Bride of Frankenstein

Alex Holt

The Bride of Frankenstein Movie Review #3

It’s alive!! The famous quote from the first movie Frankenstein for when the monster was awaken for the first time, is yet used again for the monster to be awaken from the fire at the beginning of the movie, The Bride of Frankenstein.  The storyline is simply just a man made monster played by (Boris Karloff) who is misunderstood and when anyone near sees the monster’s face the over dramatic reactions causes the monster to instantly either hurt or kill them with the weakness of not understanding his own strength.

There is an over dramatic tone but with humorous acting between the main characters in the film. For example, the maid named Minnie (Una O’Conner) tries to warn those of the monster at varies times throughout the film as well when she also sees Hans (Reginald Barlow) who was a soon to be husband to (Mary Gordon) was shown in one of the first scenes that he had appeared at first to have been killed by the monster. The reactions of Minnie screaming would have been humorous when the movie was first released but since we are more educated with the culture of film that it became an annoyance for someone to scream throughout the entire film.

The interaction between the blind man who goes by Hermit (O.P Heggie) and the monster is somewhat instead of a friendship in which Hermit claims but rather a very short father son type of relationship. The scenes of interaction between the monster and Hermit, presents a short comical vibe before Hermit is taken away. The monster learns some humanistic values such as talking and the feeling of being care for, therefore when Hermit is taken away a reaction of the monster blowing up with anger is because the most important thing was taken away by those who judge and hurt him.

The Bride of Frankenstein is not clearly identified, which should be easy but for those who give it a deeper thought; Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson) is the bride of the doctor who is Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and then there is the man made female monster who is meant to be someone’s bride (Elsa Lanchester) who was created by Dr. Frankenstein and Doctor Pretorius. The film hints that there are many unspoken feelings and confusion of who is the Bride of Frankenstein that may be linked into the unspoken topic of same sex relationships, which is an aspect of this that has been reviewed by critics. An example of the hint to homosexual feelings would be when the Monster walked into Hermit’s house and they seem to grow extremely close in a short timeframe, such as the Monster staying the night, and the two of them sharing cigars, wine, and bread.

For the age of this film, the photographic effects are pretty simple and clear, for insistence the close up shot that shows Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), standing next to his experiments of miniature people that are in glass jars shows that the scene is advance for its time. There is a display of harsh shadows on the actor’s faces that use lighting flicker effects in the overall setting. There are a few great silhouette shots in this film. For example, when the monster sets out into the graveyard it becomes a good transition scene. The sound effects that are used to show the actions of the machines that work with the experiments go along smoothly with the photo effects that are displayed, such as lighting and electricity voltages. One issue to notice with this scene is that through all the smoke and lighting aspects, at the end of the experiment it wasn’t clear enough to see the monster chasing a man who was carrying a fire torch up the stairs.

This film may be viewed as overdramatic and somewhat stupid to some but each movie always seems to provide a deep hidden message to the audience. Many may overpass the underlining message that a film provides but there may be more then just one underlining message. A message that a viewer may pick up in this film is that nobody wants to be or should be alone; hence the idea of a woman friend for the man made monster. Love seems to be a desired objective throughout the movie rather it be humanistic or of the supernatural, nobody wants to be alone.  Another message that this film sends to the audience is the one of the golden rules that we all learn in school, treat others the way you want to be treated and not to judge a book by its cover. The monster is judged before it’s given a chance, just because he may look horrible he could actually be a kind hearted if not misunderstood throughout the entire movie.