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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,

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Speaker 3: in honor of the Halloween season, we are going to

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Speaker 3: be talking about the nineteen thirty five Universal horror classic

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Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, the first sequel

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Speaker 3: to the original Universal Frankenstein, also directed by Whale, which

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Speaker 3: was released four years earlier in nineteen thirty one. So

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Speaker 3: I know we're going to talk a lot more about

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Speaker 3: the specifics of our appreciation for this movie as we

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Speaker 3: go along, but I wanted to just start off by saying,

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Speaker 3: in my opinion, Bride of Frankenstein is about as good

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Speaker 3: as it gets. It is. I think shocking how great

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Speaker 3: this this movie is, how good it looks, how weird

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Speaker 3: it is, how beautiful and funny and full of genuine feeling,

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Speaker 3: and how fresh it feels. Something about it is the

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Speaker 3: exact opposite of a relic from the past. It feels

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Speaker 3: so exciting and new.

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Speaker 2: I think the word that I would use for Brida

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Speaker 2: Frankenstein without even a hint of irony or parody or humor.

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Speaker 2: Is it is just truly transcendent. It transcends its genre,

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Speaker 2: it transcends its time period. It is just a masterpiece.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, I second way you said, if you're the

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Speaker 2: type of film viewer who's like, I don't know if

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Speaker 2: I need or want to see a film from the

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, I mean, fair enough, watch what you want

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Speaker 2: to watch. But films like this, films like Mad Love,

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Speaker 2: which we previously discussed on the show, these really stand out.

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Speaker 3: And I love the other universal monster movies, you know.

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Speaker 3: I love Todd Browning's Dracula. I love Wales First Frank,

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Speaker 3: I love the Invisible Man creature from the Black Lagoon.

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Speaker 3: I mean, really enjoy all of those core monster frolics.

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Speaker 3: But even though all of those are excellent, there are

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Speaker 3: individually things in them that kind of drag Dracula, for example,

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Speaker 3: I love Todd Browning's Dracula, but it gets markedly less

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Speaker 3: interesting when Bella Legosi has been off screen for too long.

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Speaker 3: You know, there are some there's some kind of slow

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Speaker 3: moving talkie segments with the not terribly interesting human characters, which,

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Speaker 3: to be fair, are trying to be faithful to the

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Speaker 3: plot of the novel, but in some ways I think

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Speaker 3: end up kind of holding the movie back from what

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Speaker 3: it could have been. All of the other Universal Monster

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Speaker 3: frolics have their their stuffy interludes, but for me, Bride

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Speaker 3: does not. My opinion is that it is just wall

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Speaker 3: to wall horror, profound weirdness, hilarity, and powerful emotion. So

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Speaker 3: I think, not only is Bride of Frankenstein the best

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Speaker 3: of all the Universal Monster movies, it's the best buy

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Speaker 3: a mile, It's the best by an astronomical unit. It

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Speaker 3: leaves these other great movies in the dust. And I

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Speaker 3: guess we can as we go on, we can talk

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Speaker 3: about some of the reasons why I feel that way.

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Speaker 2: It is kind of funny that in leading up to

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Speaker 2: this episode, we were talking about maybe doing Son of

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Speaker 2: Frankenstein or House of Frankenstein, a couple of the later

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Speaker 2: movies in the Universal Frankenstein cycle, And then we were like, well,

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Speaker 2: why are we denying ourselves, Like staring at the bar,

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Speaker 2: there is the top shelf Frankenstein right there. Let's just

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Speaker 2: do that one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was realizing before we started recording that

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Speaker 3: one way this movie will fit into the weird house

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Speaker 3: cinema cannon is that we sort of have a show

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Speaker 3: tradition of covering sequels without covering the original that they're

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Speaker 3: following up, and we haven't done an episode on the

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Speaker 3: original Universal Frankenstein, though I think it has come up

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Speaker 3: a lot when discussing other movies. I think it might

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Speaker 3: be fruitful to begin today's episode by thinking about Bride

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Speaker 3: of Frankenstein as a sequel, and what can we learn

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Speaker 3: about sequels from a sequel that works this well. I

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Speaker 3: don't know exactly how the percentages break out, but I'd

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Speaker 3: say at least maybe eighty percent of the time sequels

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Speaker 3: are uninteresting derivations of the original, just sort of like

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Speaker 3: trying to make a quick buck off of the success

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Speaker 3: of the original. But sometimes, as we all know, there

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Speaker 3: are sequels that are not only as good as the original,

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Speaker 3: not only worthy of it, lots of people consider them

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Speaker 3: better than the original. Quick list of commonly cited examples

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Speaker 3: that I would agree with a Terminator, two Star Trek,

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Speaker 3: The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, multiple Mad

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Speaker 3: Max sequels. I'd say, you know, Road Warrior, Fury Road,

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Speaker 3: and there are plenty of other examples you can think

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Speaker 3: of too, in even less well known franchises.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like I would. I'll often throw Blade two

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Speaker 2: in there. Aliens comes to mind, of course, Return of

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Speaker 2: the Blind Dead to feature like a recent film that

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Speaker 2: we did a rerun off. I throw Chronicles of Ritick

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Speaker 2: in there as well. You know, I generally say when

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Speaker 2: a sequel works, it either is a second attempt with

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Speaker 2: improved skills and or budget at the concepts of the first,

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Speaker 2: or is it's a successful expansion of the original concept,

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Speaker 2: you know, not just a sell them another scoop of

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Speaker 2: the same ice cream, but give them something that is transformative.

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Speaker 3: You know, I agree, and I think that's exactly what's

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Speaker 3: going on with Bride Frankenstein. James Wale's original Frankenstein is

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Speaker 3: really good. It's a solid adaptation of the novel, one

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Speaker 3: of the best universal monster movies. But Bride of frank

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Speaker 3: is absolutely divine, and so I'm wondering what exactly it

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Speaker 3: does that really has this step up quality going into

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Speaker 3: the second movie in this series. An interesting thing about

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Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein is that it is both a fulfillment

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Speaker 3: of the promise of the source material, in this case,

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Speaker 3: Mary Wilston Craft Shelley's novel Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus,

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Speaker 3: and it forges a new path. So in the sense

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Speaker 3: that it's a fulfillment of the source material, Bride of

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Speaker 3: Frankenstein includes scenes and themes from Shelley's novel that were

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Speaker 3: left out of the first movie, and also when it

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Speaker 3: chooses to include totally new things from out of left field,

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Speaker 3: they are great inclusions. So to start with, like things

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Speaker 3: that it brings in from the novel, I think they're

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Speaker 3: typically things that deepen our emotional understanding of the creature.

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Speaker 3: So one example is that in Bride of frank the

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Speaker 3: monster can talk. The monster in the novel, of course,

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Speaker 3: is amazingly articulate. In the first movie, by contrast, it's

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Speaker 3: a silent performance. And I've seen film critics and historians

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Speaker 3: make the interesting observation that Frankenstein was one of the

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Speaker 3: first mega hits of the early sound film era, and

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Speaker 3: yet its principal performance from Boris Karla was a mostly

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Speaker 3: silent one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, In this we do see some interesting growth

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Speaker 2: in the monster. He's acquiring language, he's learning to express

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Speaker 2: himself better, and it makes Carlos's performance all the more enthralling.

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Speaker 2: There's this crackling confused, traumatized, and yet still hopeful energy

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Speaker 2: in the heart of the creature, just straining to reach

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Speaker 2: out and touch the world. Sadly, he lacks many of

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Speaker 2: the tools he needs, and he finds himself continually on

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Speaker 2: the other end of human violence and human manipulation. Like

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Speaker 2: you said, it's not on the same level of the

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Speaker 2: of the articulate monster we see in the novel who Is.

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Speaker 2: I think it can is often interpreted as being almost

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Speaker 2: kind of like a fallen angel. You know, that's that's

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Speaker 2: the kind of energy he brings. So, you know, not

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Speaker 2: thee quite the same energy, but it moves a little

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Speaker 2: closer to that concept and does its own thing with it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the articulacy of the creature in the novel, I

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Speaker 3: think is often and this is actually in the novel itself,

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Speaker 3: is compared to Satan and Milton's Paradise Lost. Yeah, Carl

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Speaker 3: in Bride is not like that. He's mostly speaking in

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Speaker 3: like short clipped statements. And apparently Karloff was wary of

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Speaker 3: the idea of having the monster speak in Bride. He

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Speaker 3: wasn't sure that was a good idea, but I think

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Speaker 3: it was the right move. Even though he's not giving

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Speaker 3: these these long moving speeches like he does in the book.

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Speaker 3: He has these heartbreakingly terse memorable lines, you know, like love, dead,

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Speaker 3: hate living.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Another thing from the novel that's brought in to deepen

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Speaker 3: the story here is the scene where the monster makes

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Speaker 3: friends with a blind man living in a cabin. That is,

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Speaker 3: it's not exactly the same, but it's based on a

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Speaker 3: section of the novel where the creature observes people living

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Speaker 3: in a remote cottage and learns language from them, but

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Speaker 3: is ultimately driven away when sighted people finally catch a

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Speaker 3: glimpse of him and react with horror to his appearance.

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Speaker 3: The scene in the book where he read he is

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Speaker 3: hated because he is ugly is one of the saddest

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Speaker 3: in the book, and they explore those themes very well

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Speaker 3: in Bride. I think. Another one the creature's desire for

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Speaker 3: an undead mate. This is also from the book, but

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Speaker 3: left out of the first movie for the most part.

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Speaker 3: In the novel, after the creature realizes that living humans

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Speaker 3: will all hate him and reject him, he thinks his

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Speaker 3: only hope of finding love and companionship is for his

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Speaker 3: creator to make another like him, so he threatens Victor Frankenstein.

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Speaker 3: He threatens his loved ones to coerce him to make

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Speaker 3: the creature an undead bride. But then in the book,

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Speaker 3: Victor I think, abandons the project before it's completed, and

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Speaker 3: he has a kind of stroke of conscience and he says, no,

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Speaker 3: I can't do this, and then in a rage, the

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Speaker 3: creature punishes him by killing his fiance.

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Speaker 2: And it's it's in retrospect, looking back on this, it's

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Speaker 2: so great that they came back and took this part

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Speaker 2: of the book and did something with it, because I

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Speaker 2: remember this being like one of the most impactful sections

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Speaker 2: of the novel, a novel that's full of fantastic ideas

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Speaker 2: and scenes. But yeah, this section of the book where

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Speaker 2: the doctor is forced to go back and do this

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Speaker 2: mad thing one more time and attempt to create a

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Speaker 2: mate for this monster just so it will leave him

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Speaker 2: and his loved ones alone, and then decides that for

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Speaker 2: the greater good, he cannot go through with it.

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Speaker 3: I agree exactly. So I think the movie is really

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Speaker 3: working because it pulls in all of these great resonant

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Speaker 3: elements from the original source material that you know didn't

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Speaker 3: fit into the first the plot of the first film,

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Speaker 3: but On the other hand, there is all kinds of

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Speaker 3: other stuff that is added purely from the original genius

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Speaker 3: of the filmmakers, and I think you could you could

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Speaker 3: bring up a lot of things here. One I wanted

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Speaker 3: to mention is comedy. I have not read Frankenstein in

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Speaker 3: a bit, but I don't recall it really having much

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Speaker 3: humor in it at all. I think it's a very

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Speaker 3: serious book. And while Bride of Frankenstein deals with serious

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Speaker 3: themes and has many serious moments, it is also overflowing

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Speaker 3: with irony and goofiness. Sometimes it's surprisingly goofy Waal understood

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Speaker 3: horror storytelling according I think to the Grangin Yow tradition

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Speaker 3: of hot and cold showers, where tales of the macabre

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Speaker 3: would be alternately play back and forth with comedy performances

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Speaker 3: and good storytellers in this space, I think understand that

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Speaker 3: comedy is a wonderful release mechanism for the building tension

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Speaker 3: of the story. There's something that really works when you

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Speaker 3: alternate mounting tension and horror with comedy. So and beyond that,

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Speaker 3: there are also characters in this movie that operate on

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Speaker 3: the knife edge between horror and comedy at all times.

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Speaker 3: I think the prime example being probably my favorite character

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Speaker 3: from this movie, doctor Septimus Pretorius, a character who is

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Speaker 3: not in the novel, invented purely for Bride of Frankenstein.

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Speaker 3: And that brings us to the other thing I'd mentioned

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Speaker 3: about this movie, a sort of original genius zany characters.

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Speaker 3: I love the novel Frankenstein, but it does not have

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Speaker 3: an ensemble of memorable characters with interesting quirks and personalities.

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Speaker 3: I think the genius of the novel is in its

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Speaker 3: scenario and themes, and in the development of the main

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Speaker 3: character of the creature. Bride of frank on the other hand,

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Speaker 3: invents this whole ensemble of delightfully jagged weirdos to give

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Speaker 3: the story flavor. There's a kind of Cohen Brothers quality

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Speaker 3: to all of the secondary players here, and I think

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Speaker 3: the greatest example of this is the villain of the movie,

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Speaker 3: doctor Septimus Pretorius, played by Ernest Thesiger, a flambuoyantly bizarre professor,

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Speaker 3: a scientist matter than any mad scientist you've ever seen before.

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Speaker 3: I think basically every single moment Thesiger is on screen

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Speaker 3: is just gold. He has turned up to eleven from

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Speaker 3: his very first line, and he does not he does

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Speaker 3: not stop.

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Speaker 2: I agree, that's true. Is just amazing in this.

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Speaker 3: And while doctor Pretorius is the greatest, there's room for

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Speaker 3: all kinds of just you know, goobers and creeps and

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Speaker 3: buffoons and weird personalities to weave in and out of

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Speaker 3: the story here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I think the other amazing thing about

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Speaker 2: this is Okay, so the idea of horror in comedy

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Speaker 2: working together that that's nothing new, But everything just works

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Speaker 2: so smoothly in this film it can almost feel like

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Speaker 2: a surreal experience, especially given how jarring, sometimes intentionally the

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Speaker 2: transaction transition in and out of horror in comedy may

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Speaker 2: be in other works. There's just just in general, there's

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Speaker 2: absolutely nothing rough around the edges with this movie. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's much to be said again, how frash and exciting

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Speaker 2: this nineteen thirty five film feels in terms of its

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Speaker 2: themes and performances, But even its effects are just staggeringly effective.

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Speaker 2: The monster's basic makeup design is, of course iconic, and

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Speaker 2: you might expect that since it's iconic and you've seen

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Speaker 2: it replicated often poorly, you know, on various other forms

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Speaker 2: so many times, that it would lose some of its punch,

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Speaker 2: but it really doesn't. It just looks incredible in every shot.

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Speaker 3: I totally agree. Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, Like,

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Speaker 3: you know what the Carlos Frankenstein makeup looks like. You've

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Speaker 3: seen it a million times, so how could it still

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Speaker 3: be scary and shocking? But in my opinion, when you

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Speaker 3: watch the movie, it is like seeing it actually come

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Speaker 3: to life in motion, situated within the context of the plot.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how many times you've seen this pulled

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Speaker 3: out of context on posters and stills and all that,

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Speaker 3: it's still super creepy. It looks amazing, yeah, at every shot.

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Speaker 2: On top of that, everything every shot is perfectly composed,

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Speaker 2: The dialogue is all tight and interesting, and other effects

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Speaker 2: are amazing as well. There's a scene late in the

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Speaker 2: movie in which a model mountain tower collapses in on itself,

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Speaker 2: and we've seen similar effects that rained from terrible to

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Speaker 2: great but clearly an effect in so many pictures, But

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Speaker 2: this one just looks and feels real in a way

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Speaker 2: that's truly admirable. Oh yeah, So, Joe, what's your elevator

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Speaker 2: pitch for Bride of Frankenstein.

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Speaker 3: You know it's difficult, so maybe it'd be something like

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Speaker 3: after Frankenstein, you thought you knew what it meant for

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Speaker 3: death to reign over life and for science to go mad,

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Speaker 3: But we have such sites to show you yet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that sums it up well. And of course,

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Speaker 2: to steal a line from the movie itself, I have

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Speaker 2: to quote doctor Pretorious about a new world of gods

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Speaker 2: and monsters. I mean, that's just one of the great

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Speaker 2: lines of the film and kind of sums up the

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Speaker 2: spirit and energy of the sequel.

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Speaker 3: Here in the scene, that line is offered as a toast,

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Speaker 3: and it is. It's so good. But it's especially good

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Speaker 3: knowing the line which comes right before it, which is

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Speaker 3: where doctor Pretorius claims that jin is his only weakness,

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Speaker 3: and he is clearly not correct in saying that.

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Speaker 2: There's another point in the film where he says something

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Speaker 2: else is his only weakness. Yeah, you're just so many

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Speaker 2: wonderful little quirks that that they're able to fit into

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Speaker 2: the dialogue here. All right, Well, let's go ahead and

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Speaker 2: listen to some trailer audio. Oh yeah, all right, Well,

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Speaker 2: if you rightfully wish to go and watch Bride of

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Speaker 2: Frankenstein on your own before you continue with this episode, well,

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Speaker 2: you're in luck because this is a Universal Monsters movie.

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Speaker 2: I mean, this is the shining gem of the Universal

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Speaker 2: Monsters franchise. So this one is widely available in all formats,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's streaming on Peacock right now if

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Speaker 2: that is available to you. But any way you do it,

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Speaker 2: do see this movie in the best quality you can grab.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I would say the same thing. This is one

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Speaker 3: where it really pays off the highest definition, best visual

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Speaker 3: quality you can because this is a great looking movie

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Speaker 3: and you want to get at every bit of it.

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Speaker 2: All right, now, getting into the connections here the people

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Speaker 2: that made this movie, we want to stress here that again,

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Speaker 2: this was a big sequel. This was a sequel to

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Speaker 2: a highly successful movie in which director James Waale got

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Speaker 2: to assemble a massively talented cast and crew. So we

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Speaker 2: are not going to be able to do justice to

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Speaker 2: everyone that was involved in bringing this film to life.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a ton of people involved in this

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Speaker 3: movie that each have fascinating biographies, but because there are

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Speaker 3: so many of them, I think we're going to have

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Speaker 3: to give fairly short statements on most of them. Just

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Speaker 3: know that there's a lot of people here that we

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Speaker 3: will get to kind of briefly, but they're each worth

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Speaker 3: looking up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And we may come back to many of

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Speaker 2: these people in the future. Like we were saying, a

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Speaker 2: lot of these folks are individuals who if they came

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Speaker 2: up in a smaller picture or a lesser picture, we

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Speaker 2: might spend a lot of time talking about who they

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Speaker 2: were and what their careers consisted of. All right, Well,

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Speaker 2: starting at the top, of course, with the director, it's

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Speaker 2: James Whale, who lived eighteen eighty nine through nineteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 2: English director of film and the British stage, as well

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Speaker 2: as an occasional actor himself. He primarily came over to

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Speaker 2: the Hollywood system because with the transition to talkies they

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Speaker 2: wanted to invest in directors who were great with dialogue,

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Speaker 2: and he had that reputation already. He's best remembered for

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Speaker 2: his horror projects, namely the two Frankenstein films. Nineteen thirty

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Speaker 2: three is The Invisible Man in nineteen thirty two's The

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Speaker 2: Old Dark House. His first film, nineteen thirties Journey's End,

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Speaker 2: was a war drama starring Colin Clive, and even after

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Speaker 2: Frankenstein he continued to make non horror dramas such as

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirty threes by Candlelight, and even musicals like nineteen

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Speaker 2: thirty six's Showboat and late in his career the nineteen

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Speaker 2: forty adventure film Green Hell, which does have a terrific cast.

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Speaker 3: Like many of the directors we talk about who were

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Speaker 3: making great horror films in the early days of sound cinema,

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Speaker 3: I don't know if it would be right to say

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Speaker 3: that like horror was a passion of James Whale. I

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Speaker 3: think he probably wanted to focus more on dramas and such,

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Speaker 3: But you know, he did the work that he got

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Speaker 3: and he made great, great horror movies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's time and time again. It's the case

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Speaker 2: with these directors, like they wanted to go up the

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Speaker 2: ladder towards bigger A list type pictures, prestige pictures that

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Speaker 2: had the cast but also didn't deal with these lesser

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Speaker 2: genres of horror and sci fi. And that was just

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Speaker 2: part of the cinema world of the time, that was

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Speaker 2: the industry. And it's just kind of ironic that nowadays

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Speaker 2: so many of these individuals are best remembered, if not remembered,

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Speaker 2: exclusively for their genre entries.

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Speaker 3: This seems to be a situation where the original Frankenstein

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Speaker 3: was a huge hit. It made incredible money for Universal,

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Speaker 3: and that earned James Whale the right to make the

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Speaker 3: sequel on his own terms, essentially however he wanted, with

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Speaker 3: very minimal studio interference. So Bride of Frankenstein is the

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Speaker 3: result of Whale getting more or less total creative freedom

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Speaker 3: and almost all the resources and support he needed.

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Speaker 2: That's right im to understand. He had a lot of

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Speaker 2: say over the script, presented a lot of ideas for

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Speaker 2: the script. So yes, this is a film that more

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Speaker 2: accurately gives us James Whale's vision of Frankenstein. Now, I

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Speaker 2: should also note that James Whale was an openly gay

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Speaker 2: man during a time during which this was rare, So

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Speaker 2: his personal life has long been an area of interest

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Speaker 2: to both biographers and also just film theorists and people

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Speaker 2: analyzing his films and discussing the themes explored in them,

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Speaker 2: and it's especially the case with Bride.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've read differing takes over the extent to which

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Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein should be interpreted as intentionally having gay

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Speaker 3: themes in it. Some film historians read a lot of

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Speaker 3: gay themes and to Bride others have said, I think

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Speaker 3: based on some comments about people who from people who

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Speaker 3: knew James Whale said that they didn't think he was

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Speaker 3: intending to put anything like that into the film. But

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Speaker 3: based on the sources available to us, I guess it's

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Speaker 3: impossible to know for sure, but whether it should be

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Speaker 3: interpreted as part of Wales's intention or not. Definitely, this

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Speaker 3: film has been a rich subject for a lot of

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Speaker 3: gay film historians.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely now. The source material, of course, is Mary Shelley's novel.

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Speaker 2: Mary Shelley lived seventeen ninety seven through eighteen fifty one

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Speaker 2: English writer responsible for a good seven novels and multiple

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Speaker 2: short stories, but her first novel, eighteen eighteen's Frankenstein or

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Speaker 2: the Modern Prometheus, was the one that made her a legend.

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Speaker 2: To this day, it stands as a powerful, entertainer and

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Speaker 2: richly rewarding novel, highly influential over science fiction. She was

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Speaker 2: the wife of English poet Percy Shelley, with whom she

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Speaker 2: also worked. They, along with a friend and poet Lord Byron,

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Speaker 2: are depicted in this movie.

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Speaker 3: I was watching a making of documentary and people were

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Speaker 3: talking about how apparently Whale insisted on having this framing

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Speaker 3: narrative in the film, because the movie doesn't start in

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Speaker 3: the narrative itself. It starts with us seeing Lord Byron

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Speaker 3: Percy and Mary Wilstoncraft Shelley sitting around a roaring fire

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Speaker 3: and talking about the idea of the novel. Frankenstein Apparently

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Speaker 3: Whale thought that this framing was crucial and he insisted

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Speaker 3: did it be in? And I think it does some

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Speaker 3: interesting things. Maybe we can talk about that when we

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Speaker 3: get to the plot section.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do think it's essential. It's hard to

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Speaker 2: imagine this movie without it. But more about that when

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Speaker 2: we get into the plot. All right. In terms of

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Speaker 2: the the people involved with writing the screenplay and developing

398
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Speaker 2: the story, they're a number of uncredited writing credits that

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Speaker 2: pop up for this film on the Internet movie database.

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Speaker 2: We can't go through all of them, so I'm just

401
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Speaker 2: going to focus on the two names that are credited

402
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Speaker 2: in the actual credits on the film. Adapted by and

403
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Speaker 2: screenplay credit goes to William Hurlbut, who lived eighteen seventy

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Speaker 2: eight through nineteen fifty seven, American writer and screenwriter, certainly

405
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Speaker 2: best remembered for this film, but he has forty credits

406
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Speaker 2: on IMDb going back to nineteen fifteen and then stretching

407
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Speaker 2: up till the mid fifties. Other notable credits include nineteen

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Speaker 2: thirties The Cat Creeps, the Will of the Dead Man

409
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Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty four's Imitation of Life. He also did

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Speaker 2: additional dialogue on Robert Flore's Daughter of Hong Kong, starring

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Speaker 2: the legendary anime Won And then we have an adapted

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Speaker 2: by credit for John L. Balderston, who lived eighteen eighty

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Speaker 2: nine through nineteen fifty four American playwrights, screenwriter, and journalist

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Speaker 2: with a NAC for horror and fantasy. His work includes

415
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Speaker 2: nineteen thirties Dracula adapted from his own play, nineteen thirty

416
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Speaker 2: two is the Mummy, the nineteen thirty three time travel

417
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Speaker 2: movie Berkeley Square, nineteen thirty five's Mad Love, and nineteen

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Speaker 2: forties The Mummy's Hand. He was one of the Love Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's quite a pedigree. He was also one of the

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Speaker 2: writers on nineteen forty four's gas Light, from which we

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Speaker 2: get the term gas lighting. All right, now getting into

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Speaker 2: the cast, clearly right at the top, we have the monster.

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Speaker 2: The monster is played, according to the opening credits, by Carloff.

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Speaker 3: First met a first name.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love this. This is of course, we're

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Speaker 2: of course, of course talking about Boris Karloff. This is

427
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Speaker 2: the stage name of British actor William Henry Pratt, who

428
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Speaker 2: lived eighteen eighty seven through nineteen sixty nine. He's gone

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Speaker 2: up on the show a couple of times already. His

430
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 2: credits go back to nineteen nineteen, and he already had

431
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 2: a long filmography by the time, with nineteen thirty one's Frankenstein,

432
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 2: in which he of course plays the monster. Afterwards, some

433
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 2: of his big horror roles included nineteen thirty two is

434
00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 2: the Mummy and the Old Dark House, nineteen thirty three

435
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 2: is the Ghoul, nineteen thirty four's The Black Cat. After Bride,

436
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 2: he remained very active, playing the monster one more time

437
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty nine Son of Frankenstein, but he remained

438
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 2: a superstar of horror. He appeared in nineteen forty four's

439
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: House of Frankenstein, though not as the monster, and of

440
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 2: course he remained active throughout the rest of his life.

441
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 2: All right, so that is the monster, But of course

442
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 2: we need a true Frankenstein, and Frankenstein is of course

443
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 2: in this movie Henry Frankenstein, the creator played once more

444
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 2: by Colin Clive, who lived nineteen hundred through nineteen thirty seven.

445
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 2: Just a tremendous but of course troubled and short lived

446
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 2: British actor who we previously discussed on our early Weird

447
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 2: House Cinema episode about nineteen thirty five's Mad Love, in

448
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 2: which he played Stephen Orlock. He's wonderful in that as well.

449
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is, and he I think Colin Clive went

450
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 3: back to having worked with James Whale from the stage

451
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 3: like that they had worked together before the transition to

452
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 3: film here.

453
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a lot. There are a number of players

454
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 2: in this that had had personal connections to Wale. Whale

455
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 2: to work with them before he knew their talent, and

456
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 2: they were handpicked. Colin Clive is, you know, I've never

457
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 2: seen him outside of a genre movie. I've only seen

458
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 2: him in these horror films, but he is always just

459
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 2: this live wire of anxiety and terror. He's perfect for

460
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 2: a horror movie, of course. In this, he's reprising his

461
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 2: role from nineteen thirty one's Frankenstein. That was only his

462
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 2: third emotion picture. The two Frankenstein films, along with Mad Love,

463
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 2: constitute his only horror pictures. The rest of his nineteen credits,

464
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 2: including the title role in nineteen thirty three's Christopher Strong,

465
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 2: are all more mainstream.

466
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I also only know him for his

467
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 3: horror roles. But I recall in Mad Love he is

468
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 3: he gives a performance of such anxiety. I think the

469
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 3: way I put it then was that it feels like

470
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 3: he is undergoing vision.

471
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 2: Yes, in a way you compare the two roles, he's

472
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 2: actually more chill in this movie. Despite being an individual

473
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 2: who's gone through a horrifying and near death experience and

474
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 2: and then is sucked back into that same world once more,

475
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: he still feels a little bit more chill. I guess

476
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 2: at least he can throw himself into his work in

477
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 2: a way that Stephen Orlock was no longer able to do.

478
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 2: All right. He has a love interest in this though,

479
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 2: and that is Elizabeth, played by Valerie Hobson, who of

480
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen through nineteen ninety eight Irish born English actor.

481
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 2: She takes over the role here from May Clark, who

482
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 2: played Henry's love interest Elizabeth in the previous film. After this,

483
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 2: she appeared in nineteen thirty five's Werewolf of London and

484
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 2: various other films. Through about nineteen fifty four.

485
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 3: So the character here is Elizabeth, that is Henry Frankenstein's fiance,

486
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 3: and I think she is supposed to represent goodness and virtue,

487
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 3: you know, So there are like, there's this forking path

488
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:59,479
Speaker 3: in the story where Henry could just choose a good life,

489
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 3: he could just you know, have a life of love

490
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 3: and family and pursuing regular noble career pursuits and all that.

491
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: But no, you know, she's that option. Instead, He's going

492
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 3: to go with dangerous knowledge.

493
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 2: Yes, And of course he ends up having to choose

494
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 2: that direction, in part because he is manipulated, in part

495
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 2: because she has taken hostage right in the book. Of course,

496
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 2: this is all part of the manipulations of the monster.

497
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: But the monster as presented in that first film, the

498
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 2: first Frankenstein film, is of course not a master manipulator.

499
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 2: Like he doesn't even speak. It's a huge step up

500
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,479
Speaker 2: in this movie for him to be able to speak.

501
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: And you can see where it would have been unrealistic

502
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 2: for suddenly Frankenstein's Monster to be able to, you know,

503
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 2: to lay out some sort of a vast scheme. So

504
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 2: you need a different sort of enemy, a different sort

505
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 2: of villain, and that is, of course doctor Pretorius played

506
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 2: by Ernest Messeger.

507
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 3: The way to fight evil is with a different kind

508
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 3: of evil. To quote Chronicles of Britag.

509
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: I guess so yeah. That's Lived eighteen seventy nine through

510
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one, an English actor of stage and screen,

511
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 2: best remembered for this brilliant and flamboyant performance as the

512
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 2: maddest of mad scientists and mad science enablers. His other

513
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 2: credits include thirty two's The Old Dark House, thirty threes

514
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 2: The Ghoul, and nineteen fifty threes The Robe, in which

515
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 2: he plays Emperor Tiberius. It's my understanding he was not

516
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: the original studio pick for this role, but after whoever

517
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 2: they wanted for it was not available or it didn't

518
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 2: work out, like this was clearly Wale's pick. Whyal had

519
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 2: a history with this actor, He really looked up to

520
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 2: his his abilities and his talent, and so this was

521
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 2: like the obvious choice for this role. And clearly it's

522
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: impossible to imagine anyone else breathing life into this character

523
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 2: the way That'sagre.

524
00:30:54,640 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 3: Does unreal, just brilliant, absurd, hilarious, mirroring evil. I love

525
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 3: Messeger here doctor Pretorius is a great character, and I yeah,

526
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 3: I could not imagine this going to a different actor.

527
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 3: This is like he is perfect all right.

528
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 2: Up next, we have Elsa Lanchester playing really the title

529
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: character of the film, even though the title character, the

530
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: bride is is just credited with question marks in the

531
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 2: opening scroll, you know, because it's going to be a surprise,

532
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 2: I guess. But it's a dual role because she also

533
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 2: in the early part of the film plays Mary Shelley,

534
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: so she plays both female creator and feminine creation, and

535
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 2: these two performances kind of bookend the rest of the picture.

536
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 3: I think the choice to have the same actress in

537
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 3: both those roles is significant. Though I don't know exactly

538
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 3: what it means, it feels right, yeah.

539
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the beauties about the show's

540
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 2: treatment of some of its more serious subject matter, is

541
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 2: that it's kind of amorphous in a way, like you

542
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 2: can feel the connections. But but the filmmakers don't like

543
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: just hammer it home in all cases. So there's plenty

544
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 2: of room for interpretation. Endless room for interpretation.

545
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 3: Really, right, but we should not hold back and sing

546
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 3: Elsa Lanchester is great. She doesn't have actually a ton

547
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 3: of screen time. But the few minutes she is on

548
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 3: the screen, Wow, does she make an impression?

549
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she's fun in the intro and then

550
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 2: as the Monster's mate she's accredited or the bride. She

551
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: has she has a wonderful and very different energy. It's

552
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 2: almost kind of an Avian energy. It's also also kind

553
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: of like a hyper focus. Like while Frankenstein's Monster has

554
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 2: more of a like a lantern level of understandable analysis

555
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 2: of the world and also kind of like a lantern

556
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 2: level anxiety and trauma about it, hers is more laser focused.

557
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 2: She has that like flashlight intensity.

558
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 3: Yes, she has I see what you mean when you

559
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 3: say Avian. She has a jerky, almost bird like movements

560
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 3: of the head and the eyes. Once she's brought to

561
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 3: life as the reanimated Bride, is kind of like quick,

562
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 3: jerky adjustments of her attention around the room, and she

563
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 3: seems like she doesn't like what she's seeing.

564
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 2: No, there's not a lot to like, but we'll get

565
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 2: to that after a bit. Elsa Lanchester lived nineteen oh

566
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 2: two through nineteen eighty six, English actor of film, stage

567
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 2: and TV. This is probably her most iconic role. I mean,

568
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: it's just a very iconic role. Everybody knows this look.

569
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 2: Everybody knows that hair, right, I mean, the whole costume

570
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 2: is wonderful, as we'll get into. She'd already been acting

571
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 2: for film for ten years by the time of Bride,

572
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 2: and continue to act through nineteen eighty. Her later screen

573
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: credits include forty three's Lassie Come Home, forty six's The

574
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 2: Spiral Staircase, forty nine is The Secret Garden, nineteen sixty

575
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 2: four is Mary Poppins Bat Darn Cat in sixty five

576
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 2: other films of another's fifty eight's Bell Book and Candle,

577
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 2: seventy three's Terror the Wax Museum, seventy six is Murdered

578
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 2: by death in nineteen eighties Die Laughing. She also appeared

579
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: on such TV shows as The Magical World of Disney

580
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 2: and Night Gallery. I don't know why I stressed it

581
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 2: like that Night Gallery, not Night Gallery. That's strange. Up next,

582
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 2: we have to mention the character Mini Mani is another

583
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 2: just this is just a ridiculously fun character role, blatantly

584
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 2: there for comic relief. And you know the thing about

585
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 2: comic relief characters in older pictures, they don't always stand

586
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 2: the test of time. Sometimes they don't even stand the

587
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 2: test of time like ten years later, much less with

588
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 2: an eighty eight year old picture. But Minnie is wonderful.

589
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 2: This scared, nosy but also bloodthirsty old maid still delivers,

590
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 2: still absolutely delivers.

591
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 3: I love the way that she is terrified of the monster,

592
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:53,720
Speaker 3: but she also somehow seems to be following the monster

593
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:57,440
Speaker 3: everywhere it goes. There's one part where the creature is

594
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 3: captured by the authorities and put in like a dungeon,

595
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 3: and Minnie is there looking down through the bars and

596
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,879
Speaker 3: she's like, Ooh, wouldn't he ugly? You know, I'd hate

597
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 3: to wake up and find him hiding underneath my bed

598
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 3: at night. But she says it in a way that

599
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 3: suggests she would like to find that.

600
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, she seems kind of like what would later be

601
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 2: known as or maybe was known in the time period.

602
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 2: I forget the time frame on This is a hat

603
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 2: pin Mary. I think it's the term this would be

604
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 2: an older woman at a pro wrestling show who would

605
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 2: try and poke the heels on their way to the

606
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 2: ring with their hat pins. So there's kind of yeah,

607
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: blood the faulty to her afraid of the monster, but

608
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 2: also really wants to be there when the monster is tormented.

609
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 3: But also this is a very broad comic performance I

610
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 3: would say, almost cartoonish, but it works perfectly.

611
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the actor here is Una O'Connor who lived

612
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty through nineteen fifty nine. She was only in

613
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 2: her mid fifties. Here she's played up as this old woman,

614
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 2: but she was not an old woman by any stretch

615
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 2: at this point. A tremendous Irish care actor with extensive

616
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,879
Speaker 2: stage experience often cast in this sort of role. Though,

617
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 2: like I mean, and clearly why not, She's got it

618
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 2: nailed perfectly. Other films include The Invisible Man from thirty three,

619
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 2: The Informer from thirty five, and The Adventures of Robin

620
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: Hood from thirty eight.

621
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 3: Oh Man. Next, just to make sure we don't leave

622
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 3: him out, we should mention Dwight Frye, who has a

623
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 3: small role in this film as Carl, who is essentially

624
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 3: the new Egor, even though actually Egor wouldn't come until later,

625
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 3: is the new Fritz, and he's played by the same

626
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,720
Speaker 3: actor who played Fritz in the original Frankenstein. So Dwight

627
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 3: Frye lived eighteen ninety nine to nineteen forty three. He

628
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 3: was Wrinfield in Todd Browning Stracula. He apparently at first

629
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 3: had a more substantial part in the movie, but it

630
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 3: was allegedly cut down by censors.

631
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's apparently like fifteen minutes or so that the

632
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 2: sensors cut out of this film just because they really

633
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 2: wanted to play it safe. A lot of it was

634
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 2: stuff that they thought might come off as blasphemous talking,

635
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 2: you know, getting in to the whole thesis of creating life.

636
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 2: I think some of it too, was Mary Shelley's dress.

637
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 2: They thought some angles on it were maybe a little

638
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 2: too risque for the time period, that sort of thing.

639
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 2: And some sort of subplot here with carl And and

640
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 2: whatever he's up to outside of his grave robbing side gig.

641
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 3: I think he was supposed to murder the mustache guy, oh.

642
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 2: The burgomaster. Yeah. Yeah, So you mentioned that he's the

643
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 2: egor of the film. He was very much the egor

644
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 2: of the film. But yeah, the timeline of this is

645
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 2: interesting because we were chatting about this off of Mike earlier.

646
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 2: There is no egor in the novel Frankenstein. There is

647
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 2: no egor in the first Frankenstein movie. Instead, you have,

648
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 2: like you said, Fritz played by Dwight Frye, and then

649
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 2: they bring him back to play Carl, which is essentially

650
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: the same sort of character. And then it's not till

651
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, Son of Frankenstein that we get Igor. Igor,

652
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 2: we get this role that is played by Bella Lagosi.

653
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 2: But in retrospect, it's like, that's what we think of

654
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,239
Speaker 2: as this position, this sort of like deranged henchman to

655
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 2: doctor Frankenstein. We think of it as the Egor role.

656
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 3: I also think it's interesting that the actual character named

657
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 3: Egor was played by Bella Lagosi, so you would think

658
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 3: you would really remember that casting, you would associate Bella

659
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 3: with the character. But I very much think of Dwight

660
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:25,720
Speaker 3: fry when I think of Igor.

661
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's good in this role. He's got some

662
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 2: good henchman energy. He'd go on to have small roles

663
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 2: in other Frankenstein films, various other pictures. He also pops

664
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 2: up in nineteen thirty one's The Maltese Falcon. All right,

665
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,479
Speaker 2: real quick. The Burgo Master, who we mentioned, is very fun,

666
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 2: a very very fun mustachio of performance. This character is

667
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 2: played by the actor E. E. Clive, who lived eighteen

668
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 2: eighty three through nineteen forty. He was also in thirty

669
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 2: three is The Invisible Man, another one I'm going to

670
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: point out real quick in passing again, we don't have

671
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 2: time to go into all of these characters. Opi Hedgy

672
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 2: plays the Blind Hermit, an Australian born actor, one of

673
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 2: his final roles. He lived eighteen seventy seven through nineteen

674
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: thirty six.

675
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:07,240
Speaker 3: Oh, he brings a lot of humanity to the story

676
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 3: he does.

677
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 2: It is a really, it's a shame not to spend

678
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: more time on Hi because it is. He gets a

679
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 2: lot of screen time, brings humanity to the role and

680
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 2: brings humanity out of the monster. But let us not

681
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 2: forget Lord Byron. He's barely in the film, just in

682
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,959
Speaker 2: that opening bit that I believe was rather cut down.

683
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 2: But Gavin Gordon plays Lord Byron. He lived nineteen oh

684
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: one through nineteen eighty three. He was a Mississippi born

685
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 2: American actor whose credits include nineteen thirty three's Mystery of

686
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,919
Speaker 2: the Wax Museum, fifty four is White Christmas, fifty six

687
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 2: Is the Ten Commandments, the Eldest film from fifty eight

688
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 2: Keen Creole, and also the nineteen fifty nine movie The

689
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 2: Bat opposite Pencent Price.

690
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 3: I love him in this role, but I have no

691
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 3: idea what he's trying to do with this accent.

692
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 2: It is so over. I mean, it's a wonderful campy

693
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:57,280
Speaker 2: way to start off this film. It kind of sets

694
00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 2: the tone once you've seen Gavin Gordon Lord Byron, I mean,

695
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 2: where can you go? You are? You know, you're already

696
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 2: in the clouds.

697
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 3: It's like part really like rolling the rs on the

698
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 3: Irish accent, but then also part English accent, part Southern accent.

699
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 3: It is, it's something, it's something else.

700
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 2: Yes, now a very small role, but one that's a

701
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 2: lot of fun for film film fans and you know,

702
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 2: and horror fans certainly. There's a scene, of course, where

703
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 2: we're talking about the We have the hermit who's blind.

704
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 2: He forges this relationship with the monster, but then sighted

705
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 2: people show up and ruin it. The two sided people

706
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 2: that show up are a couple of lost hunters, one

707
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 2: of whom is played by John Kerodine. Oh yeah, who's

708
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 2: literally in everything, it.

709
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 3: Seems, in every movie ever made, so of course he

710
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 3: would be in this one too, but yeah, you wouldn't

711
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:49,399
Speaker 3: have known.

712
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's an uncredited role, but it's also unmistakable

713
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 2: because he does have some lines, and also, I mean

714
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: it's just clearly John Carradine, you know he has he

715
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: has that lean and hungry look even though he's very young. Here.

716
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen oh six through nineteen eighty eight. We've

717
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 2: discussed him on the show before. Very long career, all

718
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 2: manner of films he was in. He had already had

719
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 2: uncredited roles in thirty three's The Invisible Man and thirty

720
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 2: four's The Black Cat. He'd go on to be a

721
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 2: horror staple and would play Dracula in nineteen forty four's

722
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 2: House of Frankenstein.

723
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 3: I don't really know exactly why he should be lost.

724
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 3: Wouldn't he just know to get on the night train

725
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 3: to Mundo Fie.

726
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 2: You'd think you would think you would, all right, just

727
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: a few quick behind the scenes references. They're just because

728
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go into him in depth, but

729
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 2: just got to mention them, just because they're part of

730
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 2: the alchemy here. Franz Waxman did the score. He lived

731
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six through nineteen sixty seven. Two time Oscar

732
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 2: winner for nineteen fifty one Sunset Boulevard in fifty two

733
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 2: is A Place in the Sun. He also scored nineteen

734
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 2: forties Rebecca in nineteen forty one Suspicion it is. It

735
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 2: is a very classic Hollywood score, but it is also

736
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 2: a very good score. A lot has been written about this.

737
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily the kind of music I listened to

738
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 2: an Isolation or anything, but it is not. This is

739
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 2: no sloppy score here. This is one of those scores

740
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of thought that goes into what

741
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 2: different musical themes match up with the characters and so forth.

742
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 3: Agreed, Now, this is also an amazing looking film and

743
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 3: one with a superb makeup effects, so I think we

744
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 3: should call out those credits.

745
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 2: That's right. On the makeup front, we have Jack P.

746
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: Pierce credited for the monster makeup. He lived eighteen eighty

747
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 2: nine through nineteen sixty eight. He also did the makeup

748
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 2: on nineteen forty one's The Wolfman and Yeah, the cinematographer

749
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: on this was John J. Mescal, who lived eighteen ninety

750
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 2: nine through nineteen sixty two, also known for thirty four

751
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 2: as the Black Cat.

752
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 3: I've watched some interviews with people talking about what it

753
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 3: was like to work with Jack Pearce supplying makeup. There's

754
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 3: a story of Elsa Lanchester talking about the the painstaking,

755
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 3: delicate procedure that he would use to apply the makeup

756
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 3: for the scar running underneath the bride's jaw, which she

757
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 3: was like ultimately was only on screen for about a

758
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 3: second that you could actually see, but that you know,

759
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 3: he really was taking a kind of religious care to

760
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 3: make it perfect.

761
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in that level of craftsmanship just matches

762
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 2: up with everything else we see in the film. All right, well,

763
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 2: shall we get into the plot of this baby a

764
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 2: bit more?

765
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we start on a dark and stormy night.

766
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 3: We see a retigenous castle perched up on a rocky

767
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 3: mountaintop in the dark, with light pouring out from one

768
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 3: of the windows and thundercracks rain battering the stonework towers.

769
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 3: It's perfect Gothic setting, and inside the castle we get

770
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 3: some poets. There are three writers sitting around a roaring fireplace.

771
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,399
Speaker 3: There's also a quick shot of a lady who looks

772
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 3: almost like she's being pulled by like sled dogs indoors.

773
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 3: I think she's actually just walking dogs on a leash,

774
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 3: and she has a you know, like one of those

775
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,839
Speaker 3: large wide skirts, so you don't see her legs moving much.

776
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 3: But yeah, she's like walking dogs indoors for some reason,

777
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 3: she's quickly out of frame. And then we get to

778
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 3: this prologue, this framing idea with the characters of Percy

779
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:32,399
Speaker 3: Bis Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Wolstoncraft Shelley, who again

780
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 3: is the author of the novel Frankenstein. Oh and by

781
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: the way, if you don't know the backstory Frankenstein, the

782
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 3: novel began as a spooky story that Mary Shelley dreamed

783
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 3: up for a sort of contest. I think when these

784
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 3: three and at least one other writers, you know, some

785
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 3: group of them, were staying at a mansion near Lake

786
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 3: Geneva one year.

787
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, this would go on to be sort of the

788
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 2: germ for the nineteen eighty six film Gothic, in which

789
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 2: Gabriel Byrne plays By, Julian Sands plays Shelley, and Natasha

790
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 2: Richardson plays Mary as a kin Russell film.

791
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 3: By the way, oh really, I haven't seen that one.

792
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 2: It's been a while. I don't remember much about it.

793
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 3: Is there somebody playing John Paulodorian That was the at

794
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:15,919
Speaker 3: least one other writer. There was John Paulodori, who ended

795
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 3: up turning a story from this Summer get together into

796
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 3: a novel or novella called The Vampire.

797
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:27,959
Speaker 2: Yes, and he is played by the always excellent Timothy Spall. Oh.

798
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 3: Okay, now, as we mentioned, the guy playing Lord Byron

799
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 3: really gets into his part. In fact, I decided to

800
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,280
Speaker 3: type out his opening monologue here because he's he's looking

801
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 3: out the window at the storm, and he says, how

802
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 3: beautifully dramatic, the crudest, savage exhibition of nature at her

803
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 3: worst without and we three, we elegant three within. I

804
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 3: should like to think that an irate Jehovah was pointing

805
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 3: those arrows of lightning directly at my head, the unbowed

806
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 3: head of George Gordon, Lord Byron, England's greatest sinner. But

807
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,240
Speaker 3: then he says, but I cannot flatter myself to that extent.

808
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 3: Possibly those thunders are for our dear Shelley, referring to

809
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:16,439
Speaker 3: Percy Heaven's applause for England's greatest poet. But then Percy says, well,

810
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 3: what about my Mary? And Byron says, oh, she is

811
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 3: an angel. And Mary looks up from her embroidery with

812
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 3: this flashing smile and says, you think so ooh, and

813
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 3: I love that because her smile is a little bit creepy.

814
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because as they're about to allude to here,

815
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 2: you know, they're talking about how great they are, these

816
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 2: two male poets, but they have to acknowledge that Mary,

817
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 2: even though they're kind of treating her like this very

818
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: fragile thing, that she has already created something that is

819
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 2: terrifying to everyone there, and then they're already at least

820
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 2: a bit in awe of her creative powers.

821
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:58,439
Speaker 3: That's right. I've read that at some point James Whale

822
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 3: said to someone that with this opening scene and in

823
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 3: the movie in general, he wanted to emphasize that quote.

824
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 3: Pretty people can harbor the most twisted imaginations. So we

825
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 3: have Byron here chattering somewhat condescendingly about how, oh, Mary

826
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 3: you are, this delicate, beautiful, angelic creature, and yet she

827
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 3: has written a story so dreadful it curdled my blood. Meanwhile,

828
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 3: she's just blasting out this creepy smile with gleaming eyes

829
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 3: and giggling, and she says, why shouldn't I write monsters?

830
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 3: And there's something in this that suggests, buddy, you ain't

831
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 3: seen nothing yet.

832
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 2: They're also kind of toying with the prestige of Lord

833
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 2: Byron and Percy Shelley here his famous and influential writers,

834
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 2: while of course Mary's work I think ultimately casts a

835
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: far greater shadow over the following centuries, you know, far

836
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 2: greater than both of them combined. I don't know. My

837
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 2: fellow English majors may respectfully disagree on the matter.

838
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 3: Oh no, I would totally agree, and I think it'd

839
00:47:57,520 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 3: be kind of hard to argue with that. So not

840
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:03,319
Speaker 3: to knock either of Percy Shelley or Lord Byron. I

841
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 3: enjoy them both. I think they're both necessary reading if

842
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 3: you want to understand the Romantic movement in English literature,

843
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 3: and that each wrote some poetry that's still wonderful to

844
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: read today, I think, especially Percy. But it could be

845
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 3: argued that Mary essentially is the founder of modern science fiction,

846
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 3: and I think that's like hugely more significant in the

847
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 3: long run, and especially in the way that she established

848
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:34,799
Speaker 3: themes like the themes of Frankenstein are themes that are

849
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 3: still explored in science fiction and science fiction horror to

850
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 3: this day, especially ideas about the dark side of the

851
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 3: power unleashed by advances in science and technology. You know, Frankenstein.

852
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 3: It was a story about how not all increase of

853
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:56,720
Speaker 3: human power is good, and sometimes in blithely plowing ahead

854
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 3: with newly acquired scientific and technological powers, if you don't

855
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 3: think through the consequences, you make monsters, or you make

856
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 3: a monster out of yourself. It's one of the most

857
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 3: enduring themes of modern storytelling, and it still finds new

858
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:15,720
Speaker 3: ways of being entertaining, frightening and socially insightful. You'll encounter

859
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 3: hundreds of novels and movies and all kinds of interesting

860
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:22,919
Speaker 3: stories coming out this year that are still hashing through

861
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 3: themes that Mary Shelley raised in Frankenstein.

862
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and each time it's retold, you can do

863
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 2: it in a way that reflects modern anxieties and moderns.

864
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 2: It's abilities all right. But the other part of this

865
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 2: whole intro is that basically we get a previously on Frankenstein.

866
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that. So the framing narrative with Mary

867
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 3: Shelley serves as a way to remind us what happened

868
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,760
Speaker 3: in the previous movie. It's sort of narrated by Byron.

869
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: He's basically like a kid explaining the plot of his

870
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 3: favorite movie, except he's explaining the plot of the movie

871
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 3: Frankenstein to the author of Frankenstein.

872
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 2: Though it's perfect for what they're putting together here. Yes,

873
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 2: this was before man's plaining was a thing. I mean, well,

874
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 2: obviously it was a thing already, but before it was

875
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 2: a term. It's what we have here.

876
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 3: So the broad strokes go like this Frankenstein. The man

877
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 3: Henry in the movie, even though he's named Victor in

878
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 3: the book, creates a monster out of corpses. He uses

879
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 3: science to bring this dead man to life. There is

880
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 3: an unfortunate series of events. The monster escapes the laboratory

881
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 3: and roams the country. He is at first a gentle

882
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 3: and childlike, but he accidentally kills a young girl without

883
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 3: realizing what he is doing, and this raises an angry mob,

884
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 3: which pursues the creature. The creature flees to a windmill

885
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 3: with the unconscious Henry, carrying Henry with him, and then

886
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 3: the creature is seemingly killed in the blaze after the

887
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 3: angry mob sets the windmill on fire. So like Byron

888
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 3: goes back through all that and then elsa Ancester is like,

889
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 3: oh for real, though that's not the end of the story.

890
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:01,360
Speaker 3: Would you like to know what happened next? And yes, yes, Elsa,

891
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 3: we would.

892
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 2: And so it's time to Halloween too. This baby right

893
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 2: to just go pick up right where the last one

894
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 2: left off and start the new journey.

895
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,359
Speaker 3: I love that no time passes in between. Yeah, it's

896
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 3: just right there. The mill is still burning. So the

897
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,320
Speaker 3: action begins with the mill burning down, presumably having killed

898
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 3: the monster. Henry Frankenstein lies unconscious at the foot of

899
00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 3: the flaming tower, having been thrown nearly to his death

900
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 3: by his own creation. Henry's friends and servants load him

901
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,760
Speaker 3: into a wagon to be taken back to his family estate.

902
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,240
Speaker 3: I think they believe he is dead at this point,

903
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 3: but he's not. Meanwhile, the angry villagers cheer and they

904
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 3: shake their torches and pitchforks at the demise of the

905
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 3: hated Boris Karloff, and we get zoom ins on several

906
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 3: characters in the crowd. Here. There is, as we mentioned earlier,

907
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 3: Henry's talkative housekeeper Mini wearing this what would you call

908
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 3: this piece of headwear that she has on that I

909
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: don't know.

910
00:51:58,080 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 2: I was trying to figure it out. Is it like

911
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 2: some sort of a cultural thing that I'm supposed to

912
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:06,520
Speaker 2: pick up on or it's something historic. But yeah, it

913
00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 2: threw me for a curve trying to figure out, like

914
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:12,439
Speaker 2: what it's supposed to tell us the viewer about her role.

915
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 3: I do not know what it is. It kind of

916
00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 3: makes her head look like a venus fly trap. H

917
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,839
Speaker 3: She is discussing how happy she is to know the

918
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 3: monster is roasting in the inferno there as she also

919
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 3: explains with apparent glee, how the insides of a body

920
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 3: are the last part to burn in a fire. That's

921
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 3: just science. There's also this old, blustery guy with a

922
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 3: big mustache, the Burgomaster. He's wandering around telling everyone that

923
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 3: it's time for them to go to bed now, and

924
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 3: I just love for this guy to do a buddy

925
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 3: cop team up with Christopher Lee from the Devil rides

926
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 3: out and they can tell everyone to go to bed.

927
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 2: He's a go home, go to bed also.

928
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:57,360
Speaker 3: Though, then, amidst these funny characters, we have tragic characters

929
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:00,920
Speaker 3: the parents of the girl who was killed accidentally by

930
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 3: the monster in the previous movie. As the crowd gets

931
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 3: bored wanders away from the wreckage of the mill, the

932
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 3: girl's father, Hans, decides that he will not be satisfied

933
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 3: until he sees the creature's charred bones, so he starts

934
00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 3: picking his way down. He climbs into the rubble, but

935
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 3: then slips and tumbles down into the cellar of the

936
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 3: burning mill, which is now flooded with water. And oh,

937
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 3: in a beautifully unsettling series of shots, we see, in

938
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 3: the dark, with water falling all around, a pale hand

939
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 3: reach out across the stone work of the wall, and

940
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:43,840
Speaker 3: then from behind a corner emerges carl Off. The creature

941
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 3: is burned but still alive, and then the light of

942
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 3: the fire reflects off of the flowing water and projects

943
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 3: shimmering patterns on the monster's face. All over this great

944
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 3: makeup and the creature you can see it. He no

945
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,360
Speaker 3: longer has as the innocent and childlike nature that he

946
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 3: had in the movie before. Now the creature just immediately

947
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 3: descends on Hans and murders him. He pushes his head

948
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 3: under the waters of the flood. He's full of rage.

949
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 3: And then Hans's wife comes to help her husband, but

950
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 3: the hand that reaches up from the cellar is not

951
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 3: the hand she expects. It's the monster coming out, and

952
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 3: the monster throws her down to her death in the

953
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 3: rubble below.

954
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 2: This is a great way to reestablish the monster, because

955
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,359
Speaker 2: again we all know what everyone going into this film

956
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,960
Speaker 2: knew what the monster would look like. Retroactively watching this film,

957
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:36,760
Speaker 2: you know, some decades later, we know what the monster

958
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:41,200
Speaker 2: looks like. But the monster is so perfectly reintroduced here

959
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 2: in this dark, shadowy, submerged world, and then proceeds to

960
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 2: just brutally murder these two sympathetic characters, Like when he

961
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 2: throws the old woman back down, and like it was

962
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:57,640
Speaker 2: obviously one of these you know stunts where they have

963
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:00,840
Speaker 2: a dummy that is standing in for the of the woman,

964
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 2: but she like lands head first on the water wheel

965
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:07,360
Speaker 2: and the mill and then tumbles down. It's it's brutal.

966
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,320
Speaker 3: I totally agree, And I've always found something so profoundly

967
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,839
Speaker 3: dark about this opening. The set design is about as

968
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 3: dank and heavy as one could possibly achieve. Like we

969
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 3: begin in this flooded basement underneath the ruins of a

970
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 3: burning building. It is as close as it could be

971
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 3: to meeting the creature again in Hell. And the creature

972
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:34,360
Speaker 3: was supposed to be the ugliest thing imaginable before a

973
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 3: monster just scrabbled together out of dead flesh. And now

974
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 3: somehow he is even worse. His hair is singed off

975
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:45,439
Speaker 3: by the fire, his skin has been melted and torn open,

976
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,280
Speaker 3: He's got all these scars. He murders the grieving parents

977
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 3: of the child that he never meant to harm in

978
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 3: the first place, and then he staggers out under a

979
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,319
Speaker 3: sky that is so gray and dismal it's like the

980
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:01,719
Speaker 3: sun has never existed. This is such a opening, absolutely,

981
00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 3: But then in a reversal that will pressage that the

982
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:08,120
Speaker 3: tone of the film going forward, and a lot of

983
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 3: Wales other works as well. It goes straight from the

984
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 3: sourest gloom ever committed to film to a comedy bit. So,

985
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 3: the monster staggers up to Minnie, who is still wandering

986
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 3: around on the hillside, apparently looking for somebody whose business

987
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:26,320
Speaker 3: she can get up into, and she sees the monster,

988
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 3: and she starts making looney Tunes noises for what feels

989
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 3: like a solid minute before running away.

990
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does just goes so looney tunes. It's it's wonderful,

991
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 2: And yet again everything feels balanced, it doesn't feel jarring somehow,

992
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:44,400
Speaker 2: And part of that may be that we started out

993
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 2: so campy. We started out so broad and we're already

994
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,280
Speaker 2: weaving in and out smoothly between the comedy and the horror.

995
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you said the word camp. I think that's important.

996
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 3: A lot of critics and film historians have pointed to

997
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:02,800
Speaker 3: the importance of the camp sensibility within the rich Tonal

998
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 3: architecture of Bride Frankenstein. Camp is core to what this

999
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 3: movie is, I think, especially once Ernest Thesiger arrives and

1000
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 3: in the role of doctor Pretorious. But anyway, so to

1001
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 3: come back to the plot, Henry Frankenstein is carried unconscious

1002
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 3: and apparently dead back to his family estate, where he

1003
00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 3: is greeted by his good hearted fiance Elizabeth. And I

1004
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,440
Speaker 3: should add also that this is true for pretty much

1005
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 3: the whole movie. But the sets here are tremendous. The

1006
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 3: Frankenstein home is full of arches and firelight and all

1007
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 3: kinds of gothic flare. It's photographed beautifully, so you can

1008
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:44,920
Speaker 3: just see in every moment that Universal like really opened

1009
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:47,200
Speaker 3: up the purse to allow Whale to make the best

1010
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:47,920
Speaker 3: movie he could.

1011
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, just beautiful, beautiful sets.

1012
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,360
Speaker 3: Somewhere in the sequence, Many comes back and reports that

1013
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 3: the monster is still alive, that she saw him and

1014
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 3: of course she is ignored. I think it's the head

1015
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 3: butler who tells to shut up and then says, we

1016
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 3: don't believe in ghosts around here. So they initially think

1017
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 3: that Henry is dead, but then he moves suddenly in

1018
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 3: the presence of Elizabeth, and so she's like, oh, he's

1019
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 3: still alive, and she nurses Henry back to health. All

1020
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 3: the casting is good, but I wanted to call out

1021
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 3: the casting of Elizabeth as also quite good. You know,

1022
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 3: it's a little bit more thankless of a role than

1023
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 3: a lot of the other roles in the film, where

1024
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 3: actors really get to ham it up. Elizabeth doesn't quite

1025
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:34,840
Speaker 3: get to do that. But I think Hobson is selected

1026
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 3: because she comes off as a beacon of undiluted love

1027
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:42,320
Speaker 3: and kindness in the middle of this wretched setting. I

1028
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 3: mentioned this earlier, but I think she represents the other life,

1029
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 3: the life of virtue and bliss that Henry could have

1030
00:58:49,680 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 3: had if he had just been content rather than questing

1031
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 3: into these domains of unknown knowledge and power. Like Elizabeth

1032
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 3: is as good as gold, and they could have been

1033
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 3: happy and had that golden life together, but he wanted more.

1034
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 3: He had that Faustian temptation. He wanted, He wanted more

1035
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 3: than it is healthy for a person to want.

1036
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 2: She's like the girlfriend on the second season of The

1037
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 2: Bear For you TV viewers, I don't know the Bear well,

1038
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 2: same role, like saying you don't maybe you could, We

1039
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 2: could have a life together and you don't have to

1040
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:22,240
Speaker 2: go through this painful experience of opening this restaurant or

1041
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:25,080
Speaker 2: reopening it, which is kind of the same thing. It's like,

1042
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 2: we have a reopening of a destructive project in this

1043
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 2: in this a personally destructive project in this film, just

1044
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 2: like in that show.

1045
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 3: And we yeah, and we see some remorse. Like while recovering,

1046
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 3: Henry wonders if he is being punished for his experiments

1047
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 3: in creating the monster. He says, perhaps death is sacred

1048
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 3: and I've profaned it. But his remorse is only half

1049
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 3: the picture. It's kind of fleeting because he also still thinks,

1050
00:59:52,320 --> 00:59:56,439
Speaker 3: you know, in piecing together a superhuman strangling machine out

1051
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 3: of the mangled odds and ends of dead bodies, I

1052
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 3: might have really been on to something. He says, quote

1053
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:05,400
Speaker 3: I dreamed of giving to the world the secret that

1054
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:08,840
Speaker 3: God is so jealous of the formula for life. So

1055
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,920
Speaker 3: Henry has not completely abandoned his ambitions.

1056
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's at least yeah, there's some embers still hot

1057
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 2: in there. Of course, it's left for us to wonder, well,

1058
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 2: does he actually have the wherewithal to do this again?

1059
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 2: Is he just sort of idally dreaming? And maybe that's

1060
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 2: the case, Maybe he wouldn't have the courage and the

1061
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 2: strength to go through with that nightmare again as long

1062
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 2: as nobody comes along and encourages him to pick it

1063
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 2: up again.

1064
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, And here things really start cooking into

1065
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 3: the picture comes doctor Septimus Pretorious. What can we say

1066
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 3: of Doctor Septimus Pretorious? The look, the attitude, the scowl.

1067
01:00:51,920 --> 01:00:56,520
Speaker 3: He's so ernest messager. Is this tall, gaunt man with

1068
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 3: light colored, frizzy, curly hair, and he he puts on

1069
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 3: this amazing scowl, this resting stink face that throughout pretty

1070
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 3: much the whole movie. And from his very first line

1071
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:14,280
Speaker 3: he is committed to being a lot.

1072
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 2: Yes he is. He is a lot. He has so

1073
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:24,200
Speaker 2: much the I mean the most the most entertaining character

1074
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 2: in this film. Among so many other entertaining characters, he

1075
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 2: has to stand out as one of the most the

1076
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 2: most entertaining characters in just cinema in general, Like, yeah,

1077
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 2: it's everything we see from him is golden here, it's

1078
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 2: it's it's almost a shame that we don't get to

1079
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 2: experience this same actor in this same role in other pictures.

1080
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 2: But and again, that's kind of what.

1081
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 3: Makes it special, that's right. So he arrives at the

1082
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 3: door of the Frankenstein estate. He says he must see

1083
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 3: Henry tonight on a secret matter of grave importance, and

1084
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:57,480
Speaker 3: I guess it's many who lets him in, Like, okay,

1085
01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:02,040
Speaker 3: grave importance, So we love. Doctor Pretorius is a professor,

1086
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 3: a former mentor of Henry's, but has recently been ejected

1087
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 3: from the academy for reasons that are only vaguely alluded

1088
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:16,000
Speaker 3: to with summaries, such as fore knowing too much. But

1089
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 3: once doctor Pretorius has gotten Elizabeth out of Henry's bedroom,

1090
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 3: he goes to Henry's bedside and says that he knows

1091
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:26,919
Speaker 3: of Henry's experiments, He knows about the monster, and he says,

1092
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 3: we've got to work together. He wants their experimentation to

1093
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 3: go on, no longer as master and pupil, but as

1094
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 3: fellow scientists. In fact, he says, in Henry's absence, he

1095
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:43,280
Speaker 3: has continued his own forbidden studies in secret and managed

1096
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 3: to create life of a sort on his own. So

1097
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 3: Henry initially tries to resist doctor Pretorius's recruitment. He's like, no, no,

1098
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 3: I have to get married to Elizabeth. But when he

1099
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 3: hears that his former teacher has also found the formula

1100
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:00,600
Speaker 3: for life, he says he must see what he has accomplished.

1101
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 2: And you know, you might expect that doctor Pretorius has

1102
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 2: created something more or less like the monster, but maybe

1103
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 2: not as good, you know, like it's it's it's it's

1104
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 2: less powerful, there's something imperfect about it. And I think

1105
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 2: this is a this is a this would be a

1106
01:03:20,240 --> 01:03:24,160
Speaker 2: good guess, but this film is not going to align

1107
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 2: with the easy guesswork you might have in Blaze here

1108
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 2: like this, Well, what he has been working on is tremendous.

1109
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 3: That's right. So they go back to Pretorius's lab to

1110
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:36,000
Speaker 3: see what he has done, and here we come to

1111
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 3: the famous Homunculi scene. First at his lab, Pretorious, this

1112
01:03:40,840 --> 01:03:42,880
Speaker 3: is the part where he offers a toast to a

1113
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:45,800
Speaker 3: new world of gods and monsters, and then he gets

1114
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 3: out this huge black box to show Henry what's inside,

1115
01:03:49,600 --> 01:03:52,320
Speaker 3: talking the whole time about how enthralling it is to

1116
01:03:52,400 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 3: create life. He says, my experiments went in a different

1117
01:03:56,040 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 3: direction than yours, But science, like love, is always full

1118
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:05,080
Speaker 3: of surprises. Why does he say that? Like love? There

1119
01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:10,400
Speaker 3: seems to be something really inherently sensual about doctor Pretorius's

1120
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:11,680
Speaker 3: idea of science.

1121
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:14,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it is all consuming, that's for sure.

1122
01:04:15,400 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 3: So he unveiled. Pretorious unveils these glass jars with tiny

1123
01:04:21,480 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 3: living people inside them, and I should just say that

1124
01:04:25,480 --> 01:04:30,480
Speaker 3: the effects here are spectacular. He has created homunculi. And

1125
01:04:30,520 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 3: he explains that he first created a woman who was

1126
01:04:33,760 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 3: so lovely that he had to make her a queen.

1127
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 3: So she's here in this regal gown on a throne.

1128
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 3: And he says, next, since he had a queen, he

1129
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 3: had to make a king, and the king is apparently

1130
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 3: obsessed with getting out of his jar and getting to

1131
01:04:47,080 --> 01:04:50,120
Speaker 3: the queen. Then he says he made another tiny man

1132
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 3: quote who looked so disapprovingly at the other two that

1133
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 3: they made him an archbishop. Now I guess this somehow

1134
01:04:59,160 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 3: got past the Hay Code prohibition, and it's making fun

1135
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:04,520
Speaker 3: of the clergy, or I don't know, to be fair,

1136
01:05:04,560 --> 01:05:07,320
Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly how the Hayes code affected this movie,

1137
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 3: but this was left in for some reason.

1138
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like, likewise, there are some other

1139
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 2: lines we've already touched on that feel like if you

1140
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 2: were gonna be picky about blasphemous statements, might have been

1141
01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:20,000
Speaker 2: picked on. But I don't know. It's like, I'm not

1142
01:05:20,040 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 2: sure offhand what they cut compared to what they kept.

1143
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 2: And maybe they let this slide too, because it's like

1144
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:29,720
Speaker 2: it's not as much about the clergy being dumb as

1145
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:32,320
Speaker 2: it is about like, just look how awful this king is.

1146
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:35,320
Speaker 2: He's like, this clergy member is just done with them.

1147
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:39,720
Speaker 2: But to be clear, these are little people wearing full costumes.

1148
01:05:39,760 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 2: They're like a miniature king and queen, a miniature archbishop

1149
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 2: or whatever it's it is. This is so comedically weird.

1150
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 3: Yes. Oh and the fourth homunculus, by the way, is

1151
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 3: a devil. It's the devil. Messeger says, there's a resemblance

1152
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:01,800
Speaker 3: to me, don't you think doctorious than muses? That wouldn't

1153
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 3: life be simpler if we were all devils? No nonsense

1154
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 3: about angels and being good.

1155
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 2: He's really laying it out out there. He's like, look,

1156
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:12,880
Speaker 2: there's no good. There's no bad. There's just the work

1157
01:06:12,960 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 2: at hand. And we've got a team up again. Because

1158
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 2: I've got my ideas, you've got your ideas. Together, we

1159
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:21,200
Speaker 2: can really make the perfect being.

1160
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 3: Oh. Also he made a ballerina and a mermaid.

1161
01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:28,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd forgotten that there were so many additional creature

1162
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 2: being some unculi that he had made, because this scene

1163
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:34,360
Speaker 2: goes on a while, and a lot of effort went

1164
01:06:34,400 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 2: into into making each of these homunculi tubes. It's very impressive.

1165
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 3: So Henry is appalled by this. I'm not quite sure

1166
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:46,400
Speaker 3: exactly why Henry is so appalled by the homunculi compared

1167
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:49,800
Speaker 3: to the monster he made, But he says, this isn't science,

1168
01:06:49,880 --> 01:06:53,360
Speaker 3: it's more like black magic. And doctor Pretorius says, you

1169
01:06:53,440 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 3: think I'm mad, Perhaps I am, But listen to Henry Frankenstein. Well,

1170
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 3: you were digging in your grave, piecing together dead tissues. I,

1171
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 3: my dear pupil, went for my materials, to the source

1172
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 3: of life. I grew my creatures like cultures, grew them

1173
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:16,000
Speaker 3: as nature does from seed. Yeah, and I think that

1174
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:19,160
Speaker 3: means exactly what it sounds like. I think Pretorius here

1175
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 3: is operating on the basis of the ideology of spermist preformationism.

1176
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:27,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. I believe we discussed in some past episodes of

1177
01:07:27,960 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your mind.

1178
01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:33,600
Speaker 3: The idea that, like the human body, it's sort of

1179
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:36,480
Speaker 3: an alternative to cell theory, is that like the human

1180
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 3: body is fully formed, just very tiny in the sex cells,

1181
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:43,200
Speaker 3: and the spermists thought that they were that the human

1182
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:45,800
Speaker 3: bodies were in the sperm, not in the eggs.

1183
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:49,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I mean already they're laying out a really

1184
01:07:49,800 --> 01:07:53,160
Speaker 2: cool idea and one that the film will will fulfill.

1185
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:57,280
Speaker 2: The idea that on one hand, doctor Pretorius is all

1186
01:07:57,320 --> 01:08:02,440
Speaker 2: about growing new life. Slickenstein is about assembling new life

1187
01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:05,600
Speaker 2: and instilling energy in it. And if you bring these

1188
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:09,040
Speaker 2: two disciplines together, well then there's there's no limit to

1189
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 2: what you can create.

1190
01:08:10,160 --> 01:08:13,080
Speaker 3: That's right. So Pretorius beckons Henry to join him. He says,

1191
01:08:13,080 --> 01:08:15,840
Speaker 3: together they can discover all the secrets of creating life.

1192
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:19,040
Speaker 3: He says, leave your Charnel house and follow the lead

1193
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:23,440
Speaker 3: of nature or of God if you like your Bible stories.

1194
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 3: So doctor Pretorius wants to not only create life from

1195
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 3: non life, but together with Henry, he thinks that they

1196
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:37,240
Speaker 3: can make two living beings that can join in sexual

1197
01:08:37,400 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 3: union and reproduce with one another, giving rise to a

1198
01:08:41,479 --> 01:08:45,960
Speaker 3: whole new line of created creatures. Henry is horrified. He

1199
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:49,480
Speaker 3: claims he won't do it, but Pretorius is mighty persuasive.

1200
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't even really have to get heavy handed

1201
01:08:52,360 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 2: at this point. He's just like like, do it, do it.

1202
01:08:54,880 --> 01:09:05,400
Speaker 2: You're doing it. Come on, you're doing it. He's like, okay. Now.

1203
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:09,240
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, so we leave that scene for a while and

1204
01:09:09,280 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 3: we revisit the creature. So the creature, having escaped to

1205
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:15,000
Speaker 3: the burning mill, wanders through a forest, which is an

1206
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 3: absolutely gorgeous bucolic indoor forest set. You know, I love those.

1207
01:09:19,760 --> 01:09:22,960
Speaker 3: It's got a canopy of slanted pine trees and a

1208
01:09:23,040 --> 01:09:26,840
Speaker 3: rushing waterfall, and the creature drinks from a stream, but

1209
01:09:26,960 --> 01:09:29,920
Speaker 3: he sees his face reflected in the water and then

1210
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:33,200
Speaker 3: strikes out at it in anger. He hates his own image.

1211
01:09:33,600 --> 01:09:36,040
Speaker 2: And again, I just want to drive home that while

1212
01:09:36,080 --> 01:09:40,200
Speaker 2: there's so much about Carlos Frankenstein's Monster that has become

1213
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 2: a stereotype of the horror genre that has become kind

1214
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:47,200
Speaker 2: of cliche, when you see the actual performance, there is

1215
01:09:47,240 --> 01:09:49,800
Speaker 2: so much more nuance to it. You know, it's easy

1216
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:51,720
Speaker 2: to think of it as just you know, like firebag,

1217
01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 2: you know, and sort of think of the like the

1218
01:09:54,479 --> 01:09:58,720
Speaker 2: Phil Hartman Saturday Night Live version of the thing. But yeah,

1219
01:09:58,760 --> 01:10:01,720
Speaker 2: there's just so many additional levels to it, Like there

1220
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:06,400
Speaker 2: is this real authentic feeling of this being that cannot

1221
01:10:06,439 --> 01:10:09,960
Speaker 2: communicate properly about the world around him, but has like

1222
01:10:10,080 --> 01:10:13,360
Speaker 2: intense emotions and trauma and even a little bit of

1223
01:10:13,360 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 2: hope still remaining about how he connects to it all.

1224
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:20,240
Speaker 3: I totally agree that the Frankenstein creature is so much

1225
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:23,840
Speaker 3: more complex than the impression you would get from the parodies.

1226
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:27,320
Speaker 3: And as I said earlier, that does go straight back

1227
01:10:27,360 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 3: to the novel. The creature is an extremely complex and

1228
01:10:30,600 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 3: thoughtful and emotional being in the novel. So in this scene,

1229
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:36,960
Speaker 3: there's a shepherdess leading some lambs through the forest. The

1230
01:10:37,000 --> 01:10:40,040
Speaker 3: shepherdess sees the creature and she screams in terror and

1231
01:10:40,080 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 3: falls into the water, and the creature actually goes and

1232
01:10:42,840 --> 01:10:46,479
Speaker 3: saves her from drowning. And you know, I think something

1233
01:10:46,640 --> 01:10:49,679
Speaker 3: interesting is going on here. Where just in the scene before,

1234
01:10:50,400 --> 01:10:52,880
Speaker 3: a character fell into the water with the creature, and

1235
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:56,800
Speaker 3: the creature drowned that character on purpose. He was so

1236
01:10:57,000 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 3: filled with rage. Here somebody falls into the water and

1237
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 3: he tries to save their life. So I think this

1238
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:07,360
Speaker 3: is also supposed to communicate something about the creature just

1239
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 3: being so filled with churning emotions and contradictions. It doesn't

1240
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:16,880
Speaker 3: know what it is. The creature doesn't know if he

1241
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:20,520
Speaker 3: is if he is good or evil, and doesn't know

1242
01:11:21,040 --> 01:11:24,760
Speaker 3: which path to embrace. He's just sort of flying back

1243
01:11:24,800 --> 01:11:28,280
Speaker 3: and forth from one to the other. But anyway, so

1244
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:30,840
Speaker 3: the woman falls in the water, he saves her, but

1245
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:34,160
Speaker 3: then she is of course terrified of him. She starts

1246
01:11:34,200 --> 01:11:37,639
Speaker 3: to scream, and the creature is frightened by this. He

1247
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:40,519
Speaker 3: tries to stop her screaming by covering her mouth, which

1248
01:11:40,640 --> 01:11:43,320
Speaker 3: just makes it worse. And then men with guns come

1249
01:11:43,320 --> 01:11:45,479
Speaker 3: and start shooting at the creature. They wound him, but

1250
01:11:45,520 --> 01:11:49,160
Speaker 3: he escapes into the wild and the townspeople raise a

1251
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 3: mob to chase the monster once again. This is another

1252
01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:55,880
Speaker 3: chased by the crowd scene, And one thing I wanted

1253
01:11:55,920 --> 01:12:00,559
Speaker 3: to point out is how the forest set changed from

1254
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 3: the previous scene to this one. So when the monster

1255
01:12:03,479 --> 01:12:07,840
Speaker 3: is wandering alone before the mob attacks him, before he

1256
01:12:07,920 --> 01:12:10,800
Speaker 3: has been you know, seen and hated again by humanity,

1257
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:14,200
Speaker 3: the forest is lush and lovely and alive, and now

1258
01:12:14,280 --> 01:12:17,559
Speaker 3: that he is again being hunted and despised. The trees

1259
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:21,160
Speaker 3: are all these straight, bare trunks without leaves or branches,

1260
01:12:21,240 --> 01:12:24,439
Speaker 3: and it's set against a dark sky and these crooked rocks,

1261
01:12:25,000 --> 01:12:28,120
Speaker 3: And I think the film uses set and setting to

1262
01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:30,280
Speaker 3: infuse the scenes with emotion.

1263
01:12:31,040 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned this, because this is something that

1264
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:35,200
Speaker 2: I don't think I actually I didn't think about it

1265
01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:37,000
Speaker 2: as I was watching. I was so caught up in

1266
01:12:37,040 --> 01:12:39,559
Speaker 2: the action of it all. But I think you're absolutely right,

1267
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 2: Like they're they're manipulating their their tightly controlled set world

1268
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:47,479
Speaker 2: here uh to uh to imbue the scene with just

1269
01:12:47,520 --> 01:12:50,160
Speaker 2: the right amount of just the right emotion and just

1270
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:51,320
Speaker 2: the right energy.

1271
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:53,840
Speaker 3: So this all has a momentum of its own. That

1272
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 3: the creature is caught by the mob, bound up like

1273
01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:01,400
Speaker 3: tied to a pole, taken into town, thrown into a dungeon,

1274
01:13:01,920 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 3: chained up to this heavy wooden chair that looks like

1275
01:13:04,520 --> 01:13:07,320
Speaker 3: some kind of torture device. All throughout the creature is

1276
01:13:07,360 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 3: groaning in pain and misery. This is the scene where

1277
01:13:10,479 --> 01:13:12,680
Speaker 3: Minnie is looking down the window at the dungeon and

1278
01:13:12,840 --> 01:13:16,680
Speaker 3: is like ooh, ooh, she's just getting too excited about this.

1279
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:21,120
Speaker 3: But of course, first chance he gets Karloff, snaps the chains,

1280
01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 3: breaks out of prison, kicks down the heavy wooden doors. Meanwhile,

1281
01:13:25,360 --> 01:13:30,160
Speaker 3: that mustachioed character, the Burgomaster from the guy from earlier

1282
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:32,519
Speaker 3: who was telling everybody to go to bed, there's a

1283
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:34,719
Speaker 3: really funny part where he's trying to clear the crowd.

1284
01:13:34,760 --> 01:13:37,760
Speaker 3: He's saying, nothing to worry about, just an escaped lunatic,

1285
01:13:37,880 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 3: quite harmless, while the monster is kicking down the door

1286
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:43,000
Speaker 3: of the prison in the background.

1287
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:47,400
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is great because, yeah, this part is funny,

1288
01:13:47,400 --> 01:13:50,240
Speaker 2: and yet at the same time, the daytime rampage is

1289
01:13:50,240 --> 01:13:53,360
Speaker 2: still terrifying, and I think it's more terrifying because it

1290
01:13:53,400 --> 01:13:54,080
Speaker 2: is in the daylight.

1291
01:13:54,439 --> 01:13:57,880
Speaker 3: I agree. So there's this rampage, the monster harms people

1292
01:13:57,880 --> 01:14:00,360
Speaker 3: in the process of escaping the town, but eventually gets

1293
01:14:00,360 --> 01:14:04,880
Speaker 3: out into the woods. And so eventually this leads up

1294
01:14:04,920 --> 01:14:08,599
Speaker 3: to the part where the monster is drawn to the cabin.

1295
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:11,160
Speaker 3: The cabin in the woods where the old hermit lives.

1296
01:14:11,160 --> 01:14:13,840
Speaker 3: He's drawn by the sound of music. So this old

1297
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:16,880
Speaker 3: blind man lives alone in a cottage and he's playing

1298
01:14:16,920 --> 01:14:21,040
Speaker 3: ave Maria on the violin. The creature likes the music,

1299
01:14:21,080 --> 01:14:22,839
Speaker 3: and so he comes to the door of the cabin,

1300
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 3: and unlike everyone else who fears and rejects the monster,

1301
01:14:27,400 --> 01:14:30,720
Speaker 3: the blind man welcomes the creature into his house. He

1302
01:14:30,800 --> 01:14:35,720
Speaker 3: offers him hospitality, and he offers him friendship, gives the

1303
01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:38,439
Speaker 3: creature food, He cares for his wounds, and he shows

1304
01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:41,760
Speaker 3: him kindness. When the creature is unable to speak, the

1305
01:14:41,800 --> 01:14:44,920
Speaker 3: old man says, perhaps you are afflicted too. I cannot

1306
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:48,040
Speaker 3: see and you cannot speak. But he says, I've prayed

1307
01:14:48,040 --> 01:14:50,920
Speaker 3: many times for God to send me a friend. God

1308
01:14:50,960 --> 01:14:53,320
Speaker 3: has taken pity on my loneliness, and we can be

1309
01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:56,080
Speaker 3: friends to each other. And so this turns into a

1310
01:14:56,120 --> 01:15:00,639
Speaker 3: really beautiful short story in the middle of the the movie. Here,

1311
01:15:00,760 --> 01:15:04,479
Speaker 3: you know, the blind man does not even understand how

1312
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:08,559
Speaker 3: uncommon the friendship he's offering is to the person he's

1313
01:15:08,560 --> 01:15:12,479
Speaker 3: offering it to, and so the creature seems he accepts

1314
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:14,800
Speaker 3: the hospitality, and the creature goes on to live with

1315
01:15:14,880 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 3: this blind man for some unspecified length of time, during

1316
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:23,680
Speaker 3: which he learns to speak. The old man teaches him words,

1317
01:15:24,120 --> 01:15:27,120
Speaker 3: teaches him about bread, wine and cigars, and oh boy,

1318
01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:29,519
Speaker 3: when you know what he's learning about cigars. At first,

1319
01:15:29,600 --> 01:15:32,479
Speaker 3: fire bad, so the creature doesn't like that, but he

1320
01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:35,440
Speaker 3: figures out pretty soon that he likes smoking cigars.

1321
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:40,639
Speaker 2: Yes, these things are hilarious but also very poignant as well,

1322
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:44,360
Speaker 2: like he's because the monster is learning to enjoy life

1323
01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:47,920
Speaker 2: for the first time, and the blind man is sharing

1324
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:49,599
Speaker 2: the enjoyments of life with him.

1325
01:15:49,840 --> 01:15:53,400
Speaker 3: After gaining a vocabulary, the creature learns to express his

1326
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:58,120
Speaker 3: feelings in words, and he says things like alone, bad, friend, good.

1327
01:15:59,800 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 3: But this happy interlude is broken when two hunters, including

1328
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:06,160
Speaker 3: John Kridy and come to the cabin asking for directions,

1329
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:09,639
Speaker 3: and uh oh, they see the monster, you know exactly what.

1330
01:16:09,720 --> 01:16:14,200
Speaker 3: A fight breaks out, the cabin catches fire, and everyone

1331
01:16:14,280 --> 01:16:18,880
Speaker 3: runs off in their separate directions. So the creature's chance

1332
01:16:18,920 --> 01:16:21,800
Speaker 3: here and having a good life is thwarted, and the

1333
01:16:21,840 --> 01:16:25,960
Speaker 3: creature wanders at night through a desolate cemetery in a rage.

1334
01:16:26,439 --> 01:16:29,559
Speaker 3: And this graveyard set is fantastic. It's like the graveyard

1335
01:16:29,560 --> 01:16:32,320
Speaker 3: at the end of the world. High contrasts, dead trees

1336
01:16:32,400 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 3: reaching like ghostly fingers. There's mist rising from the consecrated earth,

1337
01:16:37,760 --> 01:16:40,040
Speaker 3: and then in his anger and despair, the creature is

1338
01:16:40,120 --> 01:16:44,040
Speaker 3: literally toppling monuments and grave markers. He hates every work

1339
01:16:44,080 --> 01:16:47,639
Speaker 3: of man, but he decides to hide out. The creature

1340
01:16:47,760 --> 01:16:50,439
Speaker 3: tries to hide from the angry mob by climbing down

1341
01:16:50,479 --> 01:16:54,439
Speaker 3: into a subterranean crypt. And what's this. Down in the crypt,

1342
01:16:54,439 --> 01:16:58,920
Speaker 3: he sees three figures coming carrying lanterns, descending into the catacomb,

1343
01:16:59,320 --> 01:17:02,680
Speaker 3: and one of them is our old friend, doctor Septimus Pretorious.

1344
01:17:03,320 --> 01:17:07,640
Speaker 2: M Yes, now before even encountering him. Though, this is

1345
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:11,280
Speaker 2: already so perfect because the monster earlier in the film

1346
01:17:11,320 --> 01:17:15,439
Speaker 2: emerges from the underworld and and has all these encounters,

1347
01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:17,519
Speaker 2: seems to find a new a new way to look

1348
01:17:17,560 --> 01:17:19,800
Speaker 2: at life, and now he is forced to descend back

1349
01:17:19,800 --> 01:17:22,439
Speaker 2: into the underworld. You know, it's it's like all his

1350
01:17:22,479 --> 01:17:25,800
Speaker 2: attempts have failed. But sometimes in the underworld you do

1351
01:17:25,960 --> 01:17:30,720
Speaker 2: run into the devil and inter Yet doctor Pretorious and

1352
01:17:30,960 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 2: his guns.

1353
01:17:31,960 --> 01:17:34,759
Speaker 3: His two oh my god, she's accompanied by these two

1354
01:17:35,280 --> 01:17:38,880
Speaker 3: cursed wax and goons, one of them played by Dwight Fry.

1355
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:42,280
Speaker 3: The characters are named Carl and Ludwig. They're here to

1356
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,280
Speaker 3: do the heavy lifting for this midnight grave robbing mission.

1357
01:17:46,040 --> 01:17:48,000
Speaker 3: There's there's supposed to be criminals of some sort of

1358
01:17:48,040 --> 01:17:50,840
Speaker 3: Pretorious threatens to send them back to the gallows where

1359
01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:53,400
Speaker 3: they belong if they don't get on with the body removal,

1360
01:17:54,280 --> 01:17:57,120
Speaker 3: So they select a grave. They steal the woman's body

1361
01:17:57,160 --> 01:18:00,280
Speaker 3: from the grave. Looking on, Pretorius says, I hope her

1362
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:04,360
Speaker 3: bones are firm. But eventually so they get the body.

1363
01:18:04,439 --> 01:18:07,599
Speaker 3: The grave robbers leave, but Pretorious stays. And then this

1364
01:18:07,640 --> 01:18:09,600
Speaker 3: is probably my favorite scene in the movie, where he

1365
01:18:10,320 --> 01:18:13,479
Speaker 3: Pretorious is just like, I rather like this place. I

1366
01:18:13,479 --> 01:18:15,839
Speaker 3: shall stay here for a bit and just has himself

1367
01:18:15,880 --> 01:18:21,200
Speaker 3: a cackling picnic in the middle of the catacomb, wine, cheese, skeletons.

1368
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:24,160
Speaker 3: He won't stop laughing. He's having a great time.

1369
01:18:24,920 --> 01:18:28,360
Speaker 2: I think he has her bones, that the woman's bones

1370
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:31,320
Speaker 2: like piled up there in the middle of his little

1371
01:18:31,320 --> 01:18:31,720
Speaker 2: pic neck.

1372
01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:33,320
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, is that what it is? Okay?

1373
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:36,160
Speaker 2: If not her bones, someone else's bones. Either way, it's

1374
01:18:36,200 --> 01:18:40,439
Speaker 2: a it's a gothic delight. I should I should also

1375
01:18:40,479 --> 01:18:43,280
Speaker 2: point out like he's already like he's shown that he's

1376
01:18:43,320 --> 01:18:45,560
Speaker 2: such a you can't trust anything, he says, because this

1377
01:18:45,600 --> 01:18:47,680
Speaker 2: whole thing to Frankenstein was like, we're done with with

1378
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:49,040
Speaker 2: dead bodies, old boy.

1379
01:18:49,360 --> 01:18:49,839
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1380
01:18:50,439 --> 01:18:52,760
Speaker 2: The next thing we see from him. Is he's down

1381
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:54,559
Speaker 2: there grave robbin with a couple of goods.

1382
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:56,960
Speaker 3: That's right, Okay, I think you're right. Actually, I was

1383
01:18:57,000 --> 01:19:00,720
Speaker 3: thinking about the that the goons still took the with them,

1384
01:19:01,040 --> 01:19:03,439
Speaker 3: but I think they got these bones out and he's

1385
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:05,800
Speaker 3: like just hanging out with the bones. I think that's right.

1386
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:09,400
Speaker 2: But yes, tremendous saint just cackling in the crypt.

1387
01:19:09,880 --> 01:19:12,640
Speaker 3: But the monster comes out of hiding and meets doctor Pretorius.

1388
01:19:12,680 --> 01:19:15,400
Speaker 3: Pretorius says, oh, I thought I was alone, and then

1389
01:19:15,439 --> 01:19:18,439
Speaker 3: he shares his food, wine and cigars. But the creature

1390
01:19:18,560 --> 01:19:21,000
Speaker 3: much like the old man did in the cottage in

1391
01:19:21,040 --> 01:19:25,680
Speaker 3: the woods, except whereas that was wholesome and friendly, there's

1392
01:19:25,720 --> 01:19:29,280
Speaker 3: a different subtext here. Instead, it feels more like he's

1393
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:31,679
Speaker 3: being enticed into a deal with the devil here.

1394
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:35,240
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So they sort of get.

1395
01:19:35,120 --> 01:19:39,240
Speaker 3: To know each other, and then Pretorius explains his plans

1396
01:19:39,240 --> 01:19:42,320
Speaker 3: to the monster. He says that he promises that he

1397
01:19:42,400 --> 01:19:45,960
Speaker 3: will make the monster a friend, a woman like him

1398
01:19:46,240 --> 01:19:48,840
Speaker 3: to be his wife. So this takes us into the

1399
01:19:48,920 --> 01:19:52,240
Speaker 3: last act of the movie. Henry and Elizabeth are married

1400
01:19:52,360 --> 01:19:54,360
Speaker 3: again by the time we meet them, and I'm going

1401
01:19:54,400 --> 01:19:57,360
Speaker 3: to skip more lightly over the plot now, but Basically,

1402
01:19:57,680 --> 01:20:01,400
Speaker 3: Pretorius comes to Henry and Elizabeth home and he confronts

1403
01:20:01,439 --> 01:20:04,320
Speaker 3: Henry for help about making the bride. He's like, I've

1404
01:20:04,360 --> 01:20:06,640
Speaker 3: got to make this undead woman. You're gonna help me.

1405
01:20:07,040 --> 01:20:10,040
Speaker 3: Henry tries to refuse, but he's got an ace up

1406
01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:14,000
Speaker 3: his sleeve. He has the monster kidnap Elizabeth as a hostage,

1407
01:20:14,000 --> 01:20:16,639
Speaker 3: so Henry will have no choice but to help him

1408
01:20:16,640 --> 01:20:17,879
Speaker 3: do unholy science.

1409
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:20,000
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.

1410
01:20:20,439 --> 01:20:23,639
Speaker 3: So together they work on bringing this dead woman to life,

1411
01:20:24,160 --> 01:20:26,920
Speaker 3: and there's one hilarious part where they're trying to get

1412
01:20:26,960 --> 01:20:30,840
Speaker 3: a heart that will be appropriate, and the heart they

1413
01:20:30,840 --> 01:20:33,439
Speaker 3: have doesn't work. Henry says he needs a better one,

1414
01:20:33,520 --> 01:20:37,360
Speaker 3: so Pretorius calls up Carl, that's Dwight Fry, and he's like, Carl,

1415
01:20:37,920 --> 01:20:42,799
Speaker 3: go to the accident hospital. We need a fresh heart

1416
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:47,040
Speaker 3: from a young woman. And you know where this is going, yeah, exactly.

1417
01:20:47,120 --> 01:20:50,400
Speaker 3: So Carl just like goes and murders someone and then

1418
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:52,880
Speaker 3: he shows up with a heart, and Henry's like, wow,

1419
01:20:52,960 --> 01:20:56,559
Speaker 3: this is a really fresh heart. Good job, and Carl's

1420
01:20:56,720 --> 01:21:04,960
Speaker 3: like it was a police case. But anyway, so they

1421
01:21:05,240 --> 01:21:07,479
Speaker 3: do all their unholy science and the bride is brought

1422
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:10,240
Speaker 3: to life. During an electrical storm, wrapped up like a

1423
01:21:10,360 --> 01:21:13,839
Speaker 3: mummy in these bandages. And eventually the bandages are peeled

1424
01:21:13,880 --> 01:21:17,080
Speaker 3: back and the reveal this is the bride of Frankenstein.

1425
01:21:17,360 --> 01:21:20,880
Speaker 3: It's Elsa Wnchester. Uh what what would you say to

1426
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:21,680
Speaker 3: describe her here?

1427
01:21:21,760 --> 01:21:25,160
Speaker 2: Rob oh Well, I already mentioned the Avian energy, and

1428
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:29,760
Speaker 2: certainly everybody knows the look the hair, but god Like,

1429
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:33,160
Speaker 2: initially she's still wrapped in bandages. You don't know what

1430
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:35,320
Speaker 2: you're gonna see. You know, there's their elements of a

1431
01:21:35,439 --> 01:21:38,920
Speaker 2: mummy to the way she's wrapped up. And then when

1432
01:21:38,920 --> 01:21:41,120
Speaker 2: we start taking them off, yeah, you begin to see

1433
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:44,120
Speaker 2: that she is. This what they've they've really managed to

1434
01:21:44,160 --> 01:21:47,759
Speaker 2: look for the bride. That is this uncanny place between

1435
01:21:47,840 --> 01:21:51,599
Speaker 2: otherworldly beauty and and and and really the grave.

1436
01:21:52,200 --> 01:21:56,080
Speaker 3: That's right, and tragically so they So the monster comes

1437
01:21:56,080 --> 01:21:59,160
Speaker 3: out after his bride has been created, and the monster

1438
01:21:59,439 --> 01:22:05,040
Speaker 3: hopefully approaches her, saying friend, friend. But here's where the

1439
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:09,240
Speaker 3: real tragedy comes in. Even she from beyond the grave

1440
01:22:09,600 --> 01:22:14,200
Speaker 3: rejects Karlof, rejects the monster. She screams, she finds him

1441
01:22:14,280 --> 01:22:16,439
Speaker 3: terrifying and ugly, and she.

1442
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:19,320
Speaker 2: Kind of does this hiss thing. Eventually, too. Maybe that's

1443
01:22:19,360 --> 01:22:21,920
Speaker 2: towards the end, but I really like that moment as

1444
01:22:21,960 --> 01:22:25,040
Speaker 2: well because it also sort of served to underline the

1445
01:22:25,080 --> 01:22:28,000
Speaker 2: fact that like she is, she is monster as well,

1446
01:22:28,040 --> 01:22:31,880
Speaker 2: like she's not I mean in the same way that

1447
01:22:31,880 --> 01:22:34,960
Speaker 2: that Karlov's monster is also a victim. Yes, she is

1448
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:36,599
Speaker 2: also a victim. She did not ask to be brought

1449
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:40,880
Speaker 2: into this world. But she is also not human in

1450
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:42,840
Speaker 2: the same way that the monster is not human.

1451
01:22:43,120 --> 01:22:46,880
Speaker 3: That's right. She immediately seems to recognize the wrongness of

1452
01:22:46,920 --> 01:22:51,000
Speaker 3: her own existence, like you know, love dead, hate living,

1453
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:55,760
Speaker 3: and she hisses, and that hiss signals almost that like

1454
01:22:55,800 --> 01:22:59,479
Speaker 3: she doesn't want to exist. The hiss apparently was elsa

1455
01:22:59,520 --> 01:23:04,320
Speaker 3: Lanchester idea, and she got the idea from observing geese.

1456
01:23:04,800 --> 01:23:07,439
Speaker 3: You know geese his Yeah, so she was trying to

1457
01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:09,479
Speaker 3: do like a goose's threatening hiss.

1458
01:23:10,240 --> 01:23:12,080
Speaker 2: Oh, very good, excellent addition.

1459
01:23:12,640 --> 01:23:15,599
Speaker 3: So in the very end, the creature just defeated by

1460
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:21,639
Speaker 3: by this rejection. He allows Henry and Elizabeth to escape

1461
01:23:21,640 --> 01:23:25,080
Speaker 3: the castle. He tells them to live, but as for himself,

1462
01:23:25,280 --> 01:23:29,840
Speaker 3: the bride and doctor Pretorius, he says, we belong dead

1463
01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:33,080
Speaker 3: and flips this lever that had been established would would

1464
01:23:33,200 --> 01:23:36,240
Speaker 3: reduce the I think Pretorius said it would reduce their

1465
01:23:36,280 --> 01:23:39,160
Speaker 3: castle to atoms. It doesn't quite do that, but it

1466
01:23:39,160 --> 01:23:41,120
Speaker 3: does cause a great destruction.

1467
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:44,760
Speaker 2: Yes, again, this is the beautiful discuction scene that I

1468
01:23:44,800 --> 01:23:47,240
Speaker 2: was talking about at the top of the episode. Just oh,

1469
01:23:47,320 --> 01:23:50,559
Speaker 2: it's so beautiful. Everything I mean in the film, certainly,

1470
01:23:50,560 --> 01:23:53,200
Speaker 2: but this, this last stretches last third of the picture.

1471
01:23:53,439 --> 01:23:58,280
Speaker 2: I mean that the laboratory looks amazing, the lightning effects,

1472
01:23:58,320 --> 01:24:02,840
Speaker 2: the kites they send up, the the the resurrection or

1473
01:24:03,920 --> 01:24:07,439
Speaker 2: energizing of the bride is so wonderful. Everything is just

1474
01:24:07,520 --> 01:24:08,200
Speaker 2: pitch perfect.

1475
01:24:08,680 --> 01:24:12,040
Speaker 3: I totally agree, And I guess that's got to be

1476
01:24:12,080 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 3: the end, right, that's Bride of Frankenstein. I will just

1477
01:24:14,560 --> 01:24:17,360
Speaker 3: say again, I love this movie. I think it's like

1478
01:24:17,600 --> 01:24:21,760
Speaker 3: top tier weird horror, just unbeatable.

1479
01:24:22,439 --> 01:24:27,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and solid ending too. We cut to the Frankenstein's

1480
01:24:27,640 --> 01:24:31,920
Speaker 2: not the monsters, Henry and Elizabeth, you know, reunited and

1481
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 2: it's a nice little moment. Kind of serves as a

1482
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:36,759
Speaker 2: nice cap, but it doesn't feel kind of like unearned

1483
01:24:36,800 --> 01:24:39,280
Speaker 2: and tacked on, like the happy moment at the end

1484
01:24:39,280 --> 01:24:43,160
Speaker 2: of the first Frankenstein, like this one feels like it.

1485
01:24:43,160 --> 01:24:45,559
Speaker 2: It honestly got to that feel good moment at the

1486
01:24:45,640 --> 01:24:49,240
Speaker 2: end where everything's put right. Yeah, like Joe said, it's

1487
01:24:49,240 --> 01:24:51,720
Speaker 2: a beautiful movie. Go see it if you haven't seen it,

1488
01:24:51,760 --> 01:24:54,160
Speaker 2: and if you've seen it before, even a few times,

1489
01:24:54,720 --> 01:24:56,439
Speaker 2: go watch it again because you know you love it.

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01:24:56,840 --> 01:24:59,479
Speaker 2: Just a reminder out there that Stuffed to a Blow

1491
01:24:59,520 --> 01:25:02,400
Speaker 2: your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes

1492
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:06,240
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside

1493
01:25:06,240 --> 01:25:08,360
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie

1494
01:25:08,400 --> 01:25:11,759
Speaker 2: here on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see

1495
01:25:11,880 --> 01:25:14,040
Speaker 2: a list of all the movies we've covered over the

1496
01:25:14,200 --> 01:25:17,600
Speaker 2: years here, you can go to U. We can go

1497
01:25:17,640 --> 01:25:19,400
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com. It's l E T t e

1498
01:25:19,520 --> 01:25:23,080
Speaker 2: r box d dot com. That's a site where people

1499
01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:27,479
Speaker 2: create accounts and review movies and make lists of movies. Well,

1500
01:25:27,560 --> 01:25:30,000
Speaker 2: we have a username on there, it's weird House, and

1501
01:25:30,040 --> 01:25:32,400
Speaker 2: you can see a wonderful visual list of all the

1502
01:25:32,439 --> 01:25:35,160
Speaker 2: movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead

1503
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:37,760
Speaker 2: at what's coming up next. I also blog about these

1504
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:39,680
Speaker 2: films at some mutomusic dot com.

1505
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 3: Huge Things. As always to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway,

1506
01:25:44,400 --> 01:25:45,920
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1507
01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:48,599
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1508
01:25:48,680 --> 01:25:50,599
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1509
01:25:50,760 --> 01:25:53,599
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1510
01:25:53,600 --> 01:26:01,280
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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01:26:01,479 --> 01:26:04,439
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1512
01:26:04,520 --> 01:26:08,320
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1513
01:26:08,400 --> 01:26:10,200
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.