M.B., Count yourself lucky if you haven't seen Branagh's (NOT Mary Shelley's) "Frankenstein." I can only thank my lucky stars that I only saw scattered parts of it when it aired on cable 25 years ago, I'd guess. I wish I could UN-see what I did see of it. And lest one think it's unfair to judge a movie that one has only seen bits and pieces of, I have read a lot about the movie and it bears virtually no resemblance to the philosophical "ghost story" of Mary Godwin/Shelley. Of the many other versions I've seen, none has been as ridiculous (Branagh's creation scene) or as revolting (the over-praised Helena Bonham-Carter) as this one.
One version that bears some similarities to the novel is the TV miniseries with our (DS) friend Alec Newman, Luke Goss, and Julie Delpy. That strayed quite a bit, but followed the rough outline of the novel, as I recall, and the portrayal of the Being (creature, monster) was poignant as it should be, and the settings were cinematic and well-wrought. The closest version to the book, which isn't too great, but which actually sticks fairly close to the book in a very abbreviated format, is "Victor Frankenstein," also called "Terror of Frankenstein," a dubbed Swedish-Irish co-production as I recall, produced in 1977. As far as movies based on the book go, the third one I would include in my list of the best interpretations is the TV miniseries from the 1970s "Frankenstein: The True Story," which we have talked about here a couple of years ago. That one is good with settings and is an intelligently written and well-acted and produced version, though it differs quite a bit from Shelley especially with its concept of the creature being created beautiful, though that is Victor Frankenstein's intent in the novel but for some reason doesn't quite work out.
It's interesting that you brought up Frankenstein at this time as I have been making a study of Mary Shelley as of late. That began with my reading some of the Romantics especially Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry (I haven't yet read his two "juvenile" Gothic novels, little known), which in turn came about from my reading Scottish author George MacDonald's post-romantic fantasy "Phantastes" which is a compendium of Romantic tropes. One of the most remarkable commentaries I've read of the novel "Frankenstein" is an essay by Harold Bloom, which can be found as the Afterward to the Signet Classics edition of the novel, which simply took my breath away and wonder how it is that I never came across it in the past. Absolutely must reading to understand the depth of the novel!
Mary Shelley's other novels are considered "uneven" at best, but I was impressed with the beautiful images in her novella "Mathilda," which I had only vaguely heard of (the manuscript of which William Godwin, Mary's father and frequent editor, kept in his possession and basically blocked Mary from publishing), but my admiration for Mrs. Shelley's work has increased manifold times with my current reading of "The Last Man," which I purchased in about 1997 and recently retrieved from a storage box. I'm two-thirds of the way through and, despite the first third probably being a struggle for today's casual reader, it is worth it, worth it, as the novel builds on what has come before, gaining in power and . . . well, I'll have to finish it to find out. Mary Shelley seems to me somewhat overally intellectualizing as a novelist, something in the way that George Eliot is (my own description), but she is a thinking person's writer, and not for the casual light read.
