Bride of Frankenstein

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Bride of Frankenstein (advertised as The Bride of Frankenstein but released without the article) is a 1935 science fiction/horror film. It is the sequel to the influential film Frankenstein (1931). Bride of Frankenstein was directed by James Whale and stars Boris Karloff as The Monster, Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Septimus Pretorius.

The film immediately follows the events of the first film and is rooted in the original novel. A subplot from the latter half of the book involves the Monster promising to leave Frankenstein, and the human race, alone if Frankenstein will create a mate for him. Frankenstein creates the female monster, but never brings it to life, deciding instead to destroy it.^[1]

[edit] Plot

The film opens with Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Walton) and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) on holiday. Byron and Shelley praise Mary extravagently for her creation of the story of Frankenstein and his monster. Mary, reminding them that her intention in writing the tale was to impart a moral lesson, advises that she has more of the story to tell. The scene dissolves to the moments following the events of Frankenstein.

Doctor Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) has resolved to abandon his experiments and actions in creating life in favour of a peaceful marriage with the beautiful Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson), but his old mentor, the mad scientist Doctor Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), who has himself created miniature human-like beings, tries to persuade Frankenstein to combine their efforts in "playing God." Frankenstein is torn between his upcoming marriage to Elizabeth, and the appeal of creating life with Dr. Pretorius.

The monster (Boris Karloff) befriends an old blind violinist in the woods, who teaches the monster how to speak. Pretorius, forced to continue his experiments without Frankenstein's involvement, has a chance encounter with the monster; by kidnapping Elizabeth, they blackmail Frankenstein into creating a bride (Lanchester) for the monster.

The bride rejects the monster; spurned, he destroys the laboratory. "You live! Go," he tells Frankenstein and Elizabeth. "You stay," he tells the others, "We belong dead." The film ends with the Monster (and his bride) presumably dead; it was up to the Son of Frankenstein (1939) to resurrect him.

[edit] Cast

• Karloff as The Monster
• Colin Clive as Dr. Henry Frankenstein
• Valerie Hobson as Elizabeth Frankenstein
• Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius
• Elsa Lanchester as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley/The Monster's Mate
• Gavin Gordon as Lord Byron
• Douglas Walton as Percy Shelley
• Una O'Connor as Minnie
• E. E. Clive as Burgomaster
• Lucien Prival as Albert (the butler)
• O.P. Heggie as Hermit
• Dwight Frye as Karl
• Reginald Barlow as Hans
• Mary Gordon as Hans' wife
• Anne Darling as Shepherdess (as Ann Darling)
• John Carradine as a hunter (uncredited)
• Walter Brennan as a villager (uncredited)

Boris Karloff is credited simply as KARLOFF, which was Universal's custom during the height of his career. By the third Frankenstein installment four years later (Son of Frankenstein), he had reverted to being "Boris Karloff" again and found himself billed under Basil Rathbone in his own series.

Elsa Lanchester is credited for the role of Mary Shelley, but in a nod to the earlier film, the monster's bride is credited only as "?", just as Boris Karloff had been in the opening credits of the first film.

[edit] Production

The studio had considered the idea of making a sequel to Frankenstein as early as the preview screenings of the film, following the changing of the original ending to allow for Henry Frankenstein's survival. Screenwriter Robert Florey wrote a treatment entitled The New Adventures of Frankenstein - The Monster Lives! but it was rejected early in 1932. Universal staff writer Tom Reed wrote a treatment under the title The Return of Frankenstein. Following its acceptance in 1933, Reed wrote a full script that was submitted to the Hayes office for review. The script passed the Hayes office review but James Whale, who by then had been attached to direct, opined that it "[stank] to high heaven." L. G. Blochman and Philip MacDonald were next assigned to the script but Whale found their work unsatisfactory as well. In 1934, Whale had John L. Balderston set to work on yet another version. It was Balderston who decided to return to an incident from the novel in which the creature demands a mate and who created the Mary Shelley prologue. After several months, Whale was still not satisfied with Balderston's work and handed the project to playwright William J. Hurlbut and Edmund Pearson. The final script, combining elements of a number of these versions, was submitted for Hayes office review in November 1934.^[2]

Colin Clive and Boris Karloff reprised their roles from Frankenstein as creator and creation, respectively. Dwight Frye also returned for the sequel to play the doctor's assistant, although here is named "Karl" as opposed to "Fritz" as in the original. Sources report that Bela Lugosi and Claude Raines were considered, with varying degrees of seriousness, for the role of Frankenstein's mentor Pretorius;^[3] others report that the role was created specifically for Ernest Thesiger.^[4] Replacing Mae Clarke as Henry Frankenstein's love interest Elizabeth was Valerie Hobson. Early in production, director Whale decided that the same actress cast to play the Bride should also play Mary Shelley in the film's prologue. Lanchester, who had accompanied husband Charles Laughton to Hollywood, had met with only moderate success while Laughton achieved fame in several films (including Whale's own The Old Dark House, and won an Academy Award for his role in The Private Life of Henry VIII. Lanchester had returned alone to London when Whale contacted her to offer her the dual role.^[5]

Universal makeup artist Jack Pierce paid special attention to the Monster's appearance in this film. As well as altering his 1931 design to display the after-effects of the mill fire, he adorned Karloff with a singed hairstyle that actually "grows" during the course of the film. An unavoidable flaw, however, was that the newly prosperous Karloff's face had filled out since the first film and had lost its eerily cadaverous look. Pierce also co-created the Bride's makeup, with strong input from Whale, especially regarding the Bride's iconic hair style.^[6]

The financial success of the original Frankenstein enabled the producers to put much more money into the production than its low-budget predecessor. The laboratory is now not just barely equipped, it is overflowing with sparks, dials, and coils. The scene in which the mate is brought to life with a bolt of lightning is greatly improved over the original. Most critics consider Bride to be a generally better movie, and arguably the best of all non-comedic versions (although the film's dry vein of sardonic wit does not go unnoticed^{[citation needed]}), but especially so for its glittering production values.

The man behind the special photographic effects in Bride of Frankenstein was John P. Fulton, A.S.C., head of the special effects department at Universal Studios at the time. The scene in which Dr. Pretorius shows Henry Frankenstein miniature people inside glass jars still baffles audiences and even special effects experts today.^{[citation needed]}

The impressive village prison set would be reused for Bela Lugosi's lair in The Raven later the same year, also starring Boris Karloff. The watchtower staircase was featured in Universal's popular Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe, as well as Dracula's Daughter (1936). Kenneth Strickfaden, who created and maintained the laboratory equipment, shared it in the Mel Brooks homage/spoof, Young Frankenstein (1974). The European village set, left over from All Quiet on the Western Front of 1930, was used and maintained for dozens of other studio features, until it was accidentally destroyed by fire.

Bride of Frankenstein was subjected to censorship, during production by the Hayes office, and following its release by local and national censorship boards. Joseph I. Breen, lead censor for the Hayes office, objected to lines of dialogue in the original submitted script in which Henry Frankenstein and his work were compared to that of God. He would continue to object to such dialogue in revised scripts and in the finished picture objected to shots of Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley in which Breen felt too much of her breasts were visible. Curiously, Breen had no objection to the cruciform imagery throughout the film (including a scene with the Monster lashed Christ-like to a pole) or to the presentation of Doctor Septimus Pretorius as a coded homosexual. Following the film's release in May 1935 with the Code seal of approval, the film was challenged by the censorship board in the state of Ohio, was voluntarily withdrawn by Universal from Sweden because of the extensive cuts demanded and was rejected outright by Trinidad, Palestine and Hungary. One memorable objection, from Japanese censors, was that the scene in which Pretorius chases his miniature Henry VIII with tweezers constituted "making a fool out of a king."^[7]

[edit] Continuity Issues

Several scenes in "Bride" are marked by anachronisms. While the film is prefaced by a vignette featuring Mary Shelley, who apparently narrates the film to her companions Percy Shelley and Lord Byron (who died 1822 and 1824, respectively), later scenes show Pretorius disturbing the grave of a girl who died in 1897 and, strangely enough, inventing the telephone. Elizabeth is attired in the fashions of the 1930s and Henry and Pretorius don surgeons' rubber gloves to piece together the Bride. While these can be seen as oversights or errors, the jumble of styles and periods may also lend force to the film's Freudian overtones. Read this way, the anachronisms suggest that the film does not take place in a historically or temporally real setting but in a confused, subconscious universe of horrors.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Afterlife

Bride of Frankenstein was followed by Son of Frankenstein (1939), with only Boris Karloff reprising his role as the monster from the series.

A remake of the film was made in 1985 titled The Bride starring rock musician Sting.

The film Gods and Monsters (1998) depicts the life of James Whale and features reconstructions of the filming of key scenes in Bride of Frankenstein.

In 1998, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

[edit] Trivia

• The thinly disguised homosexual overtones may be a trademark of James Whale (particularly the relationship between Frankenstein and Pretorius; as explained by film historian Scott MacQueen on the Bride of Frankenstein DVD commentary track) but also note the other potentially blasphemous imagery in the film, such as the monster's virtual crucifixion at the hands of the villagers.
• Ernest Thesiger's sly remark, "Do you like gin? It is my only weakness!" is a nod to a similar quotation in The Old Dark House, also intoned by Thesiger.
• Pretorius mentions that he grew his miniature people "from seed", a reference to the alchemical belief that it was possible to generate homunculi - tiny humanoid creatures - by placing a mixture of flesh and sperm in a dung hill.
• Colin Clive broke his leg in a riding accident during filming, and hence remains seated in most of his scenes.^[8]
• During filming breaks, Ernest Thesiger would practice one of his favorite pastimes, needlework, on set.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• The Bride (film)

[edit] External links

• Bride of Frankenstein at the All Movie Guide
• Bride of Frankenstein at the Internet Movie Database

de:Frankensteins Braut es:La novia de Frankenstein et:Frankensteini pruut fr:La Fiancée de Frankenstein it:La moglie di Frankenstein ja:フランケンシュタインの花嫁 no:Bride of Frankenstein pt:Bride of Frankenstein ru:Невеста Франкенштейна (фильм, 1935) fi:Frankensteinin morsian sv:Frankensteins brud