80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Bride is Released!

Back in 2011, here on this blog, we determined that Universal’s original FRANKENSTEIN (1931) had actually been released on November 20, a day earlier than most sources claim. Dial up Google, check the IMDB, they still say November 21, but we have proven otherwise. Now, supported by the ads posted here, we can demonstrate that BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) actually started playing three days earlier than the “official” release date generally quoted in books and online.

The actual “release” date is, by definition, the day when a film begins playing on a regular schedule. There may be prior screenings, as “Premieres” or “Preview Showings”, but these do not count towards the actual release date. The classic, Hollywood-style Premiere is a stand-alone promotional event with fanfare, klieg lights and attending movie stars. The “Preview Showing” describes when a new film is sneaked into a movie house for the purpose of gauging the moviegoers’ reactions. For instance, the original FRANKENSTEIN (1931) was shown in a Santa Barbara theatre about three weeks prior to its actual release. This particular screening, by the way, created the stubborn myth that Boris Karloff was not invited to the film’s premiere. Nice story, but false. Point is, there was no official premiere for FRANKENSTEIN.

If you Google “Bride Frankenstein Release”, your first hit, in large characters, claims “April 22, 1935”. Go to the IMDB, and the USA release date is stated, again, as April 22. A possible explanation is that the date was quoted by Universal as the planned release date, even though films rarely if ever launched on Mondays.

Did some digging and, to settle the issue, here are two contemporary ads from the pages of the Chicago Tribune. At top, dated April 18, 1935, an ad for the RKO Palace announces, “Tomorrow.. The World Premiere!” And what a show it was, with The Bride supported by a “Huge Stage Review”. The next day ad, also shown here, from Good Friday, April 19, proclaims, “The World Premiere… Today — 10:45 A.M.” featuring “Twice the Terrific Thrills of Frankenstein”.

And there you have it. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was actually released on April 19, 1935. Not April 22.

It must be noted that Stephen Jacobs, in his superb biography Boris Karloff, More Than a Monster, points to San Francisco as the premiere city, also on April 19. Who knows, maybe Chicago’s RKO Palace scored the “World’s Premiere” claim by virtue of its early first show, 10:45 AM, while it was still 7:45 on the West Coast!

And so we wrap up our BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN 80^th Anniversary series. No worries, as we return to our regular posting, I’ve lots of BRIDE material on hand and ongoing research to be posted in the weeks and months to come.

I hope you enjoyed our visit with the Bride of Frankenstein! 

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series No Greater Thrill!

We are used to seeing the iconic Frankenstein Monster on TV— with inevitable flattop, bolts and green face — flogging everything from soft drinks and beer to pain meds and cellphone services. Here’s an ad from way back in 1935 — the earliest I’ve seen — of The Monster as pitchman… for refrigerators!

“No Greater Thrill…” the ad goes, “Than the Bride of Frankenstein… and our 1935 Kelvinator!” 

Printed large, across three columns in New Orleans newspapers, the ad is a curious example of cross-promotion stunts often suggested to exhibitors by Universal. For the original FRANKENSTEIN of 1931, theatre owners were urged to trade ads with a local bookstore stockpiling the new Photoplay edition of Mary Shelley’s novel. Here, for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, the New Orleans’ Orpheum plunked a “thrilling” new Kelvinator fridge in its lobby in exchange for the movie’s poster being displayed at the legendary Godchaux’s Department Store on Canal Street. The offbeat idea was credited to the Orpheum’s manager Victor Meyer and adman Gar Moore.

The Orpheum also fielded The Monster live and in person, working the crowds, and the ambulance-out-front routine complete with nurses on duty. A bandage-wrapped dummy Bride strapped to a gurney was trundled around town, and local newspapers participated in a search for a New Orleans’ own “bride” for The Monster.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Monster Goes Dancing

The Monster crashes the annual May dance sponsored by the Fire Department, one of several “personal appearances” promoting BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, coming to the Astor Theatre in Reading, Pennsylvania.

According to the Motion Picture Herald of June 29, 1935, the “makeup stunt” was cooked up by house manager Dwight Van Meter using the Astor’s doorman as stand-in for The Monster. The transformation — said to have cost all of $2.15 — proved popular. High school seniors arranged a mock wedding — The Monster Demands a Mate! — and the very odd couple was seen driving around town in a bannered car and popping up at local nightclubs. One stop was at the swanky Riverside Club on Friday, May 17, same day the film opened. 

The Monster gag had kicked off a week earlier when the Astor ran the film’s trailer. The live Monster appeared in a green spotlight, chained to a large chair — as Karloff was in the film’s dungeon scene — rising out of the stage floor on the organ’s elevator loft, to weird sound effects. As the trailer played out, the snarling Monster broke his chains and escaped into the wings.  

  

Dubbed “unique bally”, The Monster’s manifestations in and around Reading helped drum up some excellent business at the Astor. By Sunday, the theatre was boasting 18,904 in attendance over two days and the film would be held over for a second week. 

Sources: Motion Picture Herald via the Media History Digital Library, and The Reading Eagle.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series Jazz Age Monster

Here’s a splendid streamlined cartoon likeness of Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster from the pages of Universal Weekly, the studio’s trade magazine, May 4, 1935. The art deco-style illustration — signed ‘Marshal’ ? — decorated a page boasting the film’s great box office returns and enthusiastic reviews in Variety and Motion Picture Daily.

Among the articles grouped under the heading “BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN: A TREMENDOUS SMASH” were reports from the Tower Theatre in Kansas City of a Sunday’s sellout business with crowds lining up despite a downpour, and the film drawing “unusually heavy child attendance” despite ads warning “not suitable for children”. The Tower’s manager, Barney Joffee, said he did not refuse admission to families on the principle that “parents cannot be prevented from bringing their children”.

Also featured is a column’s worth of praise for eighteen-year-old female lead, Valerie Hobson, essentially billed as a scream queen, before the term existed. Hobson, we are told, “screamed her way to success” and “plays the part of the beauty-in-peril with ear-splitting realism”. True, Hobson had to deal in quick succession with the Frankenstein Monster and WEREWOLF OF LONDON, leading Universal’s promotional department to declare that “… no actress has ever seemed more certain for stardom than this lovely lady of the vociferous tonsils”.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Birthday Bride

All this month — and onwards as we’ll be spilling into November — we have been celebrating the 80th Anniversary of an extraordinary film. Today, we note and celebrate another, related Anniversary: Elsa Lanchester was born October 28, 1902.

The image here was found in the movie fan magazine Picture Play, published out of New York by Street & Smith, for June 25, 1935. I’ve never seen this one before — please tell me if you have. The Bride appears in quiet profile, reflective, looking down, the trademark Nefertiti hair gone vertical. A caption read, “Elsa Lanchester’s amazing make-up for ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ won even the enthusiastic approval of Boris Karloff, who knows the possibilities of grease paint as few stars do.”  

Elsa Lanchester was 33 when she bookended the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN in two different roles, that of Mary Shelley in the film’s opening and, of course, the unforgettable Bride of its climax.

She thrills and charms us to this very day.

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.  

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Ballyhooed Bride

Standing 30 (?) feet tall, eyes fitted with flashing lights, The Monster straddles a busy sidewalk on St Clare Street in Toledo. “Legs formed arch plenty tall enough not to hinder pedestrian traffic…” reported the Motion Picture Herald of August 31, 1935. 

A second photo, different angle, shows the giant figure positioned half a block down from The Tivoli, next door at The Palace. The placement suggests either common ownership or a very friendly arrangement between the two theaters.

With the phenomenal box office of FRANKENSTEIN (1931) in recent memory, and a terrific subject to promote — The Monster Talks!... Who Will Be The Monster’s Mate? — BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN was ripe for hype and flashy ballyhoo. In San Francisco, the Ritz lobby had a mummy-wrapped dummy on a gurney and a mad-lab electric coil shooting foot-long sparks over the box office. Outside, a giant cut-out Frankenstein Monster head glared down at passers-by from atop the marquee. In the days running up to release, THE BRIDE’s trailer was accompanied by an elaborate stunt described in the Universal Weekly showman’s magazine of July 27…

“All house and stage lights out; rattle and drag chains about back stage; girls in wings give several blood-curdling screams; loads of scrap iron dropped from flies onto steel boiler plates back stage; set off charge of flashlight powder and at the same time plug in green spot on 24-Sheet cut-out head of monster on stage. Hold while smoke from flash rises through green light on head then go into trailer leaving green face visible. Also worked as a swell gag before picture itself.”

Likewise, the State Theatre of Harrisonburg, Virginia. Their trailer presentation kicked off with flashing house lights, live screams and clashing cymbals. Then all the lights went out and a giant Monster head with glowing red eyes was pulled across the stage in a deep blue spot. House manager Sam Roth ran a newspaper want ad reading, “BRIDE WANTED — to act as mate for man-made monster. Apply Frankenstein, State Theatre.” The theatre front was papered with a stunning assortment of gorgeous posters and the parked ambulance gag was revived, with banners shouting “Emergency Ambulance — for those who can’t take it while seeing the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.” According to Universal Weekly, Roth’s State campaign “aroused beaucoup excitement in town.”

More great gags, stunts and showmanship coming up as we count down to Halloween and celebrate the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN 80th Anniversary!  

Sources: Cinema Treasures. Motion Picture Herald and Universal Weekly via Lantern/Media History Digital Library.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series "The Weirdest Honeymoon Ever Conceived!"

No sign of Elsa on this ad… This Bride is Valerie Hobson’s Elizabeth!

When BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN came to Australia in mid-1935, exhibitors turned on the ballyhoo. Theaters were festooned with posters, cutouts and eerie lights. Stand-ins for The Monster and his Bride patrolled lobbies and neighborhood streets, and went shopping for a trousseau. 

This early ad for Sydney's Hoyt's Plaza ran in The Truth on Sunday, July 14, setting the stage for the film’s much anticipated arrival on Friday the 19th. “Public interest in “The Bride of Frankenstein” is already unprecedented. AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT BY BOOKING NOW!”

The effective art is a composite of promotional stills. Note how Hobson’s Elizabeth is lifted from a photo with Karloff’s Monster…

The dress is retouched as a bridal gown and a bridal veil is painted in. The forlorn Frankenstein head looming over Elizabeth was also used as decoration, painted giant-size and wrapping around the box-office over at the palatial 1,650-seat Plaza.

“THE MONSTER DEMANDS A MATE! But what heart, what soul, what flesh so brave would dare be his bride…?”

In an era of adrenalized ad copy, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN inspired writer to new heights of lyricism and hype. The small print copy down the side of this ad reads as follows:

SYDNEY IS THRILLING WITH EXCITEMENT!

First it was a murmur! Now it’s roar — an incessant clamour for information about this strange bride. The public pulse is quickening to the vision thrill of her romance with the monster. What will the bride look like? What manner of woman could be mated with the strangest and most terrifying figure in the whole literature of the screen?

And When You Actually See Her!!

You’ll marvel… You’ll wonder… is she human, monster or devil? But you’ll be entirely enthralled at the weirdest honeymoon ever conceived!

SUCH A WOMAN AS THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN HAS NEVER BEFORE EXISTED IN THE FURTHEST REACHES OF HUMAN IMAGINING. A NEW KIND OF WOMAN… GLAMOROUS… TERRIFYING… EERIE!

Related:
The Australian Frankenstein.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Art of Frankenstein : Nicolas Delort

The Bride of Frankenstein strikes an enigmatic pose, head turned away, her moonlit shroud billowing around her.

Paris-based artist Nicolas Delort’s superb scratchboard rendition places the The Bride front and center in a sweeping gothic scene replete with ominous skies, a distant castle and a dark lake.

The image is currently offered as part of a seven print set featuring all the Classic Universal Monsters. Expect a quick sellout.

The set, in a number of variant styles, goes on sale October 13 from Dark Hall Mansions.

Artist Delort’s website is packed with fabulous, must-see art.    

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Bride's Rhymed Review

By the time BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN came around in 1935, not quite four years after the original FRANKENSTEIN, The Monster was already a pop culture icon, recognized worldwide, referenced and often spoofed in musical shorts or animated cartoons. Reflecting this new, comfortable attitude towards the very Monster that had once awed or disturbed critics, many reviews of the new film, almost universally positive, were lighthearted and peppered with jokes. The Monster was a Romeo, the Bride wore an “asparagus-tip hairdo” and a sequel would invariably be “Frankenstein’s Baby”.

One of the most unusual and whimsical reviews appeared 19 July 1935 in The Newcastle Sun of New South Wales, Australia. It was one of a series of “Rhymed Reviews” penned by writer and critic Robin Slessor, whose knack for amusing verse was no doubt triggered by his older brother, Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971), hailed as one of Australia’s greatest poets.

Here, to facilitate reading, is a transcript of this unique, fun, touching, and very special Rhymed Review.

Bride of Frankenstein, by Robin Slessor

A year or two ago, in mortal fear I fear, we gripped the seat

And trembled at the mere approach of Karloff’s heavy feet

The monster made us shudder, as around the countryside

He blundered, wreaking havoc ‘mid the people far and wide.

Though striking far more terror than the worst of all banditti

He tinged our human horror with a modicum of pity,

The sequel to this horror film of man-created life

Shows Frankenstein, assisting in the moulding of a wife —

A mate for his monstrosity — a partner to command,

Who wakes in him a feeling that he cannot understand. 

The film is far more thrilling than the former one, and yet

Despite the man’s repulsiveness, one cannot quite forget

The pathos of the story of this manufactured twosome, —

The tragic side is curiously mingled with the gruesome.

80th Anniversary BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN series The Art of Frankenstein : William Basso

All this month, we’ll be celebrating THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN on its 80^th Anniversary year. Lots of information, great images and fun finds coming up in the days and weeks leading to — and perhaps beyond — Halloween! 

Let’s kick it off in style with a spectacular painting by the brilliant William Basso…  

William Basso’s collage painting of The Bride, like its subject, is a patchwork of elements, slotted and stitched together to unsettling effect.

In the Nineties, Basso worked as an artist with Stan Winston’s special effects studio, contributing to such titles as EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990), TERMINATOR 2 (1991) and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994). Since 2000, Basso has largely concentrated on his own projects, mixed media and sculpture, informed by his abiding passion for splendidly creepy Halloween themes and classic horror.  

Basso’s website is packed with terrific art, a blog and prints to buy, including the Bride painting, Mate for a Monster, and a superb companion piece, Man-Made, seen here below.

William Basso’s website.

An interview with Basso on Strange Kids Club.

The Art of Frankenstein : Feg Murray (Part 3)

Continuing our series on newspaper cartoonist Feg Murray, here’s an updated repost featuring a fabulous piece of original art!   

Here’s a stunning portrait of The Monster and his Bride by celebrity cartoonist and broadcaster Feg Murray, created for his Seein’ Stars feature syndicated to newspapers in 1936. This, the original art, was found in makeup man Jack Pierce’s personal scrapbook and sold through Heritage Auctions for $2,151 in 2007.

The perfect likenesses suggest that Murray’s art was traced from photos, likely projected onto an art board, a common technique and a necessary expedient for someone drawing realistic portraits on a tight schedule.

Murray used a “screentone” type of art board saturated with small dots that would be made visible by applying a solvent. When photographed and reduced to publishing size, the dots would function as stippling, creating gray tones. Before the advent of computer graphics, pre-textured paper, which came in a variety of dot or crosshatch patterns, was widely used by artists in newspapers and comic books.

Murray’s elegant brushwork and judicious use of screentone shading combine to make a truly outstanding piece. Note, also, Murray's signature and his strip's little teddy bear-like mascot.


Coming up: Feg Murray's Sunday features in full color!

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein Poster Goes On Sale

Heads up! Mondo’s new Bride of Frankenstein poster by Mike Mignola goes on sale today, June 5, 2014. The time of release will be announced on Mondo’s Facebook page and Twitter. Print run is strictly limited to 325 copies, going for $50 apiece. I expect it will sell out in a very few minutes.

Hellboy creator Mignola has drawn several Frankenstein images evoking the Universal classics, as well as original pieces, all perfectly scrumptious. A number of these can be seen through the links below.

Release info from Mondo Posters

Related:

Hellboy Meets Frankenstein

Mike Mignola’s Bride of Frankenstein

World Horror Convention Poster

Lobster Johnson Meets Frankenstein

The Art of Frankenstein: Mike Mignola

Covers: The Frankenstein Dracula War

The Bride and the Betrothed

Jack Pierce and The Bride

Here’s a find, I think. There are lots of photos of master makeup man Jack Pierce working on or posing with Boris Karloff for his three outings as Frankenstein’s Monster, but no shots of Pierce with Elsa Lanchester in BRIDE makeup had ever surfaced, to my knowledge, until now.

The photograph here was found in the June 1935 issue of New Movie magazine, just one of 12 small photos of movie stars sharing space with cartoons and copy in a busy spread called Hollywood: Day by Day. Reporter “Nemo” rattles off short items of bubbleheaded scuttlebutt about such matters of import as Bing Crosby’s day at the racetrack, Jean Harlow’s cellophane swimsuit, Clark Gable’s big new car, and Lyle Talbot dropping his favorite fedora into Pat O’Brien’s pool. Ann Dvorak poses with her lucky rabbit’s foot and the Bride picture carries a laconic caption: “Elsa Lanchester wears fantastic make-up for ‘Bride of Frankenstein’.”

New Movie, claiming “the largest circulation of any screen magazine in the world”, first mentioned BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN in January of 1935, when Karloff was said to be preparing for The Return of Frankenstein. That issue also carried a profile of Boris, entitled Karloff The Uncanny. In May, the film was now called BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and “guaranteed to give you bad dreams for three weeks”. A short, smart-alecky review signed Barbara Barry — “New Movies Studio Scout”  — outlined the film and blew the punch: “And then, after all their work, the incorporated damsel (Elsa Lanchester) takes one look at her prospective bride-groom and proceeds to shriek herself unconscious! All of which makes Karloff so dern mad that he blows up the whole joint!” In the same issue, Ms Barry, who seemed to relish the art of the spoiler, also blurts out the ending to WEREWOLF OF LONDON, though she is careful not to reveal the denouement of MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, but making a big deal about how she’s holding back on a big surprise.

We’ve seen photos of Lanchester in her Bride costume posing with a hand mirror and a makeup pencil, fixing her lipstick, as if the perfect beestung look painted by Jack Pierce needed a touchup. One wonders if Pierce, standing by, was simply cropped out of those shots. Nevertheless, we now have a shot of Jack Pierce with one of his masterpieces, the weirdly glamorous Bride.

And now the hunt is on for a shot of Pierce with Lugosi as The Monster from FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943). There are shots of Pierce working on Lugosi’s Igor — broken neck, snaggle tooth, fright wig and all — for SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) and GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942), but no photograph of Pierce with Lugosi’s Frankenstein Monster has surfaced yet. 

Robby Hecht's Melancholy Frankenstein

The Monster and his Bride have enjoyed a busy music video career as stand-ins for star-crossed lovers, often to comedic effect. Here, set to Robby Hecht’s plaintive, country-styled “Soon I Was Sleeping”, the tone is downright mournful as our jigsaw couple’s perennially problematic love affair is irrevocably wrecked by alcohol. Brian T. O’Neil plays the beat-up Monster and Kayla McKenzie Moore is the ethereal Bride. Ryan Newman directed in appropriately moody black and white.

Robby Hecht is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter whose insightful compositions have made him an important new voice in contemporary folk. With a talent for surrounding himself with blue-chip talent, he is accompanied on the song at hand by Canadian vocalist Rose Cousins. “Soon I Was Sleeping” appears on Hecht’s new album, released in March.

Robby Hecht’s website.

Reviews on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy, UK’s The Telegraph, and USA Today.

Related:

The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

The Country Bride of Frankenstein

The Rockabilly Bride of Frankenstein

Though her total time on screen, way back in 1935, was limited to a brisk 12 minutes, the Bride of Frankenstein remains one of the most famous movie characters of all time and is still a reference 79 years on. The Bride, sporting her spectacular hairdo, has appeared in everything from commercials to musical reviews and pop videos.

Here, she is stunned back to life again to the tune of It’s Good to be Alive, the first single off an upcoming album by Imelda May, a roots and rockabilly artist by way of Ireland.

In this revisionist version, The Bride and her Monster fall head over big boots for each other and go on to the ups and downs of marital life. I don’t really think it’s a spoiler for me to say that in the end, love conquers all.

Related:
The Country Bride of Frankenstein

Neil Gaiman on Bride of Frankenstein

Does Neil Gaiman really need an introduction? Gaiman, you should know, is a prolific writer of the legendary Sandman comics, best-selling short-story collections and novels such as American Gods and Anansi Boys, and children’s/young adult, or “all-ages” books such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book.

Here, Gaiman reflects on James Whale’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and its enduring oddbeat charm. The short interview was done for the spectacular, ongoing, UK-wide Gothic series of films and events celebrating “the Dark Heart of Film”, organized by the British Film Institute.

The BFI’s Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film event.

Neil Gaiman’s website and blog.

The Return of Frankenstein

The Monster casts a tall shadow in an otherwise sparse December 1934 Universal Weekly trade paper ad for The Return of Frankenstein, the working title for a film that would be released as Bride of Frankenstein. No details, no hint of content except to get the word out: Frankenstein was coming back, and James Whale was aboard.

The phenomenal success of the 1931 original had Universal eager for a sequel, but director James Whale wanted no part of it. Several scripts and screen treatments were floated and other directors were considered until Whale finally came around and supervised a brilliant and perverse script written to his specifications. He would oversee all aspects of the production, from casting — with his friends Ernest Thesiger and Elsa Lanchester assisting the returning Colin Clive and Boris Karloff — to sitting in on the orchestra recording of the sumptuous score.

With Bride of Frankenstein, Whale would create his undisputed masterpiece.

The ad plugs Carl Laemmle’s Anniversary Jubilee, and Universal’s patriarch was featured on the cover of this issue. It seemed like papa Laemmle was celebrating something of other every few months, front and center, although his son Julius, aka Carl Jr., was now head of production — if not for much longer. The horror movies did well, but the studio accumulated a series of expensive flops and the Laemmles were bought out in 1936.

The Posters of Frankenstein : Small Run Bride of Frankenstein, 1935

Here’s a nice, small-run typographical poster for Bride of Frankenstein — Adults! 15 cents! — playing in October 1935 at Bird’s Rivoli, a movie house in East Tawas on Saginaw Bay at Lake Huron. The week’s worth of films advertised were all new, all from 1935.

Independent, out of the way and catering to a small-town crowd, films never ran long — Bride played only four times over two days — and it made no sense to spend money and send away for lithographed posters and lobby cards. Simple cards like this one, printed locally, did the job. Only a handful would be produced, jazzed up with yellow, green or orange colors, for front-of-house display and, perhaps, distribution to nearby stores and pasting on fences within the community.

Details are scarce but promoter Herman Bird was active in Michigan, operating several theaters from the silent era and into the Fifties, including the Family Theater, and another Rivoli in Grand Rapids. Bird’s Rivoli on US23 in East Tawas was also known as the Bay Theater for a while. It closed some fifty years ago, its building surviving as a meeting hall. Ultimately, it was leveled and turned into a parking lot.

Related:
The Bride of the Bronx

Bride Ballyhoo From The Vault

A haunting portrait of Boris Karloff as The Monster, painted by Daniel Horne, fronts the latest issue of Jim Clatterbaugh’s always excellent Monsters from the Vault magazine. The accompanying article, Ballyhoo and the Bride of Frankenstein, by John McElwee of the Greenbriar Picture Shows blog, is a gem.

Tracking box-office numbers, McElwee reveals how Bride and other classic horror films of the 30’s typically performed right out of the gate, often with record-setting receipts, but would fade fast, limiting engagements to a week, with few holdovers. Making a big splash on that first critical weekend required ballyhoo, the art of extravagant publicity, and the article is loaded with wonderful pictures of giant posters, character cutouts and live stunts that accompanied the film as it deployed across America in 1935. Here are the men in Frankenstein masks working the sidewalk crowds, the nurse booths in theater lobbies, mummy-wrapped dummies on gurneys, and ambulances parked out front. Newspapers ran a contest that had a lady sit alone through a midnight showing… “And When the Lights Go Up — If She’s Still There — A Crisp $5.00 Bill Is Her Reward!”

The article also features pages from Universal’s exhibitor’s magazine showing examples of wild ballyhoo and “showmanship” stunts from around the nation.

Also in Monsters from the Vault No. 31, Greg Mank examines censorship issues with James Whale’s non-horror One More River (1934), actress Candace Hilligross looks back at Carnival of Souls (1962), and an article on Bela Lugosi and the making of Scared to Death (1947).

The issue is out now and you can order directly from the publisher.