Frankenstein: The First Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Novel to Film (1910)

102 years ago, J. Sear­le Daw­ley wrote and direct­ed Franken­stein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actu­al­ly shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary cre­ation was adapt­ed to film. And, some­what notably, Thomas Edi­son had a hand (albeit it an indi­rect one) in mak­ing the film. The first Franken­stein was shot at Edi­son Stu­dios, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny owned by the famous inven­tor.

You can down­load the movie at the Inter­net Archive, or find it per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 725 Free Movies Online. (Also, you can find Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el  in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.) To get more infor­ma­tion on Daw­ley’s short film, please vis­it The Franken­stein blog.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Birth of Film: 11 Firsts in Cin­e­ma