LOST, FOUND, AND FINALLY UNBOUND: THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE 1910 EDISON FRANKENSTEIN

FEW KNOW OR HAVE SEEN CINEMA’S VERY FIRST FRANKENSTEIN MOVIE. WERE IT NOT FOR ONE VERY ECCENTRIC MAN, IT MAY HAVE PERISHED FOREVER…

BY KELLY ROBINSON

IN VAULT NUMBER 21 OF A DECOMMISSIONED COLD WAR BUNKER IN CULPEPER, VIRGINIA, LIES THE ONLY EXISTING NITRATE FILM COPY OF FRANKENSTEIN (1910). It rests four feet underground in one of the 124 cold storage vaults beneath the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation. The steel and concrete walls were originally part of an emergency Federal Reserve, built to withstand a nuclear blast and years of nuclear fallout; meaning that the fragile ribbon of 110-year-old film will not only outlast us all, but could outlast civilization. It’s an ironic fate for a film that disappeared soon after its making, and for many decades was believed to be lost forever. The road to finding and ultimately preserving cinema’s very first Frankenstein is a weird one, much like the film…

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RUE MORGUE (Digital) - 1 Issue, RM#194

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