The Bride of Frankenstein by Guy Preston
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Overview: Carlos Clarens, the American historian who spoke so highly of King Kong, has similarly praised The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), the first of the many sequels to Universal’sFrankenstein. In his book, he declares unequivocally, ‘The Bride Of Frankensteinis, along with King Kong, Hollywood’s finest moment of unbridled imagination.’ This matches my own estimation of the movie, which is why it is represented here.
The sequel to the story of the ‘mad scientist’ Frankenstein and his creation of a monster came about as a direct result of the enormous success of the original. Universal Pictures again called in scriptwriter John L Balderston, to find a way of reviving the creature who had last been seen perishing in a fire in an old mill. He came up with the idea that the monster had actually escaped the flames by falling through the mill floor into a flooded cellar – and it was from there that he arose to start another reign of terror, while trying at the same time to win the heart of the ‘bride’ who had been created in the same manner as himself The beautiful Elsa Lanchester, the wife of Charles Laughton, was an inspired choice for this title part.
A long with Boris Karloff to play the monster, Universal Pictures also recalled James Whale to reprise his director’s role, and the resulting film not only proved a marvellous work of fantasy, but many critics and audiences voted it better even than the original. The British film historian Denis Gifford, for one, has described it as ‘a sequel that improves on the original’, and writing in his Pictorial History Of Horror Movies (1973), said‘The Bride Of Frankenstein remains the biggest-budgeted, best-dressed, highest-polished, finest-finished horror film in history.’ Several writers have also pointed out that the sequel film is actually closer than its predecessor to Mary Shelley’s original novel,Frankenstein, Or A Modern Prometheus,which was first published in 1818.
Not surprisingly, The Bride Of Frankensteinproved yet another box office winner all over the world, and in the immediate aftermath was turned into a novella. (This was followed by a full-length novel – written by Michael Egremont and published in 1936 by The Reader’s Library– which is now a much sought-after collector’s item.) The film was adapted as a novella by Guy Preston in October 1935 for the popular English journal,Pearson’s Weekly,copies of which are now extremely scarce. Preston, about whom very little is known beyond the fact that he was a prolific writer of horror stories for English magazines and is still remembered for two blood-curdlers, “The Inn” (1932) and “The Way He Died” (1933), captured much of the tension and atmosphere of the film in his polished adaptation. In an introduction to his work, Preston expressed his admiration for both the picture and the original creator of the characters, Mary Shelly, which is the reason for the linking of their names beneath the title. In the intervening years, this remarkable monster movie has inspired a considerable number of sequels, the latest being The Bride,which was released in 1985, starring the pop singer, Sting.
Genre: Horror
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