An in-house artist for Universal in the Thirties, Fred Kulz
painted the first
Frankenstein poster in early 1931, back when Bela Lugosi was still
attached and well before its Monster was designed. Kulz improvised a wild-eyed
giant striding across a modern metropolis. The process repeated in June 1934
when Kulz created the first color art for the upcoming Bride of
Frankenstein, basically with nothing to go
on, save a title.
Published in the June 2-June 9, 1934, double issue of the Universal
Weekly trade magazine, the two-page spread
shows The Monster, framed in smoke, throwing a massive protective arm over The
Bride, here depicted as a waif-like, kohl-eyed goth girl in a delicate wedding
dress. The background shows a blasted landscape and, in the distance, the
iconic burning windmill.
Information about Fred Kulz is slowly coming to light. Kulz,
we learn, was active in the early 1890s and prolific into the Twenties as a
designer and artist, equally at ease with photo paste-ups or elegant pen and
ink drawings, for sheet music covers. He produced a number of color covers for
magazine and newspaper supplements, many of them for Boston-based papers, in a
very elegant and highly detailed Art Nouveau style. By the late Twenties, as a
movie poster artist, he had switched to a robust, pulp magazine style packed
with action, often painted in bold colors.
The Bride pre-production
art has James Whale firmly in charge but no actors are named, not even Karloff.
Elsa Lanchester would be cast much later. The ad copy is meant to pump up
exhibitors: “Can you imagine the advertising you can do on this one?”
Fred Kulz would produce
more art for
Bride of
Frankenstein, this time with Elsa in
ghostly profile, in March of
1935.
Images from the collection of Rick Payne.
