Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1931)

3 corrected entries

(6 votes)

Corrected entry: Not called a horror movie when it came out because that term was not used as a film genre.

hifijohn

Correction: Not true, the horror genre has been around for well over a century: http://www.aijcrnet.com/journals/Vol_2_No_4_April_2012/16.pdf.

ctown28

Corrected entry: When the Monster meets the little girl Maria, she is kneeling and holding a kitten. In the next shot she has stood to greet the approaching Monster as she speaks to him, but the kitten is gone and nowhere in sight.

Correction: When Maria stands up, you can see the cat on the ground, as if he jumped from her arms and when she walks toward the Monster, the cat runs away.

Dr Wilson

Corrected entry: Baron Frankenstein says that his son's lab is in an old abandoned windmill. It is actually in a watchtower.

Dr Wilson

Correction: The actually Baron says the lab is in a watchtower, not a windmill. The windmill appears at the end of the film.

When the Baron is speaking to Victor and Elizabeth at about the 26 minute mark, he says: "Why does he go messing around in an old ruined windmill - when he has a decent house, a bath, good food and drink, and a darn pretty girl to come back to. Huh, will you tell me that?" So this is a valid mistake.

Revealing mistake: There is a large painted hanging cloth backdrop of clouds in the mountain scenes near the end of the film. Vertical streaks can be seen in the backdrop that are the pleats in the fabric. These streaks really stand out in the restored versions of the film.

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Question: Why in this movie is Mr. Frankenstein's first name Henry and not Victor (like it is in the book)? If it was changed to Henry so it would not be confused with the Frankenstein's family friend Victor Moritz, why not just call Moritz something else, and keep the original name of the main character in the movie?

Answer: There seems to be no officially stated reason why the name was changed, but it's possible to theorise. There were numerous changes between the original book and the film. One theory is that these changes were to make the story more accessible to the mass audiences, and altering the name of the main character to a more common one could be seen as part of that. Another (possibly more likely) reason is down to alterations in the characters. Unlike the book, the film ultimately seeks to redeem Frankenstein's character, making him a more human and sympathetic character. Conversely, the character of Frankenstein's old friend, named Victor in the film, but Henry in the book, has been made a much less pleasant character. As Victor is quite a harsh, martial name and Henry comes across as rather more amiable, the filmmakers might well have decided that it would be more appropriate to the characters that they were trying to portray to switch the names round.

Tailkinker

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