Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Breaking my miniature streak of watching movies from 1951, 1941 and 1931, but I guess that wasn’t going to last too long anyway, due to when films were invented. Both Frankenstein and Bride of were due to leave the Criterion Channel at the end of the month (and both are very manageable about 1hr 15 minutes long) so we rolled straight into this one.
This movie starts with a kind of pointless framing device, where Mary Shelley (at least getting a first name this time) is hanging out with Mr. Mary Shelley and Byron, as one does, and the two guys want a sequel to the Frankenstein story. And so we get one. Frankenstein was killed and then not killed at the end of the previous movie, so here we get the middle ground where he’s recovering in bed from being hurled out of a burning windmill by a monster of his own creation. The Monster too, has followed the classic TV rule of no body? not dead, and escaped by falling into some water under the windmill. He crawls out and immediately murders the parents of the child he drowned in the previous movie, and is seen by Minnie, Elizabeth and Frankenstein’s, I dunno, housekeeper or something, who keeps popping up throughout like she’s in some comedy sketch. I don’t think she affected the plot in any way, but she was very annoying.
I think the first movie wrote itself into a corner somewhat by having the Monster be lumbering and inarticulate, because it means they have to invent a Dr. Pretorius to make the case for creating another revenant. In the novel, it’s the monster who makes a fairly convincing argument that it’s not fair for him to be the only one, and also if Frankenstein doesn’t create him a mate, he’ll kill everyone that he (Frankenstein) has ever loved. Here, however, we just get another mad scientist popping up with the same “wouldn’t it be cool” rationale. I would also like to note that Dr. Pretorius has already created fully living, intelligent humans, but he’s very annoyed that he can only make very small ones that he keeps in jars and dresses in fancy clothes. It’s a little bonkers and is never mentioned again. Pretorius has mastered creating artificial life, but only Frankenstein knows how to make big artificial life. It’s a little bit of a weak hook, but let’s go.
The Monster remains the most sympathetic and relatable character in the movie, he gets shot, chained, breaks out instantly and runs away until he finds a blind shepherd living in a hut in the woods. They have a good time, the shepherd teaching the Monster some words, and just passing him booze and cigars like he’s a college roommate. Unfortunately, some humans who can see burst in and start shooting up the joint and the shepherd gets his shack burned down. The Monster, screwed over by prejudice once again.
Frankenstein changes his mind - maybe making another Monster is a bad idea, so Pretorius has the original monster kidnap Elizabeth until he shapes up. At this point we get the crowd pleaser, the re-run of the electrodes and the machines and the it’s alive, Hollywood has never been above recycling its hits. Everyone knows what the Bride looks like, she’s almost as recognisable as the Monster himself, Marge Simpson hair with a streak through it, minimal sewn-together bits, honestly pretty good looking, all things considered. Seems like she has earbuds, based on the below.
Anyway I realise at this point, when they’re unwrapping her, that there are about four minutes left in the whole thing so she wakes up, sees the Monster, squawks like a bird a few times. The Monster, realising he’s been rejected, tells Frankenstein and Elizabeth to GTFO and pulls the building down on the two of them. Which I feel is a little unwarranted, you can choose for yourself, but what if she wants to live? I’m generally on Team Monster up until this point, but “you’ve rejected me so you can’t live” is not a totally defensible position. I get that he’s probably correct, neither of them should really have been alive in the first place, but he got to learn some words, have some booze, accidentally drown a child. She only had seconds to live.
Later, while thinking in Ian Malcolm terms “you do plan to have a Bride of Frankenstein in your Bride of Frankenstein movie”, I realised that since they had gotten married during the movie, Elizabeth is in fact the title character, and she appeared loads of times. I can’t, however, even begin to come up with an alternative interpretation where she’s the protagonist.