Franken-Fridays: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

"The Bride of Frankenstein" is a 1935 horror movie that sees the return of director James Whale, actor Boris Karloff, and makeup artist Jack Pierce. The film takes place directly after the previous "Frankenstein" film. It tells the story of the monster as he tears through the mountainside looking for safety. He finds a blind hermit who teaches him how to speak but that is cut short as hunters try to kill him. He flees to a graveyard where he runs into Dr. Pretorius, whom uses the Monster as muscle to force Henry Frankenstein to repeat his successful experiment to create a mate for the Monster.

This movie is my favorite of the Universal Monster movies. This is where we really feel a level of sympathy for the Monster. Karloff dos an amazing job of emoting while in the makeup, to the point where the monster doesn't really need to speak in order for us to tell exactly how he is feeling. We see desperation from him as he simply wants someone like him so he isn't alone anymore. In fact, the only moments of peace we see in the Monster's life is when he is with the hermit, who teaches him to speak and helps him control his fear of fire. Up to this point, the blind hermit is the only person who has treated the Monster with any form of compassion aside from the little girl Maria.

We also see a remorseful Henry Frankenstein in this film. He truly feels awful for what he has created and the demise of the Monster. This is amplified by the introduction of Dr. Pretorius, whom wants to combine his creation experiments with Henry's to be able to create a mate for the monster. Henry continuously battles with his urges to want to perfect the experiment, and his sense of morality knowing that it is wrong. (Dr. Pretorius has been able to create life in the form of tiny humans, seeing as they are tiny humans and not monsters I wont talk much about them in this article). Once Pretorius accidentally meets the Monster, who happens to be hiding in the same grave that he is robbing for parts, he decides to use the Monster as muscle to force Henry to partake in the experiment by kidnapping Henry's wife, Elizabeth.

The experiment yields successful, creating the titular Bride of Frankenstein, played by the lovely Elsa Lanchester. I always loved her design, It shows the necessity of the collaborative efforts of the two doctors to truly perfect the experiment. They have both learned from the first creation and are able to build upon it, creating a life who resembles humanity a bit more closely in comparison to the first Monster. She features bold white streaks on the sides of her hair, which is elegantly held up in a frizzy wave. She also has various stitch marks on the sides of her neck. her gown may be my favorite part, as it seems to be an amalgam of  the hospital bandages she was wrapped in before being shocked to life, as well as a large hospital gown.

My favorite moment, which never fails to break my heart, is when the Monster excitedly meets his Bride. Finally this is the moment he has been waiting for across the two features, he finally isn't alone anymore because someone just like him exists... or so he thought. The Bride ends up rejecting the Monster, shrieking in fear at the very sight of him. He realizes in this moment she just sees him as everyone else does, as a monster and not a person. He becomes enraged, trying to break various objects in the lab until he finds a switch, which he is warned would overload the entire lab causing it to explode killing everyone. As tensions are heating up, Elizabeth arrives at the lab calling out for Henry, whom warns her she is in danger. Henry goes to the door to urge Elizabeth to leave despite her refusal. This is when we see the Monster shift, up until this point he has held a distain for Henry for giving him a life where he is hated and feared. (In fact one moment in the movie he even states that he preferred being dead.) Seeing the love that Elizabeth and Henry share, the Monster lets go of his anger towards his creator and urges them to leave but forces Pretorius and the bride to stay uttering one of my favorite lines in the Universal Monsters catalogue.

The Monster flips the switch allowing Henry and Elizabeth to escape while the Lab crumbles to the ground. What I always loved about this movie and it's predecessor, is how the audience can sympathize with the Monster. There's almost never a moment where I feel that the Monster is an evil person to his core. Even with the death of the little girl Maria, he regrets what he did so immediately because he didn't know that would happen. There is a sense of Child-like innocence to him that makes me feel so terrible for all the things that end up happening to him. My only complaint with this feature is that we only see the Bride for about 10 minutes of the film's runtime. I would have loved to see her featured a bit more.

"The Bride of Frankenstein" is still one of my favorite movies of all time. It balances comedy, drama, and horror elements all together to make for an enjoyable experience. I give "the Bride of Frankenstein" a well earned 10/10 on the New and Improved Patented Monster Meter.

If you have not seen this one please do yourself a favor and watch it, it's available to rent on most if not all streaming platforms and as part of a boxset from Universal that includes the 6 core monster movies in the collection.