“The Bride of Frankenstein” Review
Boris Karloff (right) and Elsa Lanchester star in “Bride of Frankenstein” as the monster and his intended mate.
While the Universal Monster films certainly resulted in many sequels, spinoffs and crossovers, very few of them reached the heights of the original. In fact, in my opinion, “Bride of Frankenstein” not only is as good as the original “Frankenstein” film, it surpasses it to become one of the best sequels ever made.
Set immediately after the first film, it’s revealed that the Monster (Boris Karloff) survived the climatic windmill fire and, once again, he’s roaming the countryside with angry villagers hunting him down. Meanwhile, Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) wants to put his notions of playing God to rest and marry his fiancé Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) but is dragged back into the laboratory by his crazed mentor Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger). After befriending the monster and using him to kidnap Elizabeth, Dr. Pretorius blackmails Henry into helping him make a creation of his own, this time a mate for the monster.
What makes the film superior to the first one is that it improves the original characters while introducing new elements that make “Bride of Frankenstein” just as engaging. Colin Clive is still captivating as Dr. Henry Frankenstein and it makes me sad that he died so young in 1937 due to his alcoholism. He’s one of my favorite actors from early horror that I feel deserves to be talked about as much as Lugosi and Karloff.
But it’s Boris Karloff who is really given the chance to shine as a more evolved monster. Unlike the first film, where the monster is a simple creature that we feel sorry for, Frankenstein’s creation grows more intelligent over the course of the film after befriending a blind man (O.P. Heggie) who treats him like a person. These scenes are unbelievably sweet as Karloff finally gets to talk and express himself beyond grunting after the blind man teaches him speech. Like most gothic stories, this time of happiness ultimately ends poorly for the monster and he resorts back to his ways of brutality. But the experience ultimately changes him and makes him more of a three-dimensional character throughout the second half of the film.
As for Dr. Pretorius, he’s the perfect template for a mad scientist with Ernest Thesiger really hamming it up in the best possible way. Unlike Henry, who wanted to play God in the pursuit of understanding the human experience, Pretorius wants to play God to feed his delusions of grandeur.
Colin Clive and Ernest Thesiger deliver fantastic performances as scientists seeking to make human life from scratch.
While the doctors and the monster are well-written, the one fault in regards to characterizations is the relationship between Henry and Elizabeth. Valerie Hobson just isn’t given that much to work with which I assume is a product of the time period. However, with “It Happened One Night” being released the previous year, I do think there could have been some good writing to make her stand out especially since her kidnapping is what motivated Henry to make the titular creature.
Director James Whale returned to helm “Bride of Frankenstein” after directing the original as well as “The Invisible Man” starring Claude Rains and he really was a one-of-a-kind filmmaker in horror. The gothic tone is perfect for viewing this time of year and the scenes which are focused on more introspective character work, such as the monster and the blind man’s friendship, are just as interesting as the moments intended to be scary.
While the Universal films are generally seen as loose adaptations, many of them do understand the genius of the books and bring elements of them to the story. “Bride of Frankenstein” borrows more elements from Mary Shelley’s book than the first film did such as Frankenstein being blackmailed to make a mate for his creature and the monster befriending a blind man and being capable of speech.
The film even opens with Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester), her husband Percy (Douglas Walton) and their friend Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), with Byron praising Mary by going over what happened in the previous film. That’s not just a way for the filmmakers to catch the audience up on what’s happened, it’s actually a clever in-joke. The whole reason “Frankenstein” exists is because the three authors had a contest to see who could write the scariest story and, of course, Mary won. That information takes legitimate research. That or James Whale and screenwriter William Hurlbut knew that the three acclaimed authors were friends and just made one of the best historical predictions of all time
Aside from playing Mary Shelly, Lanchester also plays the titular Bride at the film’s climax who is so frightened by the monster’s appearance that the monster blows up the laboratory with him, the bride and Dr. Pretorius inside and letting Frankenstein and Elizabeth go. The decision to have Lanchester play both roles was Whale’s who thought that it symbolized how authors put elements of themselves in their work.
Whether you look at it that way or just see it as cool casting, there’s no doubt that the Bride of Frankenstein is one of the most memorable characters in horror cinema despite only appearing in the last five minutes and having no dialogue. But something about that scream and that cool design was just destined to be iconic.
While I don’t think that every Universal Monsters film is essential for Halloween, unless you really want to marathon over 30 films, “The Bride of Frankenstein” is a wonderful companion to “Frankenstein” and is among my favorite horror films to watch every October.
