Reel Classics: The Bride of Frankenstein

Well folks, it is October.  And, with October comes the focus on Halloween at the end of the month.  In keep­ing with the spir­it of the spooky sea­son, today’s Reel Classic offers up a clas­sic Universal hor­ror film, The Bride of Frankenstein, released in 1935.

This film is a sequel to the orig­i­nal Frankenstein (1931).  The sequel has many of the same actors and the direc­tor, James Whale, return­ing for this pro­duc­tion.  I imag­ine most of you read­ing this have seen the orig­i­nal Frankenstein and recall the end­ing where we believe the mon­ster and his cre­ator, Henry Frankenstein, have per­ished.  But the sequel tells us that is not so.

The Bride of Frankenstein opens with a pro­logue.  On a stormy night in an elab­o­rate sit­ting room, we find the author of Frankenstein,  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,  sit­ting with her com­pan­ion Lord Byron and hus­band Percy Bysshe Shelley.  Lord Byron is prais­ing the sto­ry with hopes that it will soon be pub­lished.  Mary assures him that the sto­ry is not over, and begins to relate to her lis­ten­ers how the mon­ster and Baron Frankenstein both sur­vived.  We learn that the body of Henry Frankenstein was returned to the fam­i­ly home and was pre­sumed dead.  However, a move­ment of his hand is seen, and he is revived.  Soon the mon­ster is found in the for­est by two hunters—alive! 

The recu­per­at­ing Henry Frankenstein is vis­it­ed by his for­mer men­tor, Dr. Pretorius.  Dr. Pretorius coerces Henry Frankenstein to resume his work to assist in cre­at­ing a mate for the monster.

Boris Karloff returns for the role of “The Monster.”  Screen cred­its list him as Karloff.  Colin Clive also returns for the role of Henry Frankenstein.  The role of the evil Dr. Pretorius was played by Ernest Thesiger.  He is the ulti­mate “mad sci­en­tist.”  Elsa Lanchester has two roles in the film.  She plays Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in the pro­logue and lat­er appears as the bride (or “mon­ster’s mate.”) 

An inter­est­ing note—Marilyn Harris played the part of Maria, the young girl that the mon­ster killed inad­ver­tent­ly at the water’s edge in the first movie.  In this film, she was giv­en anoth­er role as the leader of a group of school girls who come across the mon­ster while he escapes from a burn­ing house.  James Whale, the direc­tor, delib­er­ate­ly gave her the one-word line “Look!” so she would be paid as an actor with a speak­ing part.

One of the more mem­o­rable seg­ments in the film involves the mon­ster, who, while roam­ing in the woods, hears the sound of a vio­lin play­ing “Ava Maria.”  He fol­lows the sound and comes across a blind her­mit play­ing, and the her­mit is con­vinced that God has sent him a friend.  He shares meals with the mon­ster and teach­es him to speak a few words, includ­ing  “friend” and “good.”  The mon­ster begins to be able to talk.  One of the lines uttered is “Alone-bad.  Friend-good.”  It is at this point that the mon­ster real­izes he needs a friend (or a bride).

The role of the blind her­mit was played by O.P. Heggie.  He was want­ed for that role by James Whale, who post­poned shoot­ing until Heggie was avail­able.  Heggie nev­er got to see the com­plet­ed film as he died a few months after film­ing was completed. 

The make-up and prepa­ra­tion for the roles of the mon­ster and the bride were quite elab­o­rate.  Elsa Lanchester’s hair­do was pat­terned after a bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti.  It was held in place by a  wire cage.  Also, being only 5’4” in height, she was placed on stilts to make her appear to be 7′ tall.  Another chal­lenge for her was that in the scenes where her body is wrapped in ban­dages, they were wrapped so tight­ly that she could­n’t move and had to be car­ried through the stu­dio and drink through a straw.  She lat­er said that she tried not to drink any­thing at all as going to the bath­room was next to impos­si­ble.  It was also report­ed that her make­up took three hours to apply, and clos­er to five hours for Boris Karloff. 

When she is brought to life, Lanchester por­trays the “bride” with hiss­ing and jerky head move­ments.  She stat­ed that the behav­ior was inspired by swans she saw at the Regent’s Park in London.  She was quot­ed as say­ing, “They’re real­ly very nasty creatures.”

The mak­ing of this film had its chal­lenges for some of the actors.  In the scene where the mon­ster comes out of the burn­ing wind­mill, Boris Karloff slipped and fell into a well.  It was deter­mined that he had dis­lo­cat­ed his hip–and it was strapped into place with him receiv­ing treat­ment through the com­ple­tion of the film­ing. He lost twen­ty pounds dur­ing the film­ing of the movie due to the heat of the cos­tume and make­up.  Colin Clive also had some med­ical issues. He had bro­ken a leg in an acci­dent while horse­back rid­ing not too long before film­ing began.  Most of his scenes find him sit­ting.  Clive also suf­fered from alco­holism and tuber­cu­lo­sis and died two years after the com­ple­tion of The Bride of Frankenstein.  A sad post-script to that—his body was cre­mat­ed, and his unclaimed ash­es sat in the base­ment of a funer­al par­lor in Los Angeles for forty years.  They were even­tu­al­ly scat­tered at sea.

No one but Boris Karloff and Colin Clive was con­sid­ered for their roles, but there were oth­ers con­sid­ered for the film.  David Niven was con­sid­ered for the role of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and both Bela Lugosi and Claude Rains were con­sid­ered for the role of Dr. Pretorius.  John Carradine plays the role of one of the hunters who find the mon­ster with the blind her­mit.  He went on to play Dracula in Universal’s House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945).  Boris Karloff is who we think of when we think of Frankenstein’s mon­ster, but in real­i­ty, he only por­trayed the mon­ster in three films (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein [1939]).  Others who por­trayed the mon­ster include Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange (remem­ber him as the bar­tender for Miss Kitty in Gunsmoke?), and Christopher Lee (in the lat­er Hammer Studio films).

James Whale had prob­lems with the cen­sors mon­i­tor­ing Hollywood at the time.  Many scenes had to be cut, viewed as “objec­tion­able” by the cen­sors.  In the pro­logue alone, scenes had to be cut that ref­er­enced the “sex­u­al arrange­ment” of the three writ­ers — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron.  One line deemed “objec­tion­able” was, “We are all three infi­dels, scoffers at all mar­riage ties, believ­ing only in liv­ing freely and ful­ly.”  There was also a com­plaint about “too much cleav­age” with Elsa Lanchester in the prologue.

Though today The Bride of Frankenstein is con­sid­ered one of the clas­sics of the genre, it only received one nom­i­na­tion for an Oscar—Best Sound, Recording.  Movie crit­ic Roger Ebert includ­ed the film on his list of “Great Movies.”  Many crit­ics praised the film upon its release, though did note that it was “a hor­ror film.”  The New York World-Telegram stat­ed it was “good enter­tain­ment of its kind.”  The Hollywood Reporter stat­ed it was “a joy for those who can appre­ci­ate it.” Variety was not so hes­i­tant in their praise of the film. “[It is] one of those rare instances where none can review it, or talk about it, with­out men­tion­ing the cam­era­man, art direc­tor, and score com­pos­er in the same breath as the actors and direc­tor... Karloff man­ages to invest the char­ac­ter with some sub­tleties of emo­tion that are sur­pris­ing­ly real and touching.” 

As with many of the films reviewed here, this one has grown in rep­u­ta­tion over the years.  In 1998 it was added to the United States National Film Registry and is often deemed James Whale’s mas­ter­piece. Whale direct­ed sev­er­al of the Universal Studios Horror series, includ­ing Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, and The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) rat­ed the film at 7.7 out of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it a crit­ics score of 98% and an audi­ence score of 87%.

In look­ing at stream­ing options, I found only one site that streams it for free—Tubi.  Others, of course, had it for a fee.  It is also avail­able at the Clark County Public Library in a col­lec­tion enti­tled Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection (1931−1948).  Speaking of the Complete Legacy Collections, if you are a fan of the clas­sic Universal Horror films (as I am), you can find on DVD the com­plete lega­cy col­lec­tions not only of Frankenstein, but also The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  A fun col­lec­tion for the avid fan.  The library has sev­er­al of these col­lec­tions on its shelves. 

In October, the night comes ear­li­er and the Halloween dec­o­ra­tions are aplen­ty.  Until next time, set­tle into the sea­son with a Reel Classic and enjoy.  Check out the trail­er below.