Bride of Frankenstein
Short description
Bride of Frankenstein picks up where its predecessor left off. Having survived the mob that descended on the burning mill, both Henry Frankenstein and the creature he built are still alive. The scientist, shaken by what he has done, wants only to leave his experiments behind, but his former mentor Doctor Pretorius has other plans. Pretorius pressures him into resuming his work, this time to construct a companion for the monster, and the creature itself becomes part of the coercion.
James Whale directed the film, his fourth feature in the run of titles listed for him, following Frankenstein, The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man. Boris Karloff returns as the monster, with Colin Clive again playing Henry Frankenstein and Valerie Hobson taking the part of Elizabeth. Ernest Thesiger appears as Doctor Pretorius, while Elsa Lanchester plays both Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and the monster's intended mate. William Hurlbut and Edmund Pearson wrote the screenplay, and Carl Laemmle Jr. produced. The film runs 75 minutes.
Released in April 1935, Bride of Frankenstein is described as horror and science fiction and was made by Universal Pictures with James Whale Productions, taking about 2 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.8 out of 10 from roughly 59,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.5 out of 10 from about 1,100 votes. A critics' rating of 9.3 out of 10 from 58 reviews places it well above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The Bride is the only classic ‘monster’ character in the Universal films who doesn't kill anyone.
- The role of Doctor Pretorius was initially offered to Claude Rains, but he had to decline due to filming commitments on another project.
- The working title of the film was “The Return of Frankenstein.”
- While filming the scene where the monster climbs out of the flooded basement of the burnt-down mill, Boris Karloff slipped and broke his leg. During subsequent filming, a metal pin on his shin, which was supposed to weigh down his gait, was bandaged to his broken leg as a splint to fix the fractured bone.
- In the film's credits, a question mark appears instead of the name of the actress who played the Bride, with Elsa Lanchester only credited as playing Mary Shelley. This was clearly done in analogy with the first film in the series, where the name of Boris Karloff, who played the creature, was also replaced with a question mark in the opening credits to build suspense.
- Shortly before filming began, Colin Clive broke his leg after falling from a horse. As a result, many of the scenes featuring Frankenstein were shot in a way that he was either sitting in a chair or lying in bed.
- Initially, there were 21 corpses in the film, but censors reduced the number of dead bodies.
- In total, scenes with a total length of about 15 minutes were removed from the film. Some of the removed scenes could have significantly affected the perception of the film—for example, one of the lost shots featured a monster-like baby doll holding a child. The censorship removal of scenes of violence led to a serious logical gap—the peasants' hatred of the Monster becomes inexplicable. All the material removed from the director's cut of the film is considered lost.
- It is in this film that the monster speaks for the first time.
- Filming of the picture took 46 days.
- In the original version of the film, there was a scene where the hunchback Karl (Dwight Frye) kills his helpless relatives and stages the murder to look like the monster's work. This plotline was completely removed after preview screenings.
- In 1998, the film was included in the National Film Registry of the United States as being of significant artistic merit.
- Boris Karloff lost 20 pounds due to constantly being in makeup and costume.
- The appearance of the little people, the result of Pretorius's experiments, is an obvious reference to the film "The Private Life of Henry VIII." Both films featured Elsa Lanchester.
- For the role of the Bride, James Whale initially wanted to cast Brigitte Helm or Louise Brooks.
- Boris Karloff protested that in "Bride of Frankenstein" his character begins to speak (in the first "Frankenstein" the monster could not speak), but Whale didn’t heed his demands. Because the creature had to speak, Karloff had to leave his dental prosthesis in his mouth, which he had removed in the first film, so in "Bride of Frankenstein" the creature’s cheeks appear less sunken.
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