Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Here's two old classics for you. And they are lumped together because they are essentially one long film.

James Whale's masterpieces Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)



If you have read the novel, and I urge that you really should read the novel, then forget most of what happens in that. You won't be getting a verbose view on life, death, God and soul as you do from the monster in the novel. Whale keeps the monster mute, until the Bride of Frankenstein, and he only gets limited phrases to say, (although, he does appear to have learned some wisdom by the end of Bride), thus we don't get his speech on life that Shelley's creature gives us.

So what do we have in the films?

Doctor Henry (not Victor) Frankenstein creates a creature from pieces of deceased humans, only the mishap comes when his assistant, instead of stealing a normal" brain from the medical labs, steal the "abnormal" brain ofcriminal. (This film was made in 1931 when phrenology (the stdy of a person's character from the bumps on their head) was studied. This results in the creation of a "monster" who later terrorises the local town, or if you look at the way Whale portrays it, the creation of a child in a man's body, who is percieved as a monster because of the way society reacts to him. I'm unsure whether Whale put this in as a statement on persecution because he was an openly gay man in Hollywood in the 1930s.

Bride of Frankenstein, released four years later deals with the other half of the plot of Shelly's novel, that of the creation of a mate for the creature. I do not have the time to discuss the gay reading of this film, and there is an awful lot of subtext here. This is because Whale originally did not want to direct a sequel, thinking he'd pushed the plot as far as he could with the first, and as an incentive he was given a much freer reign for Bride.

Watch these films in one session, as they are one story, and one director's handling of the Frankenstein myth. You will get an awful lot out of these films, probably more than you wil expect.

Frankenstein 4 Darios

The Bride of Frankenstein 4 1/2 Darios.