Frankenstein

James Whale cast an unknown 44-year-old bit-part actor because he liked his face across a canteen. Karloff's monster has no dialogue, is on screen for a fraction of the running time, and became the most recognisable image in the genre.

Jack Pierce built the makeup over three weeks: the flat top on the theory that a surgeon would cut the skull straight across, the neck electrodes, the heavy lids. Universal copyrighted it, which is why every other Frankenstein monster since looks different.

The scene by the lake with the little girl was cut in most American prints for decades and is the emotional centre of the film. Without it the drowning reads as malice, which is precisely the opposite of the intent.

The novel is a first-person account by an educated creature who reads Milton. Almost nothing of that survives here, and the film is better than that fact suggests.