Karloff's Monster makeup, again created by Jack Pierce, was similar to the first film's, with additional burn damage. Early in production, Karloff fell in the windmill cistern, dislocated his hip, and was heavily bandaged for the rest of the film. His performance is magnificent both in pantomime and in his limited dialogue scenes. No other actor has grasped the full potential of the role.
Colin Clive, the perfect Henry Frankenstein, is supposed to be in feeble health in the sequel and is therefore less dynamic than before, yet his nervous tension is shattering and overtones of tragedy hover around him. It wasn't all make-believe; Clive was an ill and desperately unhappy man, afflicted with acute alcoholism which led to his death at the age of 37.
As Pretorius, the tall, skeletal Thesiger delivered a singular characterization that even Rains could hardly have surpassed. In 1932, Whale had brought Thesiger to America to portray the acerbic, effeminate Horace Femm in The Old Dark House. Pretorius is a hardier extension of Femm bitchy, unpredictable and disdainful of women, his haughtiness emphasized by a uniquely sculpted nose. He is alternately hilarious and horrifying. Writers for years have pigeonholed Pretorius as gay; whether Whale envisioned him as such is debatable.
Thesiger got most of the film's best lines, many of them improvised on the set. Pretorius bombards Henry with these bon mots, which are scattered throughout the film like Oscar Wilde epigrams: "I also have created life, as they say, in God's own image." "Sometimes I think it would be better if we were all devils, with no nonsense about angels and being good." "The creation of life is enthralling, distinctly enthralling, is it not?" "Leave the charnel house and follow the lead of nature or God, if you like your Bible stories." As the great experiment begins, he exults, "Once we should have been burnt as wizards for this experiment!" Leading his entourage into the watchtower, he tells them to "Mind the steps a bit slimy, I expect. I think it's a charming house." To the Monster's line "I love dead, hate living," he sniffs, "You're wise in your generation."
The company was a pleasant one. The English players had tea every afternoon, to the consternation of studio watchdogs. According to Elsa Lanchester, however, "Whale seemed to be jealous of all the attention Karloff got, and referred to him as 'that truck driver.'" Many publicity photos show the normally aloof Whale hamming it up on the set, upstaging his star.
While Bride was in production, Stuart Walker was directing Werewolf of London on a nearby stage. Both were closed sets. A corridor was built to accommodate Valerie Hobson, who was in both pictures. Cortlandt Hull, great-nephew of Henry Hull, star of Werewolf, tells of an amusing incident: "Henry's wife came to visit him on the set, and she was directed to the Bride set by mistake. A technician told her, 'You don't have to go around the buildings. There's a connecting corridor between the two stages.' The corridor was dimly lit. As she proceeded toward the other end, she heard 'thump! thump! thump!' Halfway through, she saw Boris Karloff coming down the corridor in full Frankenstein makeup, smoking a cigar. As they met, he said, 'Good morning, Mrs. Hull.' She shrieked, 'Aiee! Aiee! Aiee!' She knew Boris, but in the dark corridor she didn't recognize him."
Franz Waxman's score for Bride is a classic example of music being as important as visuals for setting the tone of a fantasy. The picture looks and sounds much like a Wagnerian opera, aglow with visual and sonic grandeur. Recently arrived from Germany, Waxman met Whale at a party where the director said to him, "Nothing will be resolved in this picture, except the end destruction scene. Will you create an unresolved score for it?" Waxman watched much of the shooting and created leitmotifs for the major characters. The three-note stanza from the "Bride" theme resembles "Bali Ha'i" in Richard Rodgers' later South Pacific. The score contains a minuetto for the prologue, a marche funebre, a pastorale, much exciting chase music, a triumphal march, a bone-rattling crypt sequence, the long creation sequence (now in the symphonic repertoire), and much atmospheric music. It was performed by Mischa Bakaleinikoff with a mere 22-piece orchestra, yet it is so ingeniously orchestrated that the lack of instrumental heft goes unnoticed.
Production wrapped on March 7, 1935, after running 10 days over schedule. The final cost was $397,023, more than $100,000 over budget. Much trimming followed, reducing the final cut from 92 to 75 minutes. Excised were the court hearing, a sequence in the morgue, a subplot in which Karl murders his miserly uncle and lets the Monster get the blame, and numerous bits of mayhem. A brief sequence wherein the Monster encounters a Gypsy family was inserted to cover these deletions. The prologue was pruned drastically to delete racy dialogue about past escapades.
Bride opened at the Hollywood Pantages and the New York Roxy. It got great reviews and made a lot of money, although less than Frankenstein. After looking at this marvelous film, one might wonder how many Oscars it earned. It was nominated only for sound recording and lost to MGM's Naughty Marietta.
Many have dreamed of restoring the film to its preview length. Universal Home Video technical director Ron Roloff recalls, "In 1985, because of the success of the videos of the restored Frankenstein, MCA made a worldwide search for any prints of Bride that might exist. It drew a blank. In 1992 it was rumored that the Library of Congress had unearthed a complete nitrate print that had been copyrighted in 1934. Before these rumors started, we had the print measured and compared it to what we had on the lot, and they were the same."
The dream persists. Bride is not perfect no movie is. But perfection can be a liability. Instead, what we have is a frightening, funny and touching film.
[ Film Credits continued on next page ]