We all know the story, but can it be condensed into about twenty minutes. The answer to the question is "no" if we are to use this lame effort as a benchmark. Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the monster. He is not too bad. He mimics the Karloff creature with his plaintiff looks and his confusion, especially as he appears in Bride. The problem is Frankenstein himself. There is so little preparation for his creation and so little follow-up to his success, that the story falls flat. To make matters worse, he lives with a couple of old people and a young boy (one of those awful kid actors of the early fifties). The monster runs around screeching and growling. No effort is made to humanize him. He kills people but never confronts his master. This has to be one of the worst of all the Frankenstein canon.
Review of Frankenstein
