This Golden Age monster movie focuses on the efforts to create a mate for Frankenstein’s monster. There’s not much gore, but people are bloodlessly killed by him. It’s shot at and chased by an angry mob that hangs him up on a post in chains. The story emphasizes the healing properties of goodness and kindness, and it wrestles with the tension between science and religion.
Henry Frankenstein understands full well that he’s a lucky man.
When his creation had lifted him and thrown him from the top of a windmill, as the crowd of villagers below set the structure on fire, he was certain he would die. But somehow he survived. The villagers carried him back home. He awoke badly bruised and battered, but miraculously whole.
As for the monster—a man-like thing that Henry had cobbled together from scavenged human remains and shocked back to life with a lightning—it is surely dead. Minnie, their maid, babbled on about the creature still living, still killing. But Henry was told that nothing could have survived the horrific blaze of the windmill, where the monster had sought refuge.
While sitting in bed, Henry rubs his aching temples. Had all of that really happened? Had he really grasped the god-like power of life and death? Was it a secret revelation from God’s own hand?
Henry’s fiancée, Elizabeth, begged him to put such blasphemous thoughts from his mind. But as he lay there recovering, he couldn’t stop his mind from running.
However, Elizabeth is surely right, Henry reasons. Everything that happened, the experiments, the terror of his creation, the murder of townspeople, it’s all a nightmare that he should indeed awaken from. Henry determines that marrying Elizabeth and starting a new life is the wisest course.
That, however, is the very moment when Professor Pretorius arrives at Henry’s door. The effusive man had once been Henry’s instructor, before he was kicked out of their university. And now he has a proposition for his former pupil.
Pretorius had been running experiments of his own, and he understood completely what Henry had achieved. “I also have created life, as we say, in God’s own image,” the professor declares. And he implores Henry to work with him on something new, something better.
Henry’s convinced he must not entertain this brilliant man’s siren call. But Pretorius shows him his creations. And he calls him to a “new world of gods and monsters!” New wonders, new miracles!
And Henry Frankenstein is tempted and intrigued.
If his creature does indeed still exist, wondering the nearby woods perhaps, they could create him a … mate. “‘Male and female created He them’,” Pretorius quotes from the Bible, with a wild look in his eye. “Be fruitful and multiply!”
Would that even be possible?
Henry is tugged back and forth between what he feels is morally right and the alluring temptation of breaking new scientific ground. And then Pretorius blackmails him into action. To protect an endangered Elizabeth, Henry gives in, and they begin work on a female creation.
At the same time, the monster itself goes through some positive changes. It does survive the fire, of course. And while wandering the woods looking for food, the creature meets a secluded blind hermit. Because of his blindness, the hermit has also been rejected by society. So he welcomes his unspeaking visitor, reasoning that the monster is an outcast like him. The hermit binds the creature’s wounds, feeds him, and gives him shelter.
The man’s simple kindness and gratefulness for a companion soothes the monster. The hermit teaches the creature a few words, and we see it become far less of a monster. The creature even begins to recognize the difference between “good” and “bad,” and it becomes gentler, relishing the friendship it never knew before.
When threatened, the monster still lashes out in anger, it still kills. It still rages at the painful torments of “life.” But the creature’s newfound awareness helps it make an important choice between something that it reasons is good and what it sees as very bad by the end of the film.
When Pretorius tries to convince Henry to join him in a new project, he often refers to God and His creations. For instance, Pretorius shows Henry his creatures: foot-high homunculi in bottles. One of these creatures is a self-righteous cardinal figure, another is a devil. He goes on to say he grew the little beings like “cultures, from seed.”
“Leave the charnel house,” Pretorius pleads. “And follow the lead of nature—or of God, if you like your Bible stories.”
Pretorius oddly wears a Jewish yarmulke when showing his creations, without explanation. The professor also suggests that at one time they would have been “burned at the stake as wizards” for the kind of experiments they’ve done. When Henry first sees Pretorius’ creations he notes: “But this isn’t science. It’s more like black magic.”
There are numerous spiritual references and allusions elsewhere throughout the film. For example, when the creature meets the blind hermit, we see that a large crucifix hangs on the wall above the man’s bed. And the hermit says of his loneliness. “I have prayed many times for God to send me a friend.” He repeatedly praises God for the monster that has arrived at his doorstep. The hermit kneels weeping and praying his thanks. The monster gently comforts him with a pat on the shoulder and is so moved by the emotional prayer that it weeps as well.
The monster also encounters a large statue of a priest-like figure in the graveyard, which he topples over. And when a mob of townspeople surround and capture him, they tie the struggling monster to a pole. They hoist him up in a pose that looks very much like a crucifixion picture. Ultimately, the monster even judges himself to be an abomination that should not exist.
A woman declares, “It’s the devil’s work.”
Elizabeth displays some cleavage while dressed in a nightgown. She and Henry kiss.
When Pretorius showcases his homunculi, one is a pretty queen and another is a lusty king. This figure so desperately wants to be with the queen that he breaks out of his container and tries to break the queen’s bottle.
When the “bride” creature is revealed, she appears drawn to Henry. And she turns to him when frightened by the monster.
We’re shown the end of the first film, Frankenstein, that depicts the monster being caught in a raging windmill fire. But we see him as he crawls out from a stream running beneath the building’s foundation. He’s burnt, singed and scarred, but very much alive. (His wounds heal, and his hair grows back in over the course of the movie.)
The monster drowns a man and throws his wife down into a pit to her death. We also catch glimpses of other dead people. A schoolgirl’s leg pokes out bloodlessly from beneath a bush, and we see the prone body of a man as well. Both deaths are blamed on the monster.
The creature is attacked and chained by a large crowd of men. He’s shot several times. At least one of those bullets wounds him leaves his arm bloodied, but he rages on. Hunters begin attacking the monster in the blind hermit’s cabin and end up setting it on fire. He later throws a man who angers him off a tower top.
Frankenstein needs a “fresh” heart from a recently dead person. But instead of trying to find someone who died in a local accident, Pretorius sends his thug to murder a young woman in the streets. (We see the woman grabbed but not killed.)
When a lever is pulled, Frankenstein’s lab explodes dramatically, trapping (and apparently killing) several occupants in the falling debris.
None.
Pretorius smokes a cigar and drinks gin. “It’s my only vice,” he says when offering both of those to different people. The hermit and the monster drink wine and smoke with their meals. The monster says of both, “Good!” Pretorius also gives the monster some wine and later gives him a drink spiked with sedative.
In an early conversation between Mary Shelly and Lord Byron, the latter smokes a cigar.
When Minnie the maid declares that she saw the monster alive, someone tells her: “Ah, shut up you old fool.” She then murmurs to herself: “All right, I wash my hands of it. May they all be murdered in their beds.” After pillaging people’s graves for material for a new creature, some hired killers declare, “This is no life for murderers.”
Hollywood loves a good hit!
1931’s Frankenstein, for instance, was a massive blockbuster for its time. (Think Star Wars or Avatar.) It made Boris Karloff—who didn’t even get listed in the opening credits of that original film—a household name. And the monster pic gave the actor enough star power that his last name alone was emblazoned across the screen before the follow-up film’s title page.
But … how could there even be a follow-up? Everyone knew that Frankenstein ended with Dr. Frankenstein dead and his monster consumed in a collapsing fiery blaze, right?
For that matter, the film’s director, James Whale, made it clear that he had absolutely no interest in helming a sequel of any sort. He had said all he wanted to say on that horror topic with his first film. He personally wanted to be an A-list director like Lewis Milestone or Josef von Sternberg. You couldn’t do that cranking out monster movies. (Though, who remembers Milestone and von Sternberg these days?)
However, when Hollywood gets its hands on a money-making product, anything is possible. So, James Whale was enticed back with a hefty paycheck, an expanded production budget and … near total control of the sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein.
But what about the deceased doc and his monster? We’re told that they were only mostly dead in the previous finale. They were apparently spry enough to brush off the ash, adjust their singed clothes and shamble on.
The resulting film may not be as chilling as Frankenstein was, but The Bride of Frankenstein is artistically wrought with Whale’s theatrical visuals: It features massive, 70-foot-tall sets; it incorporates broad histrionics, tender empathy and eye-rolling farce; and it wraps the whole thing in an almost operatic Franz Waxman score that heightens every emotive beat.
Aesthetically, the film simply works. And the reveal of Elsa Lanchester’s “Bride” at the story’s end is perfect in its brevity, eye-pleasing style and emotional punch.
In addition, the film also raises earnest questions that viewers can wrestle with if they want to delve deeper into its monstery messages.
For example, in a short prologue scene, Frankenstein author Mary Shelly (also played by Elsa Lanchester) notes that she wrote her tale as a “moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.” And that tug and pull between humanism and spirituality (or science and religion) is raised throughout the film.
Other elements point to the destructive force of alienation and the healing balm offered by friendship and kindness. Even the film’s explosive ending could be seen as something of moralistic choice between humanity’s intended design and mankind’s corruption of that purpose.
For younger viewers, though, it’s important to remember that this is a monster movie. Its gruesome imagery pales in comparison to today’s horror fare, of course. But there are still monstery murders onscreen as people get throttled, tossed into pits and hit with huge boulders.
Frankenstein’s monster is also pursued by a rabid gang with pitchforks and guns. An explosion decimates a tower laboratory and its occupants. And while the stark shadows and dynamic cinematography may seem stylish to a grownup, these elements could certainly be a bit unsettling for sensitive, younger viewers.
Ultimately though, Bride of Frankenstein is a classic example of a sequel that surpasses its famous original in nearly every way. And with a little guidance, it can be a “horror” film that families can share and discuss together.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
