cinema history class: bride of frankenstein

Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month 2018, Week 1
Movie: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Directed by James Whale
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
The monster has survived, but he's lonely. Frankenstein and Pretorius work together to find him a wife, but we're not exactly talking match.com. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
First, I should probably acknowledge two relevant facts. First, I've never seen the original Frankenstein, to which this was a sequel. For some reason I had been under the impression that Bride was generally considered an inferior film, hokey in execution. I'm not sure why I had that impression, but I had it. So I was somewhat surprised when Keith noted (or was it Dave? I'm not sure) that this is generally considered to be one of the situations where the sequel is better than the original. And, while I can't say whether this was better than the original, I can confirm that it's a great film.

In some ways, I kept thinking of this as a kind of mirror image of a Spaghetti Western. What I like about Spaghetti Westerns is that the heros, far from being icons of goodness, are conflicted and -- at best -- mixed. They're more sympathetic than the antagonists, and they do some good. But they ... how do I put this? Let's just say that they typically have their own selfish agendas. Here, the Monster is, well, a monster. But he's clearly a victim -- of his circumstances, of the townspeople, and of his creator.

All he wants is to have a connection to someone else, but he just can't have it. The sequence with the shepherd girl illustrates it beautifully. He sees her and approaches, clearly just wanting a friend. She sees him, screams in terror and falls off a cliff into a pond. He pulls her out of the water, thereby saving her life. But when she regains consciousness, she sees him again and starts screaming, which causes local hunters to come and shoot him. Later, he manages to find a potential friend in the form of a blind hermit. But then hunters show up (those damn hunters again!) and ruin everything.

In some ways the movie -- or its title, anyway -- is a tease. I expected that Mrs. Monster would be a major character, but the fact is she doesn't even show up until the end, serving the Monster his final humiliation. After all that effort and pain he's gone through, wanting a companion, you're really rooting for him, expecting -- or at least hoping -- that he'll finally have found love. But, well, you know how these things end.

The visuals in this movie were incredible. The sets, the lighting...everything. ANd the use of odd camera angles, inspired by the German films of the 1920s, did a great job of adding tension, as did the extreme closeups of the scientists during the scenes where the Bride is being brought to life. But what really did it was the sequence showing Dr. Pretorius' creations in their jars. With modern technology, that would have been nothing special. But this was made in 1935, and is incredible, given the vintage.

I was thoroughly impressed.

Ratings:
Me: 10
Ethan: 10
Joe: 10
Keith: 10
Sean: 3 out of 4