Frankenstein 1910 Tomas A. Edison Movie Studio

Frankenstein 1910 Thomas A Edison Company Frankenstein is a silent horror film produced by Edison Studios. It was directed by J. Searle Dawley, who also wrote the one-reeler's screenplay, broadly basing his "scenario" on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. This short motion picture is generally recognized by film historians as the first screen adaptation of Shelley's work. The small cast, who are not credited in the surviving 1910 print of the film, includes Augustus Phillips as Dr. Frankenstein, Charles Ogle as Frankenstein's monster, and Mary Fuller as the doctor's fiancée. J. Searle Dawley, working in his third year for Edison Studios, shot the film in three days at the company's Bronx facilities in New York City on January 13, 15 and 17, 1910. Staff writers for the Edison Kinetogram assured theatergoers in 1910 that the company's film adaptation was deliberately designed to de-emphasize the horrific aspects of Shelley's story and to focus instead on the tale's "mystic and psychological" elements: In making the film the Edison Co. has carefully tried to eliminate all actual repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale. Whenever, therefore, the film differs from the original story it is purely with the idea of elimination of what would be repulsive to a moving picture audience. The creation of the monster scene involved the burning of a dummy while manipulating its arms and head, and then reversing the footage to show the creature taking shape from nothingness by bringing together ashes and fumes. Newspapers and magazines of the time, such as New York newspapers The Film Index and The Moving Picture World, highlighted the monster creation scene as "the most remarkable ever committed to a film". After the film's official premiere, on April 9, The Moving Picture World published a negative review signed by W. Stephen Bush, probably one of the first critics to worry about what could be shown in films: I have the sincerest admiration for the Edison and Vitagraph studios, but it must be said, with all due deference to these distinguished producers, that such films as 'Frankenstein' and 'The Mistery of Temple Court', while delightful literature to coroners, undertakers, gravediggers, and morgue-keepers, fail to please the general public. 'Fail to please' is putting it mildly. (…) Death scenes and executions are interesting historical reading, when well described, but a portrayal of these things on a living screen may well be dispensed with. #Frankenstein #horrormovies #HorrorSilentFilms #IraGallen See less