Frankenstein (1931) Director: James Whale

Grave-robbing scene occurs near the Bavarian mountain village of Goldstadt, Transylvania. Crouched in the background from behind the cemetery fence, medical scientist Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his hunchbacked assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) eagerly watch the proceedings.

Frankenstein: "He's just resting - waiting for a new life to come."

Fritz reluctantly climbs up a post and cuts down an executed criminal hanging from a gallows' rope. "The neck's broken; the brain is useless. We must find another brain," laments Frankenstein.

Needing only a brain, Dr. Frankenstein sends his dwarfish assistant to his old, nearby medical school (Goldstadt Medical College) to steal one. College Professor Waldman (Edward van Sloan), in front of floodlights, teaches about the differences between a normal brain ("one of the most perfect specimens of the human brain") and the degenerate murderer's brain ("the abnormal brain of the typical criminal"). The Professor delineates the degenerative characteristics of the criminal brain - "the scarcity of convolutions on the frontal lobe...and the distinct degeneration of the middle frontal lobe."

Fritz has an accident and takes the second choice.

Dr. Frankenstein’s history at the University.

Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s creation is revealed.

“This storm will be magnificent. All the electrical secrets of Heaven. And this time we're ready, eh Fritz?”

From under the blanket covering the corpse, a blackened, scarred arm protrudes outward. Henry calms Fritz's jittery nerves as he caresses the arm of the inanimate corpse:

“There's nothing to fear. Look. No blood, no decay. Just a few stitches. And look, here's the final touch. (Frankenstein uncovers a bandaged and wrapped head.) The brain you stole, Fritz. (He shows Fritz that he has installed the brain that was stolen from the medical school.) Think of it. The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands, with my own hands. Let's have one final test. Throw the switches.”

Victor accuses him of being a madman: "Henry, you're inhuman. You're crazy." Frankenstein takes this as a challenge from a rival and brags:

“Crazy, am I? We'll see whether I'm crazy or not. Come on up...”

Frankenstein: Dr. Waldman. I learned a great deal from you at the University about the violet ray, the ultra-violet ray, which you said was the highest color in the spectrum. You were wrong. [Note: Infra-red is the highest color in the spectrum.] Here in this machinery I have gone beyond that. I have discovered the great ray that first brought life into the world. Waldman: Oh! And your proof? Frankenstein: Tonight, you shall have your proof. At first, I experimented only with dead animals, and then a human heart which I kept beating for three weeks. But now, I'm going to turn that ray on that body and endow it with life. Waldman: (skeptically) And you really believe that you can bring life to the dead? Frankenstein: That body is not dead. It has never lived. I created it. I made it with my own hands from the bodies I took from graves, from the gallows, anywhere! Go and see for yourself.

The experiment is conducted.

“ It's alive. It's alive....It's alive!” … Now I know what it ["feels like to be God" - this phrase at the end of the sentence was censored and removed]

Since the last scene, Dr. Waldman has remained at the tower with Frankenstein in his laboratory. Frankenstein is relaxed and smoking a cigar. Waldman, however, is worried and tries to reason with him: "This creature of yours should be kept under guard. Mark my words. He will prove dangerous." Henry sincerely responds that danger is an accepted part of the risk of experimentation:

Henry: Dangerous! Poor old Waldman. Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous? Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? Have you never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars or to know what causes the trees to bud and what changes the darkness into light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. But if I could discover just one of these things, what eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy!

Dr. Waldman reveals the truth of the brain.

“Wait till I bring him into the light." The Frankenstein Monster (Boris Karloff)

The monster fights and is sedated w/a strong drug to render him unconscious.

Henry nears a nervous breakdown. He reluctantly abandons the Monster to Waldman.

Escape.

The Monster roams through a forest in the countryside of the outside world. At his country home on the shore of a lake, a busy villager peasant named Ludwig (Michael Mark) leaves his young daughter Maria (Marilyn Harris) alone, telling her that after he returns from checking his traps, they will go to the village celebration.

A Tragic Mistake

The monster crashes the wedding.

The townspeople are driven by fear, indignation and hate to hunt down the creature and destroy the outcast. “I made him with these hands, and with these hands I will destroy him. I must find him.”