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A criticism that’s often levied at 1980’s The Shining, the great Stanley Kubrick film, is that anyone with any sense or a brain will know immediately that Jack Torrance, as played so brilliantly by Jack Nicholson, is insane. Just look at him in the scene where he drives his family to the Overlook Hotel. Is this a man in control of his mental faculties? Shouldn’t we see Torrance begin sane and slowly turn into the monster he becomes in the final half-hour? In a different adaptation, this is probably what should end up happening, but Kubrick’s got other things on his mind. I see him aiming for something like a disintegration of the nuclear American family, not what author Stephen King may have set out to do when he wrote the novel.

But I’m not reviewing The Shining today (if that wasn’t obvious). I bring the film and the criticism up - the essential lack of a first act in The Shining - to shine a bit of light on this week’s classic movie, the 1931 horror movie Frankenstein. As a child of the end of the 20th century, my familiarity with the Frankenstein series begins and ends with the Mel Brooks comic classic Young Frankenstein. Unrelated note, but still worth pointing out: if you have the opportunity to see the musical version of this film as it tours the country, take my advice and do not see the show. It’s a sad truth, but Mel Brooks should probably just leave well enough alone and not even think about doing a musical based on Blazing Saddles.

Anyway, to Frankenstein. Based on the iconic novel by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein is a horror film about a scientist who goes nearly insane in the process of reanimating a dead human body. Of course, as I’m sure we all know, the body does become alive once again but due to its brain, the scientist brings to life a hideous monster. Frankenstein, as directed by James Whale (his own story made into a film, Gods and Monsters, starring Ian McKellen), is a fitfully frightening, sometimes truly arresting, but somewhat surprisingly disappointing film. Yeah, I know; yet another classic movie that I can’t fully get behind. Yet, one of the big reasons why the film threw me for a loop is simple: it’s missing its first act. I would have liked to know what made Dr. Frankenstein so intent, so determined to reanimate dead tissue.

Instead, we pick up with Dr. Frankenstein completely over the bend. The film opens with the end of a funeral, being spied on by Frankenstein and his bug-eyed, humped assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye, continuing to impress as the creepiest actor of his time; he was formerly Renfield in Dracula). There’s no question from the very first shot of Frankenstein that he’s not a man to be trifled with, and he’s got a few screws loose. What, then, are we supposed to make of a 70-minute horror movie - like Dracula, this movie knows not to linger - where the title character starts out insane and ends up as a heroic leading man? Yes, by the time the movie ends, not only is Dr. Frankenstein still alive, though wounded, but he’s been…cured of his insanity.

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