How a murderous monster has haunted the popular imagination for almost two centuries

A NEW adaptation of Frankenstein looks at the story from the point of view of a character who never actually appeared in Mary Shelley’s original 1818 Gothic tale.

Actor Bela Lugosi with Boris Karloff in scene from film "Frankenstein". /Films/Titles/Frankenstein

Early in the 19th century a young woman had a bizarre vision. “I saw — with shut eyes, but acute mental vision — the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantom of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.”

The woman was Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The vision she had would form the basis for her greatest work Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, first published in 1818.

In the novel, scientist Victor Frankenstein builds a body from corpses and reanimates it with electricity. The creature he creates turns against him, becoming a murderous monster.

The story seared itself into the popular psyche, the word “Frankenstein” used for deranged inventors or out-of-control scientific creations. There have been dozens of films inspired by the novel, the latest is Victor Frankenstein, opening today, focusing on Frankenstein’s hunch-backed assistant Igor.

James McAvoy in a scene from the new film Victor Frankenstein.

However, it may surprise fans of Frankenstein films to know there was no Igor in Shelley’s original novel, nor in many of the films.

In the preface to the 1831 edition of her book, Shelley (pictured) said the story was conceived in 1816 while she and her husband visited Lord Byron at a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was unseasonably bad, so the Shelleys and others at the villa occupied themselves by competing to write the best horror story.

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Mary’s story became the novel published two years later, when she was only 20. It was a remarkable work for such a young novelist. It was a statement about science and industry, that the relentless pursuit of knowledge and the quest to use science and technology to improve humanity, could result in disaster and dehumanisation.

Mary’s story became the novel which was published two years later, when she was only 20. It was a remarkable work for such a young novelist. It was a statement about science and industry, that the relentless pursuit of knowledge and the quest to use science and technology to improve humanity, could result in disaster and dehumanisation.

The novel captured the imagination and in 1823 was adapted to stage in Presumption: or the Fate of Frankenstein by Richard Brinsley Peake. This play introduced an assistant named Fritz.

A scene from the 1910 film Frankenstein by the Edison Kinetograph.

The first film version of Frankenstein was a 16-minute Edison Kinetograph short in 1910. Charles Ogle played the creature, looking like something from kabuki theatre.

Two more silent film adaptations were made before perhaps the most famous film version, director James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein. It starred Boris Karloff in his career-defining role as a monster with a flat head and neck bolts, while Colin Clive played Dr Henry Frankenstein, assisted by the hunchback Fritz (Dwight Frye). The movie spawned a sequel The Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, in which Karloff again played the monster.

Australian actor O.P. Heggie (left) with Boris Karloff as Frankenstein in the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein.

It was not until Son of Frankenstein, in 1939, that an Ygor (not Igor) first appeared. Played by Bela Lugosi, he was a blacksmith who helped Frankenstein’s son Wolf (Basil Rathbone) bring the monster (Karloff) back to life to exact revenge on the men who tried to hang him.

Karloff never played the monster again, Lon Chaney took over the role in the 1942 Ghost of Frankenstein. But Karloff played mad scientist Dr Gustav Niemann and Glenn Strange the creature in the 1944 film House of Frankenstein. Strange continued as the monster in House of Dracula (1945) and in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Glenn Strange as the monster and Boris Karloff as Dr Gustav Niemann in a scene from the 1944 film The House of Frankenstein.

In 1957, British horror studio Hammer Films made their first version The Curse of Frankenstein, with Christopher Lee playing the creature.

That same year I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, with Gary Conway as the monster, took the franchise to new depths. Those depths were exceeded by the 1965 Japanese film Frankenstein Conquers the World, in which the monster’s heart ends up in a feral Japanese boy.

The horror franchise even got the comic treatment in Mel Brook’s 1974 Young Frankenstein starring (from left) Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle.

Andy Warhol’s slasher film Flesh For Frankenstein in 1970, about a power-hungry Dr Frankenstein trying to create an obedient master race, had to be slashed itself to be fit for release in the US.

Michael Sarrazin was perhaps the best-looking monster in a more serious 1973 television film Frankenstein: The True Story, but Peter Boyle played the funniest version of the monster in the 1974 Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein. Marty Feldman helped cement the legend of Igor playing a hunchback who preferred to be called “Eye-gor”.

Robert De Niro as the monster in Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Film studios continued to make mostly bad, but often crowd-pleasing, films based on Shelley’s creature. But even when directors tried to create art, such as Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in which Robert De Niro played the monster, critics were still dubious.

A 2011 stage adaptation by Nick Dear gave more dignity to Shelley’s original story.

* Victor Frankenstein is in cinemas now