The Bride of Frankenstein
It's the final film of the Halloween season and I thought I'd save the best--or at least the most utterly pleasurable--for last. The Bride of Frankenstein is one of those rare movie sequels that improves upon its predecessor. Directed by the legendary James Whale, Bride of Frankenstein is considered to be a masterpiece of gothic horror. Filmed in 1935, the film picks up where its predecessor ended--well, almost. After being hurled off a burning windmill, Victor is now pretty much dead. As villagers gather round to watch the mill--and hopefully, the Monster--burn, the over-excited village yenta Minnie, one of the Frankenstein family's maids, leads the crowd in cheering on the inferno. Sadly, the party-pooping burgomaster arrives on the scene and orders everyone to clear out and go home. A few stragglers stay behind to pick through the ruins and--much to their dismay--are confronted by the monster. Minnie runs shrieking back to the Frankenstein manor where she broadcasts the bad news to all and sundry.
There is, however, a silver lining: contrary to popular opinion, Victor is not dead! The household erupts in joy, perhaps prematurely since Victor still has one foot in the grave. It is up to his faithful fiancée Elizabeth to nurse him back to health. Elizabeth, a petite blonde when she began her wedding day in the last film, has undergone a drastic change by nightfall: she's now a comely brunette with a good 3 inches added to her frame over the course of this hectic day. She is--literally--the Bride of Frankenstein (Victor, that is) but her transformation is less due to man's interference with nature than with the casting of a new actress in the role. No matter, this Elizabeth is totally up to the task and soon has Victor up and about. The wedding is on!
Meanwhile, the monster is also up and about, dealing death and destruction throughout the countryside. Round up the women and lock them inside! shouts the burgomaster.
[Note: to avoid repetition, from here on out I will be substituting the name Junior in lieu of the terms monster and creature, except where I feel they're more appropriate.]
After coming across a remote cottage in the forest, Junior discovers a blind hermit playing the violin and is immediately smitten. He's made his first (and last) friend. The kindly elder feeds Junior, teaches him how to speak and instructs him in the vices of smoking cigars and drinking cheap wine. A couple of tweedy hunters appear at the hermit's door and break up the BFF's cozy friendship, causing the cottage to burn down in the process. Now, Junior is really pissed! With the local vigilantes hot on his trail, he takes refuge in a crypt, where he is soon joined by Victor's former professor, Dr. Pretorious, and his hired body snatchers, Karl and Ludwig.
Dr. Pretorious turns out to be an even madder scientist than Victor. He's also way more fun. Having already paid a visit to his former student, the good doctor has decided to stitch together a woman to keep Junior company (hence his visit to the crypt). First, Pretorious invites Victor to his lair and rolls out his collection of living miniatures: a priest, the devil, an archbishop, a mermaid, a ballerina, and a bickering Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn--each of whom occupies their own jar.
A revolted Victor declines Pretorious's invitation to join his medical practice so the professor determines that a little friendly persuasion is required. Once Elizabeth is snatched by the monster, Victor has no choice but to comply with Pretorious's demands. So off they go to the la-BORA-tory. After Karl provides them with a very fresh corpse "from the morgue" (but not really) the two doctors get to work patching up a companion for the poor, desolate creature. Junior is beside himself with excitement. Perhaps a little too much so. After Pretorious drugs his drink, the prospective groom goes down for the count.
Swathed in gauze from head to toe, the female is hauled up by cables through the open roof where a convenient thunderstorm is raging. The lightning flashes back and forth, sending electrical jolts through the electrodes on either side of her head.
Back on terra firma, she is declared to be ALIVE! SHE'S ALIVE! by Victor, basically repeating his lines from the earlier film. Victor and Pretorious, who are also skilled cosmetologists, gussy up their new creation with a complete makeover: fresh makeup, brand-new hairdo and a fetching funeral shroud to serve as her bridal gown. When Junior awakens from his drug-induced stupor he is bedazzled. There she is in all her glory: The Bride of Frankenstein! With her awkward, bird-like movements, stitched neck, soaring cone-shaped beehive and twin lightning bolts running through her hair, she is, unquestionably, a vision to behold.
"Friend?" asks Junior, his hands all a-flutter with nervous anticipation. "Friend?"
Nope. Not even close. After getting a gander at her hopeful spouse, the Bride screams. And when he makes another move, she screams even louder. She wants nothing to do with the ugly brute with electrodes coming out of his neck. Since she can't run away--hell, she can barely stand--the Bride is dragged from Junior's clutches by Victor as Pretorious tries to reason with the enraged creature.
"She hate me," says Junior while Victor continues to spin the Bride around the
Of all the monster movies Universal Pictures cranked out in the 1930's and 40's, Bride of Frankenstein is the Gold Standard by which all the others can be measured. Everything about the movie works perfectly. Charles D. Hall's set design is a unique blend of fairy tale and German Expressionism, heavy on soaring arched ceilings, medieval passageways, sparking electrical equipment, and dank, subterranean lairs. These theatrical components are complemented by John J. Mescall's fine cinematography, which expertly captures the Expressionistic look with moody lighting, shifting shadows and odd framing. The (obviously painted) studio backdrops also add a dreamlike tone to the movie. Franz Waxman's score is notable for its separate movements highlighting character changes and fluctuations in tone, while William Hurlbut's subversive, queer-coded script, written (with John L. Balderston) under the close supervision of Whale, is a masterful piece of screenwriting.
Boris Karloff is back playing Victor Frankenstein's monster, and he's even better here than he was in Frankenstein. In BoF, he gets to speak, and exhibit actual human emotions like empathy, love and fear. Of course, there's still that pesky murderous rage that sometimes gets the best of him. Karloff's performance is nuanced, sometimes touching, often outraged and occasionally humorous. One can feel his pain and loneliness, and I think he comes close to nailing the character Mary Shelley created in her book (more about her later). Since he was most closely associated with horror (and Frankenstein in particular), Karloff rarely got the opportunity to expand his career beyond genre films, although, as evidenced here, he clearly had the talent.
As prissy Dr. Pretorious--a character invented for this film--Ernest Thesiger is charmingly sinister and darkly amusing: his witty asides and snide observations are high points of the clever script. Thesiger, who starred along with Karloff in Whale's 1932 classic The Old Dark House, had befriended the director when they were both appearing on the London stage. Once Whale decamped for Hollywood, he sent for his old pal, enabling Thesiger to maintain his acting career through the 1950's.
Colin Clive (Victor Frankenstein) had also been close to Whale on the London theater scene, and went on to appear in 4 films for the director. Clive, in both Frankenstein and BoF, is a bit too histrionic for my taste but that may have been exacerbated by his chronic alcoholism and worsening tuberculosis. Nonetheless, he was alleged to be a complete professional on set before his premature death in 1937.
18-year-old Valerie Hobson, a British actress living in Hollywood, was selected to play Elizabeth once the previous Elizabeth (Mae Clark) was forced to walk away from the project. Compared to the 35-year-old Clive, she is calm, polished and totally in control of her performance: her maturity suggests an actress far older than her years. Hobson, with roughly 50 screen roles to her credit, went on to marry British politician, John Profumo, whose scandalous, highly-publicized affair with a teen-age "model"--who was also sexually involved with a Soviet Embassy official--brought about his ignominious departure from Parliament. (For more information on the Profumo Affair, see the Wikipedia entry.)
And then we have Elsa Lanchester (as both Mary Shelley and the Bride) whose onscreen time amounts to little more than 5 minutes. Lanchester, also a Brit, was married to the highly sought-after actor Charles Laughton. By the time she filmed BoF, her career in Hollywood was going nowhere. Lanchester, another Whale associate from England, turned out to be an inspired piece of casting. As the Bride, she's weirdly beautiful, very funny, and has the otherworldly quality of a jittery Persephone bound to the land of the dead. Her appearance alone would earn her (or rather, her character) lasting international recognition.
In the movie's prologue, Lanchester plays Mary Shelley with a touch of playfulness and sensitivity. Holed up in a Lake Geneva chateau with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and his pal Lord Byron, she's the center of attention as she confides that her book didn't actually end with the doctor's demise in the mill. Thus, she recounts the continuing story of the Frankenstein monster and his ongoing rampage. Personally, I could have done without the prologue. It adds nothing to the movie and the actors playing Shelley and Byron barely move the needle. However, this scene did make me wonder whether or not the famously progressive Shelleys might have been involved in a throuple with the wandering bisexual bad boy Byron. It's an intriguing thought but likely wishful thinking.
I almost forgot to mention Una O'Connor's hilarious performance as housekeeper Minnie. (In appearance she closely resembles Frau Blucher from Young Frankenstein.) She's an absolute riot and a wonderful addition to the cast. An Irish actress, O'Connor was diagnosed with a weak heart early on but, in spite of that, made a ton of movies before retiring in 1959.
The Bride of Frankenstein would never have reached classic movie status without the genius of James Whale. Rather than get into the details of his life and career, you can watch Bill Condon's excellent Gods and Monsters, which I've written about here. Let's just say that Whale's gay sensibilities inform every aspect of The Bride of Frankenstein. Living openly in a homophobic society, Whale slyly amps up the camp factor and, at the same time, imbues the film with a sense of pathos that elevates it above a mere monster movie. He also populates the film with queer actors such as Thesiger, Clive and Gavin Gordon (Lord Byron), and the queer-adjacent Lanchester (whose husband was a closeted gay man). Mel Brooks's hit movie Young Frankenstein (1972) is a direct homage to Whale's film, and in 2007, wound up as a Broadway musical starring Roger Bart, Sutton Foster and Megan Mullally. In fact, numerous movies, plays, music videos and television shows--even fashion--have their roots firmly grounded in this clever, well-crafted fusion of literature, camp and pop culture that continues to be an enduring touchstone of Hollywood ingenuity.
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