten for over 50 years, only to miraculously surface in a private collection. Today, you can watch or download the sixteen-minute silent on Archive.org.

The second Frankenstein Monster of the movies was played by English-born Percy Darrell Standing in the 1915 feature-length Life Without Soul. The film is lost but a publicity sheet clearly shows the Monster as a dimwitted brute in a torn shirt, without disfiguring makeup. The whole drama, as it often turned out in films of the era, is revealed in the end to have been a dream.

The third interpretation is infinitely more mysterious. Its existence was largely unknown through most of the 20th century and, still today, very little is known about it.

The 1920 Il Mostro di Frankenstein was produced in Italy, with German investment, by Luciano Albertini, who also portrayed Dr. Frankenstein. It co-stars his frequent film collaborators: Wife Linda Albertini and the imposing Umberto Guarracino as The Monster. Of the plot, all we know is that the Doctor confronts his creation in a dark cave. The whole thing clocked in at some 39 minutes of screen time. The film was reputedly censored by Italian authorities, compelling Albertini and company to pursue their film careers in Germany.

The following year, 1921, Guarracino played “the product of the secret workshop” in Die Insel der Verschollenen (Island of the Lost), an unauthorized adaptation of H.G.Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Trivia question #2: Can you name the only other actor to ever play both the Frankenstein Monster and a creation of Dr. Moreau?

Guarracino is perhaps best remembered as Pluto, the fuzzy-bearded King of Hell to “strong man” genre superstar Bartolomeo Pagano’s Maciste in the classic Maciste all'inferno of 1926, the film that is said to have inspired a young Federico Fellini to become a filmmaker. By the way, Maciste in Hell is a special effect knockout with very elaborate sets and all manner of beast men, alluring she-devils, and a giant fire-breathing dragon identified as “Hell’s Aeroplane”!

Of Frankenstein’s Mostro, nothing survives save an illustration on a Belgian promotion flyer. It shows the monster surrounded by smoke or flames, menacingly brandishing a stick. In the background, an urgent figure appears on a staircase. A “mysterious vision”, the caption reads, “from the novel by Mrs. Shelley”.

I found the small picture on the net years ago, but the source seems to have disappeared. If anyone has access to a better, larger copy, please share!

Out of curiosity, I scanned the image at high resolution, enlarged and photoshopped it a bit to see if any detail could be brought out. I humbly submit the result of this experiment. The Monster appears as a bald-headed, muscular man. The face remains a cipher. A tantalizing image that’ll have to do, at least until a better one is found.