The first film adaptation of Frankenstein blows through the story in about thirteen arm-flailing minutes. This version of The Monster (Charles Ogle) is a long-haired, misshapen beast that looks like it should be playing bass in Gwar. Dr. Frankenstein (Augustus Phillips) creates him in a smoking cauldron, from which The Monster rises as a skeleton that slowly develops flesh and hair. Director James Searle Dawley pulls off the effect by using the old—well, maybe it wasn’t old in 1910—trick of filming a dummy burning and then running the footage backwards so that it appears birthed in flame.
Some sources say that this film was widely banned at the time for its perceived blasphemy of dramatizing “man creating man”. It was considered lost for decades until a private collector emerged with a copy in 1980. It wouldn’t be until 1993 though that the film would see public screening.