Anachronisms: Modern inventions, such as the telephone, are mixed with pre-modern scene settings. According to DVD commentary for this film, director
James Whale intended this film to take place in an "alternate universe" and therefore freely mixed 19th Century and 1930s technology, hair fashions, etc." This argument explains some anachronisms, but it does not work for the anachronism between modern inventions and the movie's prologue. The prologue depicts a dialog between Mary Shelley, the author of the Frankenstein story, and Lord Byron in early 19th century England. This scene does not take place in an "alternate universe", since it involves real historic persona. We learn in the prologue that the rest of the movie is a story invented by Shelley. It is therefore anachronistic that the story contains inventions, that did not exist in her lifetime. Mary Shelley died in 1851, and the first telephones appeared in the 1870s.
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