In the opening, pre-credits prologue, the film is introduced by a tuxedoed gentleman (Edward van Sloan,

one of the principal characters in the film) who steps from behind a closed curtain and delivers the
following teaser - a "friendly warning" - to the audience:
How do you do? Mr. Carl Laemmle [the producer] feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture
without just a word of friendly warning. We are about to unfold the story of Frankenstein, a man of science
who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God. It is one of the strangest
tales ever told. It deals with the two great mysteries of creation - life and death. I think it will thrill you. It
may shock you. It might even - horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your
nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to - uh, well, we warned you.
The credits play with an eerie set of rotating eyes as a backdrop. The film then opens with a close-up of a
pair of hands hauling up a rope. As dusk approaches, the camera pans across a group of weeping and
wailing mourners and priests during a funeral service around a gravesite, in front of a statue of a skeletal
Grim Reaper. The memorable, expressionistic grave-robbing scene occurs near the Bavarian mountain
village of Goldstadt. [The village was constructed for the previous year's film All Quiet on the Western
Front (1930).] Beneath the gloomy sky, a coffin is being lowered into a grave. Crouched in the
background from behind the cemetery fence, brilliant medical scientist (but slightly insane and
overwrought) Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his dwarfish, bumbling, hunchbacked assistant
Fritz (Dwight Frye) eagerly watch the proceedings. The first few clodfuls of dirt that hit the top of the
casket make a dull clump/thud [an impressive effect for early talkie audiences].
They are there to steal the newly-buried fresh male corpse for an experiment that Frankenstein is
conducting on the secrets of life. After the cemetery is vacated and the grave is filled in by a grave digger,
they creep in and strip off their jackets, carelessly tossing them into the dirt behind them. The two dig up
the fresh grave after the grave-digger has left. To symbolize Henry's sacrilegious lack of respect for the
subject of death - an example of black humor, one shovelful of his dirt is irreverently thrown directly into
the face of a nearby statue of the Grim Reaper! After completing the digging, they stand the coffin on end.
Frankenstein pats the coffin with his ear close to it, murmuring that there will be a resurrection: "He's just
resting - waiting for a new life to come." They haul the heavy coffin back with them on a cart as the moon
rises. The film is enhanced by dark and forbidding Transylvanian settings.
On the way up a jagged, rocky slope, Fritz reluctantly climbs up a post and cuts down an executed
criminal hanging from a gallows' rope. Struggling, he crawls along the crossbar with a knife between his
teeth. Frankenstein hopes to use the victim's brain in his experimental attempt to assemble a new human
life form, but the body falls to the ground. "The neck's broken; the brain is useless. We must find another
brain," laments Frankenstein - not surprising since the man was the victim of a hanging.
Needing only a brain, Dr. Frankenstein sends his dwarfish assistant to his old, nearby medical school
(Goldstadt Medical College) to steal one. [Frankenstein left the school when his demands for experiments
with humans were not approved.] Fritz peers through the windows of the College, where medical students
in an operating amphitheatre watch a dissection demonstration on a corpse of a psychopath "whose life
was one of brutality, of violence, and murder." College Professor Waldman (Edward van Sloan), in front of
floodlights, teaches about the differences between a normal brain ("one of the most perfect specimens of
the human brain") and the degenerate murderer's brain ("the abnormal brain of the typical criminal"). The
Professor delineates the degenerative characteristics of the criminal brain - "the scarcity of convolutions
on the frontal lobe...and the distinct degeneration of the middle frontal lobe."
After the class concludes and the students are dismissed, a window at the back of the amphitheatre
opens - Fritz stumbles in and down to the front where he finds the two jars of brains on display in the
room. One of the brains is normal, labeled "Cerebrum - Normal Brain." He grabs its glass jar and begins
to rush out of the dissecting room, but inadvertently drops it when startled by the loud sound of a gong. In
order not to disappoint Dr. Frankenstein, however, the dim-witted Fritz desperately grabs the other glass
jar labeled "Dysfunctio Cerebri - Abnormal Brain."
The next scene opens with a close-up of a framed picture of Henry Frankenstein with a flickering candle
burning closeby. A maid announces a family friend visitor: "Herr Victor Moritz," followed by a close-up of
Victor Moritz' (John Boles) face. Frankenstein's fiancee Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) greets him in the wood-
paneled, high-vaulted, Victorian style parlor of the Frankenstein manor. She is concerned, worried, and
uncertain about Henry, and wondering if he is emotionally disturbed. Anxious about her marital partner,
she explains how Henry's most recent letter, the first she has had in four months, makes no sense. He
has shut himself off from the outside world, working to the limits of his endurance with his experiments in
an isolated, abandoned watchtower that serves as a laboratory. The mysterious letter reads:
You must have faith in me, Elizabeth. Wait, my work must come first, even before you. At night the winds
howl in the mountains. There is no one here. Prying eyes can't peer into my secret...I am living in an
abandoned old watchtower close to the town of Goldstadt. Only my assistant is here to help me with my
experiments.
She explains that Henry told her about his strange experiments at a significant time - just before they
became engaged and he retreated to his mountain laboratory away from her:
The very day we announced our engagement, he told me of his experiments. He said he was on the
verge of a discovery so terrific that he doubted his own sanity. There was a strange look in his eyes,
some mystery. His words carried me right away. Of course I've never doubted him but still I worry. I can't
help it.
Victor saw Henry three weeks earlier, when he was walking alone in the woods, and was told that no one
was allowed to visit him in his laboratory: "His manner was very strange." He suggests going to see Dr.
Waldman, Henry's former professor and paternalistic mentor in medical school. Victor also reveals that he
is a rival lover with affectionate interest in Henry's future bride:
Victor: Perhaps he can tell me more about all this.
Elizabeth: Oh Victor, you're a dear.
Victor: You know I'd go to the ends of the earth for you.
Elizabeth: I shouldn't like that. I'm far too fond of you.
Victor: I wish you were!
Elizabeth: (she turns away) Victor.
Victor: I'm sorry.
With Elizabeth's insistence to join him, they leave the comfortable, secure surroundings of the living room
area, and go together to discuss their concerns with Dr. Waldman. The scene at Waldman's office at the
College, already in progress, shows a row of skulls positioned on one of the shelves of his bookcases. On
his desk is a row of test tubes and another grinning skull. Surrounded by symbols of death, Waldman is
also troubled by their news: "Herr Frankenstein is a most brilliant young man, yet so erratic he troubles
me." Frankenstein's research in "chemical galvanism and electro-biology were far in advance of our
theories here at the University" and had reached dangerously advanced stages. His experiments to
recreate human life, and his demands for corpses "were becoming dangerous":
Waldman: Herr Frankenstein is greatly changed.
Victor: You mean changed as a result of his work?
Waldman: Yes, his work, his insane ambition to create life.
Elizabeth: How? How? Please tell us everything, whatever it is.
Waldman: The bodies we use in our dissecting room for lecture purposes were not perfect enough for his
experiments, he said. He wished us to supply him with other bodies and we were not to be too particular
as to where and how we got them. I told him that his demands were unreasonable. And so he left the
University to work unhampered. He found what he needed elsewhere.
Victor: Oh! The bodies of animals. Well, what are the lives of a few rabbits and dogs?
Waldman: (leaning forward ominously) You do not quite get what I mean. Herr Frankenstein was
interested only in human life - first to destroy it, then recreate it. There you have his mad dream.
Waldman is not up-to-date on Henry's morbid research and crazy experiments and how he was grave-
digging for already-dead corpses. Elizabeth begs that Dr. Waldman join them to visit Henry's lab in the
watchtower where the mad experiments are taking place, and he reluctantly agrees.

In his mountain-top lab in the abandoned watchtower, viewed from outside against a stormy night sky,
brilliant medical student Dr. Henry Frankenstein has assembled a human body, stitched together from
parts of different corpses stolen from graves. The young scientist, newly engaged but away from his
intended bride, is madly obsessed with his equipment and experiments while violent claps of thunder
sound from the storm raging outdoors. The incomplete, lifeless creation is covered and stretched out in
his laboratory on an operating table. He has constructed machinery that will take the electrical power from
a lightning storm and input the electricity into the lifeless body through electrodes in the neck.
In his primitive-looking laboratory, a whole network of electrical wires, globes, rings of steel, banks of
gauges, dials, phallic-shaped levers and switches will harness the zapping power of lightning bolts and
bring the creature to life. The howling, violent storm outside makes him expectant:
This storm will be magnificent. All the electrical secrets of Heaven. And this time we're ready, eh Fritz?
Ready.
From under the blanket covering the corpse, a blackened, scarred arm protrudes outward. Henry calms
Fritz's jittery nerves as he caresses the arm of the inanimate corpse:
There's nothing to fear. Look. No blood, no decay. Just a few stitches. And look, here's the final touch.
(Frankenstein uncovers a bandaged and wrapped head.) The brain you stole, Fritz. (He shows Fritz that
he has installed the brain that was stolen from the medical school.) Think of it. The brain of a dead man
waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands, with my own hands. Let's have one final test.
Throw the switches.
[It is most unusual that Frankenstein didn't notice the obvious characteristics of the criminal brain installed
in the body.]
Crackling sparks fly when switches are thrown during the final test. Frankenstein anticipates that fifteen
minutes before the storm's height will be the perfect time to electrify the Monster's body. They are
interrupted by incessant knocking heard at the heavy watchtower door, and an irritated Frankenstein
sends Fritz down to answer it: "Whoever it is, don't let them in...Of all times for anybody to come!" A
harried-looking Fritz descends the long, dark stone staircase, muttering to himself about being bothered
"at this time of night - got too much to do." The bent-over servant refuses entrance to Dr. Waldman,
Elizabeth, and Victor, speaking to them through the door's window: "You can't see him. Go away." Then,
the hunchback servant hobbles back up the stone stairs, awkwardly pausing to pull up his sock.
Frankenstein lets them in when Elizabeth begs for shelter from outside. A distraught Henry climbs back
down with Fritz, not wishing to be disturbed as he protests: "You must leave me alone." He explains that
he is all right, although he looks pale, haggard, and his eyes flash with anger. The mad, passionate
scientist is worried about their intrusion (and particularly concerned about his fiancee's presence) during
his final experiment:
Henry: Elizabeth, please, won't you go away? Won't you trust me, just for tonight?
Elizabeth: You're ill. What's the matter?
Henry: Nothing. I'm quite all right, truly I am. Oh, can't you see? I mustn't be disturbed. You'll ruin
everything. My experiment is almost completed.
Elizabeth: Wait a moment. I understand. I believe in you. But I cannot leave you tonight.
Henry: You've got to leave!
Victor accuses him of being a madman: "Henry, you're inhuman. You're crazy." Frankenstein takes this as
a challenge from a rival and brags:
Crazy, am I? We'll see whether I'm crazy or not. Come on up...
He leads them up to his ultra-secret laboratory, locks the door behind them (and pockets the key: "I'm
forced to take unusual precautions"), and forcefully orders them to sit down. He boasts again about his
experiment to Victor: "A moment ago you said I was crazy. Tomorrow we'll see about that." Fritz screams
at Dr. Waldman who has wandered over to the corpse: "Don't touch that!" His yell is accentuated by more
thunderclaps.
To his old teacher, Frankenstein (at first calmly) explains how he has made new discoveries beyond
ultraviolet rays that were earlier taught to him by Waldman at the university. He boasts competitively
about his experiments that have led to new revelations:
Frankenstein: Dr. Waldman. I learned a great deal from you at the University about the violet ray, the
ultra-violet ray, which you said was the highest color in the spectrum. You were wrong. [Note: Infra-red is
the highest color in the spectrum.] Here in this machinery I have gone beyond that. I have discovered the
great ray that first brought life into the world.
Waldman: Oh! And your proof?
Frankenstein: Tonight, you shall have your proof. At first, I experimented only with dead animals, and
then a human heart which I kept beating for three weeks. But now, I'm going to turn that ray on that body
and endow it with life.
Waldman: (skeptically) And you really believe that you can bring life to the dead?
Frankenstein: That body is not dead. It has never lived. I created it. I made it with my own hands from the
bodies I took from graves, from the gallows, anywhere! Go and see for yourself.
He permits Waldman to look at the body he has made with his own hands.
In a remarkable creation sequence in the watchtower during the raging storm, he has rigged an apparatus
to take the inanimate, artificial body on a moveable platform to the open skylight at the rooftop of the
tower where it can electrified by a lightning strike. The astonished witnesses and onlookers watch and
hear the defiantly mad, zealously hysterical Dr. Henry Frankenstein theatrically convince his audience of
his work:
Quite a good scene, isn't it? One man crazy - three very sane spectators.
With startled eyes, they witness the bizarre experiment in horror - an event not unlike the creative sexual
act (with preparation, ascending movement, penetration into the opening, jolts of orgasm, shrieks of
ecstasy, and the birth of a new being). Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz roll down a blanket (from head to foot)
covering a white-shrouded, lifeless corpse. Then, they roll back the white sheet (from foot to head),
revealing a monstrous cadaver underneath. Amidst the crackling of transformers, dynamos, and
electrodes, with Fritz's help, the table is moved to the rooftop, where it is repeatedly struck by lightning, to
harness the awesome energy of the storm. Lightning flashes, sparks, and electric arcs jump from
machine to machine, jolting life into the inanimate monster strapped to the operating table. Finally, the
immense platform-table is then lowered back down into the laboratory.
After its descent, at first there is no sign of movement or life - nothing seems to have happened and the
creature fails to respond. But then, the creature's bare right hand that is hanging free twitches, in close-up
- a promising sign that the Monster is coming to life. Dr. Frankenstein hysterically shouts like an overjoyed
child about his recreation of life. He calls his creature an 'it' rather than a 'he', foreshadowing his future
attitude toward the Monster:
Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive....It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive!
Oh - in the name of God. Now I know what it ["feels like to be God" - this phrase at the end of the
sentence was censored and removed] ...
A mad and uncontrollable Henry is restrained by Waldman and Victor as his cries are drowned out by
lightning bolts, howling winds and thunder.
The next day, in the company of Victor and Elizabeth, the mad doctor's father, a blustery aristocratic
Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr) suspects that something is wrong with his son, and they are covering
up the truth:
You think I'm an idiot, don't you? But I'm not! Anyone can see with half an eye that there's something
wrong. And I have two eyes, and pretty good ones at that. Well, what is it?...What's the matter with my
son? What's he doing?...Why does he go messing around an old ruined windmill when he has a decent
house, a bath, good food and drink, and a darn pretty girl to come back to? Ha, will you tell me that?
On the eve of their forthcoming marriage, the Baron suspects that Frankenstein is distracted by "another
woman," rather than believing that he is passionately carrying on with his solitary experiments: "I
understand perfectly well. There's another woman - and you're afraid to tell me. Pretty sort of experiments
these must be!" When the arrival of the town's burgomaster Herr Vogel (Lionel Belmore) is announced by
a maid, the Baron snorts at the pompous authority figure:
Baron: Well, tell him to go away.
Maid: But he says it's important.
Baron: Nothing the burgomaster can say can be of the slightest importance.
The town's burgomaster is ushered in, offers flowers to Elizabeth, and asks about the impending
wedding:
Burgomaster: What I really want to know is, when will the wedding be, if you please?
Baron: Unless Henry comes to his senses, there'll be no wedding at all.
Burgomaster: But Herr Baron, the village is already prepared.
Baron: Well, tell them to unprepare.
Burgomaster: Oh, but such a lovely bride! And such a fine young man, the very image of his father.
Baron: Heaven forbid!
Burgomaster: But sir, everything is ready!
Because everyone in the village, the Bride, and the Baron himself are "kept waiting," the Baron threatens
to go visit his son, find the other woman ("I'm going to find her!"), and bring Henry home.
Since the last scene, Dr. Waldman has remained at the tower with Frankenstein in his laboratory.
Frankenstein is relaxed and smoking a cigar. Waldman, however, is worried and tries to reason with him:
"This creature of yours should be kept under guard. Mark my words. He will prove dangerous." Henry
sincerely responds that danger is an accepted part of the risk of experimentation:
Henry: Dangerous! Poor old Waldman. Have you never wanted to do anything that was dangerous?
Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond? Have you never wanted to look beyond
the clouds and the stars or to know what causes the trees to bud and what changes the darkness into
light? But if you talk like that, people call you crazy. But if I could discover just one of these things, what
eternity is, for example, I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy!
Waldman: You're young, my friend. Your success has intoxicated you. Wake up and look facts in the
face! Here we have a fiend whose brain...
Henry: The brain must be given time to develop. It's a perfectly good brain, doctor. You ought to know. It
came from your own laboratory.
Dr. Waldman shocks him by explaining that he has mistakenly implanted a criminal brain in his creature:
The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain.
Frankenstein is disturbed by this bit of information, but rationalizes away the problem: "Oh well, after all,
it's only a piece of dead tissue." Waldman predicts with an admonishing warning of the danger: "Only Evil
can come of it! Your health will be ruined if you persist in this madness." Frankenstein affirms his sanity:
"I'm astonishingly sane, doctor." Waldman thinks the worst: "You have created a Monster and he will
destroy you." Frankenstein wants to experiment further, realizing that the Monster will develop as time
passes: "Patience, patience. I believe in this Monster, as you call it. And if you don't, well, you must leave
me alone." He still trusts that Elizabeth believes in him - but his father "never believes in anyone."
Up until this point, the brutish Monster "is only a few days old" and has been kept in total darkness, but
will soon be revealed: "So far, he's been kept in complete darkness. Wait till I bring him into the light." At
that instant, the plodding thud of shuffling footsteps are heard outside the room. "Here he comes," Dr.
Frankenstein announces, as he proudly heralds the arrival of his 'son.' The lights are turned out. The giant
monster has developed enough strength to shuffle forward (like a teetering toddler) and enter into the
mad scientist's laboratory from the dark corridor.
The first appearance and unveiling of the Monster - bringing him into the light of enlightenment - is truly
memorable. The door slowly swings open, revealing a dark, lumpish silhouette in the doorway in a full
figure shot. The bulky figure lurches clumsily into the room with halting steps, gradually revealing a bulky
head and broad back - the Monster awkwardly moves into the room by backingin! The hulking Monster
then slowly turns around, and then provides a shadowy profile in our first chilling close-up look of his
blankly expressionless, tabula rasaface - a jagged surgical scar around the jaw appears. There is also a
prominent spike that gleams into view on the side of the figure's neck. A series of camera jump cuts
provide increasingly tighter close-ups of the hideous visage of the cadaverous creature.
The Frankenstein Monster (Boris Karloff) is a startling, grotesque, and gruesome figure, about seven feet
tall with broad shoulders. The creation is more Monster than man. The monstrous face is placid, gaunt
and elongated. The creature has a square-shaped head with boxy forehead, hooded eyelids over deep-
set sunken eyes, neck-spikes or bolts to serve as electrical connectors on his neck, jagged surgical scars,
and a matted wig. The Monster wears a dark suit and thick, heavy boots, causing him to walk with an
awkward, stiff-legged, crude gait. His long arms seem enormous because the coat sleeves are shortened.
Frankenstein motions for the Monster to come in. As Henry moves backwards, the Monster leans forward
at an angle, casting a towering, sinister black shadow over his creator. His bent posture causes him to not
walk but fall forward - with each leg's step breaking his fall. Henry gestures for the Monster to sit down,
and then exults when the Monster obeys him: "You see, it understands. Watch."
In a moving, symbolic sequence, when Henry opens the ceiling's skylight above him, the Monster sees
sunlight for the first time and his face comes alive. With a child-like yearning for the unknown (and the
beginnings of intelligence), he slowly rises, faces the light, and pleads and gropes heaven-ward - he
stretches out his long, huge, open, corpse-like, scarred hands to try and reach up and grasp the golden
shaft of sunshine coming through the skylight. Henry realizes that the effort is hopeless and fruitless and,
at Waldman's persuasion, shuts out the intangible light from the window. Bewildered by the
disappearance of the light, the Monster reacts piteously with confused frustration and wordless whimpers.
He lowers his arms, and extends them in a beseeching and pleading gesture toward his Creator. Henry
calms him and suggests: "Go and sit down." The Monster obliges and backs up - his face remains uplifted
and his open hands still grasp for air, but the brightness of the light is shut out.
Frankenstein's Monster is frightened, panics and becomes violent when hunchbacked Fritz enters and
brandishes a lighted torch. A struggle breaks out as the monster expresses fear of the flames - he utters
lower gutteral cries and thrashes around. The three men attack and wrestle the troublesome Monster to
the floor and overpower him. After subduing him, they tie him up with rope. "Shoot it. It's a Monster,"
Waldman shouts. The scene fades out, and as the next scene opens, the Monster is manacled to the wall
and locked up in the downstairs dungeon cellar. The tormented Monster frantically utters more gutteral
sounds as he struggles to break free of his restraining and binding chains.
The twisted dwarf Fritz takes cruel delight in teasing, intimidating, tormenting, and torturing the creature.
The hunchback, who presumably hates the Monster because it reminds him of his own mis-shapenness,
bullwhips the creature and waves a flaming torch in his face. Dr. Frankenstein is dismayed and haunted
by his perverted creation and tells Fritz to quit mistreating the creature: "Oh come away, Fritz. Leave it
alone. Leave it alone." He leaves the dungeon - abandoning his creation and feeling guilt for his
complicity. Photographed from the point-of-view of the Monster, Fritz thrusts his flaming torch directly
toward the camera to mercilessly torture the creature.
Later, Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman (up in the laboratory) hear terrible distress screams from Fritz.
Provoked, the Monster breaks free from its chains and kills the hunchback (off-camera) when he gets too
close, strangling him and impaling him on a hook from a rafter. By the time they reach the horrible scene
in the cellar, they discover that the Monster has murdered Fritz. The violent Monster then turns on the two
doctors - Frankenstein and Waldman. Waldman suggests overpowering the creature and injecting it with
poison from a hypodermic needle to kill it: "as you would any savage animal...It's our only chance." In a
violent confrontation, they lure the Monster out and inject him with a strong drug to render him
unconscious. As the drug slowly starts to take effect, the creature loses its strength, looks quizzically
around, and tries to comprehend what is happening. He collapses - successfully sedated and restrained.
At that moment, Victor arrives at the door, announcing that Baron Frankenstein and Elizabeth are coming
up the hill to see him. Frantically, the three men drag the creature's body into the cellar to hide it before
Henry's father and Elizabeth arrive.
The Baron, who has come to take Henry away, first meets a shaken Victor and asks: "Well, what's the
matter with you? You look as if you've been kicked by a horse. Where's Henry?" Dr. Waldman appears,
introduces himself and then advises the Baron: "I would advise you to take Henry away from here at
once." "What do you suppose I'm here for, pleasure?" the Baron responds.
Henry, originally proud of his creation, is now fearful of the horrible, uncontrollable creature he has
produced, and he faints from the shock - close to a nervous breakdown. Waldman is told that the
exhausted Frankenstein will be taken home with the Baron to get well. Nonetheless, Henry objects to
being separated from his work: "No, I can't. My work. What will happen to the records of my
experiments?" Waldman promises: "We will preserve them." While he is away, Waldman promises to see
that the Monster will be "painlessly destroyed." Mentally and physically exhausted, Henry appears
resigned to be taken home, very unhappy with the results of his experiments. He reluctantly abandons the
Monster to Waldman.
Waldman resumes Henry's observations and prepares to perform a dissection upon the drugged-up
Monster that is strapped to the table in the laboratory, with its right arm again hanging free. His journal
notes that the Monster is becoming increasingly resistant to drugs: "Note increased resistance.
Necessitating stronger and more frequent injections. However, will perform dissection at once." As the
doctor listens to the Monster's heart beat before the operation, the Monster awakens, slowly raises his
arm behind Waldman's back, grabs his neck, sits upright, and strangles him to death by breaking his
neck. [To the Monster, Waldman represents another threat not unlike Fritz.] The scene dissolves away,
showing the Monster, with giant powerful steps coming down the stairs from the laboratory. With short,
jerky, hesitant movements, he passes the room where he killed Fritz and backs away. He stomps toward
the main door, surprises himself when the door opens, and escapes from the tower into the outer world of
his birth.
Henry begins to recover under Elizabeth's adoring care at Castle Frankenstein, away from his laboratory
and his all-consuming experiments. (Henry assumes that Dr. Waldman has destroyed the Monster by this
time.) He is at peace once again:
Henry: It's like heaven, being with you again.
Elizabeth: Heaven wasn't so far away all the time, you know.
Henry: I know, but I didn't realize it. My work. Those horrible days and nights. I couldn't think of anything
else.
Elizabeth: Henry. You're not to think of those things anymore. You promised.
They make plans to marry soon. The village townspeople prepare to celebrate the marriage of Henry and
Elizabeth. The Frankenstein family also prepares for the happy event - Baron Frankenstein raises a toast
during the festivities: 'Here's to a very good health...to a son of the House of Frankenstein...Here's to jolly
good health to Frankenstein." There is much dancing, drinking, and frivolity in the streets - a tracking shot
follows dancing peasants through the streets.
In a similar tracking shot, the camera pursues the Monster as he haltingly roams through a forest in the
countryside of the outside world. At his country home on the shore of a lake, a busy villager peasant
named Ludwig (Michael Mark) leaves his young daughter Maria (Marilyn Harris) alone, telling her that
after he returns from checking his traps, they will go to the village celebration.
In one of the film's most powerful, poignant, and horrifying scenes, the Monster parts the bushes and
enters the clearing by the bank of the lake. He attempts to make friends with Maria who plays there by
herself. [They share an affinity - her father also rejected her.] As she is gathering daisies at the edge of
the water, she is not repelled by his hideous appearance or fearful of him and invites him to play and be
her friend: "Who are you? I'm Maria. Will you play with me?" She takes his hand and leads him to the side
of the lake. She asks: "Would you like one of my flowers?" and offers him one. A close-up of their two
hands touching emphasizes the enormity of his hands. With child-like innocence, he smells the flower and
a beatific smile lights his face. After they kneel next to the water, Maria hands him some flowers to join in
her game of flinging them into the pond, and he compares his hand to hers: "You have those, and I'll have
these. I can make a boat." One by one, they toss flowers onto the surface of the lake, watching the petals
float. "See how mine float?" The Monster delights in the game with his new-found friend (his first) and is
pleased when he throws a daisy and it floats.
When the Monster's few flower blossoms are gone, he puzzles for a moment at his empty hands, and
then innocently and ignorantly picks up Maria. The little girl screams: "No, you're hurting me. No!" He
enthusiastically throws her in the water - expecting that she, too, will float like the flower petals. She
flounders and splashes in the water and quickly sinks and drowns. As he staggers away from the lake,
the Monster seems to express some confusion, despair and remorse - shaking and wringing his hands
and possibly perceiving the horrible thing he has done. [In the original version of the film, the scene was
truncated and it cut away from the drowning - it was considered too gruesome and cruel to remain.
However, the excision implied some other kind of undesirable, unseen fate for the girl beyond a drowning.
The drowning scene wasn't restored to the film until the mid 1980s.]
Dressed in her beautiful wedding gown with a long train on their wedding day, a tense, worried, and
uneasy Elizabeth asks to speak to Henry in private before they are married - she has a premonition of
danger:
Elizabeth: Henry. I'm afraid. Terribly afraid. Where's Dr. Waldman? Why is he late for the wedding?
Henry: (assuring her) Oh, he's always late. He'll be here soon.
Elizabeth: Something is going to happen. I feel it. I can't get it out of my mind.
Henry: You're just nervous. All the excitement and preparation.
Elizabeth: No, no. It isn't that. I felt it all day. Something is coming between us. I know it! I know it!
Henry: Sit down and rest. You look so tired.
Elizabeth: If I could just do something to save us from it.
Henry: From what, dear, from what?
Elizabeth: I don't know. If I could just get it out of my mind. Oh, I'd die if I had to lose you now, Henry.
Henry: Lose me? Why, I'll always be with you.
Elizabeth: Will you, Henry? Are you sure? I love you so.
Elizabeth's worries prove to be warranted. Just then, Victor interrupts them with frantic knocking on the
door: "Henry! Dr. Waldman!" A close-up shows Frankenstein locking his bride's chamber door before
Victor delivers news of the murder of Dr. Waldman in the tower - and the Monster's escape: "He's been
seen in the hills terrorizing the mountainside." Henry hears a low moan and recognizes the Monster's
distinctive voice: "He's in the house. He's upstairs!" While checking upstairs rooms and the cellars, the
Monster enters a window of the Frankenstein mansion into the room where Elizabeth is seated - alone
and helpless. She is horrified by his appearance and screams loudly. The Monster is driven off by the
screams and by Frankenstein and his servants who rush to her aid. She swoons and is quite shaken and
dazed by the incident, but unhurt.
After the dead body of the drowned little girl is discovered, the girl's father carries her in his arms through
the streets of the celebrating village to the door of the burgomaster Herr Vogel. The celebrations in the
village come to a sudden halt as the revelers follow behind him. He explains: "Maria, she's drowned...She
has been murdered." Herr Vogel promises revenge for the murder: "I'll see that justice is done. Who is it?"
The townspeople are driven by fear, indignation and hate to hunt down the creature and destroy the
outcast.
The wedding will have to be postponed for at least a day. Resolved to reject his creation, Frankenstein
thinks the wedding may have to be postponed longer: "A day? I wonder...There can be no wedding while
this horrible creation of mine is still alive." Dr. Frankenstein vows to destroy the fiendish Monster:
I made him with these hands, and with these hands I will destroy him. I must find him.
Firmly looking into Victor's eyes in a close-up, he entrusts his fiancee into Victor's care while he goes to
pursue his Monster himself: "You stay here and look after Elizabeth. I leave her in your care, whatever
happens. Do you understand? In your care." As the scene ends, Victor turns toward Elizabeth's bedroom.
In a climactic pursuit scene, Frankenstein joins a large search party of peasants commissioned by the
burgomaster to take up glowing torches, pitchforks, and bloodhounds and set off after the murderous
monster, chasing it through the dark night. They are split into three torch-bearing groups to search for the
creature - into the woods, the craggy mountains, and by the lake. They are commissioned to "get him
alive if you can, but get him...Search every ravine, every crevice...The Fiend must be found." Henry leads
one group into the mountains but becomes separated from his search group.
He finds himself reunited and face to face confronting his hideous, angry creation on a rocky, hilltop
outcropping. In a violent struggle, Henry is beaten, choked, knocked out, and then dragged to an old,
abandoned windmill. The torch-bearing villagers hear Henry's cries, pursue them, and turn their dogs
loose. They surround the mill but are unable to break down the mill's door which has been blocked by a
fallen rafter.
The Monster snarls at the enraged villagers and then drags Dr. Frankenstein into the upstairs room of the
mill. Dr. Frankenstein regains consciousness and another life and death struggle and confrontation ensue
as they stalk each other around a rotating, slatted wheel. The Monster and his creator further battle each
other on the top balcony ledge of the windmill - the Monster seizes Henry before he can climb down. He
lifts and throws Henry's body to the ground below - but he is saved when a turning windmill blade arm
breaks his fall. The windmill vane supports him for a short distance, and then drops him to the ground.
Henry is severely injured and hurt, but still alive. The villagers cry out: "Burn the mill! Burn it down! Burn
the mill!" They set the structure, where the Monster is trapped inside, on fire.
Amid the crackling of flames, the poor, tragic Monster waves his arms and runs around in a panic, letting
out frightened, high-pitched, quavering cries - tormented by fire one more time. He is crushed by a falling
beam in the mill tower and pinned down, apparently perishing in the blazing fire and the collapsing,
incinerated structure. After the scene of mob violence, the villagers carry Dr. Frankenstein's limp,
critically-injured body home, as the windmill goes up in flames. A long-shot of the burning mill (with its
revolving windmill) resembles a burning cross.
[Originally, the film ended here, but the unhappy denouement displeased preview audiences, so a short
epilogue was added. The film concludes with a requisite happy ending, although the symbolism of the
transgressing Creator killed by his deformed, monstrous creation - as sensed by Elizabeth - might have
been more appropriate.] At his home, Frankenstein (still unwed) recovers from his injuries with Elizabeth
at his side and nursing him back to health. The maids bring a drink tray to Henry's room, but the Baron
intercepts the wine. Standing outside his son's sick-room in the hallway, he pours a drink for himself with
a toast:
As I said before, I say again, 'Here's, here's to a son, to the House of Frankenstein.'
The maids respond: "Indeed, sir. We hope so, sir."