And now I've watched
The Bride of Frankenstein, and it's a bit odd to watch them back-to-back, since there are a few continuity changes. The crochety elder Baron Frankenstein, Henry's father, who was alive and well in the happy-ending epilogue of the first film, now seems to have died rather abruptly between films, even though this one picks up before said epilogue and more or less overwrites it. The burgomeister is abruptly a completely different person, the Frankensteins suddenly have a comic-relief maid they didn't have before, and Elizabeth is suddenly brunette, long-haired, and English, as well as a much more expressive actress (even to a fault).
Still, it's a good continuation. There's a plausible explanation for the Monster's survival and some nice advancement of the story, especially with the Monster getting character growth and becoming more sympathetic as well as more articulate (Karloff might not have liked the Monster learning to speak, but I did). Dr. Pretorius adds some purer mad-scientist villainy in contrast to the conflicted Henry, and while the scene of him showing off his tiny creations is a bit goofy and incongruous raises countless unaddressed questions, the special effects are quite remarkable for 1935.
Another advance in the four years since the first film is that Hollywood now had the technology to dub multiple audio tracks together, allowing the kind of incidental music over dialogue scenes that wasn't possible at the time of the original. And Franz Waxman's score here is one of the most iconic and famous scores of its era, not only from this movie but from its frequent reuse as stock music in many other film productions, notably the
Flash Gordon serials. (And it's worth noting that Joe Harnell's theme for the creature in the TV series
The Incredible Hulk is identical to the last 4 notes of the Monster's 5-note motif here.)
If there's a disappointment here, aside from the sometimes-excessive comedy, it's that the title character has so little to do. She just stands there, looks around, sees the Monster, screams, and then dies. Maybe that's why they gave Elsa Lanchester the additional role of Mary Shelley in the prologue. That prologue is another thing that bugs me, since I don't agree with its premise that Shelley was making a moral statement about the evils of playing God. (I think it was more like a commentary on parental irresponsibility and neglect, and on societal persecution of the different. It was also an extrapolation of
real scientific questions that were being asked at the time about the boundaries between life and death, prompted by recent advances in galvanism and the resuscitation of drowning victims.) I feel (or maybe I read somewhere?) that the prologue must've been added to appease the moralists and censors by stressing a "godly" message, as well as by underlining that the story was imaginary rather than blasphemous.
