''Il mostro di Frankenstein'' () is a 1921 Italian silent film directed by

Eugenio Testa Eugenio Testa (6 October 1892 – 11 October 1957) was an Italian actor and film director. He directed and starred in '' The Monster of Frankenstein'' (1920), one of the earliest Italian horror films.Bayman p.155 He was the son of the stage ac ...

. The film features actor

Luciano Albertini Luciano Albertini (30 November 1882 – 6 January 1945) was an Italian actor, film producer, and film director. After initially appearing in Italian films, he moved to Germany following the First World War. In 1921 he founded a production compa ...

as Baron von Frankenstein and Umberto Guarracino as The Monster. Albertini was known for his strong-man films at the time, particularly the ''Sansone'' film series. The film is a

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

, with only a photo, some promotional materials, and a single published review left to give insight to what the film was. After the film's release, it became the last Italian production for Albertini-Film, which seemingly re-located to Germany after this film. Critics and film historians have sometimes credited the film as an early example of a horror film, while others stated there wasn't enough evidence to truly know what kind of film style it was attempting.

Background and production

While Italian cinema had some success in the early decades of the 20th century, following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

saw a decline in production with 60 films produced in 1920 and only 20 in 1924. ''Il mostro di Frankenstein'' was produced by Albertini-Film, which was founded in 1919. Shooting of the film took place in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Among the cast was

as Baron von Frankenstein. Albertini appeared in several "strong man" films that became popular in the wake of Bartolomeo Pagano's role as the muscular slave Maciste in ''

Cabiria ''Cabiria'' is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows a melodramatic main p ...

'' (1914). In his career, Albertini relied upon his athletic physique. He was predominantly known for the popular ''Sansone'' film series which he was in at least eight films of. When ''Il mostro di Frankenstein'' was advertised, it was promoted with the name "Sansone" over the actor's own name. Writing in his 1973 book''The Frankenstein Legend: A Tribute to Mary Shelley and Boris Karloff'', Donald Glut was unable to outline any substantial details about the film other than "there is a confrontation between the creator and creature in a shadowy cave." Hunted stated these assertions come from a Belgian flyer for the film that shows a hand-drawn sketch of Frankenstein's monster in what appears to be a cave. According to the only known review of the film in ''Kines'', an Italian weekly publication, the film was a loose adaptation of the original source material.

Release and reception

The film was submitted to the Italian censors on 26 November 1920. Cuts to the film were suggested as quickly as 21 December. the film was not released in Italy until 4 September 1921. There is evidence that the film was distributed both domestically and internationally, but the full context of this is unclear. Variations of the film's title appear in different publicity materials. The 1922 Cinema Vittoria, Cinema Pace and Cinema Auorora posters from Milan titled the film ''Il mostro di Frankenstein'' while later 1926 provincial releases of the film title it ''Il mostro di Frankestein''. New negatives, promotional materials and title cards for the film were being ordered as late as December 1924 in Italian, French, English and Spanish. One surviving posters shows that at least one Italian cinema had planned on exhibiting the film as late as 1926. Critic Guglielmo Giannini stated that "the authors have missed a great opportunity for making an excellent film ..because they haven't taken into account the formidable material they had at their disposal or they only used it sporadically." The only praise Giannini gave was towards Umbero Guarracino's "scary" performance as The Monster.

Legacy

The film was the last film

directed and he never acted in Italy again after. It was also Luciano Albertini and Albertini Films last Italian production as the company would seemingly relocate to Germany afterwards. Scholars of Italian cinema generally identify '' I Vampiri'' (1957) as the "first" significant example of an Italian horror film. In 2017, Russ Hunter wrote in the ''Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies'' that ''Il mostro di Frankenstein'' was increasingly identified as Italy's first horror film. This includes Louis Paul in 2005 citing it as the earliest example of an Italian horror film, while Gino Moliterno in ''Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema'' included along with '' Malombra'' (1917) as sole entries in the genre as "Italian silent cinema appears to have little interest in the horror genre." Hunter noted that many of the silent era films that might now be coined as horror were referred to simply as '' cinéma fantastique'', a broad term that has tended to encompass horror, science fiction and fantasy films. Hunter argued that the supposed nature of the subject mater, based largely on the title is seen to automatically qualify it as a horror film. Hunter concluded that prior to ''I Vampiri'' there was no horror film cycles in Italy prior to that film's release.

References

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