Frankenstein

The 1910 short silent film Frankenstein is the first known film adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. The film was produced at Thomas Edison studios by Director James Searle-Dowley, who turned the plot of the novel into a moral and philosophical parable, contrasting the feelings of a person with the reasonableness of a scientist.

A young student, Victor Frankenstein, secludes himself in a University laboratory and tries to create the perfect man. However, from a huge cauldron of reagents, a very far from ideal ugly creature appears – a Monster. Frankenstein leaves the lab in horror. At home, the student is comforted by his fiancee Elizabeth, and Frankenstein comes to believe that the artificial creation of a human being is a false path, and the truth is only in human feelings.

On the wedding day, a Monster that cannot exist without its Creator enters Elizabeth's boudoir. Frankenstein comes running to her cry. Elizabeth fainted. The monster knocks the student down and disappears. Frankenstein is overwhelmed with love for Elizabeth, and this feeling finally drives the Monster out of his mind. The film ends with a metaphorical episode in which the Monster sees its reflection in the mirror and raises its hands in a threat – but suddenly disappears, and its reflection in the mirror remains. Frankenstein goes to the mirror and sees a Monster instead of himself. But the struggle between good and evil in the student's soul is already over: the terrible image in the mirror changes to Frankenstein's own reflection.

Thrown into the cauldron, the skeleton comes to life and grows flesh thanks to the alchemical manipulations of Frankenstein, who discovered the formula of life. The resulting monster is intelligent, can speak, and is jealous of its Creator's future wife.