13 Nights of Shocktober: The Bride of Frankenstein

by A.J.

Night 1: Classic Horror Night

The Monster: You…make man…like me?

Doctor Pretorius: No. Woman. Friend for you.

The Monster: Woman?

The Bride of Frankenstein

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the release of one of the greatest and most influential movie sequels of all time: The Bride of Frankenstein. Naturally, after the success of Frankenstein in 1931, directed by James Whale, Universal Studios executive Carl Laemmle Jr. was eager to follow up with a sequel, but Whale was reluctant. Laemmle was wisely reluctant to do a sequel without Whale. When the sequel finally arrived in 1935, it proved to be worth the wait. Not only was The Bride of Frankenstein a hit and influential on later horror movies and filmmakers, its scenes and images have become iconic and part of the landscape of Halloween. 

There is a lot going on in The Bride of Frankenstein, which is impressive because it is only 75 minutes and never feels rushed. In a delightfully amusing prologue Mary and Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are gathered together again to celebrate the success of Mary’s novel, Frankenstein. Bryon summarizes the book, which serves as a recap of the first movie (though that movie bears little resemblance to Shelley’s novel). Then Mary Shelley reveals the details of a second volume deemed too shocking to publish. This is The Bride of Frankenstein. The story of The Monster and Frankenstein picks up right where the first movie left off and we learn that they both survived the fire at the windmill. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is at first unrepentant and wants to get back to experimenting, that is until he is approached by the truly mad Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) who wants them to combine discoveries in a new creation. Meanwhile, The Monster (Boris Karloff reprising his iconic role) wanders around and is abused and harassed by everyone he encounters, even after he saves a girl from drowning (perhaps a callback or attempt to make up for the infamous lake scene in the first movie). Then he encounters a kindly blind man who shows him friendship and teaches him to speak. Eventually though, he ends up with Frankenstein and Pretorius.

As far as mad scientists go, Dr. Pretorius, with his wild hair and nonchalance toward the macabre, puts Dr. Frankenstein to shame. Frankenstein comes across as a man who became lost in obsession. Pretorius, on the other hand, delights in being so mad that he was booted out of his university for “knowing too much.” When he shows Frankenstein his own creations, living miniatures of a king, queen, bishop, and more, he does so with all the flair and scripted delight of a magician putting on a show. When Pretorius finally meets The Monster his reaction is so understated that it makes him seem even more insane. 

One of the movie’s most famous scenes, perhaps one of the most famous of classic cinema, is The Monster meeting the blind hermit. This is where The Monster learns to speak and develops his iconic speech pattern: “Fire…No good!” Many horror fans and movie monster fans find The Monster to be exceedingly sympathetic and that is in large part because of this movie and this scene. The other iconic scene is the creation of The Bride, with the elaborate laboratory, lightning storm, and, of course, the Monster’s Mate herself. At first she looks like a mummy wrapped in bandages; then a dissolve shows her in her iconic look: a flowing white gown, high-top black hair with a silver jagged streak on each side. She shrieks and hisses and does little else, yet her striking visage has had such a profound impact that she has become a figure, a totem, of classic horror movies and Halloween in general. Her look has been reproduced and parodied in countless TV Shows, movies, commercials, cartoons. This all the more impressive considering how little screen time she has, only a few minutes, and appears in no other Frankenstein movies. I am always surprised by this; I think that I was mistaken about the last time I watched and she appears more; nope. 

The Bride is played by Elsa Lanchester, who also plays Mary Shelley, and while there is no significance in this, I have always enjoyed the coincidence. She only receives credit as Mary Shelly. The “Monster’s Mate” is credited with a question mark. This is fun marketing but is a disservice to her; at least she is known as the Bride now. She underwent 3 hours of make up and the iconic hairdo which wrapped her hair into the wig and was uncomfortable to say the least. 

The argument over whether “Frankenstein" refers to the monster or the doctor is not new (it refers to Doctor Victor Frankenstein, changed to Henry Frankenstein in these movies for no reason) and is at least as old as this movie. The title itself is the perfect example. Dr. Frankenstein has a fiancé and later wife, Elizabeth, but the title clearly does not refer to her. The credits refer to the creations as the Monster and the Monster’s Mate. Most confusing of all, when the Monster's Mate comes to life, Pretorius calls her “the Bride of Frankenstein” perhaps sparking off this whole what do you call the monster debate. 

There’s some camp value to The Bride of Frankenstein in the frantic energy of Colin Clive as Frankenstein and the over-the-top reactions of Una O’Connor to seeing The Monster. This only adds to the movie’s overall entertainment value, which is still strong 90 years later. It’s hard to convey the influence, both direct and indirect, of The Bride of Frankenstein. Clips of it turn up in everything from Weird Science to About a Boy. Mel Brooks’s brilliant Young Frankenstein parodies and pays homage to The Bride of Frankenstein, it even used some of the same props. “To a new world of gods and monsters!” Pretorius declares as he lifts his glass to toast Frankenstein after their devilish bargain is struck. The Bride of Frankenstein did indeed usher in a new world of horror cinema. 

Bride of Frankenstein is available to stream on Prime Video and will air on TCM on Halloween at 5:30 CT.