Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: in honor of the Halloween season, we are going to
Speaker 3: be talking about the nineteen thirty five Universal horror classic
Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, the first sequel
Speaker 3: to the original Universal Frankenstein, also directed by Whale, which
Speaker 3: was released four years earlier in nineteen thirty one. So
Speaker 3: I know we're going to talk a lot more about
Speaker 3: the specifics of our appreciation for this movie as we
Speaker 3: go along, but I wanted to just start off by saying,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, Bride of Frankenstein is about as good
Speaker 3: as it gets. It is. I think shocking how great
Speaker 3: this this movie is, how good it looks, how weird
Speaker 3: it is, how beautiful and funny and full of genuine feeling,
Speaker 3: and how fresh it feels. Something about it is the
Speaker 3: exact opposite of a relic from the past. It feels
Speaker 3: so exciting and new.
Speaker 2: I think the word that I would use for Brida
Speaker 2: Frankenstein without even a hint of irony or parody or humor.
Speaker 2: Is it is just truly transcendent. It transcends its genre,
Speaker 2: it transcends its time period. It is just a masterpiece.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I second way you said, if you're the
Speaker 2: type of film viewer who's like, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I need or want to see a film from the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, I mean, fair enough, watch what you want
Speaker 2: to watch. But films like this, films like Mad Love,
Speaker 2: which we previously discussed on the show, these really stand out.
Speaker 3: And I love the other universal monster movies, you know.
Speaker 3: I love Todd Browning's Dracula. I love Wales First Frank,
Speaker 3: I love the Invisible Man creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 3: I mean, really enjoy all of those core monster frolics.
Speaker 3: But even though all of those are excellent, there are
Speaker 3: individually things in them that kind of drag Dracula, for example,
Speaker 3: I love Todd Browning's Dracula, but it gets markedly less
Speaker 3: interesting when Bella Legosi has been off screen for too long.
Speaker 3: You know, there are some there's some kind of slow
Speaker 3: moving talkie segments with the not terribly interesting human characters, which,
Speaker 3: to be fair, are trying to be faithful to the
Speaker 3: plot of the novel, but in some ways I think
Speaker 3: end up kind of holding the movie back from what
Speaker 3: it could have been. All of the other Universal Monster
Speaker 3: frolics have their their stuffy interludes, but for me, Bride
Speaker 3: does not. My opinion is that it is just wall
Speaker 3: to wall horror, profound weirdness, hilarity, and powerful emotion. So
Speaker 3: I think, not only is Bride of Frankenstein the best
Speaker 3: of all the Universal Monster movies, it's the best buy
Speaker 3: a mile, It's the best by an astronomical unit. It
Speaker 3: leaves these other great movies in the dust. And I
Speaker 3: guess we can as we go on, we can talk
Speaker 3: about some of the reasons why I feel that way.
Speaker 2: It is kind of funny that in leading up to
Speaker 2: this episode, we were talking about maybe doing Son of
Speaker 2: Frankenstein or House of Frankenstein, a couple of the later
Speaker 2: movies in the Universal Frankenstein cycle, And then we were like, well,
Speaker 2: why are we denying ourselves, Like staring at the bar,
Speaker 2: there is the top shelf Frankenstein right there. Let's just
Speaker 2: do that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was realizing before we started recording that
Speaker 3: one way this movie will fit into the weird house
Speaker 3: cinema cannon is that we sort of have a show
Speaker 3: tradition of covering sequels without covering the original that they're
Speaker 3: following up, and we haven't done an episode on the
Speaker 3: original Universal Frankenstein, though I think it has come up
Speaker 3: a lot when discussing other movies. I think it might
Speaker 3: be fruitful to begin today's episode by thinking about Bride
Speaker 3: of Frankenstein as a sequel, and what can we learn
Speaker 3: about sequels from a sequel that works this well. I
Speaker 3: don't know exactly how the percentages break out, but I'd
Speaker 3: say at least maybe eighty percent of the time sequels
Speaker 3: are uninteresting derivations of the original, just sort of like
Speaker 3: trying to make a quick buck off of the success
Speaker 3: of the original. But sometimes, as we all know, there
Speaker 3: are sequels that are not only as good as the original,
Speaker 3: not only worthy of it, lots of people consider them
Speaker 3: better than the original. Quick list of commonly cited examples
Speaker 3: that I would agree with a Terminator, two Star Trek,
Speaker 3: The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back, multiple Mad
Speaker 3: Max sequels. I'd say, you know, Road Warrior, Fury Road,
Speaker 3: and there are plenty of other examples you can think
Speaker 3: of too, in even less well known franchises.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like I would. I'll often throw Blade two
Speaker 2: in there. Aliens comes to mind, of course, Return of
Speaker 2: the Blind Dead to feature like a recent film that
Speaker 2: we did a rerun off. I throw Chronicles of Ritick
Speaker 2: in there as well. You know, I generally say when
Speaker 2: a sequel works, it either is a second attempt with
Speaker 2: improved skills and or budget at the concepts of the first,
Speaker 2: or is it's a successful expansion of the original concept,
Speaker 2: you know, not just a sell them another scoop of
Speaker 2: the same ice cream, but give them something that is transformative.
Speaker 3: You know, I agree, and I think that's exactly what's
Speaker 3: going on with Bride Frankenstein. James Wale's original Frankenstein is
Speaker 3: really good. It's a solid adaptation of the novel, one
Speaker 3: of the best universal monster movies. But Bride of frank
Speaker 3: is absolutely divine, and so I'm wondering what exactly it
Speaker 3: does that really has this step up quality going into
Speaker 3: the second movie in this series. An interesting thing about
Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein is that it is both a fulfillment
Speaker 3: of the promise of the source material, in this case,
Speaker 3: Mary Wilston Craft Shelley's novel Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus,
Speaker 3: and it forges a new path. So in the sense
Speaker 3: that it's a fulfillment of the source material, Bride of
Speaker 3: Frankenstein includes scenes and themes from Shelley's novel that were
Speaker 3: left out of the first movie, and also when it
Speaker 3: chooses to include totally new things from out of left field,
Speaker 3: they are great inclusions. So to start with, like things
Speaker 3: that it brings in from the novel, I think they're
Speaker 3: typically things that deepen our emotional understanding of the creature.
Speaker 3: So one example is that in Bride of frank the
Speaker 3: monster can talk. The monster in the novel, of course,
Speaker 3: is amazingly articulate. In the first movie, by contrast, it's
Speaker 3: a silent performance. And I've seen film critics and historians
Speaker 3: make the interesting observation that Frankenstein was one of the
Speaker 3: first mega hits of the early sound film era, and
Speaker 3: yet its principal performance from Boris Karla was a mostly
Speaker 3: silent one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, In this we do see some interesting growth
Speaker 2: in the monster. He's acquiring language, he's learning to express
Speaker 2: himself better, and it makes Carlos's performance all the more enthralling.
Speaker 2: There's this crackling confused, traumatized, and yet still hopeful energy
Speaker 2: in the heart of the creature, just straining to reach
Speaker 2: out and touch the world. Sadly, he lacks many of
Speaker 2: the tools he needs, and he finds himself continually on
Speaker 2: the other end of human violence and human manipulation. Like
Speaker 2: you said, it's not on the same level of the
Speaker 2: of the articulate monster we see in the novel who Is.
Speaker 2: I think it can is often interpreted as being almost
Speaker 2: kind of like a fallen angel. You know, that's that's
Speaker 2: the kind of energy he brings. So, you know, not
Speaker 2: thee quite the same energy, but it moves a little
Speaker 2: closer to that concept and does its own thing with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the articulacy of the creature in the novel, I
Speaker 3: think is often and this is actually in the novel itself,
Speaker 3: is compared to Satan and Milton's Paradise Lost. Yeah, Carl
Speaker 3: in Bride is not like that. He's mostly speaking in
Speaker 3: like short clipped statements. And apparently Karloff was wary of
Speaker 3: the idea of having the monster speak in Bride. He
Speaker 3: wasn't sure that was a good idea, but I think
Speaker 3: it was the right move. Even though he's not giving
Speaker 3: these these long moving speeches like he does in the book.
Speaker 3: He has these heartbreakingly terse memorable lines, you know, like love, dead,
Speaker 3: hate living.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another thing from the novel that's brought in to deepen
Speaker 3: the story here is the scene where the monster makes
Speaker 3: friends with a blind man living in a cabin. That is,
Speaker 3: it's not exactly the same, but it's based on a
Speaker 3: section of the novel where the creature observes people living
Speaker 3: in a remote cottage and learns language from them, but
Speaker 3: is ultimately driven away when sighted people finally catch a
Speaker 3: glimpse of him and react with horror to his appearance.
Speaker 3: The scene in the book where he read he is
Speaker 3: hated because he is ugly is one of the saddest
Speaker 3: in the book, and they explore those themes very well
Speaker 3: in Bride. I think. Another one the creature's desire for
Speaker 3: an undead mate. This is also from the book, but
Speaker 3: left out of the first movie for the most part.
Speaker 3: In the novel, after the creature realizes that living humans
Speaker 3: will all hate him and reject him, he thinks his
Speaker 3: only hope of finding love and companionship is for his
Speaker 3: creator to make another like him, so he threatens Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: He threatens his loved ones to coerce him to make
Speaker 3: the creature an undead bride. But then in the book,
Speaker 3: Victor I think, abandons the project before it's completed, and
Speaker 3: he has a kind of stroke of conscience and he says, no,
Speaker 3: I can't do this, and then in a rage, the
Speaker 3: creature punishes him by killing his fiance.
Speaker 2: And it's it's in retrospect, looking back on this, it's
Speaker 2: so great that they came back and took this part
Speaker 2: of the book and did something with it, because I
Speaker 2: remember this being like one of the most impactful sections
Speaker 2: of the novel, a novel that's full of fantastic ideas
Speaker 2: and scenes. But yeah, this section of the book where
Speaker 2: the doctor is forced to go back and do this
Speaker 2: mad thing one more time and attempt to create a
Speaker 2: mate for this monster just so it will leave him
Speaker 2: and his loved ones alone, and then decides that for
Speaker 2: the greater good, he cannot go through with it.
Speaker 3: I agree exactly. So I think the movie is really
Speaker 3: working because it pulls in all of these great resonant
Speaker 3: elements from the original source material that you know didn't
Speaker 3: fit into the first the plot of the first film,
Speaker 3: but On the other hand, there is all kinds of
Speaker 3: other stuff that is added purely from the original genius
Speaker 3: of the filmmakers, and I think you could you could
Speaker 3: bring up a lot of things here. One I wanted
Speaker 3: to mention is comedy. I have not read Frankenstein in
Speaker 3: a bit, but I don't recall it really having much
Speaker 3: humor in it at all. I think it's a very
Speaker 3: serious book. And while Bride of Frankenstein deals with serious
Speaker 3: themes and has many serious moments, it is also overflowing
Speaker 3: with irony and goofiness. Sometimes it's surprisingly goofy Waal understood
Speaker 3: horror storytelling according I think to the Grangin Yow tradition
Speaker 3: of hot and cold showers, where tales of the macabre
Speaker 3: would be alternately play back and forth with comedy performances
Speaker 3: and good storytellers in this space, I think understand that
Speaker 3: comedy is a wonderful release mechanism for the building tension
Speaker 3: of the story. There's something that really works when you
Speaker 3: alternate mounting tension and horror with comedy. So and beyond that,
Speaker 3: there are also characters in this movie that operate on
Speaker 3: the knife edge between horror and comedy at all times.
Speaker 3: I think the prime example being probably my favorite character
Speaker 3: from this movie, doctor Septimus Pretorius, a character who is
Speaker 3: not in the novel, invented purely for Bride of Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: And that brings us to the other thing I'd mentioned
Speaker 3: about this movie, a sort of original genius zany characters.
Speaker 3: I love the novel Frankenstein, but it does not have
Speaker 3: an ensemble of memorable characters with interesting quirks and personalities.
Speaker 3: I think the genius of the novel is in its
Speaker 3: scenario and themes, and in the development of the main
Speaker 3: character of the creature. Bride of frank on the other hand,
Speaker 3: invents this whole ensemble of delightfully jagged weirdos to give
Speaker 3: the story flavor. There's a kind of Cohen Brothers quality
Speaker 3: to all of the secondary players here, and I think
Speaker 3: the greatest example of this is the villain of the movie,
Speaker 3: doctor Septimus Pretorius, played by Ernest Thesiger, a flambuoyantly bizarre professor,
Speaker 3: a scientist matter than any mad scientist you've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: I think basically every single moment Thesiger is on screen
Speaker 3: is just gold. He has turned up to eleven from
Speaker 3: his very first line, and he does not he does
Speaker 3: not stop.
Speaker 2: I agree, that's true. Is just amazing in this.
Speaker 3: And while doctor Pretorius is the greatest, there's room for
Speaker 3: all kinds of just you know, goobers and creeps and
Speaker 3: buffoons and weird personalities to weave in and out of
Speaker 3: the story here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I think the other amazing thing about
Speaker 2: this is Okay, so the idea of horror in comedy
Speaker 2: working together that that's nothing new, But everything just works
Speaker 2: so smoothly in this film it can almost feel like
Speaker 2: a surreal experience, especially given how jarring, sometimes intentionally the
Speaker 2: transaction transition in and out of horror in comedy may
Speaker 2: be in other works. There's just just in general, there's
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing rough around the edges with this movie. You know,
Speaker 2: there's much to be said again, how frash and exciting
Speaker 2: this nineteen thirty five film feels in terms of its
Speaker 2: themes and performances, But even its effects are just staggeringly effective.
Speaker 2: The monster's basic makeup design is, of course iconic, and
Speaker 2: you might expect that since it's iconic and you've seen
Speaker 2: it replicated often poorly, you know, on various other forms
Speaker 2: so many times, that it would lose some of its punch,
Speaker 2: but it really doesn't. It just looks incredible in every shot.
Speaker 3: I totally agree. Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, Like,
Speaker 3: you know what the Carlos Frankenstein makeup looks like. You've
Speaker 3: seen it a million times, so how could it still
Speaker 3: be scary and shocking? But in my opinion, when you
Speaker 3: watch the movie, it is like seeing it actually come
Speaker 3: to life in motion, situated within the context of the plot.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how many times you've seen this pulled
Speaker 3: out of context on posters and stills and all that,
Speaker 3: it's still super creepy. It looks amazing, yeah, at every shot.
Speaker 2: On top of that, everything every shot is perfectly composed,
Speaker 2: The dialogue is all tight and interesting, and other effects
Speaker 2: are amazing as well. There's a scene late in the
Speaker 2: movie in which a model mountain tower collapses in on itself,
Speaker 2: and we've seen similar effects that rained from terrible to
Speaker 2: great but clearly an effect in so many pictures, But
Speaker 2: this one just looks and feels real in a way
Speaker 2: that's truly admirable. Oh yeah, So, Joe, what's your elevator
Speaker 2: pitch for Bride of Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: You know it's difficult, so maybe it'd be something like
Speaker 3: after Frankenstein, you thought you knew what it meant for
Speaker 3: death to reign over life and for science to go mad,
Speaker 3: But we have such sites to show you yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that sums it up well. And of course,
Speaker 2: to steal a line from the movie itself, I have
Speaker 2: to quote doctor Pretorious about a new world of gods
Speaker 2: and monsters. I mean, that's just one of the great
Speaker 2: lines of the film and kind of sums up the
Speaker 2: spirit and energy of the sequel.
Speaker 3: Here in the scene, that line is offered as a toast,
Speaker 3: and it is. It's so good. But it's especially good
Speaker 3: knowing the line which comes right before it, which is
Speaker 3: where doctor Pretorius claims that jin is his only weakness,
Speaker 3: and he is clearly not correct in saying that.
Speaker 2: There's another point in the film where he says something
Speaker 2: else is his only weakness. Yeah, you're just so many
Speaker 2: wonderful little quirks that that they're able to fit into
Speaker 2: the dialogue here. All right, Well, let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: listen to some trailer audio. Oh yeah, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: if you rightfully wish to go and watch Bride of
Speaker 2: Frankenstein on your own before you continue with this episode, well,
Speaker 2: you're in luck because this is a Universal Monsters movie.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the shining gem of the Universal
Speaker 2: Monsters franchise. So this one is widely available in all formats,
Speaker 2: and I think it's streaming on Peacock right now if
Speaker 2: that is available to you. But any way you do it,
Speaker 2: do see this movie in the best quality you can grab.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would say the same thing. This is one
Speaker 3: where it really pays off the highest definition, best visual
Speaker 3: quality you can because this is a great looking movie
Speaker 3: and you want to get at every bit of it.
Speaker 2: All right, now, getting into the connections here the people
Speaker 2: that made this movie, we want to stress here that again,
Speaker 2: this was a big sequel. This was a sequel to
Speaker 2: a highly successful movie in which director James Waale got
Speaker 2: to assemble a massively talented cast and crew. So we
Speaker 2: are not going to be able to do justice to
Speaker 2: everyone that was involved in bringing this film to life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a ton of people involved in this
Speaker 3: movie that each have fascinating biographies, but because there are
Speaker 3: so many of them, I think we're going to have
Speaker 3: to give fairly short statements on most of them. Just
Speaker 3: know that there's a lot of people here that we
Speaker 3: will get to kind of briefly, but they're each worth
Speaker 3: looking up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And we may come back to many of
Speaker 2: these people in the future. Like we were saying, a
Speaker 2: lot of these folks are individuals who if they came
Speaker 2: up in a smaller picture or a lesser picture, we
Speaker 2: might spend a lot of time talking about who they
Speaker 2: were and what their careers consisted of. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: starting at the top, of course, with the director, it's
Speaker 2: James Whale, who lived eighteen eighty nine through nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 2: English director of film and the British stage, as well
Speaker 2: as an occasional actor himself. He primarily came over to
Speaker 2: the Hollywood system because with the transition to talkies they
Speaker 2: wanted to invest in directors who were great with dialogue,
Speaker 2: and he had that reputation already. He's best remembered for
Speaker 2: his horror projects, namely the two Frankenstein films. Nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: three is The Invisible Man in nineteen thirty two's The
Speaker 2: Old Dark House. His first film, nineteen thirties Journey's End,
Speaker 2: was a war drama starring Colin Clive, and even after
Speaker 2: Frankenstein he continued to make non horror dramas such as
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty threes by Candlelight, and even musicals like nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty six's Showboat and late in his career the nineteen
Speaker 2: forty adventure film Green Hell, which does have a terrific cast.
Speaker 3: Like many of the directors we talk about who were
Speaker 3: making great horror films in the early days of sound cinema,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it would be right to say
Speaker 3: that like horror was a passion of James Whale. I
Speaker 3: think he probably wanted to focus more on dramas and such,
Speaker 3: But you know, he did the work that he got
Speaker 3: and he made great, great horror movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's time and time again. It's the case
Speaker 2: with these directors, like they wanted to go up the
Speaker 2: ladder towards bigger A list type pictures, prestige pictures that
Speaker 2: had the cast but also didn't deal with these lesser
Speaker 2: genres of horror and sci fi. And that was just
Speaker 2: part of the cinema world of the time, that was
Speaker 2: the industry. And it's just kind of ironic that nowadays
Speaker 2: so many of these individuals are best remembered, if not remembered,
Speaker 2: exclusively for their genre entries.
Speaker 3: This seems to be a situation where the original Frankenstein
Speaker 3: was a huge hit. It made incredible money for Universal,
Speaker 3: and that earned James Whale the right to make the
Speaker 3: sequel on his own terms, essentially however he wanted, with
Speaker 3: very minimal studio interference. So Bride of Frankenstein is the
Speaker 3: result of Whale getting more or less total creative freedom
Speaker 3: and almost all the resources and support he needed.
Speaker 2: That's right im to understand. He had a lot of
Speaker 2: say over the script, presented a lot of ideas for
Speaker 2: the script. So yes, this is a film that more
Speaker 2: accurately gives us James Whale's vision of Frankenstein. Now, I
Speaker 2: should also note that James Whale was an openly gay
Speaker 2: man during a time during which this was rare, So
Speaker 2: his personal life has long been an area of interest
Speaker 2: to both biographers and also just film theorists and people
Speaker 2: analyzing his films and discussing the themes explored in them,
Speaker 2: and it's especially the case with Bride.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've read differing takes over the extent to which
Speaker 3: Bride of Frankenstein should be interpreted as intentionally having gay
Speaker 3: themes in it. Some film historians read a lot of
Speaker 3: gay themes and to Bride others have said, I think
Speaker 3: based on some comments about people who from people who
Speaker 3: knew James Whale said that they didn't think he was
Speaker 3: intending to put anything like that into the film. But
Speaker 3: based on the sources available to us, I guess it's
Speaker 3: impossible to know for sure, but whether it should be
Speaker 3: interpreted as part of Wales's intention or not. Definitely, this
Speaker 3: film has been a rich subject for a lot of
Speaker 3: gay film historians.
Speaker 2: Absolutely now. The source material, of course, is Mary Shelley's novel.
Speaker 2: Mary Shelley lived seventeen ninety seven through eighteen fifty one
Speaker 2: English writer responsible for a good seven novels and multiple
Speaker 2: short stories, but her first novel, eighteen eighteen's Frankenstein or
Speaker 2: the Modern Prometheus, was the one that made her a legend.
Speaker 2: To this day, it stands as a powerful, entertainer and
Speaker 2: richly rewarding novel, highly influential over science fiction. She was
Speaker 2: the wife of English poet Percy Shelley, with whom she
Speaker 2: also worked. They, along with a friend and poet Lord Byron,
Speaker 2: are depicted in this movie.
Speaker 3: I was watching a making of documentary and people were
Speaker 3: talking about how apparently Whale insisted on having this framing
Speaker 3: narrative in the film, because the movie doesn't start in
Speaker 3: the narrative itself. It starts with us seeing Lord Byron
Speaker 3: Percy and Mary Wilstoncraft Shelley sitting around a roaring fire
Speaker 3: and talking about the idea of the novel. Frankenstein Apparently
Speaker 3: Whale thought that this framing was crucial and he insisted
Speaker 3: did it be in? And I think it does some
Speaker 3: interesting things. Maybe we can talk about that when we
Speaker 3: get to the plot section.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do think it's essential. It's hard to
Speaker 2: imagine this movie without it. But more about that when
Speaker 2: we get into the plot. All right. In terms of
Speaker 2: the the people involved with writing the screenplay and developing
Speaker 2: the story, they're a number of uncredited writing credits that
Speaker 2: pop up for this film on the Internet movie database.
Speaker 2: We can't go through all of them, so I'm just
Speaker 2: going to focus on the two names that are credited
Speaker 2: in the actual credits on the film. Adapted by and
Speaker 2: screenplay credit goes to William Hurlbut, who lived eighteen seventy
Speaker 2: eight through nineteen fifty seven, American writer and screenwriter, certainly
Speaker 2: best remembered for this film, but he has forty credits
Speaker 2: on IMDb going back to nineteen fifteen and then stretching
Speaker 2: up till the mid fifties. Other notable credits include nineteen
Speaker 2: thirties The Cat Creeps, the Will of the Dead Man
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty four's Imitation of Life. He also did
Speaker 2: additional dialogue on Robert Flore's Daughter of Hong Kong, starring
Speaker 2: the legendary anime Won And then we have an adapted
Speaker 2: by credit for John L. Balderston, who lived eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine through nineteen fifty four American playwrights, screenwriter, and journalist
Speaker 2: with a NAC for horror and fantasy. His work includes
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties Dracula adapted from his own play, nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: two is the Mummy, the nineteen thirty three time travel
Speaker 2: movie Berkeley Square, nineteen thirty five's Mad Love, and nineteen
Speaker 2: forties The Mummy's Hand. He was one of the Love Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's quite a pedigree. He was also one of the
Speaker 2: writers on nineteen forty four's gas Light, from which we
Speaker 2: get the term gas lighting. All right, now getting into
Speaker 2: the cast, clearly right at the top, we have the monster.
Speaker 2: The monster is played, according to the opening credits, by Carloff.
Speaker 3: First met a first name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love this. This is of course, we're
Speaker 2: of course, of course talking about Boris Karloff. This is
Speaker 2: the stage name of British actor William Henry Pratt, who
Speaker 2: lived eighteen eighty seven through nineteen sixty nine. He's gone
Speaker 2: up on the show a couple of times already. His
Speaker 2: credits go back to nineteen nineteen, and he already had
Speaker 2: a long filmography by the time, with nineteen thirty one's Frankenstein,
Speaker 2: in which he of course plays the monster. Afterwards, some
Speaker 2: of his big horror roles included nineteen thirty two is
Speaker 2: the Mummy and the Old Dark House, nineteen thirty three
Speaker 2: is the Ghoul, nineteen thirty four's The Black Cat. After Bride,
Speaker 2: he remained very active, playing the monster one more time
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty nine Son of Frankenstein, but he remained
Speaker 2: a superstar of horror. He appeared in nineteen forty four's
Speaker 2: House of Frankenstein, though not as the monster, and of
Speaker 2: course he remained active throughout the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: All right, so that is the monster, But of course
Speaker 2: we need a true Frankenstein, and Frankenstein is of course
Speaker 2: in this movie Henry Frankenstein, the creator played once more
Speaker 2: by Colin Clive, who lived nineteen hundred through nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Just a tremendous but of course troubled and short lived
Speaker 2: British actor who we previously discussed on our early Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema episode about nineteen thirty five's Mad Love, in
Speaker 2: which he played Stephen Orlock. He's wonderful in that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is, and he I think Colin Clive went
Speaker 3: back to having worked with James Whale from the stage
Speaker 3: like that they had worked together before the transition to
Speaker 3: film here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a lot. There are a number of players
Speaker 2: in this that had had personal connections to Wale. Whale
Speaker 2: to work with them before he knew their talent, and
Speaker 2: they were handpicked. Colin Clive is, you know, I've never
Speaker 2: seen him outside of a genre movie. I've only seen
Speaker 2: him in these horror films, but he is always just
Speaker 2: this live wire of anxiety and terror. He's perfect for
Speaker 2: a horror movie, of course. In this, he's reprising his
Speaker 2: role from nineteen thirty one's Frankenstein. That was only his
Speaker 2: third emotion picture. The two Frankenstein films, along with Mad Love,
Speaker 2: constitute his only horror pictures. The rest of his nineteen credits,
Speaker 2: including the title role in nineteen thirty three's Christopher Strong,
Speaker 2: are all more mainstream.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I also only know him for his
Speaker 3: horror roles. But I recall in Mad Love he is
Speaker 3: he gives a performance of such anxiety. I think the
Speaker 3: way I put it then was that it feels like
Speaker 3: he is undergoing vision.
Speaker 2: Yes, in a way you compare the two roles, he's
Speaker 2: actually more chill in this movie. Despite being an individual
Speaker 2: who's gone through a horrifying and near death experience and
Speaker 2: and then is sucked back into that same world once more,
Speaker 2: he still feels a little bit more chill. I guess
Speaker 2: at least he can throw himself into his work in
Speaker 2: a way that Stephen Orlock was no longer able to do.
Speaker 2: All right. He has a love interest in this though,
Speaker 2: and that is Elizabeth, played by Valerie Hobson, who of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen through nineteen ninety eight Irish born English actor.
Speaker 2: She takes over the role here from May Clark, who
Speaker 2: played Henry's love interest Elizabeth in the previous film. After this,
Speaker 2: she appeared in nineteen thirty five's Werewolf of London and
Speaker 2: various other films. Through about nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 3: So the character here is Elizabeth, that is Henry Frankenstein's fiance,
Speaker 3: and I think she is supposed to represent goodness and virtue,
Speaker 3: you know, So there are like, there's this forking path
Speaker 3: in the story where Henry could just choose a good life,
Speaker 3: he could just you know, have a life of love
Speaker 3: and family and pursuing regular noble career pursuits and all that.
Speaker 3: But no, you know, she's that option. Instead, He's going
Speaker 3: to go with dangerous knowledge.
Speaker 2: Yes, And of course he ends up having to choose
Speaker 2: that direction, in part because he is manipulated, in part
Speaker 2: because she has taken hostage right in the book. Of course,
Speaker 2: this is all part of the manipulations of the monster.
Speaker 2: But the monster as presented in that first film, the
Speaker 2: first Frankenstein film, is of course not a master manipulator.
Speaker 2: Like he doesn't even speak. It's a huge step up
Speaker 2: in this movie for him to be able to speak.
Speaker 2: And you can see where it would have been unrealistic
Speaker 2: for suddenly Frankenstein's Monster to be able to, you know,
Speaker 2: to lay out some sort of a vast scheme. So
Speaker 2: you need a different sort of enemy, a different sort
Speaker 2: of villain, and that is, of course doctor Pretorius played
Speaker 2: by Ernest Messeger.
Speaker 3: The way to fight evil is with a different kind
Speaker 3: of evil. To quote Chronicles of Britag.
Speaker 2: I guess so yeah. That's Lived eighteen seventy nine through
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one, an English actor of stage and screen,
Speaker 2: best remembered for this brilliant and flamboyant performance as the
Speaker 2: maddest of mad scientists and mad science enablers. His other
Speaker 2: credits include thirty two's The Old Dark House, thirty threes
Speaker 2: The Ghoul, and nineteen fifty threes The Robe, in which
Speaker 2: he plays Emperor Tiberius. It's my understanding he was not
Speaker 2: the original studio pick for this role, but after whoever
Speaker 2: they wanted for it was not available or it didn't
Speaker 2: work out, like this was clearly Wale's pick. Whyal had
Speaker 2: a history with this actor, He really looked up to
Speaker 2: his his abilities and his talent, and so this was
Speaker 2: like the obvious choice for this role. And clearly it's
Speaker 2: impossible to imagine anyone else breathing life into this character
Speaker 2: the way That'sagre.
Speaker 3: Does unreal, just brilliant, absurd, hilarious, mirroring evil. I love
Speaker 3: Messeger here doctor Pretorius is a great character, and I yeah,
Speaker 3: I could not imagine this going to a different actor.
Speaker 3: This is like he is perfect all right.
Speaker 2: Up next, we have Elsa Lanchester playing really the title
Speaker 2: character of the film, even though the title character, the
Speaker 2: bride is is just credited with question marks in the
Speaker 2: opening scroll, you know, because it's going to be a surprise,
Speaker 2: I guess. But it's a dual role because she also
Speaker 2: in the early part of the film plays Mary Shelley,
Speaker 2: so she plays both female creator and feminine creation, and
Speaker 2: these two performances kind of bookend the rest of the picture.
Speaker 3: I think the choice to have the same actress in
Speaker 3: both those roles is significant. Though I don't know exactly
Speaker 3: what it means, it feels right, yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the beauties about the show's
Speaker 2: treatment of some of its more serious subject matter, is
Speaker 2: that it's kind of amorphous in a way, like you
Speaker 2: can feel the connections. But but the filmmakers don't like
Speaker 2: just hammer it home in all cases. So there's plenty
Speaker 2: of room for interpretation. Endless room for interpretation.
Speaker 3: Really, right, but we should not hold back and sing
Speaker 3: Elsa Lanchester is great. She doesn't have actually a ton
Speaker 3: of screen time. But the few minutes she is on
Speaker 3: the screen, Wow, does she make an impression?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she's fun in the intro and then
Speaker 2: as the Monster's mate she's accredited or the bride. She
Speaker 2: has she has a wonderful and very different energy. It's
Speaker 2: almost kind of an Avian energy. It's also also kind
Speaker 2: of like a hyper focus. Like while Frankenstein's Monster has
Speaker 2: more of a like a lantern level of understandable analysis
Speaker 2: of the world and also kind of like a lantern
Speaker 2: level anxiety and trauma about it, hers is more laser focused.
Speaker 2: She has that like flashlight intensity.
Speaker 3: Yes, she has I see what you mean when you
Speaker 3: say Avian. She has a jerky, almost bird like movements
Speaker 3: of the head and the eyes. Once she's brought to
Speaker 3: life as the reanimated Bride, is kind of like quick,
Speaker 3: jerky adjustments of her attention around the room, and she
Speaker 3: seems like she doesn't like what she's seeing.
Speaker 2: No, there's not a lot to like, but we'll get
Speaker 2: to that after a bit. Elsa Lanchester lived nineteen oh
Speaker 2: two through nineteen eighty six, English actor of film, stage
Speaker 2: and TV. This is probably her most iconic role. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just a very iconic role. Everybody knows this look.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows that hair, right, I mean, the whole costume
Speaker 2: is wonderful, as we'll get into. She'd already been acting
Speaker 2: for film for ten years by the time of Bride,
Speaker 2: and continue to act through nineteen eighty. Her later screen
Speaker 2: credits include forty three's Lassie Come Home, forty six's The
Speaker 2: Spiral Staircase, forty nine is The Secret Garden, nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: four is Mary Poppins Bat Darn Cat in sixty five
Speaker 2: other films of another's fifty eight's Bell Book and Candle,
Speaker 2: seventy three's Terror the Wax Museum, seventy six is Murdered
Speaker 2: by death in nineteen eighties Die Laughing. She also appeared
Speaker 2: on such TV shows as The Magical World of Disney
Speaker 2: and Night Gallery. I don't know why I stressed it
Speaker 2: like that Night Gallery, not Night Gallery. That's strange. Up next,
Speaker 2: we have to mention the character Mini Mani is another
Speaker 2: just this is just a ridiculously fun character role, blatantly
Speaker 2: there for comic relief. And you know the thing about
Speaker 2: comic relief characters in older pictures, they don't always stand
Speaker 2: the test of time. Sometimes they don't even stand the
Speaker 2: test of time like ten years later, much less with
Speaker 2: an eighty eight year old picture. But Minnie is wonderful.
Speaker 2: This scared, nosy but also bloodthirsty old maid still delivers,
Speaker 2: still absolutely delivers.
Speaker 3: I love the way that she is terrified of the monster,
Speaker 3: but she also somehow seems to be following the monster
Speaker 3: everywhere it goes. There's one part where the creature is
Speaker 3: captured by the authorities and put in like a dungeon,
Speaker 3: and Minnie is there looking down through the bars and
Speaker 3: she's like, Ooh, wouldn't he ugly? You know, I'd hate
Speaker 3: to wake up and find him hiding underneath my bed
Speaker 3: at night. But she says it in a way that
Speaker 3: suggests she would like to find that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she seems kind of like what would later be
Speaker 2: known as or maybe was known in the time period.
Speaker 2: I forget the time frame on This is a hat
Speaker 2: pin Mary. I think it's the term this would be
Speaker 2: an older woman at a pro wrestling show who would
Speaker 2: try and poke the heels on their way to the
Speaker 2: ring with their hat pins. So there's kind of yeah,
Speaker 2: blood the faulty to her afraid of the monster, but
Speaker 2: also really wants to be there when the monster is tormented.
Speaker 3: But also this is a very broad comic performance I
Speaker 3: would say, almost cartoonish, but it works perfectly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the actor here is Una O'Connor who lived
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty through nineteen fifty nine. She was only in
Speaker 2: her mid fifties. Here she's played up as this old woman,
Speaker 2: but she was not an old woman by any stretch
Speaker 2: at this point. A tremendous Irish care actor with extensive
Speaker 2: stage experience often cast in this sort of role. Though,
Speaker 2: like I mean, and clearly why not, She's got it
Speaker 2: nailed perfectly. Other films include The Invisible Man from thirty three,
Speaker 2: The Informer from thirty five, and The Adventures of Robin
Speaker 2: Hood from thirty eight.
Speaker 3: Oh Man. Next, just to make sure we don't leave
Speaker 3: him out, we should mention Dwight Frye, who has a
Speaker 3: small role in this film as Carl, who is essentially
Speaker 3: the new Egor, even though actually Egor wouldn't come until later,
Speaker 3: is the new Fritz, and he's played by the same
Speaker 3: actor who played Fritz in the original Frankenstein. So Dwight
Speaker 3: Frye lived eighteen ninety nine to nineteen forty three. He
Speaker 3: was Wrinfield in Todd Browning Stracula. He apparently at first
Speaker 3: had a more substantial part in the movie, but it
Speaker 3: was allegedly cut down by censors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's apparently like fifteen minutes or so that the
Speaker 2: sensors cut out of this film just because they really
Speaker 2: wanted to play it safe. A lot of it was
Speaker 2: stuff that they thought might come off as blasphemous talking,
Speaker 2: you know, getting in to the whole thesis of creating life.
Speaker 2: I think some of it too, was Mary Shelley's dress.
Speaker 2: They thought some angles on it were maybe a little
Speaker 2: too risque for the time period, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And some sort of subplot here with carl And and
Speaker 2: whatever he's up to outside of his grave robbing side gig.
Speaker 3: I think he was supposed to murder the mustache guy, oh.
Speaker 2: The burgomaster. Yeah. Yeah, So you mentioned that he's the
Speaker 2: egor of the film. He was very much the egor
Speaker 2: of the film. But yeah, the timeline of this is
Speaker 2: interesting because we were chatting about this off of Mike earlier.
Speaker 2: There is no egor in the novel Frankenstein. There is
Speaker 2: no egor in the first Frankenstein movie. Instead, you have,
Speaker 2: like you said, Fritz played by Dwight Frye, and then
Speaker 2: they bring him back to play Carl, which is essentially
Speaker 2: the same sort of character. And then it's not till
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, Son of Frankenstein that we get Igor. Igor,
Speaker 2: we get this role that is played by Bella Lagosi.
Speaker 2: But in retrospect, it's like, that's what we think of
Speaker 2: as this position, this sort of like deranged henchman to
Speaker 2: doctor Frankenstein. We think of it as the Egor role.
Speaker 3: I also think it's interesting that the actual character named
Speaker 3: Egor was played by Bella Lagosi, so you would think
Speaker 3: you would really remember that casting, you would associate Bella
Speaker 3: with the character. But I very much think of Dwight
Speaker 3: fry when I think of Igor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's good in this role. He's got some
Speaker 2: good henchman energy. He'd go on to have small roles
Speaker 2: in other Frankenstein films, various other pictures. He also pops
Speaker 2: up in nineteen thirty one's The Maltese Falcon. All right,
Speaker 2: real quick. The Burgo Master, who we mentioned, is very fun,
Speaker 2: a very very fun mustachio of performance. This character is
Speaker 2: played by the actor E. E. Clive, who lived eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty three through nineteen forty. He was also in thirty
Speaker 2: three is The Invisible Man, another one I'm going to
Speaker 2: point out real quick in passing again, we don't have
Speaker 2: time to go into all of these characters. Opi Hedgy
Speaker 2: plays the Blind Hermit, an Australian born actor, one of
Speaker 2: his final roles. He lived eighteen seventy seven through nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty six.
Speaker 3: Oh, he brings a lot of humanity to the story
Speaker 3: he does.
Speaker 2: It is a really, it's a shame not to spend
Speaker 2: more time on Hi because it is. He gets a
Speaker 2: lot of screen time, brings humanity to the role and
Speaker 2: brings humanity out of the monster. But let us not
Speaker 2: forget Lord Byron. He's barely in the film, just in
Speaker 2: that opening bit that I believe was rather cut down.
Speaker 2: But Gavin Gordon plays Lord Byron. He lived nineteen oh
Speaker 2: one through nineteen eighty three. He was a Mississippi born
Speaker 2: American actor whose credits include nineteen thirty three's Mystery of
Speaker 2: the Wax Museum, fifty four is White Christmas, fifty six
Speaker 2: Is the Ten Commandments, the Eldest film from fifty eight
Speaker 2: Keen Creole, and also the nineteen fifty nine movie The
Speaker 2: Bat opposite Pencent Price.
Speaker 3: I love him in this role, but I have no
Speaker 3: idea what he's trying to do with this accent.
Speaker 2: It is so over. I mean, it's a wonderful campy
Speaker 2: way to start off this film. It kind of sets
Speaker 2: the tone once you've seen Gavin Gordon Lord Byron, I mean,
Speaker 2: where can you go? You are? You know, you're already
Speaker 2: in the clouds.
Speaker 3: It's like part really like rolling the rs on the
Speaker 3: Irish accent, but then also part English accent, part Southern accent.
Speaker 3: It is, it's something, it's something else.
Speaker 2: Yes, now a very small role, but one that's a
Speaker 2: lot of fun for film film fans and you know,
Speaker 2: and horror fans certainly. There's a scene, of course, where
Speaker 2: we're talking about the We have the hermit who's blind.
Speaker 2: He forges this relationship with the monster, but then sighted
Speaker 2: people show up and ruin it. The two sided people
Speaker 2: that show up are a couple of lost hunters, one
Speaker 2: of whom is played by John Kerodine. Oh yeah, who's
Speaker 2: literally in everything, it.
Speaker 3: Seems, in every movie ever made, so of course he
Speaker 3: would be in this one too, but yeah, you wouldn't
Speaker 3: have known.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's an uncredited role, but it's also unmistakable
Speaker 2: because he does have some lines, and also, I mean
Speaker 2: it's just clearly John Carradine, you know he has he
Speaker 2: has that lean and hungry look even though he's very young. Here.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen oh six through nineteen eighty eight. We've
Speaker 2: discussed him on the show before. Very long career, all
Speaker 2: manner of films he was in. He had already had
Speaker 2: uncredited roles in thirty three's The Invisible Man and thirty
Speaker 2: four's The Black Cat. He'd go on to be a
Speaker 2: horror staple and would play Dracula in nineteen forty four's
Speaker 2: House of Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: I don't really know exactly why he should be lost.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't he just know to get on the night train
Speaker 3: to Mundo Fie.
Speaker 2: You'd think you would think you would, all right, just
Speaker 2: a few quick behind the scenes references. They're just because
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go into him in depth, but
Speaker 2: just got to mention them, just because they're part of
Speaker 2: the alchemy here. Franz Waxman did the score. He lived
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six through nineteen sixty seven. Two time Oscar
Speaker 2: winner for nineteen fifty one Sunset Boulevard in fifty two
Speaker 2: is A Place in the Sun. He also scored nineteen
Speaker 2: forties Rebecca in nineteen forty one Suspicion it is. It
Speaker 2: is a very classic Hollywood score, but it is also
Speaker 2: a very good score. A lot has been written about this.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily the kind of music I listened to
Speaker 2: an Isolation or anything, but it is not. This is
Speaker 2: no sloppy score here. This is one of those scores
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of thought that goes into what
Speaker 2: different musical themes match up with the characters and so forth.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Now, this is also an amazing looking film and
Speaker 3: one with a superb makeup effects, so I think we
Speaker 3: should call out those credits.
Speaker 2: That's right. On the makeup front, we have Jack P.
Speaker 2: Pierce credited for the monster makeup. He lived eighteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine through nineteen sixty eight. He also did the makeup
Speaker 2: on nineteen forty one's The Wolfman and Yeah, the cinematographer
Speaker 2: on this was John J. Mescal, who lived eighteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine through nineteen sixty two, also known for thirty four
Speaker 2: as the Black Cat.
Speaker 3: I've watched some interviews with people talking about what it
Speaker 3: was like to work with Jack Pearce supplying makeup. There's
Speaker 3: a story of Elsa Lanchester talking about the the painstaking,
Speaker 3: delicate procedure that he would use to apply the makeup
Speaker 3: for the scar running underneath the bride's jaw, which she
Speaker 3: was like ultimately was only on screen for about a
Speaker 3: second that you could actually see, but that you know,
Speaker 3: he really was taking a kind of religious care to
Speaker 3: make it perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in that level of craftsmanship just matches
Speaker 2: up with everything else we see in the film. All right, well,
Speaker 2: shall we get into the plot of this baby a
Speaker 2: bit more?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, we start on a dark and stormy night.
Speaker 3: We see a retigenous castle perched up on a rocky
Speaker 3: mountaintop in the dark, with light pouring out from one
Speaker 3: of the windows and thundercracks rain battering the stonework towers.
Speaker 3: It's perfect Gothic setting, and inside the castle we get
Speaker 3: some poets. There are three writers sitting around a roaring fireplace.
Speaker 3: There's also a quick shot of a lady who looks
Speaker 3: almost like she's being pulled by like sled dogs indoors.
Speaker 3: I think she's actually just walking dogs on a leash,
Speaker 3: and she has a you know, like one of those
Speaker 3: large wide skirts, so you don't see her legs moving much.
Speaker 3: But yeah, she's like walking dogs indoors for some reason,
Speaker 3: she's quickly out of frame. And then we get to
Speaker 3: this prologue, this framing idea with the characters of Percy
Speaker 3: Bis Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Wolstoncraft Shelley, who again
Speaker 3: is the author of the novel Frankenstein. Oh and by
Speaker 3: the way, if you don't know the backstory Frankenstein, the
Speaker 3: novel began as a spooky story that Mary Shelley dreamed
Speaker 3: up for a sort of contest. I think when these
Speaker 3: three and at least one other writers, you know, some
Speaker 3: group of them, were staying at a mansion near Lake
Speaker 3: Geneva one year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this would go on to be sort of the
Speaker 2: germ for the nineteen eighty six film Gothic, in which
Speaker 2: Gabriel Byrne plays By, Julian Sands plays Shelley, and Natasha
Speaker 2: Richardson plays Mary as a kin Russell film.
Speaker 3: By the way, oh really, I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 2: It's been a while. I don't remember much about it.
Speaker 3: Is there somebody playing John Paulodorian That was the at
Speaker 3: least one other writer. There was John Paulodori, who ended
Speaker 3: up turning a story from this Summer get together into
Speaker 3: a novel or novella called The Vampire.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he is played by the always excellent Timothy Spall. Oh.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, as we mentioned, the guy playing Lord Byron
Speaker 3: really gets into his part. In fact, I decided to
Speaker 3: type out his opening monologue here because he's he's looking
Speaker 3: out the window at the storm, and he says, how
Speaker 3: beautifully dramatic, the crudest, savage exhibition of nature at her
Speaker 3: worst without and we three, we elegant three within. I
Speaker 3: should like to think that an irate Jehovah was pointing
Speaker 3: those arrows of lightning directly at my head, the unbowed
Speaker 3: head of George Gordon, Lord Byron, England's greatest sinner. But
Speaker 3: then he says, but I cannot flatter myself to that extent.
Speaker 3: Possibly those thunders are for our dear Shelley, referring to
Speaker 3: Percy Heaven's applause for England's greatest poet. But then Percy says, well,
Speaker 3: what about my Mary? And Byron says, oh, she is
Speaker 3: an angel. And Mary looks up from her embroidery with
Speaker 3: this flashing smile and says, you think so ooh, and
Speaker 3: I love that because her smile is a little bit creepy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because as they're about to allude to here,
Speaker 2: you know, they're talking about how great they are, these
Speaker 2: two male poets, but they have to acknowledge that Mary,
Speaker 2: even though they're kind of treating her like this very
Speaker 2: fragile thing, that she has already created something that is
Speaker 2: terrifying to everyone there, and then they're already at least
Speaker 2: a bit in awe of her creative powers.
Speaker 3: That's right. I've read that at some point James Whale
Speaker 3: said to someone that with this opening scene and in
Speaker 3: the movie in general, he wanted to emphasize that quote.
Speaker 3: Pretty people can harbor the most twisted imaginations. So we
Speaker 3: have Byron here chattering somewhat condescendingly about how, oh, Mary
Speaker 3: you are, this delicate, beautiful, angelic creature, and yet she
Speaker 3: has written a story so dreadful it curdled my blood. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: she's just blasting out this creepy smile with gleaming eyes
Speaker 3: and giggling, and she says, why shouldn't I write monsters?
Speaker 3: And there's something in this that suggests, buddy, you ain't
Speaker 3: seen nothing yet.
Speaker 2: They're also kind of toying with the prestige of Lord
Speaker 2: Byron and Percy Shelley here his famous and influential writers,
Speaker 2: while of course Mary's work I think ultimately casts a
Speaker 2: far greater shadow over the following centuries, you know, far
Speaker 2: greater than both of them combined. I don't know. My
Speaker 2: fellow English majors may respectfully disagree on the matter.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I would totally agree, and I think it'd
Speaker 3: be kind of hard to argue with that. So not
Speaker 3: to knock either of Percy Shelley or Lord Byron. I
Speaker 3: enjoy them both. I think they're both necessary reading if
Speaker 3: you want to understand the Romantic movement in English literature,
Speaker 3: and that each wrote some poetry that's still wonderful to
Speaker 3: read today, I think, especially Percy. But it could be
Speaker 3: argued that Mary essentially is the founder of modern science fiction,
Speaker 3: and I think that's like hugely more significant in the
Speaker 3: long run, and especially in the way that she established
Speaker 3: themes like the themes of Frankenstein are themes that are
Speaker 3: still explored in science fiction and science fiction horror to
Speaker 3: this day, especially ideas about the dark side of the
Speaker 3: power unleashed by advances in science and technology. You know, Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: It was a story about how not all increase of
Speaker 3: human power is good, and sometimes in blithely plowing ahead
Speaker 3: with newly acquired scientific and technological powers, if you don't
Speaker 3: think through the consequences, you make monsters, or you make
Speaker 3: a monster out of yourself. It's one of the most
Speaker 3: enduring themes of modern storytelling, and it still finds new
Speaker 3: ways of being entertaining, frightening and socially insightful. You'll encounter
Speaker 3: hundreds of novels and movies and all kinds of interesting
Speaker 3: stories coming out this year that are still hashing through
Speaker 3: themes that Mary Shelley raised in Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and each time it's retold, you can do
Speaker 2: it in a way that reflects modern anxieties and moderns.
Speaker 2: It's abilities all right. But the other part of this
Speaker 2: whole intro is that basically we get a previously on Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that. So the framing narrative with Mary
Speaker 3: Shelley serves as a way to remind us what happened
Speaker 3: in the previous movie. It's sort of narrated by Byron.
Speaker 3: He's basically like a kid explaining the plot of his
Speaker 3: favorite movie, except he's explaining the plot of the movie
Speaker 3: Frankenstein to the author of Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Though it's perfect for what they're putting together here. Yes,
Speaker 2: this was before man's plaining was a thing. I mean, well,
Speaker 2: obviously it was a thing already, but before it was
Speaker 2: a term. It's what we have here.
Speaker 3: So the broad strokes go like this Frankenstein. The man
Speaker 3: Henry in the movie, even though he's named Victor in
Speaker 3: the book, creates a monster out of corpses. He uses
Speaker 3: science to bring this dead man to life. There is
Speaker 3: an unfortunate series of events. The monster escapes the laboratory
Speaker 3: and roams the country. He is at first a gentle
Speaker 3: and childlike, but he accidentally kills a young girl without
Speaker 3: realizing what he is doing, and this raises an angry mob,
Speaker 3: which pursues the creature. The creature flees to a windmill
Speaker 3: with the unconscious Henry, carrying Henry with him, and then
Speaker 3: the creature is seemingly killed in the blaze after the
Speaker 3: angry mob sets the windmill on fire. So like Byron
Speaker 3: goes back through all that and then elsa Ancester is like,
Speaker 3: oh for real, though that's not the end of the story.
Speaker 3: Would you like to know what happened next? And yes, yes, Elsa,
Speaker 3: we would.
Speaker 2: And so it's time to Halloween too. This baby right
Speaker 2: to just go pick up right where the last one
Speaker 2: left off and start the new journey.
Speaker 3: I love that no time passes in between. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just right there. The mill is still burning. So the
Speaker 3: action begins with the mill burning down, presumably having killed
Speaker 3: the monster. Henry Frankenstein lies unconscious at the foot of
Speaker 3: the flaming tower, having been thrown nearly to his death
Speaker 3: by his own creation. Henry's friends and servants load him
Speaker 3: into a wagon to be taken back to his family estate.
Speaker 3: I think they believe he is dead at this point,
Speaker 3: but he's not. Meanwhile, the angry villagers cheer and they
Speaker 3: shake their torches and pitchforks at the demise of the
Speaker 3: hated Boris Karloff, and we get zoom ins on several
Speaker 3: characters in the crowd. Here. There is, as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: Henry's talkative housekeeper Mini wearing this what would you call
Speaker 3: this piece of headwear that she has on that I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: I was trying to figure it out. Is it like
Speaker 2: some sort of a cultural thing that I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: pick up on or it's something historic. But yeah, it
Speaker 2: threw me for a curve trying to figure out, like
Speaker 2: what it's supposed to tell us the viewer about her role.
Speaker 3: I do not know what it is. It kind of
Speaker 3: makes her head look like a venus fly trap. H
Speaker 3: She is discussing how happy she is to know the
Speaker 3: monster is roasting in the inferno there as she also
Speaker 3: explains with apparent glee, how the insides of a body
Speaker 3: are the last part to burn in a fire. That's
Speaker 3: just science. There's also this old, blustery guy with a
Speaker 3: big mustache, the Burgomaster. He's wandering around telling everyone that
Speaker 3: it's time for them to go to bed now, and
Speaker 3: I just love for this guy to do a buddy
Speaker 3: cop team up with Christopher Lee from the Devil rides
Speaker 3: out and they can tell everyone to go to bed.
Speaker 2: He's a go home, go to bed also.
Speaker 3: Though, then, amidst these funny characters, we have tragic characters
Speaker 3: the parents of the girl who was killed accidentally by
Speaker 3: the monster in the previous movie. As the crowd gets
Speaker 3: bored wanders away from the wreckage of the mill, the
Speaker 3: girl's father, Hans, decides that he will not be satisfied
Speaker 3: until he sees the creature's charred bones, so he starts
Speaker 3: picking his way down. He climbs into the rubble, but
Speaker 3: then slips and tumbles down into the cellar of the
Speaker 3: burning mill, which is now flooded with water. And oh,
Speaker 3: in a beautifully unsettling series of shots, we see, in
Speaker 3: the dark, with water falling all around, a pale hand
Speaker 3: reach out across the stone work of the wall, and
Speaker 3: then from behind a corner emerges carl Off. The creature
Speaker 3: is burned but still alive, and then the light of
Speaker 3: the fire reflects off of the flowing water and projects
Speaker 3: shimmering patterns on the monster's face. All over this great
Speaker 3: makeup and the creature you can see it. He no
Speaker 3: longer has as the innocent and childlike nature that he
Speaker 3: had in the movie before. Now the creature just immediately
Speaker 3: descends on Hans and murders him. He pushes his head
Speaker 3: under the waters of the flood. He's full of rage.
Speaker 3: And then Hans's wife comes to help her husband, but
Speaker 3: the hand that reaches up from the cellar is not
Speaker 3: the hand she expects. It's the monster coming out, and
Speaker 3: the monster throws her down to her death in the
Speaker 3: rubble below.
Speaker 2: This is a great way to reestablish the monster, because
Speaker 2: again we all know what everyone going into this film
Speaker 2: knew what the monster would look like. Retroactively watching this film,
Speaker 2: you know, some decades later, we know what the monster
Speaker 2: looks like. But the monster is so perfectly reintroduced here
Speaker 2: in this dark, shadowy, submerged world, and then proceeds to
Speaker 2: just brutally murder these two sympathetic characters, Like when he
Speaker 2: throws the old woman back down, and like it was
Speaker 2: obviously one of these you know stunts where they have
Speaker 2: a dummy that is standing in for the of the woman,
Speaker 2: but she like lands head first on the water wheel
Speaker 2: and the mill and then tumbles down. It's it's brutal.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, And I've always found something so profoundly
Speaker 3: dark about this opening. The set design is about as
Speaker 3: dank and heavy as one could possibly achieve. Like we
Speaker 3: begin in this flooded basement underneath the ruins of a
Speaker 3: burning building. It is as close as it could be
Speaker 3: to meeting the creature again in Hell. And the creature
Speaker 3: was supposed to be the ugliest thing imaginable before a
Speaker 3: monster just scrabbled together out of dead flesh. And now
Speaker 3: somehow he is even worse. His hair is singed off
Speaker 3: by the fire, his skin has been melted and torn open,
Speaker 3: He's got all these scars. He murders the grieving parents
Speaker 3: of the child that he never meant to harm in
Speaker 3: the first place, and then he staggers out under a
Speaker 3: sky that is so gray and dismal it's like the
Speaker 3: sun has never existed. This is such a opening, absolutely,
Speaker 3: But then in a reversal that will pressage that the
Speaker 3: tone of the film going forward, and a lot of
Speaker 3: Wales other works as well. It goes straight from the
Speaker 3: sourest gloom ever committed to film to a comedy bit. So,
Speaker 3: the monster staggers up to Minnie, who is still wandering
Speaker 3: around on the hillside, apparently looking for somebody whose business
Speaker 3: she can get up into, and she sees the monster,
Speaker 3: and she starts making looney Tunes noises for what feels
Speaker 3: like a solid minute before running away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does just goes so looney tunes. It's it's wonderful,
Speaker 2: And yet again everything feels balanced, it doesn't feel jarring somehow,
Speaker 2: And part of that may be that we started out
Speaker 2: so campy. We started out so broad and we're already
Speaker 2: weaving in and out smoothly between the comedy and the horror.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you said the word camp. I think that's important.
Speaker 3: A lot of critics and film historians have pointed to
Speaker 3: the importance of the camp sensibility within the rich Tonal
Speaker 3: architecture of Bride Frankenstein. Camp is core to what this
Speaker 3: movie is, I think, especially once Ernest Thesiger arrives and
Speaker 3: in the role of doctor Pretorious. But anyway, so to
Speaker 3: come back to the plot, Henry Frankenstein is carried unconscious
Speaker 3: and apparently dead back to his family estate, where he
Speaker 3: is greeted by his good hearted fiance Elizabeth. And I
Speaker 3: should add also that this is true for pretty much
Speaker 3: the whole movie. But the sets here are tremendous. The
Speaker 3: Frankenstein home is full of arches and firelight and all
Speaker 3: kinds of gothic flare. It's photographed beautifully, so you can
Speaker 3: just see in every moment that Universal like really opened
Speaker 3: up the purse to allow Whale to make the best
Speaker 3: movie he could.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, just beautiful, beautiful sets.
Speaker 3: Somewhere in the sequence, Many comes back and reports that
Speaker 3: the monster is still alive, that she saw him and
Speaker 3: of course she is ignored. I think it's the head
Speaker 3: butler who tells to shut up and then says, we
Speaker 3: don't believe in ghosts around here. So they initially think
Speaker 3: that Henry is dead, but then he moves suddenly in
Speaker 3: the presence of Elizabeth, and so she's like, oh, he's
Speaker 3: still alive, and she nurses Henry back to health. All
Speaker 3: the casting is good, but I wanted to call out
Speaker 3: the casting of Elizabeth as also quite good. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit more thankless of a role than
Speaker 3: a lot of the other roles in the film, where
Speaker 3: actors really get to ham it up. Elizabeth doesn't quite
Speaker 3: get to do that. But I think Hobson is selected
Speaker 3: because she comes off as a beacon of undiluted love
Speaker 3: and kindness in the middle of this wretched setting. I
Speaker 3: mentioned this earlier, but I think she represents the other life,
Speaker 3: the life of virtue and bliss that Henry could have
Speaker 3: had if he had just been content rather than questing
Speaker 3: into these domains of unknown knowledge and power. Like Elizabeth
Speaker 3: is as good as gold, and they could have been
Speaker 3: happy and had that golden life together, but he wanted more.
Speaker 3: He had that Faustian temptation. He wanted, He wanted more
Speaker 3: than it is healthy for a person to want.
Speaker 2: She's like the girlfriend on the second season of The
Speaker 2: Bear For you TV viewers, I don't know the Bear well,
Speaker 2: same role, like saying you don't maybe you could, We
Speaker 2: could have a life together and you don't have to
Speaker 2: go through this painful experience of opening this restaurant or
Speaker 2: reopening it, which is kind of the same thing. It's like,
Speaker 2: we have a reopening of a destructive project in this
Speaker 2: in this a personally destructive project in this film, just
Speaker 2: like in that show.
Speaker 3: And we yeah, and we see some remorse. Like while recovering,
Speaker 3: Henry wonders if he is being punished for his experiments
Speaker 3: in creating the monster. He says, perhaps death is sacred
Speaker 3: and I've profaned it. But his remorse is only half
Speaker 3: the picture. It's kind of fleeting because he also still thinks,
Speaker 3: you know, in piecing together a superhuman strangling machine out
Speaker 3: of the mangled odds and ends of dead bodies, I
Speaker 3: might have really been on to something. He says, quote
Speaker 3: I dreamed of giving to the world the secret that
Speaker 3: God is so jealous of the formula for life. So
Speaker 3: Henry has not completely abandoned his ambitions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's at least yeah, there's some embers still hot
Speaker 2: in there. Of course, it's left for us to wonder, well,
Speaker 2: does he actually have the wherewithal to do this again?
Speaker 2: Is he just sort of idally dreaming? And maybe that's
Speaker 2: the case, Maybe he wouldn't have the courage and the
Speaker 2: strength to go through with that nightmare again as long
Speaker 2: as nobody comes along and encourages him to pick it
Speaker 2: up again.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, And here things really start cooking into
Speaker 3: the picture comes doctor Septimus Pretorious. What can we say
Speaker 3: of Doctor Septimus Pretorious? The look, the attitude, the scowl.
Speaker 3: He's so ernest messager. Is this tall, gaunt man with
Speaker 3: light colored, frizzy, curly hair, and he he puts on
Speaker 3: this amazing scowl, this resting stink face that throughout pretty
Speaker 3: much the whole movie. And from his very first line
Speaker 3: he is committed to being a lot.
Speaker 2: Yes he is. He is a lot. He has so
Speaker 2: much the I mean the most the most entertaining character
Speaker 2: in this film. Among so many other entertaining characters, he
Speaker 2: has to stand out as one of the most the
Speaker 2: most entertaining characters in just cinema in general, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's everything we see from him is golden here, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's almost a shame that we don't get to
Speaker 2: experience this same actor in this same role in other pictures.
Speaker 2: But and again, that's kind of what.
Speaker 3: Makes it special, that's right. So he arrives at the
Speaker 3: door of the Frankenstein estate. He says he must see
Speaker 3: Henry tonight on a secret matter of grave importance, and
Speaker 3: I guess it's many who lets him in, Like, okay,
Speaker 3: grave importance, So we love. Doctor Pretorius is a professor,
Speaker 3: a former mentor of Henry's, but has recently been ejected
Speaker 3: from the academy for reasons that are only vaguely alluded
Speaker 3: to with summaries, such as fore knowing too much. But
Speaker 3: once doctor Pretorius has gotten Elizabeth out of Henry's bedroom,
Speaker 3: he goes to Henry's bedside and says that he knows
Speaker 3: of Henry's experiments, He knows about the monster, and he says,
Speaker 3: we've got to work together. He wants their experimentation to
Speaker 3: go on, no longer as master and pupil, but as
Speaker 3: fellow scientists. In fact, he says, in Henry's absence, he
Speaker 3: has continued his own forbidden studies in secret and managed
Speaker 3: to create life of a sort on his own. So
Speaker 3: Henry initially tries to resist doctor Pretorius's recruitment. He's like, no, no,
Speaker 3: I have to get married to Elizabeth. But when he
Speaker 3: hears that his former teacher has also found the formula
Speaker 3: for life, he says he must see what he has accomplished.
Speaker 2: And you know, you might expect that doctor Pretorius has
Speaker 2: created something more or less like the monster, but maybe
Speaker 2: not as good, you know, like it's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: less powerful, there's something imperfect about it. And I think
Speaker 2: this is a this is a this would be a
Speaker 2: good guess, but this film is not going to align
Speaker 2: with the easy guesswork you might have in Blaze here
Speaker 2: like this, Well, what he has been working on is tremendous.
Speaker 3: That's right. So they go back to Pretorius's lab to
Speaker 3: see what he has done, and here we come to
Speaker 3: the famous Homunculi scene. First at his lab, Pretorious, this
Speaker 3: is the part where he offers a toast to a
Speaker 3: new world of gods and monsters, and then he gets
Speaker 3: out this huge black box to show Henry what's inside,
Speaker 3: talking the whole time about how enthralling it is to
Speaker 3: create life. He says, my experiments went in a different
Speaker 3: direction than yours, But science, like love, is always full
Speaker 3: of surprises. Why does he say that? Like love? There
Speaker 3: seems to be something really inherently sensual about doctor Pretorius's
Speaker 3: idea of science.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it is all consuming, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: So he unveiled. Pretorious unveils these glass jars with tiny
Speaker 3: living people inside them, and I should just say that
Speaker 3: the effects here are spectacular. He has created homunculi. And
Speaker 3: he explains that he first created a woman who was
Speaker 3: so lovely that he had to make her a queen.
Speaker 3: So she's here in this regal gown on a throne.
Speaker 3: And he says, next, since he had a queen, he
Speaker 3: had to make a king, and the king is apparently
Speaker 3: obsessed with getting out of his jar and getting to
Speaker 3: the queen. Then he says he made another tiny man
Speaker 3: quote who looked so disapprovingly at the other two that
Speaker 3: they made him an archbishop. Now I guess this somehow
Speaker 3: got past the Hay Code prohibition, and it's making fun
Speaker 3: of the clergy, or I don't know, to be fair,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly how the Hayes code affected this movie,
Speaker 3: but this was left in for some reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's like, likewise, there are some other
Speaker 2: lines we've already touched on that feel like if you
Speaker 2: were gonna be picky about blasphemous statements, might have been
Speaker 2: picked on. But I don't know. It's like, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure offhand what they cut compared to what they kept.
Speaker 2: And maybe they let this slide too, because it's like
Speaker 2: it's not as much about the clergy being dumb as
Speaker 2: it is about like, just look how awful this king is.
Speaker 2: He's like, this clergy member is just done with them.
Speaker 2: But to be clear, these are little people wearing full costumes.
Speaker 2: They're like a miniature king and queen, a miniature archbishop
Speaker 2: or whatever it's it is. This is so comedically weird.
Speaker 3: Yes. Oh and the fourth homunculus, by the way, is
Speaker 3: a devil. It's the devil. Messeger says, there's a resemblance
Speaker 3: to me, don't you think doctorious than muses? That wouldn't
Speaker 3: life be simpler if we were all devils? No nonsense
Speaker 3: about angels and being good.
Speaker 2: He's really laying it out out there. He's like, look,
Speaker 2: there's no good. There's no bad. There's just the work
Speaker 2: at hand. And we've got a team up again. Because
Speaker 2: I've got my ideas, you've got your ideas. Together, we
Speaker 2: can really make the perfect being.
Speaker 3: Oh. Also he made a ballerina and a mermaid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd forgotten that there were so many additional creature
Speaker 2: being some unculi that he had made, because this scene
Speaker 2: goes on a while, and a lot of effort went
Speaker 2: into into making each of these homunculi tubes. It's very impressive.
Speaker 3: So Henry is appalled by this. I'm not quite sure
Speaker 3: exactly why Henry is so appalled by the homunculi compared
Speaker 3: to the monster he made, But he says, this isn't science,
Speaker 3: it's more like black magic. And doctor Pretorius says, you
Speaker 3: think I'm mad, Perhaps I am, But listen to Henry Frankenstein. Well,
Speaker 3: you were digging in your grave, piecing together dead tissues. I,
Speaker 3: my dear pupil, went for my materials, to the source
Speaker 3: of life. I grew my creatures like cultures, grew them
Speaker 3: as nature does from seed. Yeah, and I think that
Speaker 3: means exactly what it sounds like. I think Pretorius here
Speaker 3: is operating on the basis of the ideology of spermist preformationism.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I believe we discussed in some past episodes of
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your mind.
Speaker 3: The idea that, like the human body, it's sort of
Speaker 3: an alternative to cell theory, is that like the human
Speaker 3: body is fully formed, just very tiny in the sex cells,
Speaker 3: and the spermists thought that they were that the human
Speaker 3: bodies were in the sperm, not in the eggs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I mean already they're laying out a really
Speaker 2: cool idea and one that the film will will fulfill.
Speaker 2: The idea that on one hand, doctor Pretorius is all
Speaker 2: about growing new life. Slickenstein is about assembling new life
Speaker 2: and instilling energy in it. And if you bring these
Speaker 2: two disciplines together, well then there's there's no limit to
Speaker 2: what you can create.
Speaker 3: That's right. So Pretorius beckons Henry to join him. He says,
Speaker 3: together they can discover all the secrets of creating life.
Speaker 3: He says, leave your Charnel house and follow the lead
Speaker 3: of nature or of God if you like your Bible stories.
Speaker 3: So doctor Pretorius wants to not only create life from
Speaker 3: non life, but together with Henry, he thinks that they
Speaker 3: can make two living beings that can join in sexual
Speaker 3: union and reproduce with one another, giving rise to a
Speaker 3: whole new line of created creatures. Henry is horrified. He
Speaker 3: claims he won't do it, but Pretorius is mighty persuasive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't even really have to get heavy handed
Speaker 2: at this point. He's just like like, do it, do it.
Speaker 2: You're doing it. Come on, you're doing it. He's like, okay. Now.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, so we leave that scene for a while and
Speaker 3: we revisit the creature. So the creature, having escaped to
Speaker 3: the burning mill, wanders through a forest, which is an
Speaker 3: absolutely gorgeous bucolic indoor forest set. You know, I love those.
Speaker 3: It's got a canopy of slanted pine trees and a
Speaker 3: rushing waterfall, and the creature drinks from a stream, but
Speaker 3: he sees his face reflected in the water and then
Speaker 3: strikes out at it in anger. He hates his own image.
Speaker 2: And again, I just want to drive home that while
Speaker 2: there's so much about Carlos Frankenstein's Monster that has become
Speaker 2: a stereotype of the horror genre that has become kind
Speaker 2: of cliche, when you see the actual performance, there is
Speaker 2: so much more nuance to it. You know, it's easy
Speaker 2: to think of it as just you know, like firebag,
Speaker 2: you know, and sort of think of the like the
Speaker 2: Phil Hartman Saturday Night Live version of the thing. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there's just so many additional levels to it, Like there
Speaker 2: is this real authentic feeling of this being that cannot
Speaker 2: communicate properly about the world around him, but has like
Speaker 2: intense emotions and trauma and even a little bit of
Speaker 2: hope still remaining about how he connects to it all.
Speaker 3: I totally agree that the Frankenstein creature is so much
Speaker 3: more complex than the impression you would get from the parodies.
Speaker 3: And as I said earlier, that does go straight back
Speaker 3: to the novel. The creature is an extremely complex and
Speaker 3: thoughtful and emotional being in the novel. So in this scene,
Speaker 3: there's a shepherdess leading some lambs through the forest. The
Speaker 3: shepherdess sees the creature and she screams in terror and
Speaker 3: falls into the water, and the creature actually goes and
Speaker 3: saves her from drowning. And you know, I think something
Speaker 3: interesting is going on here. Where just in the scene before,
Speaker 3: a character fell into the water with the creature, and
Speaker 3: the creature drowned that character on purpose. He was so
Speaker 3: filled with rage. Here somebody falls into the water and
Speaker 3: he tries to save their life. So I think this
Speaker 3: is also supposed to communicate something about the creature just
Speaker 3: being so filled with churning emotions and contradictions. It doesn't
Speaker 3: know what it is. The creature doesn't know if he
Speaker 3: is if he is good or evil, and doesn't know
Speaker 3: which path to embrace. He's just sort of flying back
Speaker 3: and forth from one to the other. But anyway, so
Speaker 3: the woman falls in the water, he saves her, but
Speaker 3: then she is of course terrified of him. She starts
Speaker 3: to scream, and the creature is frightened by this. He
Speaker 3: tries to stop her screaming by covering her mouth, which
Speaker 3: just makes it worse. And then men with guns come
Speaker 3: and start shooting at the creature. They wound him, but
Speaker 3: he escapes into the wild and the townspeople raise a
Speaker 3: mob to chase the monster once again. This is another
Speaker 3: chased by the crowd scene, And one thing I wanted
Speaker 3: to point out is how the forest set changed from
Speaker 3: the previous scene to this one. So when the monster
Speaker 3: is wandering alone before the mob attacks him, before he
Speaker 3: has been you know, seen and hated again by humanity,
Speaker 3: the forest is lush and lovely and alive, and now
Speaker 3: that he is again being hunted and despised. The trees
Speaker 3: are all these straight, bare trunks without leaves or branches,
Speaker 3: and it's set against a dark sky and these crooked rocks,
Speaker 3: And I think the film uses set and setting to
Speaker 3: infuse the scenes with emotion.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned this, because this is something that
Speaker 2: I don't think I actually I didn't think about it
Speaker 2: as I was watching. I was so caught up in
Speaker 2: the action of it all. But I think you're absolutely right,
Speaker 2: Like they're they're manipulating their their tightly controlled set world
Speaker 2: here uh to uh to imbue the scene with just
Speaker 2: the right amount of just the right emotion and just
Speaker 2: the right energy.
Speaker 3: So this all has a momentum of its own. That
Speaker 3: the creature is caught by the mob, bound up like
Speaker 3: tied to a pole, taken into town, thrown into a dungeon,
Speaker 3: chained up to this heavy wooden chair that looks like
Speaker 3: some kind of torture device. All throughout the creature is
Speaker 3: groaning in pain and misery. This is the scene where
Speaker 3: Minnie is looking down the window at the dungeon and
Speaker 3: is like ooh, ooh, she's just getting too excited about this.
Speaker 3: But of course, first chance he gets Karloff, snaps the chains,
Speaker 3: breaks out of prison, kicks down the heavy wooden doors. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: that mustachioed character, the Burgomaster from the guy from earlier
Speaker 3: who was telling everybody to go to bed, there's a
Speaker 3: really funny part where he's trying to clear the crowd.
Speaker 3: He's saying, nothing to worry about, just an escaped lunatic,
Speaker 3: quite harmless, while the monster is kicking down the door
Speaker 3: of the prison in the background.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is great because, yeah, this part is funny,
Speaker 2: and yet at the same time, the daytime rampage is
Speaker 2: still terrifying, and I think it's more terrifying because it
Speaker 2: is in the daylight.
Speaker 3: I agree. So there's this rampage, the monster harms people
Speaker 3: in the process of escaping the town, but eventually gets
Speaker 3: out into the woods. And so eventually this leads up
Speaker 3: to the part where the monster is drawn to the cabin.
Speaker 3: The cabin in the woods where the old hermit lives.
Speaker 3: He's drawn by the sound of music. So this old
Speaker 3: blind man lives alone in a cottage and he's playing
Speaker 3: ave Maria on the violin. The creature likes the music,
Speaker 3: and so he comes to the door of the cabin,
Speaker 3: and unlike everyone else who fears and rejects the monster,
Speaker 3: the blind man welcomes the creature into his house. He
Speaker 3: offers him hospitality, and he offers him friendship, gives the
Speaker 3: creature food, He cares for his wounds, and he shows
Speaker 3: him kindness. When the creature is unable to speak, the
Speaker 3: old man says, perhaps you are afflicted too. I cannot
Speaker 3: see and you cannot speak. But he says, I've prayed
Speaker 3: many times for God to send me a friend. God
Speaker 3: has taken pity on my loneliness, and we can be
Speaker 3: friends to each other. And so this turns into a
Speaker 3: really beautiful short story in the middle of the the movie. Here,
Speaker 3: you know, the blind man does not even understand how
Speaker 3: uncommon the friendship he's offering is to the person he's
Speaker 3: offering it to, and so the creature seems he accepts
Speaker 3: the hospitality, and the creature goes on to live with
Speaker 3: this blind man for some unspecified length of time, during
Speaker 3: which he learns to speak. The old man teaches him words,
Speaker 3: teaches him about bread, wine and cigars, and oh boy,
Speaker 3: when you know what he's learning about cigars. At first,
Speaker 3: fire bad, so the creature doesn't like that, but he
Speaker 3: figures out pretty soon that he likes smoking cigars.
Speaker 2: Yes, these things are hilarious but also very poignant as well,
Speaker 2: like he's because the monster is learning to enjoy life
Speaker 2: for the first time, and the blind man is sharing
Speaker 2: the enjoyments of life with him.
Speaker 3: After gaining a vocabulary, the creature learns to express his
Speaker 3: feelings in words, and he says things like alone, bad, friend, good.
Speaker 3: But this happy interlude is broken when two hunters, including
Speaker 3: John Kridy and come to the cabin asking for directions,
Speaker 3: and uh oh, they see the monster, you know exactly what.
Speaker 3: A fight breaks out, the cabin catches fire, and everyone
Speaker 3: runs off in their separate directions. So the creature's chance
Speaker 3: here and having a good life is thwarted, and the
Speaker 3: creature wanders at night through a desolate cemetery in a rage.
Speaker 3: And this graveyard set is fantastic. It's like the graveyard
Speaker 3: at the end of the world. High contrasts, dead trees
Speaker 3: reaching like ghostly fingers. There's mist rising from the consecrated earth,
Speaker 3: and then in his anger and despair, the creature is
Speaker 3: literally toppling monuments and grave markers. He hates every work
Speaker 3: of man, but he decides to hide out. The creature
Speaker 3: tries to hide from the angry mob by climbing down
Speaker 3: into a subterranean crypt. And what's this. Down in the crypt,
Speaker 3: he sees three figures coming carrying lanterns, descending into the catacomb,
Speaker 3: and one of them is our old friend, doctor Septimus Pretorious.
Speaker 2: M Yes, now before even encountering him. Though, this is
Speaker 2: already so perfect because the monster earlier in the film
Speaker 2: emerges from the underworld and and has all these encounters,
Speaker 2: seems to find a new a new way to look
Speaker 2: at life, and now he is forced to descend back
Speaker 2: into the underworld. You know, it's it's like all his
Speaker 2: attempts have failed. But sometimes in the underworld you do
Speaker 2: run into the devil and inter Yet doctor Pretorious and
Speaker 2: his guns.
Speaker 3: His two oh my god, she's accompanied by these two
Speaker 3: cursed wax and goons, one of them played by Dwight Fry.
Speaker 3: The characters are named Carl and Ludwig. They're here to
Speaker 3: do the heavy lifting for this midnight grave robbing mission.
Speaker 3: There's there's supposed to be criminals of some sort of
Speaker 3: Pretorious threatens to send them back to the gallows where
Speaker 3: they belong if they don't get on with the body removal,
Speaker 3: So they select a grave. They steal the woman's body
Speaker 3: from the grave. Looking on, Pretorius says, I hope her
Speaker 3: bones are firm. But eventually so they get the body.
Speaker 3: The grave robbers leave, but Pretorious stays. And then this
Speaker 3: is probably my favorite scene in the movie, where he
Speaker 3: Pretorious is just like, I rather like this place. I
Speaker 3: shall stay here for a bit and just has himself
Speaker 3: a cackling picnic in the middle of the catacomb, wine, cheese, skeletons.
Speaker 3: He won't stop laughing. He's having a great time.
Speaker 2: I think he has her bones, that the woman's bones
Speaker 2: like piled up there in the middle of his little
Speaker 2: pic neck.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, is that what it is? Okay?
Speaker 2: If not her bones, someone else's bones. Either way, it's
Speaker 2: a it's a gothic delight. I should I should also
Speaker 2: point out like he's already like he's shown that he's
Speaker 2: such a you can't trust anything, he says, because this
Speaker 2: whole thing to Frankenstein was like, we're done with with
Speaker 2: dead bodies, old boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The next thing we see from him. Is he's down
Speaker 2: there grave robbin with a couple of goods.
Speaker 3: That's right, Okay, I think you're right. Actually, I was
Speaker 3: thinking about the that the goons still took the with them,
Speaker 3: but I think they got these bones out and he's
Speaker 3: like just hanging out with the bones. I think that's right.
Speaker 2: But yes, tremendous saint just cackling in the crypt.
Speaker 3: But the monster comes out of hiding and meets doctor Pretorius.
Speaker 3: Pretorius says, oh, I thought I was alone, and then
Speaker 3: he shares his food, wine and cigars. But the creature
Speaker 3: much like the old man did in the cottage in
Speaker 3: the woods, except whereas that was wholesome and friendly, there's
Speaker 3: a different subtext here. Instead, it feels more like he's
Speaker 3: being enticed into a deal with the devil here.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So they sort of get.
Speaker 3: To know each other, and then Pretorius explains his plans
Speaker 3: to the monster. He says that he promises that he
Speaker 3: will make the monster a friend, a woman like him
Speaker 3: to be his wife. So this takes us into the
Speaker 3: last act of the movie. Henry and Elizabeth are married
Speaker 3: again by the time we meet them, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to skip more lightly over the plot now, but Basically,
Speaker 3: Pretorius comes to Henry and Elizabeth home and he confronts
Speaker 3: Henry for help about making the bride. He's like, I've
Speaker 3: got to make this undead woman. You're gonna help me.
Speaker 3: Henry tries to refuse, but he's got an ace up
Speaker 3: his sleeve. He has the monster kidnap Elizabeth as a hostage,
Speaker 3: so Henry will have no choice but to help him
Speaker 3: do unholy science.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: So together they work on bringing this dead woman to life,
Speaker 3: and there's one hilarious part where they're trying to get
Speaker 3: a heart that will be appropriate, and the heart they
Speaker 3: have doesn't work. Henry says he needs a better one,
Speaker 3: so Pretorius calls up Carl, that's Dwight Fry, and he's like, Carl,
Speaker 3: go to the accident hospital. We need a fresh heart
Speaker 3: from a young woman. And you know where this is going, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So Carl just like goes and murders someone and then
Speaker 3: he shows up with a heart, and Henry's like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is a really fresh heart. Good job, and Carl's
Speaker 3: like it was a police case. But anyway, so they
Speaker 3: do all their unholy science and the bride is brought
Speaker 3: to life. During an electrical storm, wrapped up like a
Speaker 3: mummy in these bandages. And eventually the bandages are peeled
Speaker 3: back and the reveal this is the bride of Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: It's Elsa Wnchester. Uh what what would you say to
Speaker 3: describe her here?
Speaker 2: Rob oh Well, I already mentioned the Avian energy, and
Speaker 2: certainly everybody knows the look the hair, but god Like,
Speaker 2: initially she's still wrapped in bandages. You don't know what
Speaker 2: you're gonna see. You know, there's their elements of a
Speaker 2: mummy to the way she's wrapped up. And then when
Speaker 2: we start taking them off, yeah, you begin to see
Speaker 2: that she is. This what they've they've really managed to
Speaker 2: look for the bride. That is this uncanny place between
Speaker 2: otherworldly beauty and and and and really the grave.
Speaker 3: That's right, and tragically so they So the monster comes
Speaker 3: out after his bride has been created, and the monster
Speaker 3: hopefully approaches her, saying friend, friend. But here's where the
Speaker 3: real tragedy comes in. Even she from beyond the grave
Speaker 3: rejects Karlof, rejects the monster. She screams, she finds him
Speaker 3: terrifying and ugly, and she.
Speaker 2: Kind of does this hiss thing. Eventually, too. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: towards the end, but I really like that moment as
Speaker 2: well because it also sort of served to underline the
Speaker 2: fact that like she is, she is monster as well,
Speaker 2: like she's not I mean in the same way that
Speaker 2: that Karlov's monster is also a victim. Yes, she is
Speaker 2: also a victim. She did not ask to be brought
Speaker 2: into this world. But she is also not human in
Speaker 2: the same way that the monster is not human.
Speaker 3: That's right. She immediately seems to recognize the wrongness of
Speaker 3: her own existence, like you know, love dead, hate living,
Speaker 3: and she hisses, and that hiss signals almost that like
Speaker 3: she doesn't want to exist. The hiss apparently was elsa
Speaker 3: Lanchester idea, and she got the idea from observing geese.
Speaker 3: You know geese his Yeah, so she was trying to
Speaker 3: do like a goose's threatening hiss.
Speaker 2: Oh, very good, excellent addition.
Speaker 3: So in the very end, the creature just defeated by
Speaker 3: by this rejection. He allows Henry and Elizabeth to escape
Speaker 3: the castle. He tells them to live, but as for himself,
Speaker 3: the bride and doctor Pretorius, he says, we belong dead
Speaker 3: and flips this lever that had been established would would
Speaker 3: reduce the I think Pretorius said it would reduce their
Speaker 3: castle to atoms. It doesn't quite do that, but it
Speaker 3: does cause a great destruction.
Speaker 2: Yes, again, this is the beautiful discuction scene that I
Speaker 2: was talking about at the top of the episode. Just oh,
Speaker 2: it's so beautiful. Everything I mean in the film, certainly,
Speaker 2: but this, this last stretches last third of the picture.
Speaker 2: I mean that the laboratory looks amazing, the lightning effects,
Speaker 2: the kites they send up, the the the resurrection or
Speaker 2: energizing of the bride is so wonderful. Everything is just
Speaker 2: pitch perfect.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, And I guess that's got to be
Speaker 3: the end, right, that's Bride of Frankenstein. I will just
Speaker 3: say again, I love this movie. I think it's like
Speaker 3: top tier weird horror, just unbeatable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and solid ending too. We cut to the Frankenstein's
Speaker 2: not the monsters, Henry and Elizabeth, you know, reunited and
Speaker 2: it's a nice little moment. Kind of serves as a
Speaker 2: nice cap, but it doesn't feel kind of like unearned
Speaker 2: and tacked on, like the happy moment at the end
Speaker 2: of the first Frankenstein, like this one feels like it.
Speaker 2: It honestly got to that feel good moment at the
Speaker 2: end where everything's put right. Yeah, like Joe said, it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful movie. Go see it if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: and if you've seen it before, even a few times,
Speaker 2: go watch it again because you know you love it.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder out there that Stuffed to a Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie
Speaker 2: here on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see
Speaker 2: a list of all the movies we've covered over the
Speaker 2: years here, you can go to U. We can go
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com. It's l E T t e
Speaker 2: r box d dot com. That's a site where people
Speaker 2: create accounts and review movies and make lists of movies. Well,
Speaker 2: we have a username on there, it's weird House, and
Speaker 2: you can see a wonderful visual list of all the
Speaker 2: movies we've covered thus far, and sometimes a peek ahead
Speaker 2: at what's coming up next. I also blog about these
Speaker 2: films at some mutomusic dot com.
Speaker 3: Huge Things. As always to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway,
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.