80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series A Frankenstein "Laff"

Here’s a rarity, a panel cartoon take on BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, from the pages of the industry trade paper Motion Picture Herald of 29 June 1935. 

House cartoonist Milt Rosenfeld shows a couple of Legion of Decency types investigating the new Frankenstein film to see if it’s “another sex picture”. The ladies are then seen to exit in a hurry, having had a shock of another kind.

The Motion Picture Herald first appeared in 1915 out of Chicago as the Exhibitors Herald and evolved under various titles over the silent era through mergers and acquisitions, eventually consolidating under the highly influential publisher/editor-in-chief Martin Quigley in 1930. Published on Fridays, the exhibitor’s publication would run until 1972. Many celebrated writers, film historians and industry pundits would grace the Herald’s pages through the years. The legendary New York Times film critic Vincent Canby got his start there in the 1950’s.  

Milt Rosenfeld produced his innocuous cartoons, never editorializing, under the “Showmen’s Lobby Laffs” banner. Here, from May 1940, is another genre-related cartoon, this one about the “Invisable” Man sequel that starred an unseen Vincent Price. The caption says, “Usher: He wants half his admission back… Says he couldn’t see half the picture”.

 

Source: Motion Picture Herald is digitized online at Archive.org and the Media History Digital Library.