Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent classic Frankenstein now on DVD?

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Well here’s an interesting piece of news coming out of The Hollywood Reporter. Apparently ‘the first horror film’ has been re-released on DVD! The first horror film?! Well that’s what it’s widely regarded as! What flick am I talking about? Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent movie FRANKENSTEIN!

That’s right folks! It seems the nearly hundred year old film has found it’s way onto DVD! How? Just keep reading for the skinny! By the way, I say nearly one hundred because the film won’t reach that mark until next week, on March 18th, the one hundred year anniversary for Edison’s FRANKENSTEIN.

So where exactly is all this coming from? Author Frederick C. Wiebel Jr. has been on a mission as of late. It started as a magazine article about Edison’s classic film but has grown into a full blown novel by Wiebel called “Edison’s Frankenstein.” Simple enough. Eventually Wiebel had compiled enough information to write the novel, which chronicles the making of the 1910 film as well as about how movies were made in the early 1900s. Along the way Wiebel had stumbled upon the film’s only surviving print and has since set out to restore the film on DVD. Now how can you pick up this collector’s item?

Well apparently Wiebel gives the answer in his book, which you can pick up RIGHT OVER HERE! Or you can just eliminate the middle man and pick up Wiebel’s book on E-Book in a two pack with the DVD RIGHT OVER HERE! And for only $20! Seems like a steal, no?

Here’s some of what Wiebel had to say regarding the whole ordeal:

“I was astounded that any of it existed. It had been 30 or 40 years since I’d first heard of the movie …. I just kept getting more and more information until at some point it was too long for an article and too short for a book. …. It took them three or four days to shoot it …. What they would do mostly would be to practice the whole film and try to do it, if they could, in one take. They’d rehearse it until they finally got it down and then they would roll the cameras. … There really weren’t named stars at the time. That developed a few years later. That’s why a lot of theatrical people didn’t want to do movies — because they wouldn’t get any credit for their work.”

Apparently actors were only paid $5 a day at the time and the film as a whole cost less than $1,000 to make. Charles Ogle played ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ in the 1910 film while Augustus Phillips played Frankenstein and Mary Fuller played his bride. James Searle Dawley directed.

There you have it folks! A classic 1910 silent movie, widley regarded as ‘the first horror film,’ has found it’s way onto DVD! If you’re a fan of genre DVDs, or just DVDs in general, then this seems like a no-brainer! For more info you can head over to The Hollywood Reporter or PICK UP WIEBEL’S BOOK NOW! For the heck of it I’ve thrown up the film in question below as well as in our videos section. Enjoy!