The History of Frankenstein on Film: ‘Flesh for Frankenstein,’ ‘Young Frankenstein,’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein,’ and More

Pre-1931 Adaptations

Before Universal rewrote how Frankenstein would appear on screen, a few film adaptations of Shelley’s public domain text made their way to cinemas. The first was a short, 12-minute silent film released in 1910 and directed by J. Searle Dawley. Charles Stanton Ogle played the monster, depicted as a deformed man in rags with wild hair, and the film heavily condensed the original text, ending with the creation disappearing almost immediately after its creation. The film was considered lost for several years before its re-discovery in the 1970s. 

Aside from the original “Frankenstein,” there are also two pre-1931 feature-length adaptations that are now considered lost. 1915 brought “Life Without Soul,” directed by Joseph W. Smiley, which changed Frankenstein’s name to Frawley. An Italian take, “Il Mostro di Frankenstein,” was directed by Eugenio Testa and released in 1921.  

“Frankenstein” (1931)

In February 1931, after a rough previous year at the box office, Universal Pictures opened Tod Browning’s adaptation of “Dracula” to smash success. In response, the head of production at the studio Carl Laemmle Jr. went all-in on more horror adaptations and snatched up the rights to a now obscure 1927 stage play adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” “Dracula” star Bela Lugosi was initially considered to star in the new film, but passed, and director James Whale cast English actor Boris Karloff in the central role of the monster.

The film’s screenplay from Garrett Fort and Francis Edward Faragoh heavily condensed the initial book’s plot, taking a story that took place over a few years and setting it over a few days. Several plot points from the original novel were omitted completely, and the entire ending sequence where the monster seemingly dies in a burning windmill was entirely original. Many of the alterations to the story became iconic, especially the addition of a hunchbacked lab assistant in the experiment (called Fritz here, and played by Dwight Frye). Other changes, like renaming Frankenstein (Colin Clive) from Victor to Henry, were less impactful.

Most of the biggest deviations from the source material involve the portrayal of the monster himself. In Shelley’s novel, the monster is described as eight-foot tall, with yellowing skin too tight to fully cover its muscles, watery eyes, straight black lips, and long Black hair. During the novel, he also grows to become an eloquent and intelligent person, with brains roughly on par with his creator.

In Whale’s film, Karloff’s makeup was designed by artist Jack Pierce. In the role, Karloff sported a flat headpiece with short Black hair, green-tinted body makeup, and bolts attached to his neck, wearing a tattered suit and heavy boots. Because of the deviations from the source material, Karloff portrayed the monster as a lumbering, unintelligent child who could only speak with one-word grunts. These changes became foundational to how the character is perceived, and the 1931 version of the monster is now frequently parodied and imitated in derivative works.(Fun fact: the image of Karloff’s face in Frankenstein makeup is copyrighted and owned by his daughter Sara Karloff, who won the rights in a lawsuit where she received representation from Bela Lugosi’s son, attorney Bela G. Lugosi. As a result, Universal marketing featuring Frankenstein typically uses the face of a future Frankenstein portrayer, Glenn Strange). 

“Frankenstein” was very popular upon its release, grossing over $12 million by 1953 via various rereleases. Its success defined both Whale’s and Karloff’s careers, and gave birth to a full cinematic franchise.

Universal “Frankenstein” series (1935-1948)

Universal began development on a sequel to “Frankenstein” almost immediately after the film’s release, with Karloff and Whale both returning. However, various script issues delayed the movie until it was released four years later in 1935. The resulting film “Bride of Frankenstein,” adds a framing device involving the book’s author Mary Shelley telling the story to her companions and incorporates several cut plotlines from the original novel, including the central story of the monster attempting to make himself a female companion (both the Bride and Shelley were portrayed by Elsa Lanchester). The fact that the title names the female monster as the bride of Frankenstein rather than the bride of the monster is perhaps the earliest time that the name of the scientist and the name of his creation were conflated. 

Whale originally did not want to return to the world of “Frankenstein,” and only agreed because Universal permitted him to direct neo-noir “One More River” in exchange. The making of the film was tense; Karloff and Whale had fallen out after working on the 1932 film “The Old Dark House” together, and were barely on speaking terms during production. Despite these difficulties, “Bride of Frankenstein” is generally considered by film scholars to be superior to its predecessor, with critics praising the melancholy themes and campier tone. It’s also notable as the first “Frankenstein” project to inspire significant thematic analysis. Many critics have since interpreted the film’s sympathetic portrayal of the monster as an outsider to society desperate for companionship as a queer allegory; Whale himself was openly gay. The Bride, despite only appearing in the film’s last 10 minutes and never making a return to another Universal film, is nearly equal to Karloff’s monster in her iconic horror status.  

Whale officially left “Frankenstein” behind after “Bride of Frankenstein” but Karloff stayed on for the less well-remembered “Son of Frankenstein,” which focuses on the monster’s revival at the hands of Frankenstein’s son (Basil Rathbone). The 1939 film’s most notable contribution to the “Frankenstein” mythos is fully establishing the archetype of lab assistant Igor (named Ygor here), via Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of the character, here a crazed blacksmith that becomes the monster’s master. 

“Son of Frankenstein” was Karloff’s swan song in his defining role: the actor would leave the role behind, citing the grueling makeup schedule and a lack of further development to take the character. He would, however, return to the Universal series in 1944 with “House of Frankenstein,” playing a villainous mad scientist rather than the lead role. Karloff ultimately played Frankenstein (as in, the doctor) twice later on in his career: 1958’s “Frankenstein 1970,” a sci-fi modernization in which Victor uses a nuclear reactor to create his monster, and a vocal performance in “Mad Monster Party,” a 1967 stop-motion RankinBass film. 

With the films continuing to sell, Universal continued with a rotating series of actors in the Frankenstein makeup, and four films featuring the character were produced between 1942 and 1945. “The Ghost of Frankenstein” featured Lon Chaney Jr., most known for playing The Wolf-Man in the Universal werewolf movie, as the monster. Bela Lugosi also reprised his role as Ygor in the film. The next film, “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf-Man,” was a crossover between the two characters, so Chaney returned to the Wolf-Man role while Lugosi took on the part of the monster. The next several films continued with the crossover “Monster Rally” theme, adding Dracula to the mix; “House of Frankenstein” and its quickly made follow-up “House of Dracula” featured Chaney as the Wolf-Man, John Carradine as Dracula, and Glenn Strange as “Frankenstein.” Each film began and ended in pretty much the same way: someone finds the body of the monster and revives it, and by the closing scene the monster has seemingly (but not definitively) met its final, final end. 

Ultimately, the real death of Universal’s Frankenstein came from an unlikely source: comedic duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Three years after “House of Dracula’s” poor reception put the franchise slightly on ice, the popular comedians were essentially forced by Universal contracts into doing “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” a goofier take on the Universal horror series that cast them as Florida baggage clerks that run into the big three monsters, played by the same three actors from the prior two films. Both stars hated working on the project, and the two were frequently absent from set or fighting director Charles Barton during production. Like “Bride of Frankenstein,” the behind-the-scenes difficulties resulted in a triumph: the film was the most successful “Frankenstein” film since the original, grossing around $2 million and receiving positive reviews. Its success kickstarted a series of Abbott and Costello crossovers with other classic movie monsters like The Mummy and The Invisible Man. In retrospect, “Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein” feels like a spoofy predecessor to projects like “Young Frankenstein” that take the piss out of the tropes the original 1931 “Frankenstein” helped define. Despite the film’s success though, it proved the last real gasp of the Universal Monster movie franchise, providing the last appearances for the Wolf-Man, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster himself. 

Hammer Horror Series (1957-1974)

As Universal was easing out of the horror film business in the ’50s, a British studio was picking up the gothic torch. Hammer Film Productions has roots that date back to 1935, when William Hinds and James Carreras founded the company as a small, London-based unit. After going into bankruptcy two years into its lifespan, it was revived in 1938 by the pair’s sons, and found its greatest success in the mid-’50s when it went all-in on making gothic horror stories. “The Curse of Frankenstein” wasn’t the first horror movie from the studio, but it proved the first major success from the company, grossing around $8 million worldwide on a minuscule production budget.

Directed by Terence Fisher, the film was the first color movie from the studio, and featured horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as Frankenstein and the Monster. Filmed on an extremely low budget, with a tiny cast and set almost entirely in one house, the movie was notably darker and more violent than the Universal films that made the Frankenstein story iconic. The monster is depicted entirely as a mindless beast, while Victor Frankenstein is at his most unsympathetic, portrayed as an unscrupulous murderer. That said, the film still has the obvious DNA of the original James Whale film; in particular, the portrayal of the monster — with a heavily scarred face and short black hair — is obviously inspired by the iconic Karloff look, even if it’s not a direct one-to-one. 

The success of “The Curse of Frankenstein” gave birth to a series of films featuring Cushing as Victor Frankenstein, as well as other Hammer horror films about classic monsters. Christopher Lee never returned to the part of the Monster; uniquely, every film in the Hammer franchise focuses on Victor creating a new monster that ends up dead by the end. The actor starred in five other films as the scientist (“The Revenge of Frankenstein,” “The Evil of Frankenstein,” “Frankenstein Created Woman,” “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed,” and “Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell”), and all but “The Evil of Frankenstein” was directed by Fisher. Between “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” and “Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell,” Hammer also released “The Horror of Frankenstein,” a 1970 remake and semi-parody of “The Curse of Frankenstein” that starred Ralph Bates as Victor and David Prowse as the Monster. After that poorly received film was released, 1974’s “Frankenstein and the Monster of Hell” ended up being the final film, concluding with Victor having learned no lessons from his numerous failed experiments and planning to create a new creature. The franchise mainly stopped do to the financial issues Hammer Films was facing during the ’70s, as the studio began producing fewer and fewer projects until going into liquidation in 1979.  

’50s and ’60s: B-Movies and Foreign Takes

The Universal and Hammer Frankenstein series defined the first four decades of takes on the Mary Shelley novel, and other projects featuring the characters are difficult to seek out. However, even early in the character’s cinematic lifespan, there were unique takes on the character that used the Karloff version as a jumping off point for wild variations on the format. Films like “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein” and “Frankenstein’s Daughter” translated the basic Shelley story to modern ’50s America, while low budget 1966’s “Jesse James Meets Frankenstein” threw the granddaughter of Frankenstein into the American West. 

Easily the most wild “Frankenstein” adaptation of the period, however, was a Japanese film “Frankenstein vs. Baragon.” Released in 1965, the film reimagines Frankenstein as a giant monster (or Kaiju: think Godzilla or King Kong), via a story where he was created by a Nazi scientist and had his heart stolen and put in the body of a young boy who grows into a monster. In the film, Frankenstein ends up the hero, fighting against a subterranean rampaging dinosaur named Baragon. The totally unique take has essentially nothing to do with Mary Shelley’s original novel. But the film was successful enough to receive a sequel, “The War of the Gargantuas,” which remains a cult classic to this day. 

’70s: Sexy Scientists

The ’70s were a particularly fertile time for Frankenstein takes, particularly after the Hammer Horror franchise finally ended. Multiple Italian horror films about the character including “Lady Frankenstein” and “Frankenstein ’80” were made. In 1973, cheaply made blaxploitation film “Blackenstein” attempted (and largely failed) to recapture the success of the much better “Blaccula.” 

More successful were the various films released during the decade that added a sexier, more counterculture take to the Frankenstein formula. In 1973 director Paul Morrissey released “Flesh For Frankenstein,” a Rated X raunchy take on “Frankenstein” starring Udo Kier as the mad scientist, here an insane man attempting to create a new master race and seeking the brain of a man with a powerful libido. The film is filled with sexual escapades and transgressive filth (Frankenstein and his wife are blood siblings instead of adoptees in this version), making it a cult classic for provocateurs everywhere. 

“Flesh For Frankenstein” isn’t even the most successful “hot Frankenstein” film of its decade; that honor belongs to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” an adaptation of a 1973 stage musical. Directed by Jim Sharman, the film runs wild with a queer, sexual take on the Frankenstein story. Tim Curry stars as “Dr. Frank-N-Furter,” a transvestite mad scientist seeking to create a perfect hunk through his experiments, and develops the golden speedo-clad Rocky (Peter Hinwood). The film contrasts the transgressive queer world of Frank-N-Furter with two outsiders at the castle, “squares” Janet (Susan Sarandon) and Brad (Barry Bostwick), who are both drawn to the sexually forward and unapologetic Frank-N-Furter. The film was received negatively, but became an instant classic midnight movie, and continues to be shown in that format today, with an entire script for audience participation shadow casts still done live. Both “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Flesh For Frankenstein” demonstrate how the sexual and queer subtext of the original Mary Shelley novel can be made more explicit, and although the films aren’t necessarily adaptations of the novel, their takes still stand as some of the most exciting in cinema. 

The other major and beloved “Frankenstein” film of the decade hewed more closely to the 1931 James Whale film — mainly to take the absolute piss out of it. Conceived and written by star Gene Wilder and director Mel Brooks, 1974’s “Young Frankenstein” riffed on the Universal classic movies to the extent that it featured actual props from the original films. The entire movie was in black and white, and featured 1930s-style film techniques like fades to blacks and wipes. Its plot is similar to that of “Son of Frankenstein,” starring Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (or Fronkensteen), the grandson of the original mad scientist who travels to the family’s estate in Transylvania and gets roped into reanimating the dead, creating a new monster played by Peter Boyle. The goofy film ends on a much cheerier note than most Frankenstein films, retooling the story so monster and creator stay loyal to each other and both find love.  “Young Frankenstein’s” affectionate parody made it one of the most acclaimed films Brooks ever made; it received two Oscar nominations, a first for a Frankenstein movie.

Finally, although it’s very much not a “Frankenstein” adaptation, 1973’s acclaimed classic “The Spirit of the Beehives” is a good demonstration of how, forty years later, the 1931 “Frankenstein” remained an iconic cultural touchstone. The film, by director Víctor Erice, focuses on a young girl Ana (Ana Torrent) living in 1940s Spain at the beginning of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship of Spain. The quiet film sees Ana become obsessed with a scene from “Frankenstein” where the monster befriends a little girl only to accidentally drown her. The scene, and Frankenstein’s monster, make several appearances in the film as a symbol for the loss of innocence. 

’80s and ’90s: Lovecraft and Love Stories

There weren’t many “Frankenstein” takes in either the ’80s and ’90s, but the ones that we did get proved very diverse. There were plenty of B-movies, including two futuristic sci-fi takes: “Frankenstein Island” in 1981 and “Frankenstein Unbound” (featuring Raul Julia as Victor) in 1990, as while as the imaginatively named “Frankenhooker,” about Victor Frankenstein bringing his dead wife back to life using the body of, you’ve guessed it, a hooker. 

The best “Frankenstein” adaptation of the time period is, technically, an adaptation of a different iconic horror franchise. The 1985 comedy horror film “Re-Animator” is loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story about a medical student who develops a reagent capable of developing dead bodies. However, many liberties are taken with the material to make it resemble more of a “Frankenstein” parody, and the film’s physical comedy and irreverent take on the classic horror tropes made Stuart Gordan’s film a cult classic. It also spawned a sequel, “Bride of Reanimator,” which gleefully riffed on “Bride of Frankenstein.”    

Another film that was not quite based on “Frankenstein” but took obvious inspiration from the mythos was Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands,” a gothic story about an unfinished, artificial human (Johnny Depp) with scissors for fingers created by a mad scientist. The acclaimed film uses the Frankenstein tropes to explore themes of societal alienation and adolescence, showing how malleable the format of a Frankenstein story can be. 

The other notable Frankenstein adaptations of the time distinguished themselves by retooling the “Frankenstein” story to be more tragically romantic. A critical and financial failure, 1985’s “The Bride” stars a wild cast that includes Sting as Frankenstein (here named Charles) and Clancy Brown as the Monster (here named Viktor). The film adapts the often saved-for-the-sequel plotline about the scientist creating a female creature for his monster but goes wildly off-script by having Charles fall in love with his female creation Eva (Jennifer Beals).

More successful if still not great was “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” a 1994 adaptation of the original Shelley novel directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh as Victor, with Robert De Niro as the Monster and Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth. The film was a sort of follow-up to 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” whose director Francis Ford Coppola returned as a producer, fashioning itself as a more faithful adaptation of the original text. The framing device of the original book was recreated for the only time in the history of the franchise, and De Niro’s makeup as the Monster is by far the most accurate to the original books. That said, several alterations were made, and the film in general focuses more on Victor’s relationship with Elizabeth, including a new subplot where he attempts to revive her as the Bride. The film received mixed reviews, with many applauding its attempt to more faithfully translate the novel to screen but critiquing its overwrought tone. Today, the movie stands as one of the more ambitious Frankenstein adaptations, although it doesn’t quite match the luscious heights of Coppola’s “Dracula” adaptation.    

2010s: Frightful Failures

On the whole, the 21st century has proven surprisingly barren in terms of meaningful and artistically significant Frankenstein films; the 2000s lacked any “Frankenstein” adaptations worth discussing entirely. The 2010s had some attempts to franchise the character, but all proved disastrous.

The most notable “Frankenstein” project of the time is one that didn’t end up happening. In the early 2010s, Universal — inspired by the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — announced a plan to create a “Dark Universe” of linked films featuring their iconic horror monsters. In the proposed franchise, Javier Bardem was to play Frankenstein’s Monster, while Angelina Jolie was tapped to play to play The Bride in a separate film. All of the plans for the Dark Universe were canceled after the failure of 2017’s “The Mummy,” and neither take on the classic characters made it to the screen. 

Aside from the Dark Universe film that never came to be, the 2010s also gave us “I, Frankenstein,” a garishly ugly action 2014 film adaptation of a graphic novel that starred Aaron Eckhart as a Frankenstein’s Monster named Adam that fights demons to protect the world. There was also 2015’s “Victor Frankenstein,” which starred James McAvoy as Victor and Daniel Radcliffe as Igor, telling the story from Igor’s perspective. Both films flopped at the box office, and their stale and unnecessary alterations of the “Frankenstein” story resulted in pans from critics. 

The best “Frankenstein” adaptation of the decade, rather than a gritty modernization or remake, ended up being one aimed squarely at kids. In 1984, Tim Burton released a short film titled “Frankenweenie,” a homage to the 1931 “Frankenstein” about a boy who resurrects his dog as a Frankenstein monster. The short nearly ended Burton’s career; he made it while working as an animator at Disney, and was fired for “wasting” company resources. But Burton eventually made peace with Disney via “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and in 2012 he remade the film as an animated stop-motion movie. The film performed poorly at the box office, but received positive reviews, and it’s one of the most delightful, fun, and sweet films in the “Frankenstein” canon. 

2020s: Female Frankensteins

There hasn’t been a notable “Frankenstein” adaptation in several years, something that will change soon with Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of the novel. But in 2023 and 2024, two films came out that took the tropes of the iconic horror story and gave them a more feminist slant. “Poor Things,” based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray, stars Emma Stone as a female Frankenstein’s Monster known as Bella Baxter, who was birthed via a scientist putting a baby’s brain in the body of a deceased woman. Yorgos Lanthimos’ film is set in a futuristic, fantasy version of Europe, and follows Bella on a madcap adventure to discover herself and her sexuality. The film’s farcical, sensual approach to the tropes made it a hit upon its Venice Film Festival premiere, and it’s one of the top contenders at the Oscars, where it’s nominated for eleven awards. 

This February has brought us “Lisa Frankenstein,” the first Universal “Frankenstein” film since the Dark Universe went bust. Directed by Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda and written by Diablo Cody, “Lisa Frankenstein” transplants the “Frankenstein” mythos to ’80s suburbia in a “Edward Scissorhands”-esque fashion, telling the story of an outcast teen who tries to make herself a boyfriend from beyond the grave. The film isn’t exactly the critical darling that “Poor Things” is, but taken together both films exemplify how the basics of the “Frankenstein” story can be twisted and molded into new forms, taking Shelley’s examination of the cost of playing god and telling a more optimistic story of growth, self-discovery, and rebirth. It is a sign that over 200 years later, “Frankenstein” still has a lot to teach us.