Bride of Frankenstein - The Prologue

The prologue of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, with Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley.

[@MAMoreno]

Do you rrrememberrr these scenes that neverrr appearrred in yourrr novel?

[@cedk144]

If he rrrrolled those Rs any harder, his tongue would have rrrolled out of his mouth.

[@banjoist123]

England's greatest sinner and champion R roller.

[@RonRicho]

Don't bring reality into our perfect dream world.

[@bobbest418]

I Love this film! A masterpiece and a work of Art! Shelley was born in my local village...

What a proper and beautiful English, compared to Hollywood's now...

[@Michaelneiss]

These are pretty accurate period costumes for a movie made back in 1932 ...

[@jameretief8327]

Is that a young Graham Chapman playing Shelly?

[@WillScarlet16]

Somehow I always forget how beautiful Elsa was.

[@jnichols3]

It is the imperfections that made her beautiful. The upturned nose, the gap in her teeth, chipmunk cheeks, and her dimpled chin. Jennifer Gray was attractive in the same way, but she had her nose "fixed". Afterward she looked like every other actress and was forgotten about. BTW, you might enjoy this music video montage that I found of Elsa Lanchester. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHfImHWQlqynoNU

[@MisterG2323]

The gap in her teeth is a condition known as diastema.

[@unclealand]

I never noticed til now that the characters at 3:18 are set up exactly like the two doctors and the bride after they unwrap her. Check it out.

[@castironchaos]

The mirror between the two scenes is so ironic, it's impossible they are merely coincidence. Frankenstein and Pretorious hold the Bride, and Pretorious, the one defying God, stands in the same place as Lord Byron, "England's greatest sinner." Dr. Frankenstein, creator of the Bride, stands in the same place as Percy Shelly, to whom Mary Shelly is the Bride...

[@RonRicho]

unclealand. I reposted your comment to the facebook pageThe Golden Age of Monster Movies as I never noticed the connection. Great find. Just wanted to give you credit.

[@cedk144]

The monster's Communal meal with the hermit- bread and wine (and also a smoke) is also paralleled in his underground meeting with Dr. Pretorius.

[@Magnetron33]

I just noticed that for the first time and I have probably watched it a dozen times

[@firetopman]

Oh, well done! James Whale was brilliant to do that, and thank you for pointing it out.

[@nicholaswong9932]

It's important to remember that in this movie's universe, the plot of the novel was that of the 1931 film rather than the actual one written by Shelley. So Byron's correct in describing the novel's scenes, because in this world, this is exactly what she wrote.

[@austintrousdale2397]

What a meta movie... Whale was a director out of his time.

[@RThyrring]

I’ve always just seen it as an example of Frankenstein being not only a classic example of gothic litterature but also an early example of science fiction

[@ttanza4004]

Elsa Lanchester looked Beautiful in this scene! I think that she was only 32 years old when she did this movie.

[@44excalibur]

Yep. Doctor Frankenstein obviously didn't have to do much work with those breasts. lol

[@bumperu]

She looks like Wynona Ryder

[@CazTails]

*facepalm* Byron literally NONE of that happens in the novel

[@SkyeID]

+Caz Tails I thought, "What was HE reading?!"

[@CazTails]

Skye ID Probably the screenplay of the film tbh

[@snakes3425]

Uh the movie is biased on a play that was biased on the novel, it's not a direct adaptation of the novel. But Frankenstein does go through with creating a bride for the monster in the book, but destroys her before completing the task. This whole prologue is a tribute to the old story about Mary Shelly writing Frankenstein as part of a bet with Lord Byron and her husband while they were on holiday and were hold up due to bad weather. Still I would have to say in the end Mary won the bet

[@CazTails]

Darn right she won that bet!!

[@snakes3425]

the rest of the story goes that her husband actually encouraged and helped her edit Frankenstein, and Percy Shelly was instrumental in having it published since he was a popular poet and thus had connections and influence with publishers. Also the real Mary Shelly wasn't like how she's portrayed in this film, in many ways she was the exact opposite of the "perfect Victorian era lady" shown in the prologue

[@MrSeahawk113]

The woman who played mary Shelley is beautiful

[@snakes3425]

Elsa Lancaster, who was also the Bride

[@RonRicho]

That prologue is the shortest movie ever made and should have gotten an Oscar.

[@tadimaggio]

I love the notion of a medieval stone tower that has an elegant Regency interior.

[@banjoist123]

Based loosely on actual events. The Shelley's and Byron were summering in Switzerland following the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia which caused about 3 years of darkness throughout Europe. Stuck inside in a stately old villa on Lake Geneva, raining almost constantly and in constant twilight, thoughts turned morbid. Byron challenged them to write a ghost story. Mary complied...

[@44excalibur]

Both Mary and Polidori complied. Mary wrote Frankenstein, and Polidori adapted Byron's own Fragment of a Novel into The Vampyre, which would inspire Bram Stoker to write Dracula.

[@snakes3425]

Byron still owed Mary 20 pounds for winning the bet

[@JaceDanielFilms]

2:06 Elsa has such a distinct nose.

[@raslipmugfrud2040]

"Last Time on 'Frankenstein'..."

[@RThyrring]

Back then, you could only see movies in theatres as neither televised movies or the internet was a thing - so it’s a brilliant way of keeping up with continuity

[@maximosimancas5166]

They left poor Polidori out. :(

[@MisterG2323]

He was down in the kitchen making sandwiches. 😄

[@shannonc.5837]

and Claire! :(

[@44excalibur]

If they included Polidori, then they'd end up falling down the rabbit hole of Byron's Fragment of a Novel, which Polidori adapted into The Vamypre, which inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula... and, well... that's just too much.

[@daffyphack]

You can tell this is a fictionalized account because Lord Byron isn't fucking someone.

[@chickasaw981]

My favorite movie! Elsa Lanchester looks so gorgeous in this scene! Stunning! As a bisexual woman, this film pleases me with both her and Colin Clive in it. I don't know which one I want more lol

[@TheRexmoon]

elsa is so adorable in this scene...

[@SingleAngel101]

This is my favorite scene from this movie please keep it on

[@katherinesage]

Mary Shelley is my Idol

[@shannonc.5837]

same here!

[@Bongwater66]

...here are some of the best films about this incident: 1. 'Gothic' - Kenn Russell 1985 (with Gabriel Byrne as Byron / “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”) 2. 'Haunted Summer' - Ivan Passer 1987 (with Julian Sands as Shelley, fantastic!). 3. 'Rowing with the Wind' - Gonzalo Suárez 1988 (not a good choice in terms of actors, Hugh Grant as Byron??)... but the topic keeps fueling my mind... especially since I was personally present at the events of these places... 4. 'Mary Shelley' 2017 - Haifaa Al Mansour / (great fresh actors). cheers, Gregxxx........🦇

[@chrisrenegar7347]

Love watching this. They've been gone for so long and here we are watching them in their prime. That will be each and every one of us one day.

[@TobysGotANewerFace]

the film is fantastic but this prologue is so wildly inaccurate. at the very least, i doubt the two of them would have condescended Mary like this.

[@snakes3425]

It's meant to be an homage to the old story about the writing of Frankenstein, when Mary, Percy Shelly, John Polidori, and Lord Byron were on holiday and were hold up in a villa in Switzerland due to bad weather and spent the night amusing themselves with German ghost stories and they made a bet that each would write a ghost story of their own, and only Mary and Polidori ever finished their stories: Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus and the Vampyre, the story that would one day spawn Dracula

[@jedpumblechook2170]

@@snakes3425 Byron actually wrote The Vampyre, but thought little of it, didn't finish it and gave it to Polidori without a thought. Back in London it was initially published by Polidori with Byrons name on the title page.

[@Gargess]

It was designed to emulate the shroud that "The Bride" wears later on.

[@hwh1946]

Ironic the story was written as a direct result of a volcanic eruption that created a year without a summer.

[@johndonaldson3619]

So, Elusa Lanchester. played Mary and the Bride?

[@beatricesanfilippo6925]

I'm glad that they put Mary Shelley and her husband Percy at the beginning of this movie :D

[@PocketBonster]

Elsa Lanchester

[@44excalibur]

*Mary: "Ohhh! You made me prick myself, Lord Byron!"* Yeah, I'll bet that's not all he'd like to prick. ;)

[@44excalibur]

***** LOL Thanks! :)

[@castironchaos]

'Tis a long-lived tradition of symbolism in storytelling, including film: the hero or heroine cuts herself near the beginning, and with a drop of blood she loses her virginity; i.e. her innocence. Note that in this scene, she did not want to be reminded of the horror -- yet, after she had 'pricked' herself, she felt like telling it, and proceeding further into the tale. (Think also of the scene in "The Silence of the Lambs," where Clarisse crawls under the stuck door of the storage unit, and cuts herself as she does so.)

[@snakes3425]

This is Lord Byron we're talking about the man maybe regarded as a great writer but he was just as infamous for being a drunk, a debater and womanizer, who treated men and women with utter contempt, like they say Like Uncle like Nephew (his Great Uncle was nicknamed "The Wicked Lord," and was a thug and borderline psycho)

[@heartlandqueen82]

44excalibur Ironically, Mary Shelley was the only woman he did not have sex with. I've been reading about these three poets and none of the books say that Lord Bryon had sex with Mary and that she was possibly the only woman he treated with kindness and respect. But he did have sex with her stepsister, Claire and had- who knows who she'd have been had she not died at age five?- Allegra. What a complex trio they were.

[@44excalibur]

@@heartlandqueen82 Oh, yes, I'm aware that Byron did not have sex with Mary Shelley. You're right about Mary's stepsister, Claire, however Mary and Percy were also living in a polyamorous threesome with Claire, and she dumped them for Lord Byron.

[@jefferysteen1041]

Classic gothic horror

[@rodimusrider8798]

... Lord Byron what was in that cigarette?

[@Southtacomamook]

One of my favorite scenes ever. She'd beutiful.

[@gingeropera7491]

Christ! If Drama were a delicatessen that chump playing Byron would be the Virginia Ham in the window.

[@BrianChido2]

check the write up on wiki. they deleted portions of this scene because too much breast was shown.

[@shannonc.5837]

Lorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd Byrrrrrrrrrron

[@TheWaynos73]

It will be published - ‘I think’. Brilliant wink wink line. I love how this movie begins and ends with Elsa in a lightning storm.

[@bumperu]

She looks like Wynona Ryder.

[@francesco57159]

He really looks like Byron

[@bethrogers5553]

Percy Shelly died in 1822, Byron in 1824 and Mary Shelly in 1851. There is a scene with a grave from 1899.

[@KeithDec25]

James Whale and Universal deserve some points for trying to bring some literacy to the masses although they do take some creative license...I would give Whale some more points by having the female monster resemble/be Mary Shelley since the monster seems to be rejected by the both of "them"...

[@mickeymooseize]

the bride of frankenstein..................

[@tadimaggio]

Several of the episodes in the 1931 "Frankenstein" film, and in this one, are bastardized versions of scenes in the novel. The monster in the novel kills ten year-old William Frankenstein (Victor's brother), not a little girl. The killing of the doctor in the first film is probably a distorted version of the killing of Henry Clerval, Victor's best friend. (WHY they felt that they had to rename the protagonist is beyond me). And a "bride" for the creature nearly IS created in the novel; but Victor destroys it right before animating it, when he realizes that, when the creatures mate, they may end up producing a new race that will be in perpetual conflict with humans. (Angered at being denied his mate, the monster kills Victor's wife Elizabeth on their wedding night). But the monster in the book is EXTREMELY articulate, not a grunter. Almost Byronic, one might say.

[@banjoist123]

He taught himself to read in the woodcutter's hut, and became quite literate and articulate.

[@jmars309]

Love this old movie . Karloff as the monster' was great , and uncanny!

[@Mike-zh1ew]

Why does Byron speak so... oddly rrrrrough

[@jedpumblechook2170]

he was bought up in Scotland and retained some of the rolling RRRRRsssssssss

[@theplebe6342]

Mary Shelley: wrote Frankenstein in 1818, around the time this scene takes place. The movies Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein: clearly set in the mid to late 1800s. What could she tell the future, too?

[@b5904]

Great film.

[@BAS1630]

Best. Comment. Ever.

[@catqueen2031]

She reminds me of Lily Allen

[@jnichols3]

She reminds me of Olivia Colman. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKWsp6yFlt2ebZI

[@austintrousdale2397]

Kind of reminds me of 1990s era Shirley Manson.

[@micaylab1]

This tribute scene is So Cute compared to the real thing😄😐

[@peteralexvaudelaire4127]

One thing guys elsa lanchaster played 2 roles in this movie? Mary Shelley and the Bride of the Monster is a Masterpiece i Love Frankenstein movies and I Hope Universal and Blumhouse revives this epic films as they did with Invisible Man Already

[@Setebos]

Check out Frances Drake in The Invisible Ray (1936).

[@alc4117]

Mmmmmm those rolling Rs

[@premalair5372]

Looking for earlier Frankenstein it’s got b Spanish/French/colonial not sure Would so appreciate the name of it Got my name from the bride though she long hair gets her head cut off And the dr puts it back on long story really like to c it again need name thanks so much for any thoughts😇

[@cedk144]

The 1973 TV Frankenstein: The True Story

[@premalair5372]

There’s not no talking

[@premalair5372]

In that one

[@targetedindividual7931]

She giggles. Mary Shelley must have been witness to some satanic rituals...

[@bethrogers5553]

The guy who plays Lord Byron is a terrible actor.

[@gaycatlover3030]

Better than the original.

[@CriptoonLagoonAMV]

No.

[@i.v.neutegem]

No. but great too.

[@playgirlc]

i prefer her look after the makeover