Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.

Director:

James Whale

Writers:

Mary Shelley (suggested by: the original story written in 1816 by) (as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), William Hurlbut (adapted by)

Stars:

Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 3 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Boris Karloff	...	The Monster (as Karloff)
Colin Clive	...	Henry Frankenstein
Valerie Hobson	...	Elizabeth
Ernest Thesiger	...	Doctor Pretorius
Elsa Lanchester	...	Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / The Monster's Mate
Gavin Gordon	...	Lord Byron
Douglas Walton	...	Percy Bysshe Shelley
Una O'Connor	...	Minnie
E.E. Clive	...	Burgomaster
Lucien Prival	...	Butler - Albert
O.P. Heggie	...	Hermit
Dwight Frye	...	Karl Glutz
Reginald Barlow	...	Hans
Mary Gordon	...	Hans' Wife
Anne Darling	...	Shepherdess (as Ann Darling)

Storyline

Dr. Frankenstein and his monster both turn out to be alive, not killed as previously believed. Dr. Frankenstein wants to get out of the evil experiment business, but when a mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius, kidnaps his wife, Dr. Frankenstein agrees to help him create a new creature, a woman, to be the companion of the monster.

---

Plot Keywords:

sequel | laboratory | miniature person | mad scientist | learning speech | 

---

Taglines:

...more fearful than the monster himself!

---

Genres:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 May 1935 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Bride of Frankenstein

Filming Locations:

Court of Miracles, Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$397,024 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,382

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

75 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Noiseless Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

2007: The movie's line "We belong dead" was voted as the #63 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere magazine.

---

Goofs

When Karl and the monster are climbing up on the parapet, the background can clearly be seen through their figures.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
[prologue]
[Lord Byron looking out the window at a thunderstorm]
Lord Byron: How beautifully dramatic! The cruelest savage exhibition of nature at her worst without.
[turns to face Mary and Percy Shelley, both seated]
Lord Byron: And we three. We elegant three within. I should like to think that an irate Jehovah was pointing those arrows of lightning directly at my head. The unbowed head of George Gordon, Lord Byron. England's greatest sinner. But I cannot flatter myself to that extent. Possibly those ...
[...]

---

Crazy Credits

In the opening and closing credits, "The Monster's Mate" is listed as being played by " ? " . Elsa Lanchester is only billed as playing Mary Shelley.

---

Alternate Versions

The Director's cut was 87 minutes long, but Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. imposed a number of cuts, to tame down the Director's "excesses". The Prologue was cut (making difficult to understand the present dialogue), the body count was reduced from 21 to 10, two love scenes between the couple and a toy representing the Monster with a child have been deleted. This ammount of 12-minute footage has subsequently been lost, making it impossible to reconstruct the initial idea by 'James Whale'.

---

Connections

Referenced in The Rockford Files: Backlash of the Hunter (1974)

---

Soundtracks

Frühlingslied (Spring Song) Op.62 #6
(1842) (uncredited)
Written by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Danced by Kansas DeForrest

User Reviews

One of the Great Classics of the Genre

Interestingly, Whale did not want to make a sequel to his incredibly successful 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, and bowed to studio pressure only when he received assurance of absolute control. The result is perhaps his most personal film--a strange collage of Gothic horror, black humor, religious motifs, and sexual innuendo--and one of the great classics of the genre.

The plot elaborates an idea contained in the Mary Shelly novel: Frankenstein is pressured to create a mate for the monster. In Shelly's novel, the doctor eventually balks; in the film, however, he sees the experiment through due to a mix of his own obsession and the manipulations of a new character, Dr. Pretorious, and the two create the only truly iconographic female monster in the film pantheon of the 1930s horror film: "The Bride," brilliantly played by Elsa Lanchester.

The cast is excellent throughout, with Colin Clive and Boris Karloff repeating their roles and Frankenstein and the monster, and Valerie Hobson an able replacement for Mae Clarke in the role of Elizabeth; Ernest Thesiger and Una O'Connor also give incredibly memorable performances as the truly strange Pretorius and the constantly hysterical maid Minnie. The art design is remarkable, and the Waxman score is justly famous. But the genius of the film lies not so much in these new and bizarre characters, in the familiar ones, or in the production values: it is in the way in which Whales delicately balances his elements and then subverts them.

FRANKENSTEIN owes much of its power to its directness--it has a raw energy that is difficult to resist, still more difficult to describe. But THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN owes its power to its complexity. Nothing here is quite what it appears to be, and throughout the film we constantly receive mixed messages about the characters and implications of their situations. While Thesiger's Dr. Pretorius is justly celebrated as a covert gay icon of the darkest possible variety, and while many people quickly grasp Whale's often subversive use of Christian imagery, the film has many, many layers that do not reveal themselves upon a single viewing.

The single most startling sequence, at least to my mind, is the famous scene in which the Monster stumbles into the lonely cottage of the blind hermit, a role beautifully played by O.P. Heggie. On the surface, the sequence would seem to be about how cruelly we judge people by appearances, and how true kindness can lift the fallen. It was not until I had seen the film several times that it dawned upon me that Whale has essentially endowed the a scene with a host of covertly homosexual overtones--and then tied them to a series of Christian elements for good measure. It is startling, to say the least.

The current Universal DVD release is exceptional, and the film is supported with an interesting documentary and a still more interesting audio commentary track. Critics and fans continue to battle of whether FRANKENSTEIN or THE BRIDE is the better film--but I say they are so completely different that the question simply doesn't arise. Whatever the case, if you are a fan of 1930s horror and James Whale in particular, this is a must own see, must own.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer