Frankenstein stalks a Lanvin mannequin in a store window on Fifth Avenue.
The Bergdorf Goodman Spring collection is presented in a ‘beauty and the beast’ movie theme that includes a shark, a bear, a gorilla and a Jurassic raptor, as well as Dracula, a space alien and a bleary-eyed Frankenstein’s Monster.
The picture above is from Racked. Click through for more pics. Also featured on Fashion Windows, and a Flickr set.
With thanks to John Rozum.
I had a lot of fun last week with the Bride of Frankenstein 75th Anniversary series.
I’m very grateful for all the encouraging comments I got here, on Facebook and email. Thanks very much!I dug up so much new material I think I could have posted every day for a month, so expect a lot of Bride-related art and articles over the next few days and weeks. I’ve added a Bride badge to the right-hand menu. Clicking it will access all the Bride of Frankenstein posts on this blog.
Here, if I may, is something from the Frankensteinia archives that I think deserves reposting. It’s a revised version of my contribution to Matt Zoller Seitz’ Close-Up Blogathon.
When a reluctant James Whale was finally persuaded to make a sequel to his Frankenstein (1931) — on the express condition that he be given complete artistic freedom — he traded the original’s raw, claustrophobic expressionism for lavish Hollywood Golden Age glamour.
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is awash is pearly grays and deep focus photography. The sets have grown cavernous and meticulously detailed. Heroic music punctuates every scene. Colin Clive, as the manic-depressive Frankenstein, interacts with the formidable Ernest Thesiger as the most eccentric, eldritch mad scientist of them all. The Monster has lost his malevolent gauntness. He speaks, cultivates a taste for wine and cigars, sheds tears, and pines for a friend.
Into this heady mix is introduced The Bride, only to signal a quick, catastrophic end to this macabre fairy tale.
The part of the fabricated Bride fell, magnificently, to Elsa Lanchester, who also played Mary Shelley in the film’s prologue, connecting Mary and The Bride. The comparison is made clear and unmistakable: In the opening sequence, a delicate Mary reaches for her beloved Percy, turning her back to the obnoxious Lord Byron, a balletic move directly echoed when the frightened Bride reaches for Henry Frankenstein, turning away from the lugubrious Dr. Pretorius.
The entire lifespan of the Monster’s betrothed, from the moment we see her fingers move until The Monster pulls the Deus Ex Power Switch that blows everything to atoms, is almost exactly 12 minutes. Add a few moments, unshown, while Frankenstein and Pretorius remove the head bandages and slip her into a tent-like shroud. I’d like to think that The Bride’s electrostatic hairdo sprang up on its own as soon as the bandages unraveled. Otherwise, the entire, short existence of the thunderstruck Bride is chronicled on screen, most of it in tight, loving close-up.
The Bride’s profile was inspired by a bust of Nefertiti, which is appropriate for a Monster Queen. She is unforgettable, with her electrified hair, bee stung lips, lightning bolt neck scars and big eyes, irises the size of dimes, that never seem to blink.
Here’s my homage to The Bride, as she appeared in close-up, from the shot of her bandaged head with its crown of safety pins to her final, defiant hiss.
I give you The Beautiful Monster: The Bride of Frankenstein.
Directed by James Whale. Makeup by Jack Pierce. Cinematography by John Mescall.
Related:
Off With The Kites!: The creation scene from The Bride of Frankenstein.
Into The Light: The Monster Revealed.
“Tell him Dr. Pretorius is here, on a secret matter of graaave importance!”
Almost exactly fifteen minutes into Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Septimus Pretorius appears on Frankenstein’s doorstep. He is introduced as an old university acquaintance, a doctor of philosophy “booted out — booted, my dear Baron, is the word — for knowing too much!”. The morbidly engaging character is played with great delectation by British actor Ernest Thesiger. It’s a rare case of absolutely perfect casting and, unarguably, one of the finest performances in the history of horror film.
Wrenching the feverish Frankenstein from the opulent comfort of his convalescent bed, Pretorius leads him across town, up dark stairs and into his narrow, caligaresque garret where, he says, “After 20 years of secret scientific research and countless failures, I, also, have created life, as we say, in God’s own image.”
Dressed like a dark priest, Pretorius brings out a coffin-like box containing tall glass jars. “I cannot account precisely,” he warns, “for all that I am going to show you.”
The scene belongs entirely to Thesiger, given rich, humorous and sometimes transgressive dialogue, with Colin Clive’s Frankenstein reduced to twitchy, wide-eyed silence. What unfolds is an elaborate fantasy as Pretorius’ creations, revealed one by one, are homunculi, puppet-sized people dressed in fanciful costumes.
“Science, like love,” Pretorius quips, “has her little surprises!” adding, ominously, “I, my dear pupil, went for my materials to the source of life. I GREW my creatures, like cultures. Grew them, as nature does, from seed!”
None of the living doll actors are named in the credits, but they have all been identified.
The first creation revealed is dressed as a Queen who performs a mechanical windup-like curtsy. The actress in the sumptuous gown and crown is Joan Woodbury, a dark-haired beauty who appeared in some 80 films over a 30-year career. She is perhaps best remembered for her lead as Brenda Starr, Reporter in 1945. Woodbury married actor Henry Wilcoxon in 1937.
Next up is a King, obviously patterned on Charles Laughton’s gluttonous Henry VIII. It's director James Whale’s little joke, given that Mrs. Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, bookended his film as Mary Shelley and the title Bride. The actor is A.S. ‘Pop’ Byron, a busy bit player often confused with Arthur Byron, the Dr. Whemple of The Mummy. Pop Byron would probably be completely forgotten today if not for his very physical performance as the little King, excitedly signaling his beloved Queen, escaping his jar and racing across the tabletop, jumping over a book and a pipe, to be caught and lifted away by Pretorius with a pair of tongs.
Given an alluring Queen and a ribald King, the next doll introduced is a disapproving, finger-wagging Archbishop who blows a referee whistle at the King’s antics. Scottish-born Norman Ainsley was a character actor who specialized in butler, valet, clerk and steward roles.
Next is “The very Devil!”, an urbane, caped mephistopheles. Pretorius has a clear preference for this Devil doll. “There’s a certain resemblance to me, don’t you think? Or do I flatter myself?”
The Devil is played by Peter Shaw, who would appear in but a handful of films before graduating to an executive’s chair at MGM, and then on to the William Morris Agency where he represented Katherine Hepburn, among others. Shaw married actress Angela Lansbury and produced her popular television series, Murder, She Wrote.
The next doll, a tutu’ed, tippy-toe ballerina is, according to Pretorius, “charming, but such a bore”. She only dances to Mendelssohn, “and it gets so monotonous”. The perpetually pirouetting figure is played by Kansas DeForrest, whose only other screen appearance, also in 1935, was an uncredited bit as, again, a dancer, in something called Love Me Forever.
The sixth creation is presented, disingenuously as it turns out, as “very conventional, I’m afraid”, whereupon Pretorius reveals a spectacular mermaid languorously combing her long platinum hair with a seashell, dappled undersea light dancing on her sequined tail. “It was an experiment with seaweed”, Pretorius explains.
The lovely, unforgettable mermaid was athlete Josephine McKim, a relay gold medal winner for America at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. McKim would play a mermaid again in The King Steps Out (1936), directed by Josef von Sternberg, a puff-pastry operetta the notorious director detested so much that he asked for it be stricken from his credits and never shown again.
McKim made another famous, uncredited cameo as Maureen O’Sullivan’s nude double for an enchanting underwater ballet with fellow Olympian Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan and His Mate (1934). The sequence was excised and long unseen, but it has been restored and it’s now on YouTube. Go look, it’s a knock out.
The entire living doll sequence is a triumph of trick photography by Universal’s resident special effects wizard, John P. Fulton.
Using a high camera to establish their small size, the actors were photographed on a darkened set and their images burned onto the jars in the Pretorius footage. A telltale sign: The jars reflect on the tabletop, but not their contents. A close look at the King’s run across the scene reveals that, except for the jar he leaps from, there were no oversized props for him to interact with. He was running an obstacle course of black velvet, almost seamlessly aligned with the objects on the table. Only close inspection shows fleeting matte lines.
Another neat trick has Pretorius partially revealing the little Ballerina while still holding the jar. You see her tiny legs, a dummy stand-in, before we cut to a closeup on the table, and the full figure is shown dancing. It’s a simple piece of legerdemain that makes the scene all the more convincing.
Franz Waxman’s music turns whimsical, underlining the absurd magic of the scene, like a Carl Stalling score punctuates a Warner Brother cartoon. The living dolls squeak like Mickey mice.
We last see the homunculi in a reverse shot, when Pretorius crosses over from behind the table to join the astonished Frankenstein. “Normal size has been my difficulty,” Pretorius says, “ You did achieve size. I need to work that out with you.”
“But this isn’t science,” Frankenstein gasps, “Its more like black magic!”
The reverse shot implied filming the doll actors from the back and from a higher perspective, making the entire scene more complex, but extraordinarily convincing. What’s more, close observation reveals a seventh jar, perched on a book.
The figure within, a gesticulating blond baby in a high chair, is 3-foot, 9-inch tall Billy Barty, a rousing entertainer whose career covered vaudeville, films and television. He founded the philanthropic Little People of America organization in 1957.
Why the baby reveal was cut is unknown, it was most likely a question of timing and tightening up the scene.
For all its eccentricity, the homunculi scene sets the film on its dark, doomed course.
“Now think,” Pretorius says, “what a world astounding collaboration we should be. You and I, together! Leave the charnel house and follow the lead of nature, or of God if you like your Bible stories. Male and female created He them. Be fruitful and multiply. Create a race, a MAN-MADE race, upon the face of the Earth.
Why not?”
Tragically mismatched partners, Frankenstein forced into an unholy conspiracy with the sinister Pretorius, the two scientists will now begin the work of creating a Bride for The Monster.
“Here’s to a new world of gods and monsters!”
Related: A profile of Ernest Thesiger.
A gorgeous, outlandish banner ad shows The Bride carried off in a white satin wedding gown, waving a bridal bouquet.
Bride of Frankenstein was an adman’s dream, Boffo entertainment building on the vast popularity of the 1931 original, with over-the-top characters and TWO killer concepts: The Monster Talks! and The Monster Demands A Mate!
Here, a theater goes all out with Bride ballyhoo…
A stunning, giant Monster head dominates the marquee. Directly underneath runs a modified version of the wedding gown banner, with The Monster blacked out in sinister silhouette.
At box-office level, the bandaged Bride on a gurney was a “stunt” suggested to exhibitors by Universal’s publicity department: “Arrange a wax figure swathed in bandages on an operating table… A teaser sign —Who will be The Bride of Frankenstein? Who will dare? — completes the display.”
Note, in the photo, the display case at bottom left. That's the “First Aid Lobby Booth Stunt” I blogged about here, from the Universal Exhibitors’ Campaign Book, with its red cross and sign reading “Free service to patrons during the run of Bride of Frankenstein”. The lithographed posters used on either side of the theater entrance would fetch the price of a house, today.
Also in the theatre photo, notice the box office is decorated with semi-circular images. These were shots of the film’s characters as seen (below) in a poster from the studios’ pre-release promotion book. This particular trade ad features a stunning painting — The Bride rejecting The Monster’s proposal — by Universal staff artist Fred Kurz.
Among other tips for exhibitors, Universal suggested punching out the eyes of The Monster on posters and replacing them with “little red lamps”, or lighting his face with “green and purple baby spots”. Catchy “display lines” — The Super-Shocker Of The Century! — were provided by the studio, to garnish newspaper ads or to be spelled out on theatre facades by a sign painter. Here is some choice hyperbola…
Tomorrow: Dr. Pretorius, I presume?
Related:
Universal Weekly, featuring more great art by Fred Kurz
More Bride Ballyhoo
Bride Showmanship
The Selling of Frankenstein, Parts One, Two, Three, Four.
A discombobulated Monster, an intractable Bride, a star-crossed romance. When Bride of Frankenstein film rolled out its potent, dark fantasy across North America through the spring and summer of 1935, critics hailed and moviegoers eagerly lined up.
Reviewers of the time were typically patronizing towards horror films, often treating chills and scares as a low forms of entertainment. Bride garnered its share of mild derision, but the film’s excellence couldn’t be denied, and its humor signaled that it was in on the joke.
The New York Times of May 11, 1935, described Bride of Frankenstein as “Another astonishing chapter in the career of the Monster” and “a first-rate horror film.”
The Monster, it seems, “is changed… possibly under the influence of Spring at Universal, he is slightly moonstruck, hungry for kindness and even — oh perish the thought — for love.” Of his climactic demise, “Mr. Karloff’s best make-up should not be permitted to pass from the screen. The Monster should become an institution, like Charlie Chan.” Indeed, Karloff is praised as being “so splendid in the rôle that all one can say is ‘he is the Monster’.”
Variety, the film industry trade paper, was typically blunt in its short appreciation, even revealing the film’s punch, “…she’s just as horrified at him as everyone else.” Praise is reserved for Karloff, who “manages to invest the character with some subtleties of emotion that are surprisingly real and touching.” Ernest Thesiger is also singled out for “a diabolic characterization if there ever was one". Elsa Lanchester's Bride “impresses quite highly, although… she has very little to do.”
At The Pittsburgh Press, staff writer and frequent entertainment critic Peter Botsford had a lot of fun with his review, Terror Tale Stirs Fans At The Alvin, on May 3.
“Take your scares straight or in a high-ball? Step right up. Scaresmith Frankenstein is ready to take your order."
The Monster, Botsford opines, is “A little short on brains and organization, but A-1 when it comes to brawn and endurance”. After Ernest Thesiger’s Pretorius, “an insistent old wizard”, blackmails Colin Clive’s Frankenstein, “Again there is grave-sacking and gore. Once more there is a mysterious visit to the gloomy castle on the crags… the scientists don rubber gloves, chart heart beats and apply thunderbolts.”
The Bride, revealed, is “a big-eyed doll with an asparagus hair-wave, a partner for bloodthirsty Boris Karloff Frankenstein.” Botsford pronounces the film, “Sensational, weird, nothing if not picturesque, this eerie extravaganza is somehow believable.”
The writer also enjoyed the accompanying stage show as “likewise… apt and nifty”, providing a fascinating glimpse at the live entertainment that, back then, shared billing with films.
“There is every sort of act here.” Botsford reported. “The clowns in street clothes, that would be the Lees, are swell. So are the others, Mr. Mulcay, the mouth-organ man; a package called Collette; the Alvinette troupe and the fellow who dances atop a 12-foot ladder.”
Also with The Pittsburgh Press, entertainment columnist Kaspar Monahan reviewed Bride of Frankenstein on May 13, writing “despite its hokum story, it manages to achieve some hair-raising effects… it curiously makes of its monster a sympathetic figure…” adding, “Morally it may be suspect — for it introduces the monster to the petty vices of the human: Smoking, boozing and necking.”
Inevitably, there were critics who were less impressed with the film, but few appeared to be as off the mark as “A.R.D.” keeper of the Theater Gossip column of the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. Get a load of his review…
And here's another fascinating contemporary review: The Bride Wore Bolts.
Tomorrow: Exhibitors dress up their theaters for some wild Bride Ballyhoo.
It was 75 years ago today, April 22, in 1935, that Bride of Frankenstein was released to critical and popular acclaim. In time, this extraordinary film has only grown in stature, now considered by many as the best horror film ever made, and certainly one of the jewels of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Back in 1931, the phenomenal success of Frankenstein made a sequel inevitable, but director James Whale, feeling he had done everything he could with the story, wanted no part of it. Universal turned, ironically, to Robert Florey.
The French-born writer-director had originated the Frankenstein project, writing a script and filming the now legendary, lost screen test with Bela Lugosi as The Monster, only to be pushed aside when Whale stepped in and took over. Florey would be denied again. His screen treatment, The New Adventures of Frankenstein: The Monster Lives!, was unceremoniously shelved, and the writing chores passed on to a succession of writers, a list that would grow to eleven in all.
Storylines in various states of development would include one where The Monster took over his creator’s work, and another in which Dr. Frankenstein builds a death ray. German expatriate director Kurt Neumann was briefly involved in the project, now titled The Return of Frankenstein.
By mid-1933, news of the proposed film started appearing in newspapers. In July, the New York Times announced that Universal was producing The Return of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, "who was the original what-is-it that frightened children" with The Ottawa Citizen adding, if incorrectly, "practically the entire cast of the original being kept for this one."
On July 28, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette carried a short piece by syndicated showbiz columnist Harriet Parsons on Karloff and the new Frankenstein film (see at left).
The film’s phalanx of uncredited scribes included Josef Berne, whose cinematic output was coming up with settings for 3-minute “Soundies”, the early film equivalent of today’s music videos. Then there was Philip MacDonald, writer of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto films, the Karloff-Lugosi vehicle The Body Snatcher (1945), and several TV dramas including episodes of Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Fantasy Island. Tom Reed was an early contributor whose first screen job was writing the title cards for The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He also collaborated on Florey’s Murders in the Rue Morgue. Another uncredited writer was Lawrence Blochman, a prolific mystery and detective writer who translated the works of George Simenon and served as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
One particularly interesting contributor was Edmund Pearson, who came up with the scene where Dr. Pretorius reveals his living doll creations. His only other screenwriting gig was an assist, again uncredited, on Werewolf of London (1935). Pearson made up for his poor screen creds with a phenomenal career as a true crime writer. His books, notably his essays on the Lizzie Borden case, are considered classics of the genre.
By 1934, James Whale was finally persuaded to return, with the understanding that he would have complete control over the production. A new script was tailored to his wishes. R.C.Sherriff, who had beautifully adapted H.G.Wells’ The Invisible Man for Whale, was briefly involved, as was John L. Balderston, who had co-scripted Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. It was Balderston’s idea to use Mary Shelley’s concept of The Monster demanding a mate. In the end, the shooting script was delivered by veteran playwright and screenwriter William Hurlbut. The title change, to Bride of Frankenstein, was only confirmed once shooting started.
The working title stuck around a bit. When writer Edmund Pearson and actor O.P.Heggie (the blind hermit) passed away, both in 1937, their obituaries listed The Return of Frankenstein among their credits. The title was also used, briefly, in the early stages of the making of Son of Frankenstein (1939).
Amazingly, considering the scale of the production, barely four months elapsed between the film starting up and its theatrical release. Shooting began on January 2, 1935 and completed March 7, running ten days over schedule and a whopping 30% over budget. Less than a month after wrapping, a first edit was being previewed even as James Whale was busy retooling, dropping scenes and shooting new ones, right up to the release date. Notably, Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein was again saved from extermination.
In the original film, Frankenstein was to be killed when thrown from the burning windmill by The Monster. The producers thought better of it and a new closing scene showed the scientist being nursed back to health by his fiancée. In the sequel, as originally shot, Frankenstein perished in the exploding castle laboratory along with the evil Dr. Pretorius and his two monstrous creations but, again, a reprieve was given and a new scene was shot with Colin Clive’s Frankenstein and Valerie Hobson’s Elizabeth escaping the conflagration. Actually, Clive had it both ways: Despite the modified ending, a reshoot of the spectacular lab explosion was out of the question and Clive’s Frankenstein, whom we’ve just seen booking to safety on the castle path, is still visible inside the lab, at left, backed up to the wall as the tower comes crashing down.
Bride of Frankenstein’s engrossing tale unfolds on massive sets. Its superlative cast is given splendid, highly quotable dialogue, accompanied by a lavish wall-to-wall score. The film is filled all through its brisk, 75-minute run time with unforgettable scenes, none so glorious, perhaps, as the climactic birth of the fiercely independent Bride.
Bride of Frankenstein was an instant classic and has proven an enduring one.
Tomorrow: What did the critics say?
Out of the ruins of shattered box-office records rises the Frankenstein Monster — to claim himself a bride, and to work further havoc with record theatre grosses!
Even as director James Whale, his cast and crew assembled to begin their work on Universal’s sound stages in the early days of 1935, Universal’s publicity department went into high gear promoting the upcoming film to exhibitors.
Can you imagine the advertising you can do on this one? The mere thought of the monster seeking a bride makes a showman’s fingers fairly itch to write the flaming lines that will pack any theatre in the world.
Purple hyperbole was the language of ballyhoo, and Universal’s publicists, bolstered by the success of the original and attuned to the enormous potential of the new Frankenstein film, pulled out all the stops.
Add the bride idea to all you’ve had before, and you’ve got a ‘tremendousity’ of appeal — and in plain English, THAT’S PLENTY!
Early promotional illustrations showed The Monster and a generic, waiflike bride in her wedding gown. In the illustration at left, a bride with flowers in her hair submits to Karloff’s Monster, sporting fanciful forehead scars and extra clamps. The film’s Bride, Elsa Lanchester, was revealed, resplendent in towering beehive and full-length shroud, on the cover of the March 2 issue of the studio’s trade herald, Universal Weekly. Boris Karloff would front the April 6 issue (here at top). Note that this photo is reversed, as the burn marks and dark dimple were on The Monster’s right cheek.
By the time the film premiered on April 22nd, exhibitors had been deluged with promotional copy, displays, handouts, and dozens of poster designs to choose from.
Here’s a typical page on “showmanship” from Universal Weekly illustrated with whatever materials were available early, even as the film was shooting. There’s The Monster, the skeleton from Dr. Pretorius’ apartment-lab, Una O’Connor as the Frankensteins’ maid, Minnie, and Dwight Frye in a creepy, unused makeup as Karl, the grave robber. At the bottom, the bandaged Bride is lifted from a backstage shot of Elsa Lanchester resting in a long chair, drinking tea.
Read the pure adrenaline copy — Shivers and shakes! Gurgles and shrieks! — signed by Joe Weil, Universal’s Head of Exploitation, as they then brazenly called their Publicity Department. It was Weil who, back in ’31, famously plastered the city of New York with cryptic signs warning of the impending arrival of Dracula. Weil’s favorite ‘angle’ was what he called “tie-ups”, where cross-promotion was arranged between exhibitors and local businesses, promoting a film with the complicity of department stores, book sellers, church groups, pharmacies and whoever else you could think of.
And so, the selling of The Bride was underway.
A new Frankenstein wave of hysteria will engulf the land!
Related:
The Bride on the cover of Universal Weekly, March 2, 1935
Bride Ballyhoo: Selling The Bride of Frankenstein
The Bride’s defiant hiss turns to screeching terror, her towering hairdo matching the flames around her, as the castle laboratory explodes, ignited by a spurned Mate-Never-To-Be. We belong dead!
Mike Mignola launched a personal website this month, beautifully designed, as expected. The art gallery features a sketch study of Frankenstein’s Monster as only Mignola could imagine, complete with bolted nipples.
It’s difficult to image anyone but Elsa Lanchester as The Bride, yet a number of actresses were reportedly considered for the part. In profile above: Brigitte Helm, Louise Brooks, Phyllis Brooks, Arletta Duncan, and Elsa.
Director James Whale first suggested the formidable Brigitte Helm, who had played such characters as Maria and her unforgettable Robot alter ego in Metropolis (1927), Atenia, the Queen of Atlantis (1932), and the “unnatural” Alraune (1928 and 1932), a mad geneticist’s test-tube creation. The glacial Helm would have made a stunning Bride, but the actress refused the role. What’s more, the same year, 1935, Helm abruptly quit making films and fled Germany to Switzerland, in disgust over the Nazi regime.
Another iconic actress often mentioned as a potential Bride is Louise Brooks, the incandescent star of Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, both made in 1929. One wonders if The Bride would have traded her beehive hairdo for Brooks’ famous flapper bob, but this casting call is possibly a misunderstanding, with another Miss Brooks, Phyllis, being the one actually considered.
Phyllis Brooks, a former model, was a regal B-Movie actress and socialite who was, for a time, engaged to Cary Grant. In June 1939, famous gossip columnist Louella Parson, tongue firmly in cheek, wrote, “Cary Grant was in a gay mood today... he and Phyllis Brooks have made up their minds to marry.”
Brooks would eventually wed Congressman Tobert MacDonald, a close friend and confidant to John F. Kennedy. Her last showbiz gig was hosting the first television interview show to be broadcast in Boston.
The third actress penciled in as The Bride was Arletta Duncan who, interestingly, had made her film debut (see frame grab below) in the 1931 Frankenstein as one of the four identically-dressed bridesmaids who fret about Mae Clarke’s Elizabeth, in a dead faint after a close encounter with Karloff’s Monster. Duncan had earned a movie tryout after winning a radio station’s “most beautiful girl in New Orleans” contest.
Only 16 when Frankenstein was shot, Duncan, hailed as “Universal’s Youngest Player”, was trotted out to golf courses and soirées for photo ops and gossip fodder. “She has studied at Universal’s ‘little red schoolhouse’” a studio promo piece read, “and is being carefully trained for a brilliant future.” It didn’t pan out. Duncan was out of movies by 1937, after scoring minor roles in eleven films. Her most curious claim to fame came when she was mistakenly identified in Kenneth Anger’s notorious Hollywood Babylon tell-all book as the starlet who had taken a suicide jump off the Hollywood sign in 1938. In reality, Miss Duncan passed away quietly in 1985.
James Whale ultimately chose Elsa Lanchester for his Monster Bride. She’d already been cast as Mary Shelley in the film’s prologue and it made perfect, perverse sense to have the same actress play both roles.
Incidentally, the film’s other Bride, of the non-monstrous variety, was Valerie Hobson, then all of 18 years old, cast as Frankenstein’s long-suffering better half, Elizabeth. She is kidnapped by The Monster and held hostage by the nefarious Dr. Pretorius against Frankenstein’s compliance in assembling The Monster’s mate.
It has been suggested that the most logical and dramatic source for the final puzzle piece of the monster-making process, the ever-important “fresh” heart, would be Elizabeth. This would explain, in a sense, why the newly galvanized Bride turns sharply away from her intended and lunges into the safety of Frankenstein’s arms. Though there is evidence that Frankenstein (Colin Clive) was meant to perish in the final conflagration, there is none supporting Elizabeth as a transplant donor and, surely, the studio would not have allowed her such a gruesome fate.
In the end, the Frankensteins are sent away by the unrequited Monster just before he blows himself, his recalcitrant Bride and mad doctor Pretorius to kingdom come.
Related:
A profile of Elsa Lanchester
A profile of Valerie Hobson
