Double Bill: Frankenstein (1931) Bride of Frankenstein (1935) James Whale

Barry Germansky
Staff Writer
Everyone has a candidate for their favourite cinematic double bill. Mine is James Whale’s Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Both films retain the filmmaker’s eccentric quirks while also feeling refreshingly different in every other respect.
In each of these screen “adaptations,” Whale is wisely unfaithful to Mary Shelley’s famous source novel of a mad scientist who creates a new life from the body parts of the dead. Whale borrows only the essence of the premise and changes nearly everything else, from the characters and updated setting to Jack Pierce’s famous square-headed and bolt-necked make-up design for the title monster.
Most notable of all is the difference in tone between the unadulterated horror of the novel and the playfulness of the films. In Frankenstein, Whale’s signature offbeat humour is subordinate to the horror; however, the opposite is true in Bride of Frankenstein, which functions more like an outright satire. This humour has rich significance. Whale manages to criticize nearly every social convention under the sun through his wit, allowing the films to transcend the horror genre and become two of the most deceptively complex creature features ever conceived.
If you want to see great examples of multi-layered over-the-top performances, Whale’s Frankenstein couplet is the perfect place to look. In both films, Dr. Frankenstein is played eccentrically by Colin Clive. His electrifying delivery – yes, I recognize the pun – of the line “It’s alive!” is an experience that every serious film buff should add to their checklist. Boris Karloff, who also appears in both pictures with Clive, is without equal as Frankenstein’s monster. In the first instalment he uses no words at all, and ingeniously invents a specialized grunt to fit every occasion. His clunking, robotic body language is also first-rate.
In Bride of Frankenstein, the most noticeable new character is Dr. Pretorius, an egotistical scientist who tries to convince Dr. Frankenstein to create the monster’s mate. Played by Ernest Thesiger, Pretorius is even more theatrically mystifying than his more famous counterpart. His crazed, effeminate voice and oversized cranium make him the quintessential mad scientist.
James Whale’s visual style is just as striking as his characters. Heavily influenced by the German Expressionist film movement of the 1910s and ’20s, Whale fills his films with high-contrast lighting effects and shadow play to create a surreal, nightmarish landscape. Unlike today’s films, which emphasize realism no matter what the circumstance, Whale chooses to mirror his grotesque subject matter with exaggerated visual metaphors. The shadowy atmosphere, for example, reflects the feelings of the characters.
Ultimately, the most remarkable aspect of Whale’s Frankenstein duo is this: the first chapter practically invented the horror film genre for talkies, while the second part completely dissected it. These are the makings of genuine film classics.