Candy and a Movie: Movie # 70 Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026138/

We leave Australia and travel back in time to 1935. Didn't that sound nice? This movie was made four years after the original Frankenstein by Universal Studios. In case you didn't know, they are the studio who made all of those classic Universal Monster movies (Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolfman, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man and many more). This one is supposed to be one of the bests with a 8.0 rating on IMDB and 100% and 83% ratings on rottentomatoes.

To open things off we watch a scene in which some guy named Lord Byron is chatting with Mary Shelley (the person who wrote Frankenstein) and basically tells us everything that happens in the first movie. Mary says that there's more to the story of Frankenstein and we move onto the movie. The mob has just finished cooking Franky and head home. The father of the girl who was killed in Frankenstein wants to make sure the body is finished and falls down the well in which he's been dumped. Franky drowns him and then tosses the mother in too. Apparently some people don't take being captured and burned very kindly. Also not dead is Dr. Frankenstein to the delight of Elizabeth, who he is engaged to.

A guy named Dr. Pretorius shows up to the recovering doctor's manner and says that he too has done an experiment. Pretorius used to be Dr. Frankenstein's (Henry) teacher and gin is his only weakness. I'm not quite sure if that is crucial information. They get to Pretorius' pad and he shows him his "creations". He basically made six inch tall little people that he groomed into a king, queen, archbishop, devil, ballet dancer and a mermaid. He then tells Henry that he should make things interesting by bringing a woman back to the dead for Franky too. Because a giant dead guy walking around wasn't interesting enough.

The next scene is pretty awesome. Franky is walking around a wooded glen and gets spot by a woman who falls off a mini cliff in horror. Franky jumps in the water and rescues her only to be thanked with more screaming. Two hunters show up and one puts a bullet in his arm. They then head back into town, summon a good sized mob and capture the monster in the woods. That doesn't stop Franky for long because he gets back to doing what he does best, escaping and terrorizing the peasants.

It seems like only one thing can tame the monster and that's music which happens to be played by a blind man who can't see his hideousness. The blind man thinks he's just a normal guy who can't speak. They become best buds which causes Franky to cry out of happiness. Blindy teaches Franky to talk a little and even smoke which might get him over his fear of fire. You get burned alive one time and fire is ruined forever I guess. A couple of hunters show up and ruin everything, trapping Franky in his house (which burns down) and taking Blindy.

The mob just won't stop and chase Franky down into a crypt. Pretorius shows up in the same crypt looking for a female body. The dude is completely mad. Pretorius tells that Franky they are making him a female friend and he is likes the sound of that. The two go to Henry's house to get on with the experiment but the doctor is having none of it. That then prompts Franky to kidnap his new wife as what I'm guessing is a reason for him to change his mind. It works and the two doctors get working on a new monster and Pretorius gets Franky drunk in order to chill him out for a while.

The experiment goes well as does the famous kite scene. It's actually crazy good looking for 1935. Henry says "She's Alive!" so well. I hope that's the only line that tested in the audition for the role. Bridey wakes up with just the craziest hair. She's also really tall for some reason, maybe to make her look like more of a monster. Franky wants to be her friend but she is having none of and expresses those feelings in the form of yelling. That bugs Franky enough that he tells Henry (and his wife that just showed) up to leave and pulls a lever in the laboratory that kills him, Bridey and Pretorius. The end.

FAVORITE SCENE : So the last 20 minutes with the the experiment and a couple great lines was definitely amazing but my favorite scene was Franky's time spent with the blind man. I don't know how the director turned a murdering monster into a empathetical victim in 10 minutes but it happened. Killer work

MEMORABLE LINES: Finally have a few.
"To a new world of gods and monsters!"
"Alone:bad. Friend:Good"
"We belong dead!"
"The bride (heavy on the r part) of Frankenstein"

RATING: 9.2 of these. If there is anything to nitpick about this movie, I can't find it. The sets looked awesome. The best black and white directors/cinematographers were experts at using perspective and it's used in very cool ways for a couple of scenes. The actor who played Pretorius was ridiculously good as was Franky for the most part. There are some great lines(especially the we belong to the dead, the score was great, the movie was short and never dragged and it was just story telling at it's simplest and best. Good thing everyone in it was probably dead long before Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein girl. Also, it's pretty crazy that this movie is called Bride of Frankenstein and she is only in it for maybe four minutes. Crazy awesome.

ALTERNATE ENDING: The two Frankenstein's get freaky. That, instead of the machine, causes the castle to blow up.

WHAT WOULD I DO IF I WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER: Live it up (badumdum). You can either have a second chance to live and embrace every ones hatred of you or fight the power and try to learn how to love. It sucks that you can finally be worry free of blowing your hand up with fireworks because you can just sew on a new one but the whole fire thing would freak me out too much to get near them.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SEQUEL: I just looked it up and there was a remake made in 1985 called The Bride. Sting is the star. In the sequel I would make, Henry dies and his wife brings him back to life which causes her to die and then he brings her back to life. It's like nothing happened. People would probably feel the same way leaving the theater too.