Links
Thanks to the Library of Congress, the films Frankenstein and The Magic Skin are free to view. The link is to the full livestream, including both films. We hope you enjoy them!
Frankenstein
Released in 1910, this is the earliest screen adaptation of Frankenstein, and the earliest film as yet in our livestream series. The creation scene is unusual among Frankenstein adaptations and utilizes a burning papier-mâché figure played in reverse, creating perhaps the most eerie visuals in the film.
The events of the book are heavily abridged and in some cases wholly reimagined; the film’s opening title describes it as “a liberal adaptation from Mrs. Shelley’s famous story,” and it runs under fifteen minutes. It’s also more fantastical than many Frankensteins; the monster himself is depicted less as a physical experiment and more as a manifestation of the doctor’s own troubled mind. Edison’s publicity writers took pains to assure viewers at the time that they had “carefully tried to eliminate all actual repulsive situations and to concentrate its endeavors upon the mystic and psychological problems that are to be found in this weird tale.”
A liberal adaptation it may be, but it’s a fun watch, and a great demonstration of practical effects used in 1910!
The Magic Skin
The film The Magic Skin was a Halloween release by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. 107 years ago, in 1915. Thanks to Philip Carli (who asked for it and provides the accompaniment), George Willemann (who worked on the restoration and prepared the digital copy) and the Library of Congress, you can see the film again for the first time since 1923 (when it last played, in Australia). And if our first few presentations were of films that arrived on screen without literary antecedents, we are making up for it now. This story originated as a novel, La peau de chagrin, by Honorè de Balzac, first published in Paris in 1831. It has appeared in English in two translations, in 1906 as The Wild Ass’s Skin and in 1915 – the same year as our film – as The Magic Skin. One may imagine why Edison chose the latter title for the film.
It apparently was in fact the skin of a wild ass, though, that skin. And it is certainly magical, in a demonic way. The protagonist, already suicidal by page 30, is introduced to it by the kindly keeper of an antique shop, where a learned stranger is able to translate the mysterious writing, dyed or stamped so deeply that it seems part of the skin itself:
The translation given is:
“Possessing me, thou shalt possess all things. But thy life is mine, for God has so willed it. Wish, and thy wishes shall be fulfilled; but measure thy desires, according to the life that is in thee. This is thy life, with each wish I must shrink even as thy own days. Wilt thou have me? Take me. God will hearken unto thee. So be it.”
Director Richard Ridgely is, perhaps, kinder to the protagonist than M. Balzac was. As you may imagine, the 1915 American film ends somewhat differently from the 1831 French novel. And perhaps Pauline fares better as well. But who can say? In the book, what becomes of her, in the final page?
“Pauline? Ah! Do you sometimes spend a pleasant winter evening by your own fireside, and give yourself up luxuriously to memories of love or youth, while you watch the glow of the fire where the logs of oak are burning? Here, the fire outlines a sort of chessboard in red squares, there it has a sheen like velvet; little blue flames start up and flicker and play about in the glowing depths of the brasier. A mysterious artist comes and adapts that flame to his own ends ; by a secret of his own he draws a visionary face in the midst of those flaming violet and crimson hues, a face with unimaginable delicate outlines, a fleeting apparition which no chance will ever bring back again. It is a woman’s face, her hair is blown back by the wind, her features speak of a rapture of delight; she breathes fire in the midst of the fire. She smiles, she dies, you will never see her any more. Farewell, flower of the flame! Farewell, essence incomplete and unforeseen, come too early or too late to make the spark of some glorious diamond.”
