Universal Monsters #5: The Bride of Frankenstein

Going into Bride, I knew two things. One, Elsa Lanchester rocks an iconic look for the female version of Frankenstein's monster. And two, the ending. Yes, I had already seen the last minutes of the film multiple times. The movie's 83 years old, okay?

Premiering in 1935, two years after the original, Bride is generally considered the best of the Universal Monster movies. Weirdly, while the first one just started out telling the story, this one starts out with a framing device; Mary Shelley, played by Lanchester, telling the story of the sequel in a mansion around a fire on a stormy night. It's even more weird because she's telling the story AS IF she wrote the story of the first Frankenstein movie, which is really different from the book. Of course, the real Mary Shelley had nothing to do with any of this, so, as I said, weird.

That would be the Bride (on the left).

In any event, at the end of the first movie, the villagers with torches and pitchforks cornered the Monster at an old mill and burned it down with him in it. As this story starts, it turns out the Monster fell through the floor into water underneath the mill, thus not burning to death, and when the father from the first film climbs down to make sure the Monster is dead, he's killed for his trouble. As is his wife. So the Monster killed the entire family. Nice.

Meanwhile, as the Monster roams the countryside killing anyone he comes across, Dr. Frankenstein is approached by yet another mad scientist who has also been creating life. But rather than stitching together corpses, Dr. Pretorius grows his life from the ground up. Alas, his problem is that all his creations are only inches tall and he keeps them in glass jars. He also dresses them up as a ballerina, a king, a queen, etc. and what the hell is going on with that scene?!?  Anyway, he wants to join with Dr. Frankenstein and together they'll combine their skills to create a normal-sized bride for the Monster. Because if the Monster gets laid he'll stop killing, I guess?

W-T-F? Seriously.

The Monster is briefly captured by the villagers who incompetently imprison him for about five seconds before he IMMEDIATELY escapes and kills some more. But then there's a really nice series of scenes where the Monster, hiding in the woods, is taken in by a blind man in a cozy woodland cottage. The kind, blind guy can't see that he's taken in a "Monster" and is absolutely delighted to have a friend. He starts teaching the Monster to talk and it's actually kind of heartwarming and nice. Unfortunately, some asshole hunters stumble on the two in the cottage and once again the monster is on the run. Eventually, Dr. Pretorius bumps into him, takes him in, and they set up the end of the movie where he meets his bride. That does NOT go well.

Boris Karloff appears once again as the Monster and is just great. When the Monster talks it's with just the right combination of menace, innocence and pathos. The Monster is not really a Monster, he's a child who doesn't want to hurt people but is incapable of dealing with the fear directed at him. Karloff plays it perfectly.

I'm fairly convinced that the weird scene with the little people in jars was solely done to show off the special effect of little people in jars and, to be fair, it's a pretty great effect. Plus, Dr. Pretorius seems to be jealous of Dr. Frankenstein for creating the Monster, but it seems to me that creating a whole bunch of intelligent, civilized, tiny people is a much more impressive accomplishment.

I should also note that the body count is much higher in this movie than in the original Frankenstein. I guess villagers trying to burn you alive in a mill might piss you off just a bit.

I liked The Bride of Frankenstein and appreciate how well it builds off the original, but I found the tone a little inconsistent.

Here's Steve's review:  1001plus