102 years ago, J. Searle Dawley wrote and directed Frankenstein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actually shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shelley’s literary creation was adapted to film. And, somewhat notably, Thomas Edison had a hand (albeit it an indirect one) in making the film. The first Frankenstein was shot at Edison Studios, the production company owned by the famous inventor.

You can download the movie at the Internet Archive, or find it permanently listed in our collection of 450 Free Movies Online. (Also, you can find Mary Shelley’s classic novel  in our collection of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.) To get more information on Dawley’s short film, please visit The Frankenstein blog.

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Frankenstein: The First Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Novel to Film (1910) is a post from: Open Culture

This week the British Government once again refused to pardon Alan Turing. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, Turing laid the foundations for computer science and played a key role in breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II. In 1952 he was convicted of homosexuality. He killed himself two years later, after being chemically castrated by the government.

On Monday, Justice Minister Tom McNally told the House of Lords that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron stood by the decision of earlier governments to deny a pardon, noting that the previous prime minister, Gordon Brown, had already issued an “unequivocal posthumous apology” to Turing. McNally was quoted  in the Guardian:

A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offense. He would have known that his offense was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offense which now seems both cruel and absurd–particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.

The decision came as a disappointment to thousands of people around the world who had petitioned for a formal pardon during the centenary year of Turing’s birth. The Guardian also quoted an email sent by American mathematician Dennis Hejhal to a British colleague:

i see that the House of Lords rejected the pardon Feb 6 on what are formal grounds.

if law is X on date D, and you knowingly break law X on date D, then you cannot be pardoned (no matter how wrong or flawed law X is).

the real reason is OBVIOUS. they do not want thousands of old men saying pardon us too.

Efforts to obtain a pardon for Turing are continuing. British citizens and UK residents can still sign the petition.

To learn more about Turing’s life, you can watch the 1996 BBC film Breaking the Code (above, in its entirety), featuring Derek Jacobi as Turing and Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter as the mysterious “Man from the Ministry.” Directed by Herbert Wise, the film is based on a 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore, which in turn was based on Andrew Hodge’s 1983 book Alan Turing: The Enigma.

Breaking the Code moves back and forth between two time frames and two very different codes: one military, the other social. The film runs 91 minutes, and has been added to our collection of Free Movies Online.

Still No Pardon for Alan Turing; Watch the Film Breaking the Code is a post from: Open Culture

The Graduate came out in 1967 and astounded audiences with its now famous storyline. The young college graduate Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman) finds himself seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), a family friend, only to then fall in love with her daughter, Elaine. Pretty shocking material for many in 1967.

A financial and critical success, The Graduate made Dustin Hoffman a star, and the celebrity-style interviews soon followed. Above, we have Hoffman getting interviewed from the comfort of his own bed in 1968. The topics: Sex, his sex life, women’s role in society and their sexuality.

Dustin Hoffman Talks Sex from the Comfort of His Own Bed (1968) is a post from: Open Culture

It’s part of the beauty of Werner Herzog. His films engross us, and the director provides the entertainment on the side. You have seen him take a bullet during an interview in LA. You’ve heard him read “Go the F**k to Sleep” in New York City. And, of course, you’ve watched him eat his shoe (literally!) after loosing a bet to fellow filmmaker Errol Morris. Well, today we give you the latest, greatest Herzog moment — his 40 second discourse on why he has a beef with chickens. h/t Coudal.com

Werner Herzog Has a Beef With Chickens is a post from: Open Culture

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. He was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7, 1812, the second of eight children. When he was 12 years old his father was sent to debtors’ prison, along with most of his family, and Charles went to live with a friend of the family, an impoverished old lady. He was forced to quit school and work in a blacking factory, where he pasted labels on jars of shoe polish.

Dickens never forgot those early traumas. He incorporated his experiences and observations of social injustice into his works, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. (Find free novels below.) He was the most popular writer of Victorian England, a virtual rock star in the days before recorded music and movies. His stories, published serially in magazines, were eagerly awaited by the public. Most have remained in print ever since.

The Dickens bicentenary is being celebrated with special events around the world, including a wreath-laying ceremony this morning at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, where actor and filmmaker Ralph Fiennes, author Claire Tomalin, and two of Dickens’s descendants are scheduled to give readings. For a listing of events today and throughout the year, go to Dickens2012.org. Also take a look at the short retrospective of Dickens-inspired movies (above) from the British Film Institute.

To help celebrate, we have gathered together some of the best Dickens material from across the Web:

Films (see our complete list of Free Movies):

• Great Expectations: The classic 1946 version directed by David Lean and starring John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons, Martita Hunt and Alec Guinness. The film won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.
• Oliver Twist: Another classic by David Lean, this 1948 film stars John Howard Davies as Oliver and Alec Guinness as Fagin. In 1999 it was ranked 46th on the BFI’s list of the top 100 British films of all time.
• A Tale of Two Cities: The 1958 film by Ralph Thomas, starring Dirk Bogarde as Sydney Carton and Dorothy Tutin as Lucie Manette. The film was shot in France’s Loire Valley, with several thousand U.S. soldiers, posted in nearby Orleans, cast as extras.
• A Christmas Carol: George C. Scott gives an excellent performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in this critically acclaimed 1984 film directed by Clive Donner. It premiered in America on CBS television, and was released theatrically in Great Britain.
• David Copperfield: A 2000 U.S.-Irish television adaptation starring Hugh Dancy as David Copperfield, Michael Richards as Wilkins Micawber and Sally Field as Betsey Trotwood.
• The Pickwick Papers: A 1952 film, adapted and directed by Noel Langley and starring James Hayter as Samuel Pickwick.

eBooks (see our complete list of Free eBooks)

• A Christmas Carol – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats - Kindle
• A Tale of Two Cities – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats
• Bleak House – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats – Kindle
• David Copperfield – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats
• Great Expectations – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats –Kindle
• Hard Times – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats
• Mystery of Edwin Drood – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats
• Oliver Twist – Read Online – Download Multiple Formats - Kindle

Audio Books (see our complete list of Free Audio Books)

• A Christmas Carol – Free iTunes – Free MP3 Zip File
• A Tale of Two Cities – Free iTunes - Free MP3 Zip File
• A Collection of Christmas Stories - Free iTunes
• Bleak House – Free iTunes – Free MP3 Zip File
• David Copperfield – Free iTunes – Free MP3
• Great Expectations – Free iTunes – Free MP3 Zip File
• Hard Times – Free iTunes – Free MP3 Zip File
• Oliver Twist – Free iTunes – Free MP3

NOTE: If we’re missing a good Dickens novel, don’t forget Audible.com’s 14 day trial. It will let you download an audio book for free, pretty much any one you want, and they’re all narrated and produced in a professional format. Get details here.

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Celebrate the 200th Birthday of Charles Dickens with Free Movies, eBooks and Audio Books is a post from: Open Culture

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance — Godfrey Reggio directed the 1982 film, and Philip Glass composed the music. Later, Reggio said that the film is wide open to interpretation, that “the viewer can take for herself what the film means.” “For some people it’s an environmental film, for some people it’s an ode to technology, for some people it’s a piece of shit, for other people it moves them deeply.” And for Wyatt Hodgson, it’s a film worth watching in a compressed, five-minute format, maybe because (as one viewer suggested) it highlights “one of the main dimensions of the film: the breakneck speed of our (crazy) world.”

Hodgson’s version strips out Glass’ original soundtrack, replacing it with music by the Art of Noise. But some crafty individual found a way to reproduce Glass’ composition at 1552% speed. You can listen below.

h/t Kottke

Koyaanisqatsi at 1552% Speed is a post from: Open Culture

The great French filmmaker François Truffaut would have turned 80 today, and to celebrate, we’re bringing back a wonderful series of audio recordings — Truffaut’s lengthy interview with another legendary director, Alfred Hitchcock.

Back in 1962, François Truffaut, the inspiration behind French New Wave cinema, met with Hitchcock. And, assisted by a helpful translator, the two directors talked through Hitchcock’s life and vast filmography, moving from his early films shot it Britain (Blackmail, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent), to his later Hollywood productions – North by Northwest, Psycho and Vertigo. In total, Truffaut and Hitchcock talked for over 12 hours, and, several years later, Truffaut published a now classic book based on these conversations: Alfred Hitchcock: A Definitive Study (1967).

Thanks to the Hitchcock Wiki, these original audio recordings now appear online. 25 recordings, each separated into 30 minute chunks. Below, you can revisit a selection of these recordings. The full set appears here (and here), and meanwhile don’t forget to visit our collection of 21 Free Hitchcock Films Online.

• Childhood through to his early years in the film industry
• Final years in Britain through to his move to America
• Arrival to Hollywood through to “Notorious”
• Initial discussion about the “The Birds” through to “Rear Window”
• “North by Northwest” through to “Psycho”

François Truffaut’s Big Interview with Alfred Hitchcock (Free Audio) is a post from: Open Culture

The films of David Lynch seem anything but “commercial.” Disturbing, incomprehensible, they shine a flashlight into the darkest regions of the subconscious mind. When you walk out of a theater after watching a David Lynch film you feel like you just woke up from a vivid and unsettling dream.

But Lynch has been leading a double life. While making uncompromisingly artistic works for the movie theaters, he has been directing commercials for television and other media on the side. Why does he do it? “Well,” Lynch told Chris Rodley in Lynch on Lynch, “they’re little bitty films, and I always learn something by doing them.”

Lynch began receiving offers to make commercials after the critical success of Blue Velvet in 1986. His first project was a series of four 30-second spots for Calvin Klein’s Obsession fragrance in 1988, each with a passage written by a famous novelist. The ad above quotes Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. You can also watch commercials featuring F.Scott Fitzgerald and D.H. Lawrence, but the fourth one, featuring Gustave Flaubert, is currently unavailable.

Lynch has completed many advertising assignments over the years, always managing to retain something of his unique vision in the process. We’ve selected some of the most strikingly “Lynchian” of the commercials. Scroll down and enjoy.

When Lynch was asked a few years ago how he felt about product placement in movies, his videotaped answer went viral on YouTube: “Bullshit. That’s how I feel. Total fucking bullshit.” So it’s strange to think that Lynch once agreed to place the entire fictional world of one of his most famous creations, Twin Peaks, at the service of a Japanese coffee company. But that’s what he did in 1991, for Georgia Coffee. In Lynch on Lynch, the filmmaker was asked whether he was concerned about what the commercials might do to the Twin Peaks image. “Yes,” he replied. “I’m really against it in principle, but they were so much fun to do, and they were only running in Japan and so it just felt OK.”

The four commercials, each only 30 seconds long, follow FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) as he solves the mystery of a missing Japanese woman in the town of Twin Peaks, all the while managing to enjoy plenty of “damn fine” Georgia Coffee. Alas, the Japanese commercials were not as successful as the American TV series. “We were supposed to do a second year, and do four more 30-second spots,” Lynch said, “but they didn’t want to do them.”

You can watch the first episode, “Lost,” above, and follow the rest of the story through these links: Episode Two: “Cherry Pie,” Episode Three: “The Mystery of ‘G’” and Episode Four: “The Rescue.”

In 1991 Lynch made one of the creepiest public service messages ever (above) concerning New York City’s rat problem. The cinematography is by Lynch’s longtime collaborator Frederick Elmes.

“Who is Gio” (above) was shot for Georgio Armani in Los Angeles in early 1992, right when several Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King–a verdict that sparked mayhem in the streets. “We were shooting the big scene with the musicians and the club the night the riots broke out in LA,” Lynch told Chris Rodley. “Inside the club we were all races and religions, getting along so fantastically, and outside the club the world was coming apart.”

Of all his early advertising clients, Lynch said, Armani gave him the most freedom. The two-and-a-half-minute version above is an extension of the originally broadcast 60-second commercial.

One of the most bizarre of Lynch’s commercials is his 1998 contribution (above) to the “Parisienne People” campaign. The Swiss cigarette maker Parisienne invited famous directors to make short commercials for screening in movie theaters across Switzerland. To see how others handled the same assignment, follow these links: Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard (with wife Anne-Marie Miéville), Giuseppe Tornatore, and Ethan and Joel Coen.

Lynch’s surreal 2000 commercial for Sony Playstation (above), called “The Third Place,” is wide open for interpretation. Writer Greg Olson takes a heroic stab at it in his book, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark:

For sixty seconds we proceed through a labyrinth of Lynchian themes and motifs visualized in black and white, thus signifying the bifurcation of the world into two polarities. A man in a black suit and a white shirt encounters eerie passageways, sudden flames, barren trees, factory smoke, a woman who won’t speak her secrets, a wounded figure wrapped in bandages. The man meets his own double, and a man with a duck’s head. A sourceless voice asks, “Where are we?” The dualistic duck-man, who synthesizes animal instinct and human learning, knows: “Welcome to the third place.”

Yes. The duck-man knows.

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David Lynch’s Surreal Commercials is a post from: Open Culture

“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth,” says the narrator Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil.”

The palpable menace that permeates Conrad’s classic novella has been edited out of the narration in this short film, made for Tourism Malaysia by British filmmaker James W. Griffiths. What remains is a poetic sense of wonder for a natural world that is no longer frightening, no longer in need of being subdued. In the original, the twisting and turning sentences are like a microcosm of a journey up the winding Congo River, into the metaphorical darkness that lies at the heart of all men. Out of the stillness of the page, Conrad’s imagination washes over us in a rolling wave of words:

The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not.

Griffiths can be forgiven for defanging Conrad. We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth is a beautiful film, a quiet meditation on the unspoiled rainforest of West Malaysia shot in November by cinematographer Christopher Moon, who also collaborated with Griffiths on last year’s award-winning Nokia cellphone film Splitscreen. The music is by Lennert Busch, the sound design is by Mauricio d’Orey, and Conrad’s words are spoken by Terry Burns.

We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth: A Short Film Inspired by Joseph Conrad is a post from: Open Culture

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore offers a modern tribute to an old world. Made with an animation style that blends stop motion with computer animation and traditional hand-drawing, the silent film pays homage to a bygone era when elegantly printed books inhabited our world. The 15-minute short is the first made by Moonbot Studios, a fledgling animation shop in Shreveport, Louisiana. For their efforts, Moonbot’s founders (William Joyce, Brandon Oldenburg and Lampton Enochs) received an Oscar-nomination this week (Best Animated Short), putting them in competition with two other films featured on Open Culture: Sunday and Wild Life.

We recommend watching The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore in “Couch mode” on Vimeo, or downloading it for free in HD from iTunes. iPad owners will also want to consider buying the related app ($4.99) that turns the film into an interactive narrative experience.

For more animated bibliophilia, don’t miss:

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Bibliophiles

Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

Going West: A Stop Motion Novel

Books Come to Life in Classic Cartoons from 1930s and 1940s

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: An Oscar-Nominated Film for Book Lovers is a post from: Open Culture