Bride of Frankenstein talk

[Mikey]

Was watching Bride of Frankenstein last night.

I'm embarrassed to admit this but i'm not sure if I ever seen it (at least in it's entirety) before yesterday.

I have a few observations

1. I never noticed how much actors got away with acting over-the-top hammy back in the day.
It's like EVERYONE was Shatner in that movie

2. Was surprised Bride had a theme song much like today's movies .... was this the only Universal Monster movie that had it's own distinctive theme music ?

3. Was let down by the bride's short screen-time... I never realized she came to be only 5-ish minutes before the end of the movie.

4. I used to hear rumors about the bride being a lesbian and that's why she don't like Frankie ..... I don't see that .... I think she don't like him because he's a monster and has a square head

5. Was any of this movie filmed outside ? .... The exterior sets are nice and moody but are totally unconvincing.

[Hedji]

I can at least speak to question number 2. The music in Bride is amazing. It's the textbook example of the thematic approach of leitmotif (giving each character a distinctive theme), with the Bride, the Monster, Dr. Pretorius each having their own themes. Other scores by Hans Salter and Frank Skinner like the Wolf Man and Son of Frankenstein, also use the leitmotif, but not as boldly or distinctively as Franz Waxman's score to Bride. There was a lot of music recycling of the Wolf Man theme and such in some of the House of Frankenstein films produced later.

I would recommend anyone who enjoys film music to pick up the soundtrack http://www.amazon.com/Bride-Frankens...ein+soundtrack, which is a crisp re-recording of the score, but incredibly powerful.

Bride of Frankenstein is a great, great film.

[Earth 2 Chris]

1. The stage acting style was still heavily in use. It's where the Shat gets it from as well. Collin Clive eats scenery for breakfast. Valerie Hobson is pretty over the top. Thesinger's Dr. Pretorious is a hoot.

2. What Hedji said. When I saw Bride on the big screen last fall, I noticed how much the Monster's 3-note "sting" sounded like the Incredible Hulk's from the TV series. Intentional? Probably!!!

3. Well, Elsa Lanchester does get a few more minutes of screen time as Mary Shelly at the beginning...

4. The talk I've heard over and over pertains to gay director Whale throwing in some subtle (or not-so-sublte) gay overtones by having the stereo-typically gay Dr. Pretorious show up and pull newlywed Henry away from his wife.

5. I believe the "fake" sets were on purpose, trying to evoke the German expressionism movement that Hollywood, and Universal in particular, emulated in launching their horror film series. This look runs rampant in "Son of Frankenstein". You won't find a straight line on those sets ANYWHERE!!!

Chris

[palitoy]

1. The stage acting style was still heavily in use. It's where the Shat gets it from as well. Collin Clive eats scenery for breakfast. Valerie Hobson is pretty over the top. Thesinger's Dr. Pretorious is a hoot.

I also think it has to do with the film having a more fantasy quality than the first film. I love Pretorious, he's fabulous.

2. What Hedji said. When I saw Bride on the big screen last fall, I noticed how much the Monster's 3-note "sting" sounded like the Incredible Hulk's from the TV series. Intentional? Probably!!!

Oh i would think so.

3. Well, Elsa Lanchester does get a few more minutes of screen time as Mary Shelly at the beginning...

I'll say it again, she's gorgeous.

4. The talk I've heard over and over pertains to gay director Whale throwing in some subtle (or not-so-sublte) gay overtones by having the stereo-typically gay Dr. Pretorious show up and pull newlywed Henry away from his wife.

Yeah, that's definitely an undertone, many believe the monster himself is supposed to a metaphor for being gay. Some say the same about Doctor Who.

I think the Lanchester thing gets muddied in the rumours that her husband, Charles Laughton was gay. I don't see the Bride as rejecting men, just one particular one.

5. I believe the "fake" sets were on purpose, trying to evoke the German expressionism movement that Hollywood, and Universal in particular, emulated in launching their horror film series. This look runs rampant in "Son of Frankenstein". You won't find a straight line on those sets ANYWHERE!!!

For sure, the most notorious example would be "The Black Cat" which looks like it's set in an Escher painting.

[Earth 2 Chris]

3. Well, Elsa Lanchester does get a few more minutes of screen time as Mary Shelly at the beginning...
I'll say it again, she's gorgeous.

Yes, she's not typical Hollywood gorgeous, even for the time period, but there is just something about her...

4. The talk I've heard over and over pertains to gay director Whale throwing in some subtle (or not-so-sublte) gay overtones by having the stereo-typically gay Dr. Pretorious show up and pull newlywed Henry away from his wife.
Yeah, that's definitely an undertone, many believe the monster himself is supposed to a metaphor for being gay. Some say the same about Doctor Who.

I think the Lanchester thing gets muddied in the rumours that her husband, Charles Laughton was gay. I don't see the Bride as rejecting men, just one particular one.

I've often read the Monster is a metaphor for teenage rebellion in this one. He takes up bad habits (drinking and smoking), makes his own friends (the Hermit), talks back to his parent, and discovers women. He's rejected, and wants to kill himself, and almost succeeds!!!

Speaking of which, Henry Frankenstein is visible in the lab as it begins to explode. Whale had a last-minute change of heart and spared Henry, allowing him and his bride to survive. I personally thought the guy deserved a comeupance!

Chris

[Werewolf]

My take is the Bride is just scared of "Frank." She is just brought back from the dead. She doesn't know where she is or even who she is. She is getting sensory overload being flooded with sights and sounds she doesn't understand. To make matters worse some great big guy is now grabbing for you. She can't talk yet and all she can do is scream and hiss in fear. Had Frank took things slower I think they'd eventually would have hit it off.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yeah, that's the impression I always got. Frank rushed into things and blew it...literally!!!

Chris

[PNGwynne]

Ah, dear Dr. Pretorius--it really is his film.


I love C. Bram's "Father of Frankenstein"/ Gods & Monsters as well.

[cjefferys]

I love this film, the very best Universal monster film IMO.

I'll say it again, she's gorgeous.

Totally agree, there is just something about her.

I love C. Bram's "Father of Frankenstein"/ Gods & Monsters as well.

Yeah, it's a great book and very good film adaptation too.

[4NDR01D]

I love the owl.

[vintage spideyfan]

I thought I was the only one, with the exception of Charles Laughton, who crushed on Elsa...lol.

[MIB41]

1) I think you have to keep in mind when this film was made, people were just getting use to the advent of synced sound to film from 1928. And I believe the tendencies of silent film making were still transitioning to this new art form. Look at a silent film sometime and you will notice the exaggerated expressions offered to compensate for the lack of sound. With the advent of sound, I think it took time for the art form (and audiences) to arrive at an expectation as to what was a grounded performance on screen. The technology of just hearing a film was such a novelty back then, I don't think people or actors had arrived at a point of critiquing the delivery so much as the expression given to it. So the verbal qualities were often as overstated as the facial ones in silent films. It was a new technology. And like all technologies, it took time to find the proper delivery.

2) Hedji nailed this one.

3) I think just the build up to the Bride's creation was the real punch-to-the-stomach for audiences at this point. You have to remember the appearance of the Frankenstein monster was something that really terrified audiences back then. It was their version of the Exorcist or Jaws. And the in-your-face discussion about death and the possibility of reanimating life from it was a very edgy subject that touched people on a very fundamental level back then.

4) If you watch this film thematically it's about social estrangement. It's very top heavy in it's political and religious allegory. The monster is an outcast because people are terrified by both his appearance and his origins. Notice when the monster is captured by the villagers, he is hoisted up as if publicly crucified. Only through the gift of blindness and being detached from the influence of society does a hermit show acceptance of the monster. And when they discover that common bond, the scene fades with the emphasis on the crucifix. But when the hunters come in and tell the monster how he was made, he mistakenly believes THAT is the only way he can find acceptance is by having one made just like him. So you can see his dismay when he finds rejection even by those made just like him. That rejection and disassociation comes from all circles of life. And I think the film very much reflects the feelings of the director who was a gay man in a very anti-gay world at that point. I don't believe any of the characters, the Bride included, were ever intended to be directly "gay" so much as just different. That was the point. Society rejected this monster because he was different from them. And what people don't understand, they fear. And the bride's creation was done to illustrate that disassociation can come from within your own circles as well.

5) This was a very stylistic film. And big sets and production were a very common part of the story telling process back then. I also believe the director was trying to give the film a mood similar to the German expressionism of the day as previously stated by others here. This was a surreal character in very surreal world. You can see it's influence throughout Tim Burton's career.

A brilliant movie though and far in advance of most films for its day when you examine the context of the story and it's application. The fact we can sit here and find discussion in it's multi-layered themes and production values is a true testament to it's originality.

[4NDR01D]

cool thread, informative posts.

[Brazoo]

Oh man! Absolutely my favorite Universal Monster movie, and probably of my all-time favorite movies to boot. To me, it's just a crazy fun movie that shifts tones in seconds and hits all the right notes along the way. It's incredible to me how unsubtle but sly they were with all those sextual themes.

1. I never noticed how much actors got away with acting over-the-top hammy back in the day.
It's like EVERYONE was Shatner in that movie

Well yeah, but to be fair I think acting (like any other art) is subject to changing over time due to what's in style. Realism wasn't necessarily what they were even trying to achive at that time. Power, emotion and energy seemed at least as important to film acting until the 1950s when Brando and other stage actors who were trained in "method acting" or the Stanislavski System started influencing changes to how things were done, and that also changed what audiences expected as well.

Even for the time I think the performances in "Bride" are a little wild and expressionistic, but I think that was an overall effect James Whale was purposly going for. To me, it's just a wild movie!

[babycyclops]

'Bride' is the one that has the monster smoking, eating and even talking, in the hermit's cabin, right?. That scene is sad and touching, as well as funny. I think it's great how the film shifts it's tone so deftly.

EDIT: I see that MIB41 mentioned the blind hermit scene, so it is 'Bride' that I'm thinking of.