"It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

"How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips."

- Frankenstein, Mary Shelly

Everybody thinks they know the story of Frankenstein. You’ve probably seen the 1931 movie, unless you’re some sort of un-American radical. Literary critics were upset when people started calling the Monster, “Frankenstein”. “’Frankenstein’ refers to the Monster’s creator!” they cried in indignation. They are wrong; the People are right. Frankenstein - book and movies - is the story of a deadbeat dad.

Dr. Frankenstein created the Monster; the Monster has every right to call himself “Frankenstein”. Lou Costello got it right in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1947), when he kept calling the Creature, “Junior”.

In Mary Shelley’s novel, the doctor is so disgusted by the Monster’s appearance that he tries to destroy it. The Monster escapes, roams the countryside, and eventually decides to find and confront his father. Junior learns to read by finding a trunk full of books abandoned on the side of the road. This trunk has been placed there – as horror author Stephen King so wryly puts it in his book, Danse Macabre – by the author Mary Shelley, so that the monster can learn to read.

Well, Mary was no writer. The book is all over the place, plot wise. Literally. Scenes take place on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, the Irish Sea, a glacier in the Alps, the North Pole . . . well, you get the idea. I’m surprised that Elizabeth Bennett (From Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice) didn’t accidentally meet up with the Monster and declare him, “Most uncouth.”
In the novel, the Creature kills Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother (or – the Monster’s uncle), not to mention later killing his step-mother; Victor’s wife. Talk about a cry for attention.

But Mary Shelley did manage to convey a sense of true horror and dread from the nightmare that inspired her ghost story. Her novel provided an excellent template for all the movies to follow. Thomas Edison made the first Frankenstein movie, and his Monster – hideous and menacing, longhaired and swathed in bandages - may have been closer to what Ms. Shelley had in mind when she wrote her book.

In 1931, Boris Karloff lumbered across movie screens as the Frankenstein Monster for the first time. His outfit and look was designed by makeup artist Jack Pierce. Pierce figured that Dr. Frankenstein (called “Henry”, instead of “Victor” in the film) was in a hurry and would simply saw the skull in front, lift it back (with the scalp) and place the brain in. Thus, Karloff’s “square forehead” appearance.

The movie was a hit. In the words of the late Mike Royko, most people reacted by turning around in their seats, and pointing their back pockets towards the movie screen. Karloff went on to play Junior in two more movies and then quit. He claimed that the Monster was becoming less of a person and more of a cliché.

In Gene Wilder’s and Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974), they parody a scene from the 1931 movie. When Karloff’s Monster gets up and walks around the lab for the first time, he stops in a shaft of sunlight and reaches up into it. This scene is right out of the novel. The monster is no more than a newborn child when he first gets off the gurney and begins shuffling around the lab. He sees the sun and tries to grab it

James Whale directed Frankenstein and the sequel, Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Bride delved more into the lives of the doctor and his older son, liberally using elements from the novel. Whale loaded the film with some not so subtle subtexts, and also mocked the Crucifixion throughout the entire movie. Crucifixes are everywhere; the cemetery, the hermit’s hut. There’s even a scene where the monster is captured and tied to a pike, with his arms above him. He is raised up momentarily before being unceremoniously dropped into a hay wagon for conveyance to jail.

Karloff in this movie portrays a lonely, desperate Monster, constantly searching for understanding and becoming very frustrated when people react with contempt and hatred. One can’t help feeling sorry for him, even as we fear him. The villagers come off as intolerant, ignorant rubes. The film also includes a character named Dr. Praetorious, an eccentric who convinces the doctor to build a bride for the monster. There's a charming scene where he shares a bottle of wine - "It's my only weakness!" - with the Monster in a cemetery.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Robert DeNiro portrays the monster with menace and a certain panache. Kenneth Branagh directed, and plays Victor Frankenstein. The movie is a lot closer to the book, but still has to take liberties in order to tell a cogent story. To properly enjoy it, one has to drive all thoughts of Boris Karloff from his or her mind, the same way one must not think of the Lone Ranger while listening to The William Tell Overture.

Author Ray Bradbury has suggested that Whale’s and Karloff’s Frankenstein was such a big hit because it offered a respite from the real horrors of the Great Depression, waiting right outside the theater door. If so, the Creature may be ready for a comeback.

Whatever happens, he’s become an American icon, along with Elvis and Mickey Mouse. Model kits; a sixties sit-com that has been revived as many times as the Monster himself; even a re-vamped look for the new millennium. In Universal’s Van Helsing (2004), he joins Dracula, the Wolfman, and Mr. Hyde in a special effects free-for-all. Over the years, he’s survived burning windmills, lava pits, freezing, Igor, Abbott and Costello, Lily Munster, Mel Brooks, and Gilbert Gottfried.

This Halloween, hoist a glass of wine to Junior. I suggest Dr. Praetorious’ toast from Bride; “To Gods and Monsters.”