Monster Mash

If you don't know the story, you haven't been paying attention, but suffice to say, it's that old story of boy meets girl, boy rejects girl to create artificial lightning-revived monster, monster goes on rampage. In the light of the astonishing effects and lavish sets of the recent 'Van Helsing', which pays obvious homage to this movie, it is tempting to make fun of what is a primitive, slightly silly film, made nearly 75 years ago.

But make no mistake, James Whale's 'Frankenstein' is great. Having only tenuous links to Mary Shelly's novel (Kenneth Branagh's underrated 90s version is much more faithful), this is instead a mad science movie par excellence. With its crazy genius, hunchback sidekick, remote gothic locations and buzzing machinery, 'Frankenstein' sets all the cliches for decades of sci-fi and horror movies to come. The wonderfully artificial sets lend an atmosphere of the unreal which is completely appropriate, and while most of the performances are rudimentary, Colin Clive makes a wonderfully loopy Dr Frankenstein, screaming his triumphant 'It's alive!' in a scene you're likely to have seen as a clip somewhere else.

Finally though, the film's trump card is Boris Karloff. Originally a British actor named plain old William Pratt, and credited here simply as '?', Karloff gives a genuinely moving performance. Even when he's marauding through the cardboard countryside at the end, there's something in Karloff's mournful eyes which keeps your sympathies entirely with him. You?d have to have a heart of stone not to feel for the Monster, a fact which has given this movie its longevity. It?s hard to imagine Hugh Jackman and a welter of CGI having the same lingering appeal in 2080.