Edison's Frankenstein

I wrote this as an obituary and memorial of a film archivist who possessed the only surviving copy of Thomas Edison's 1912 film production of Frankenstein.

The old man in the tri-corn hat and white cape stood in front of the hotel waiting to greet his coming guests. In one hand, he held a megaphone that also played "On Wisconsin," in honor of his beloved home state. In the other hand was an hourglass.

Al Dettlaff, film collector and self-dubbed "Father Time," waited for members of the Fort Lee Film Commission, who were on their way to meet this quirky old man whom they had heard so much about – an old man who held a living history in his basement. With his long, white beard, and thinning white hair, he probably could have more easily passed for Rip van Winkle.

"That was the first time we saw him," Tom Meyers, executive director of the Fort Lee Film Commission said, "when we went to meet him at the Holiday Inn on Route 4 in Fort Lee."

Dettlaff had been on the East Coast for several events the film commission had planned. These events all centered around screening of a film that turned out to be the Holy Grail of his film collection: the only known existing print of Thomas Edison’s silent film version of "Frankenstein," considered by historians to be the first horror film.

For Dettlaff, it was his claim to fame…and infamy. And long after his death earlier this summer, it is a notoriety that will live on.

On July 26, the 84-year-old Dettlaff was found dead in his Wisconsin home apparently of natural causes. Authorities believe he had been dead a month before he was found. But like Dr. Frankenstein himself, he found a way to cheat death through the legacy he left behind.

In the beginning…

Dettlaff’s interest in film was ignited when he was a young boy in Cudahy, Wis. According to Frederick C. Wiebel, Jr., who chronicled the strange history of the lost horror classic in his book "Edison’s Frankenstein," Dettlaff’s father ran a drug and candy store and would advertise for the local theaters in his store window. As a result, they were often given free movie tickets.

"One of those theatre owners had given Al some cartoons and films. He got an old hand cranked 35mm projector and used to show them in the basement of the store where he charged local kids a penny to see them," Wiebel explained. Later on, Dettlaff would screen the films for his coworkers during lunch breaks, or at special events where he invented the "Father Time" character to hype his presentations.

It was believed that he had at least 1,000 silent films in his collection, in 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm formats. At the time of his death, he had just started to catalog his collection.

"Back then many film distributors would cut off the titles for the old silent films laying about," Wiebel said, "and send them in for credit, or they would sell them, or throw them away or strip salvage them for the silver content."

According to Wiebel, this was how Dettlaff collected most of the works in his collection.How he acquired Edison’s "Frankenstein," however, is a bit more enigmatic and open to debate.

"It depended on who was asking him," said Nelson Page, chairman of the Fort Lee Film Commission. "His story always changed when it came to how he found that movie."

Wiebel believes that Dettlaff acquired it from another collector who had connections to his family. In his book, Wiebel cites an interview he conducted with Dettlaff, in which the collector recalls how the film came into his possession through his wife’s family. Originally, his wife’s grandmother owned the film, which she screened during her traveling roadshow. The film then was passed on to his father-in-law, and on to Dettlaff’s brother-in-law, who in turn sold it to film collector Herman Schmidt. In the mid-’50’s, Dettlaff acquired the film from Schmidt, along with about 20 other titles for $30. Dettlaff said he did not know that "Frankenstein" had been included in that batch of films, and he had no idea how rare it was when he discovered it. The film collector had been using the silent films to teach his children how to read by using the title cards.

According to Wiebel, Dettlaff had a feeling that there was something unusual about the "Frankenstein" when he ran it through for the first time.

The plot thickens…

In 1980, his suspicions were confirmed when the American Film Institute (AFI) released a list of the most important "lost" films of American cinema, and "Frankenstein" was on that list. Dettlaff was soon courted by several film preservation organizations, including AFI, to obtain a copy of the film, but none of the parties involved could reach a satisfying agreement.

With interest in "Frankenstein" mounting, Wiebel said, Dettlaff released portions of the film to be used in documentaries about film history or the legacy of Mary Shelley’s "Frankenstein." He began to appear on local TV shows, and even made an appearance on CNN, showing clips from the long lost film.

Film historians began to throw their hands up in frustration with Dettlaff’s unwillingness to release the film for a larger audience than the small presentations he held.

In the mid-’90’s, Wiebel said, Dettlaff—who had made several backup copies of "Frankenstein" on 16mm and 35mm—held Halloween screenings of "Frankenstein" at local theaters in Wisconsin.

In 1991, Dettlaff was the subject of an article for Film Comment magazine written by Jim Beckerman. It was Beckerman who connected Meyers and the film commission to Dettlaff.

"We were looking to do some fundraisers," Meyers explained, "and we wanted to use ‘Frankenstein’ for one of our Cliffhanger Film Festivals."

Thus began a year of courting the enigmatic Dettlaff.

"I would talk to him on the phone for hours," film commission member Lou Azzolini said. "And not just about movies. He’d tell me about his health problems, whatever was going on. He just wanted someone to listen to him."

Eventually Dettlaff was satisfied that the film commission’s intentions were genuine, Wiebel said, and he accepted their invitation to come to New Jersey and screen the film in April of 2003. First, there was a special screening at the Galaxy Theatre in Guttenberg, followed by "The Many Faces of Frankenstein" film series at the Lowes Landmark Theatre in Jersey City.

The next stop was Chiller Theater, a horror movie convention in the Meadowlands. Dettlaff signed sold DVD copies of "Frankenstein" and signed autographs for the crowd.

"We had a little scare at Chiller," Meyers recounted, "when he disappeared for awhile. He just wandered off when we weren’t looking. Eventually we found him in the celebrity tent sitting next to Soupy Sales, signing autographs.

"There was a B movie actress there known as Nurse Blood," Meyers continued, "and she was standing there watching Al. She asked us, ‘Who is that?’ so we told her he was the oldest living Revolutionary War veteran. She goes, ‘Oh wow! Really? I have to get his autograph’."

As a result of the time he spent with the film commission, Dettlaff provided them with another rare find from his collection: a silent film version of "Robin Hood" shot in Fort Lee in 1912. Over the past couple of years, the film commission has been working to restore this surviving copy of a film that had been shot in the woods that are now Constitution Park.

Final curtain call…

Film collector. Showman. Huckster. Al Dettlaff had been called all these things throughout his life. He was a man whose love of silent film started as a past time in which, as Wiebel writes in his book, "he projected the films for fun, not for preservation or monetary gain."

Although he would have a preferred an Oscar for his efforts. When the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences approached him about receiving a copy of the film — or the original itself — for their archives, as part of the deal Dettlaff requested a special Academy Award for his efforts in restoring the film.

Neither party could reach an agreement.

However, "Frankenstein" eventually provided Dettlaff with the international recognition that he desired. As a result of the publicity following his trip to New Jersey, screenings of the film were requested at film festivals across the globe, including the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy.

It even brought him back to New York City, a town he hadn’t visited since he came home from the Navy in 1945.

"We took him to New York," Meyers said, "after the events were finished. He wanted to see the Statue of Liberty the way he saw it when he came home from the war."

Meyers added that, "he had the best couple of years of his life after the New Jersey screening. He got to travel all over. That night at the Galaxy Theatre was really his moment of glory when he saw how many people came out for him."

Film commission member Kevin Cerragno feels that everyone who knew him was touched by him.

"He was a true original," flim commission member Scott Manginelli said wistfully. "Ultimately, he will be probably prove to be as important to film history, if not more so, than these celebrities working today."