Directed by Jack Smight
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Universal)
Slow moving but engrossing telling of the Frankenstein myth that purports to be faithful to the original Mary Shelley story. Victor Frankenstein is a young assistant to Doctor Clerval, who has discovered a way to reanimate the dead. In one creepy scene, they keep a human arm alive, which seems to have a mind of its own. An accident that leaves many people dead provide them with the raw material for a new human being: "the creature" who calls himself "beautiful" in the beginning but later "Legion", one of many Biblical references. Clerval dies so Frankenstein takes over the experiments, much to the dislike of his fiance. The process begins to reverse itself and the creature, who is initially young and handsome, decays into a monster. Rejected by people, he seeks solace with a blind man. He falls in love with her daughter, but when she is killed in a road accident Dr. Frankenstein brings her back to life by putting her head on another body. More tragedy follows, including a beheading at a society dance by the monster. Eventually they all flee England by boat but end up shipwrecked at the North Pole, where the apparently immortal creature will live forever. It bears strikingly little resemblance to the Frankenstein story as told by the more famous Hollywood movie.
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