Ian McMillan on the film that made him hide behind the sofa

There are some stories that you encounter early in life that stay with you forever.
Ian McMillanIan McMillan
Ian McMillan

There are some stories that you encounter early in life that stay with you forever. For some people it’s Little Red Riding Hood, making them nervous every time they venture into the wood with a sandwich for their grandma; for some it’s Superman which means that they always wish they could fly over the traffic jam they happen to be caught in. My tale of choice is a bit of both in that it combines elements of fear with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of almost unnatural strength. The story that haunts me is Frankenstein.

I first encountered it in those almost forgotten comics called Classics Illustrated, which did just what they said on the tin or, to be accurate, the cover. They were comic-sized versions of texts that had stood the test of time, like Oliver Twist, Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe and, in this case and bought for a shilling from Jack Brooks’s newsagent in Great Houghton, Frankenstein. I was hooked straight away on this drama of the scientist who created life where there was none, and of the awful responsibility and destruction that happened when the laws of nature were taken into the hands of a man with staring eyes and a penchant for graveyards.

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As is often the case with something you see for the first time, Frankenstein and variations on Frankenstein soon began to appear everywhere. On a stall in Wombwell Market I noticed some second-hand copies of an American magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland that was full of articles about the movie versions of Frankenstein, as well as pieces on characters that didn’t scare or interest me quite as much like Dracula, the Mummy and the Werewolf.

I learned the names of the films off by heart as well as the year they came out and I can still tell you that Frankenstein came out in 1931, Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, Son of Frankenstein in 1939, all the way through to that lesser light of the canon, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948.

Although I knew lots about the films, I’d not actually seen one. This is because in those pre-internet days you had to wait for them to turn up on TV, and then they were probably on too late for you to see anything beyond the opening credits and swelling orchestral music. I’d had a glimpse of the monster on Michael Parkinson’s old show Cinema but that was as far as it went.

Until one fateful Saturday night when the film was to be shown on the new BBC2. I was giddy with excitement. The film began. I ran and hid behind the settee. My brother shouted: “It’s alive, I tell you!” and I started to cry. I began to recite the titles and the dates of the films to stop me from shaking the floor to bits. My brother turned the sound up and I ran up to bed. “It’s alive!” he shouted as I slammed the bedroom door…

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