The Bride of Frankenstein's Recent Activity - Spout

Film:The Bride of Frankenstein

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:44:48 GMT

Title: The Bride of Frankenstein
Year: 1935
Director: James Whale
Plot: This greatest of all Frankenstein movies begins during a raging thunderstorm. Warm and cozy inside their palatial villa, Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Shelley's wife Mary (Elsa Lanchester) engage in morbidly sparkling conversation. The wicked Byron mockingly chastises Mary for frightening the literary world with her recent novel Frankenstein, but Mary insists that her horror tale preached a valuable moral, that man was not meant to dabble in the works of God. Moreover, Mary adds that her story did not end with the death of Frankenstein's monster, whereupon she tells the enthralled Byron and Shelley what happened next. Surviving the windmill fire that brought the original 1931 Frankenstein to a close, the Monster (Boris Karloff) quickly revives and goes on another rampage of death and destruction. Meanwhile, his ailing creator Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) discovers that his former mentor, the demented Doctor Praetorius (Ernst Thesiger), plans to create another life-sized monster -- this time a woman! After a wild and wooly "creation" sequence, the bandages are unwrapped, and the Bride of the Monster (Elsa Lanchester again) emerges. Alas, the Monster's tender efforts to connect with his new Mate are rewarded only by her revulsion and hoarse screams. "She hate me," he growls, "Just like others!" Wonderfully acted and directed, The Bride of Frankenstein is further enhanced by the vivid Franz Waxman musical score; even the film's occasional lapses in logic and continuity (it was trimmed from 90 to 75 minutes after the first preview) are oddly endearing. Director James Whale was memorably embodied by Ian McKellen in the Oscar-winning 1998 biopic Gods and Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 21
Number of blog posts: 6
Number of discussion threads: 9
SpoutRating: 3

Spout Post: Re:Weekly Theme for April 13: Going To The Chapel

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:20:16 GMT

Post By: joem18b
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 4/13/2009 5:20:16 PM
Body: I was going to mention The Bride of Frankenstein, but that wedding didn't go so well.

Spout Post: FilmCouch 94: Zack & Miri Make a Porno, Mad Men, The Bride of Frankenstein

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:01:19 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/31/2008 10:01:19 AM
Body: Just in time for Halloween, Kevin Smith’s new film Zack & Miri Make a Porno hits theaters tonight. The only scary thing about it are the dirty jokes that flop, but the movie as a whole is quite funny. Is Kevin Smith a juvenile genius? Is Zack and Miri his Fitzcarroldo (as Paul claims)? These are the things we ponder amidst a plethora poop and dick jokes. Karina offers her reflections on Mad Men now that the second season has ended. She also implores us to watch The Bride of Frankenstein, and we do. Paul has some additional thoughts on the 1935 classic. Be sure to keep up on all things FilmCouch by following us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/filmcouch. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro 3:17 - Zack & Miri Make a Porno 21:49 - Karina on Mad Men, The Bride of Frankenstein, Moonlighting 31:45 - Paul on The Bride of Frankenstein 37:16 - Outro, who’s better: Smith or Tarantino? filmcouch-94 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:56 GMT

Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/28/2008 11:00:56 AM
Body: Watch Frankenstein (Edison, 1910) in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com For city-dwelling adults without kids, Halloween can be truly frightening. With the pressure on to outdo ones friends, frenemies and total strangers with a costume that strikes the perfect balance between creative, alluring and topical, the average October 31st night out can be a lot like sixth grade, except with the added toxic influence of alcohol and biological clocks. Plus, this year the streets are expected to be full of Sexy and/or Ironic and/or Demonic Sarah Palins. Scary! So why not stay home and watch movies instead? If you’re gonna convince anyone to abandon their plans and spend the night on your couch instead, you’ve got to have a theme and a plan, so we’ve put together an outline for a full night of films, all of which are available on DVD and/or online, based around one of the ultimate icons of classic horror: Frankenstein. We lay it all out after the jump. 7pm: Frankenstein (1910) Directed by J. Searle Dawley My long-dormant interest in silent horror was revived recently by Picasso and Braque Go To The Movies, a great documentary that played at the Toronto and Hamptons Film Festivals which examines the influence of early cinema on early 20th century fine art. Inspired by excerpts seen in that doc, I went on the hunt for this silent short (it’s just under thirteen minutes in length), is the first known cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel. Though the film was shot at Edison Studios and is often billed as a Thomas Edison production, Edison actually had nothing to do with it. Though this Frankenstein is hardly graphically violent, it was initially censored in Britain for essentially being too creepy; this is no doubt thanks to director Dawley’s incredible, pioneering special effects, which especially pop out in the making-of-the-monster sequence. Thought lost for decades, a print was discovered in the 70s. Still, prepare to begin your evening huddled around a computer screen: Frankenstein is not yet available on DVD, but you can watch it on the Internet Archive, on YouTube, or via Veoh above. 7:15: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Directed by James Whale The virtually undisputed masterpiece of the first golden age of filmed horror, James Whale’s sequel to his own 1931 Universal blockbuster opens with a prologue that could almost be characterized as meta. Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) expresses mock disbelief that Mary Shelley’s “bland and lovely brow conceived of Frankenstein, a monster created out of cadavers out of rifled graves.” Elsa Lanchester, who will show up later as the Monster’s lightning-struck bride, here appears as Shelley, and she looks up from her embroidery and defends “her moral lesson [about] the punishment that befell a moral man that dared to emulate God.” The film then jumps to the wreckage of windmill fire where the first movie left off, from which point it picks up a subplot from the novel and twists it into unforgettably melancholy ends. Maybe I’ve just seen it too many times to be scared or to even really laugh at some of the more over-the-top performances; at this point, I find Bride to be unbearably sad. Especially in its second half, beginning with the fugitive monster’s encounter with the blind man who will teach him to speak and feel. And there’s one line that just breaks my heart, over and over again: the mad doctor Praetorius asks the Monster if he understands how he came to be. Boris Karloff’s face falls (as much as it can under all that make-up) as he nods and says, “Made from dead. I loved dead. Hate living.” Once he’s able to articulate his thoughts, it soon becomes apparent that the Monster was the smartest guy in the room all along. 8:30: Gods and Monsters A bit of a palette cleanser between the two out-and-out horror films on our list. Bill Condon won an Oscar for his exploration of the later years of director Whale, which contains footage from and flashbacks to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. The film is definitely fictionalized — Condon based his script on a novel, and Brendan Fraser’s character Clay the gardener was a fabrication — but a basic biopic was not on the agenda. As a work that draws connections between Whale’s homosexuality and his masterwork about a misunderstood other, Gods and Monsters could be filed alongside the work of Todd Haynes, as a kind of activist academia wrapped up in narrative film. 10:15: Flesh for Frankenstein The Paul Morrissey-directed, Andy Warhol-produced takeoff on the classic tale of reanimation could be called Frankenstein, Italian Style. Initially planned as a 3D release (!) Flesh brings the Frankenstein story back to the playfully grotesque, surreal beauty evident in the silent version, but super-gory and explicitly sexual to the point of camp, it was also very much of the zeitgeist. Co-written by Tonino Guerra, who scripted Amarcord as well as many of Antonioni’s films of the 60s, and clearly influenced by the Giallo horrors blossoming under the direction of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. 11:50: Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks’ satire spoofs all three Frankenstein films of the 1930s, and it, along with the brief clip of Colin Clive at the beginning of Oingo Boingo’s video for Weird Science, landed in my consciousness at a much earlier age than any of the original films it pulls from. I don’t find myself laughing as hard as I did at age 13, but I would be remiss not to list it here. Plus, much, much later in my cinematic development, I learned that the Puttin’ on The Ritz bit, the famous dance number with Peter Boyle which the NY Observer recently cited as the backdrop for the “funniest joke in the history of film,” was a loose take-off on the recital played by Boris Karloff’s piano virtuoso zombie in my favorite horror film of the 30s, The Walking Dead (which is unfortunately not on DVD; otherwise, it would surely have made this list.) 1:35: Targets To put it in the crassest terms possible, by the time Peter Bogdanovich’s Roger Corman-produced directorial debut came around, thirty years away from his career peak, Karloff was so far removed from young Frankenstein that he might have been walking dead. 80 years old and rocking half a lung, with about a year left to his life, Karloff contractually owed Corman some screen time. In an effort to scrapt two barnacles simultaneously, the producer told whiz kid Bogdanovich that he could make any film he liked, so long as he used 20 minutes of new footage of Karloff, and 20 minute of recycled footage from the 1963 Corman pic The Terror, starring Karloff and Jack Nicholson. So Bogdanovich, with screenplay help from Sam Fuller, crafted a story that would have Karloff essentially playing a version of himself, an aging horror star who makes one final public appearance at a drive-in for a special screening of one of his films. Karloff wasn’t up to a starring role (he allegedly sat in a wheelchair breathing through an oxygen mask between takes), so this became the b-plot to the suburban killing spree of an enrared Vietnam veteran, who comes face-to-face with Karloff in the film’s climax. For all of the extenuating circumstances, Karloff’s performance in Targets is masterful, embodying the last vestige of horror as myth in conflict with horror as reality. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Spout Post: Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:45 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/28/2008 11:00:45 AM
Body: Watch Frankenstein (Edison, 1910) in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com For city-dwelling adults without kids, Halloween can be truly frightening. With the pressure on to outdo ones friends, frenemies and total strangers with a costume that strikes the perfect balance between creative, alluring and topical, the average October 31st night out can be a lot like sixth grade, except with the added toxic influence of alcohol and biological clocks. Plus, this year the streets are expected to be full of Sexy and/or Ironic and/or Demonic Sarah Palins. Scary! So why not stay home and watch movies instead? If you’re gonna convince anyone to abandon their plans and spend the night on your couch instead, you’ve got to have a theme and a plan, so we’ve put together an outline for a full night of films, all of which are available on DVD and/or online, based around one of the ultimate icons of classic horror: Frankenstein. We lay it all out after the jump. 7pm: Frankenstein (1910) Directed by J. Searle Dawley My long-dormant interest in silent horror was revived recently by Picasso and Braque Go To The Movies, a great documentary that played at the Toronto and Hamptons Film Festivals which examines the influence of early cinema on early 20th century fine art. Inspired by excerpts seen in that doc, I went on the hunt for this silent short (it’s just under thirteen minutes in length), is the first known cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel. Though the film was shot at Edison Studios and is often billed as a Thomas Edison production, Edison actually had nothing to do with it. Though this Frankenstein is hardly graphically violent, it was initially censored in Britain for essentially being too creepy; this is no doubt thanks to director Dawley’s incredible, pioneering special effects, which especially pop out in the making-of-the-monster sequence. Thought lost for decades, a print was discovered in the 70s. Still, prepare to begin your evening huddled around a computer screen: Frankenstein is not yet available on DVD, but you can watch it on the Internet Archive, on YouTube, or via Veoh above. 7:15: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Directed by James Whale The virtually undisputed masterpiece of the first golden age of filmed horror, James Whale’s sequel to his own 1931 Universal blockbuster opens with a prologue that could almost be characterized as meta. Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) expresses mock disbelief that Mary Shelley’s “bland and lovely brow conceived of Frankenstein, a monster created out of cadavers out of rifled graves.” Elsa Lanchester, who will show up later as the Monster’s lightning-struck bride, here appears as Shelley, and she looks up from her embroidery and defends “her moral lesson [about] the punishment that befell a moral man that dared to emulate God.” The film then jumps to the wreckage of windmill fire where the first movie left off, from which point it picks up a subplot from the novel and twists it into unforgettably melancholy ends. Maybe I’ve just seen it too many times to be scared or to even really laugh at some of the more over-the-top performances; at this point, I find Bride to be unbearably sad. Especially in its second half, beginning with the fugitive monster’s encounter with the blind man who will teach him to speak and feel. And there’s one line that just breaks my heart, over and over again: the mad doctor Praetorius asks the Monster if he understands how he came to be. Boris Karloff’s face falls (as much as it can under all that make-up) as he nods and says, “Made from dead. I loved dead. Hate living.” Once he’s able to articulate his thoughts, it soon becomes apparent that the Monster was the smartest guy in the room all along. 8:30: Gods and Monsters A bit of a palette cleanser between the two out-and-out horror films on our list. Bill Condon won an Oscar for his exploration of the later years of director Whale, which contains footage from and flashbacks to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. The film is definitely fictionalized — Condon based his script on a novel, and Brendan Fraser’s character Clay the gardener was a fabrication — but a basic biopic was not on the agenda. As a work that draws connections between Whale’s homosexuality and his masterwork about a misunderstood other, Gods and Monsters could be filed alongside the work of Todd Haynes, as a kind of activist academia wrapped up in narrative film. 10:15: Flesh for Frankenstein The Paul Morrissey-directed, Andy Warhol-produced takeoff on the classic tale of reanimation could be called Frankenstein, Italian Style. Initially planned as a 3D release (!) Flesh brings the Frankenstein story back to the playfully grotesque, surreal beauty evident in the silent version, but super-gory and explicitly sexual to the point of camp, it was also very much of the zeitgeist. Co-written by Tonino Guerra, who scripted Amarcord as well as many of Antonioni’s films of the 60s, and clearly influenced by the Giallo horrors blossoming under the direction of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. 11:50: Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks’ satire spoofs all three Frankenstein films of the 1930s, and it, along with the brief clip of Colin Clive at the beginning of Oingo Boingo’s video for Weird Science, landed in my consciousness at a much earlier age than any of the original films it pulls from. I don’t find myself laughing as hard as I did at age 13, but I would be remiss not to list it here. Plus, much, much later in my cinematic development, I learned that the Puttin’ on The Ritz bit, the famous dance number with Peter Boyle which the NY Observer recently cited as the backdrop for the “funniest joke in the history of film,” was a loose take-off on the recital played by Boris Karloff’s piano virtuoso zombie in my favorite horror film of the 30s, The Walking Dead (which is unfortunately not on DVD; otherwise, it would surely have made this list.) 1:35: Targets To put it in the crassest terms possible, by the time Peter Bogdanovich’s Roger Corman-produced directorial debut came around, thirty years away from his career peak, Karloff was so far removed from young Frankenstein that he might have been walking dead. 80 years old and rocking half a lung, with about a year left to his life, Karloff contractually owed Corman some screen time. In an effort to scrapt two barnacles simultaneously, the producer told whiz kid Bogdanovich that he could make any film he liked, so long as he used 20 minutes of new footage of Karloff, and 20 minute of recycled footage from the 1963 Corman pic The Terror, starring Karloff and Jack Nicholson. So Bogdanovich, with screenplay help from Sam Fuller, crafted a story that would have Karloff essentially playing a version of himself, an aging horror star who makes one final public appearance at a drive-in for a special screening of one of his films. Karloff wasn’t up to a starring role (he allegedly sat in a wheelchair breathing through an oxygen mask between takes), so this became the b-plot to the suburban killing spree of an enrared Vietnam veteran, who comes face-to-face with Karloff in the film’s climax. For all of the extenuating circumstances, Karloff’s performance in Targets is masterful, embodying the last vestige of horror as myth in conflict with horror as reality. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Re:Classic Horror

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:55:53 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 8/30/2008 5:55:53 PM
Body: On this subject, I cannot say enough about the classic Universal 'monster movies' of the 30's and 40's... Beginning with Dracula and Frankenstein (the best of the best) and continuing with The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein (which many people consider to be BETTER than the original) and The Wolf Man , these movies are the most fun I have ever had with my pants on! I know that everyone has heard of these movies but few people have ever actually watched them! And ALL of the sequels were nothing short of fantastic! Leading up to the GREAT 'monster-mash' movies of the early 40's! These things were nothing short of phenomenal and nobody can call themselves a true Horror Movie fan until they have seen Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula . Besides Karloff and Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. was perhaps the greatest star of this era... Not only was he was the only one to play Lawrence Talbot (The Wolfman) in several movies but he also played "Dracula" (Son Of Dracula) and "The Frankenstein Monster" (The Ghost of Frankenstein) and "The Mummy" (The Mummy's Tomb) ... Son of Frankenstein was the inspiration for Mel Brooks' classic Young Frankenstein ! Be brave and watch some of these oldies but goodies! You won't be dissapointed! < GOR >

Spout Post: Re:The Invisible Man

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:39:07 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 4/18/2008 11:39:07 AM
Body: [quote user="Dr_Gor"]I cannot let this one just go by ... The Invisible Man was a GREAT movie! Directed by the same insane genious who gave us Frankenstein and The Bride Of Frankenstein . The title character was played by a very young Claude Raines who later went on to become Lawrence Talbot's father in The Wolf Man . I am happy that you enjoyed this movie, Rizzo, and I notice that you have been watching a few of these 'oldies-but-goodies' of late and you seem to be enjoying them.... I have to ask you about this. Do you think these movies are pretty cool or what? Have you watched The Hunchback Of Notre Dame yet?[/quote]Yes, I have been watching many of these lately, and I have been enjoying some of them. So far those three directed by James Whale are definitely my favorite.I have not yet watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although I have been meaning to. I have been thinking I'll like it a lot actually. One because it's rated so well on sites where people can rate movies, but also because it's directed by William Dieterle. And although I've only seen one other movie by him so far, The Devil and Daniel Webster, it's one of my very favorite movies.I notice that there is also a version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame that was released in 1923 staring Lon Chaney. Have you seen this one? How does it stack up?[quote user="Dr_Gor"]Anyhow, I think there was only one official 'Universal' sequel to The Invisible Man and that was The Invisible Man Returns . I think there were a few remakes and TV shows but those don't really count as 'sequels'. Unfortunately, or rather Fortunately, The Invisible Man was never included in any of the great 'monster-mash' movies of the 30's and 40's . Each and every one of these movies counted as a sequel to The Wolfman, Dracula, and The Frankenstein Monster. He did 'show up' in that Abbott and Costello movie... [/quote]Well the featurette on the The Invisible Man DVD mentiones The Invisible Woman, Invisible Agent, and The Invisible Man's Revenge as all being sequels. And they were all made by Universal. Have you seen any of them? They say the effects in the last one were some of the best.[quote user="Dr_Gor"]And, yeah, the Invisible Man is really not very scary ... he is nothing but a man only you cant see him. Have you ever tried to fight someone in total darkness to where you can't see at all? It is not pleasant but it can be done. Who would you rather be locked in a room with; The Invisible Man, Hannibal Lector or Dracula?[/quote]I don't know. The Invisible Man does have a lot of abnormal strength and is quite megomaniacally deranged. Although if you think about it, he is totally naked so he probably gets cold and more suseptible to blows to his testicles. I guess the last question would depend on further context. Why are we in the room? What kind of a room is it? What's in the room? Things like that. But I'd love to play your game, so give me some specifics.

Spout Post: Re:The Invisible Man

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:06:02 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 4/17/2008 8:06:02 PM
Body: [quote user="Risselada"] So we've talked in this group about many of the classic monsters usually associated with the Universal classic horror movies such as Dracula, Frankenstein and his monster, and the Wolfman.I recently just saw The Invisible Man after reading the H.G. Wells novel. Would you say this character fits into the same category as the above named monsters? I noticed that there are actually more Invisible Man sequels than Wolf Man sequels, and maybe just as many as there are Dracula sequels.I think he's actually potentially the most frightening of all of these villians.[/quote]I cannot let this one just go by ... The Invisible Man was a GREAT movie! Directed by the same insane genious who gave us Frankenstein and The Bride Of Frankenstein . The title character was played by a very young Claude Raines who later went on to become Lawrence Talbot's father in The Wolf Man . I am happy that you enjoyed this movie, Rizzo, and I notice that you have been watching a few of these 'oldies-but-goodies' of late and you seem to be enjoying them.... I have to ask you about this. Do you think these movies are pretty cool or what? Have you watched The Hunchback Of Notre Dame yet? Anyhow, I think there was only one official 'Universal' sequel to The Invisible Man and that was The Invisible Man Returns . I think there were a few remakes and TV shows but those don't really count as 'sequels'. Unfortunately, or rather Fortunately, The Invisible Man was never included in any of the great 'monster-mash' movies of the 30's and 40's . Each and every one of these movies counted as a sequel to The Wolfman, Dracula, and The Frankenstein Monster. He did 'show up' in that Abbott and Costello movie... And, yeah, the Invisible Man is really not very scary ... he is nothing but a man only you cant see him. Have you ever tried to fight someone in total darkness to where you can't see at all? It is not pleasant but it can be done. Who would you rather be locked in a room with; The Invisible Man, Hannibal Lector or Dracula? < GOR >

Spout Post: Halloween: The Obligatory Post

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:01:07 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/31/2007 5:01:07 PM
Body: Let’s talk about my insatiable appetite for pre-postmodern horror. I don’t care about sorority girls getting slaughtered because they ran the wrong way up the stairs; I basically don’t care about anything that’s not in black and white. I like stuff that takes place in creepy laboratories, where some desperate soul is trying to violate the natural boundaries between life and death. The Universal monster movies of the 30s, the Val Lewton stuff of the 40s, the nuclear panic stuff of the late 50s/early 60s. So it’s a given that my favorite part about the weeks leading up to Halloween is that Turner Classic Movies floods their schedule with ancient, half-forgotten horror films. Halloween itself is kind of a letdown, because it means the well of stuff I love is about to dry up. But as usual, YouTube makes it all better. As a child of the 80s, I think I always had some awareness of of the Boris Karloff films, particularly Bride of Frankenstein, but it was filtered through Young Frankenstein, Elvira and “Weird Science” (the Oingo Boingo song, which I definitely heard years before I saw the movie). Above, you’ll find a clip of the creation of the bride from the 1935 sequel to Frankenstein; below the jump, the various cultural detritus that led me to it. Happy Halloween! (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Bride of Frankenstein

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:00:33 GMT

Post By: sarcastig
Post To: As cool as a Fruitstand
Post Date: 8/4/2007 3:00:33 PM
Body: I love the horror pictures Universal made in the 30's. I don't know why - horror is one of my least favorite genres overall- but I simply cannot resist them. Dracula was, I believe, the first one I saw. It was on late at night (Starting around 11 or 11:30, as I recall), when normal commercials have stopped and commercial breaks are filled with big-boobed women breathlessly reciting phone numbers, and ads for terrible phone ringtones. It made for a nice contrast with the film, which is all about repressed sexuality and hidden desires.There are a few standard tropes in horror, and in this period in the 30's, they were explored one by one for what felt like the first time. Dracula was about the dangers of sex. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was about the duality of man, about the perversity hidden by a thin layer of civilisation. The Wolfman is about our fear of our animal nature, the Invisible Man about how much "others" looking at us influences us, and so on.Frankenstein is of course a Faustian tale, about the hubris of trying to play God, about the dangers of science, too. There is another more literary strain too, though: both novel and movie are about the responsibility of a creator/author for his creation.In the first movie, the big mistake Frankenstein makes is not just that he makes the monster, but also that he abandons it. The "monster" is not really evil, but he lacks education: because he was abandoned he has no restraint, no morals. He kills a little girl, not because he wants to, but because he doesn't know that she won't float, and the rest of the people are killed mostly out of fright and anger.Interestingly enough, James Whale, who directed both Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, tried to abandon his creature too after the first film. He wanted to do loftier things than horror, but eventually he was lured back, accepting to direct a sequel only if he could write it.In the tale that he wrote, the monster gets not just one but two educators. The first one is a kind old blind man, who teaches him not only to talk but also what friendship is. The second teacher however, is the evil-minded Dr. Pretorius, who uses the monster to get Frankenstein to pick his work back up. Frankenstein resists, at first, but once he's convinced he plunges back into full-fledged obsession.I'm afraid too much from my "return of the repressed" literature course is coming back here, I could go on and on about this film, about its handling of women, about Else Lanchester's performance(s), about the framing of the story, about how it could be analyzed in the context of queer cinema. I won;t though, because the most important thing that you can say about the film is that it's absolutely marvelous, thrilling and entertaining, better than the original, and a classic everyone should see. It will take only 75 minutes of your life, and nothing could be more worth it.Incidentally, Gods and Monsters, Bill Condon's great film about James Whale, which features a re-creation of the set of Bride of Frankenstein, is on "Canvas" (a Belgian channel) tonight at 0:10. If you don't mind staying up late, it's worth checking out. Originally posted on:As cool as a Fruitstand

Spout Post: Re: Scary Movie Quotes

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:00:46 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 7/30/2007 6:00:46 PM
Body: [quote user="redmist"]well if i got it how about "to a new world of gods and monsters!" [/quote] THAT one would be "Bride Of Frankankenstein" ... I do believe...

Spout Tag:Classic

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:54:36 GMT

Classic
Number of films tagged: 816

Number of people who tagged: 312

Number of times used: 1453

Spout Tag:monster

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:22:02 GMT

monster
Number of films tagged: 1143

Number of people who tagged: 41

Number of times used: 95

Spout Tag:frankenstein

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:37:28 GMT

frankenstein
Number of films tagged: 104

Number of people who tagged: 19

Number of times used: 20

Spout Tag:Eerie

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:32:53 GMT

Eerie
Number of films tagged: 14

Number of people who tagged: 13

Number of times used: 19

Spout Tag:madscientist

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:03:11 GMT

madscientist
Number of films tagged: 431

Number of people who tagged: 8

Number of times used: 10

Spout Tag:companion

Tue, 12 May 2009 19:41:11 GMT

companion
Number of films tagged: 66

Number of people who tagged: 4

Number of times used: 5

Spout Tag:karloff

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:23:34 GMT

karloff
Number of films tagged: 2

Number of people who tagged: 3

Number of times used: 3

Spout Tag:superior-sequel

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:11:29 GMT

superior-sequel
Number of films tagged: 1

Number of people who tagged: 1

Number of times used: 1

Spout Tag:sciencerunsamok

Fri, 22 May 2009 13:15:00 GMT

sciencerunsamok
Number of films tagged: 91

Number of people who tagged: 0

Number of times used: 0