She's Alive! Creating the Bride of Frankenstein Page #2

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that he did this.

People such as Elsa Lanchester

mentioned this,

that this was his idea,

that that was his idea.

The little people in the bottles

was his idea.

He insisted that he have

the opening prologue

with Mary Shelley

and Byron and Percy Shelley.

That was essential,

otherwise he wouldn't do it.

Elsa Lanchester, for example, told me

that Whale insisted that she be

allowed to play Mary Shelley,

and also the bride.

It was either that

or he wouldn't make the film.

It was a great thrill to meet

Elsa Lanchester. I met her in 1981.

She said that it was Whale's intention

to show that very pretty people,

which is how Mary Shelley

is presented in the film,

actually inside

have very wicked thoughts.

Can you believe that lovely brow

conceived of Frankenstein?

A monster created from cadavers

out of rifled graves?

The money was available to him

to make a much more elaborate film

than the first one.

Because of the success,

they let him go with the sets,

and go with the care and the time

and the photography and the music,

so that he could polish

and refine and elaborate,

in a way that the earlier films, which were

made faster, wouldn't have permitted.

It's an odd sequel in many ways.

For example, after a brief glimpse of

the monster in the beginning of the movie,

he doesn't show up again for a half-hour,

a third of the way into the movie.

Meanwhile, you've spent most of your

time with this odd character, Dr Pretorius.

I think if you look at Dr Pretorius,

that's an example of how the movie has

changed so radically from the first one.

In the first one, there was

the boring Dr Waldman.

And in this one, suddenly

there's this full-blown eccentric,

very, very gay and funny character,

that was created by Whale

in the development of the screenplay

for the second film.

Frankenstein.

Yes, there have been developments

since he came to me.

Unlike the original film, Mary Shelley's

novel featured a highly articulate monster.

Bride of Frankenstein

restored the monster's speech.

Before you came, I was all alone.

It is bad to be alone.

Alone. Bad.

Friend. Good.

Speech was the essential difference

between the original Frankenstein

and the Bride of Frankenstein.

My father really objected

to the monster being given speech.

He felt it would take away

from the original portrayal,

and I think he was wrong.

Cinema history has proven him wrong.

It's one of the few sequels that really...

most film critics regard

as surpassing the original.

Once more, Boris Karloff faced

a gruelling and uncomfortable make-up,

designed and applied

by the legendary Jack Pierce.

One of the changes in the make-up,

besides the fact that Karloff

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