He advanced into cinematography in 1914 and soon after made memorable films such as The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and the much-admired The Lost World (1925). By the 1930s, he combined his creative talents “with director James Whale, for whom he photographed the first three of Whale's quartet of horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), and The Invisible Man (1933)” (Wikipedia). Edeson’s cinematic technique can be seen elsewhere in film like The Maltese Falcon (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Casablanca (1942), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), and Three Strangers (1946).

The excellent cinematography in Frankenstein evokes a surreal and mysterious quality, perfectly matching the thunder and lightening storm above the gloomy castle in classic black and white imagery, and capturing that German Expressionism completely, from acting to set design, everything is wonderfully filmed, but as film critic Leonard Matlin mentions in his book Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 1994, “It’s creaky at times, and cries for music score, but it’s still impressive” (Maltins 441). Historians will point out, …show more content…
He did anatomical studies of surgery, anatomy, and medicine, to get the right look of a rough surgical procedure of a brain transplant patient, complete with metal clamps, and two electrodes embedded into Karloff's neck. Karloff started out in silent pictures in Hollywood, some of his early roles in film serials were The Masked Rider (1919) and King of the Wild (1930). Karloff was darker than most average English actors; he was often cast as foreigners such as Indian or Arabian, and usually as a villain. But eventually, after playing the monster in Frankenstein, he was able to decidedly pick any roles he wanted to