The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

"He's a very queer looking gentleman, Sir."

This isn't the first time I’ve seen this film, of course, but it’s been a bit of a while. It’s as good as ever this time round, of course, one of cinema’s great sequels, but a different experience after so many years. It’s a lot more noticeable this time, for one thing, how the delightfully camp Dr. Pretorius, making Henry Frankenstein look even more neurotic by comparison, strives to separate Henry from his heterosexual relationship so the two of them can do things together of which society disapproves, for which Pretorius has been banned from academia, and which are generally considered (it being a vague Romantic period or 1935, depending on how diabetic we wish to be) to be going against God. Hmm. What are we saying here, Mr Whale? Incidentally, I love the little people with their silly costumes.

The other thing that surprised me this time round is just how late in the film the “Bride” appears; just for the last four minutes. Elsa Lanchester looks and is superb, however. And it is of course the real tragedy that the monster, having known a little friendship from a blind man rather keen to push smoking on to him (“No, no, this is good. Smoke- you try.”), is hated by all and the fact that his intended mate is terrified of him too is simply the final straw. He can have no connection with others, thus no happiness, and so he wants to die- bringing Pretorius and the Bride with him. There’s a hint of violent male attitudes towards rejection by women there, I think. It’s also hard to keep my inner Alan Partridge in check as both the title “Bride of Frankenstein” and the fact that Pretorius says the line for no diegetic reason at his moment of triumph seems to call the monster “Frankenstein”. But it’s hard to deny what an absolute work of genius this film is.

The Invisible Man (1933)

“He meddled in things men should leave alone…”

What a brilliant film that was. I mean, I should have expected it to be good after seeing James Whale’s Frankenstein, but this just knocks the earlier film into a cocked hat. Great camerawork, incredible special effects, a magnetic and charismatic star who mesmerises with his voice alone, many amusing comic characters and an assured and pacey plot… what’s not to like? This whole film is a gleeful and glorious spectacle, breezily confident in how good it is but innocently eager to share the fun with the rest of us. It’s not the greatest film ever made, but it’s one of the easiest to love.

Claude Rains is such fun. He gets to be rude, to laugh hysterically, to be gentle with Flora, to twirl his moustache, to deliver hilarious lines such as “We’ll begin with a reign of terror; a few murders here and there!”, yet to hold the character together with sheer charisma and joie de vivre. His performance is as much a spectacle as the joyful and amazing scene where he first reveals his invisibility to the dumbfounded villagers. Even today the effects are genuinely amazing. And the character of Griffin suits his invisibility perfectly; without being seen, he’s able to get naked (symbolic in itself!) and gleefully break all of society’s rules, and get away with it. We’d all do the same, up to a point, if we could.

The film has such fun with his invisibility; hew plays so many practical jokes that it’s necessary for the murders to keep piling up more and more to stop us liking him. In the end he has to destroy a whole train in order to deserve his punishment. But that’s not the only side to the fun- I love the scene where he admits that rain, fog, smog, food visibly digesting, and even dirt between his fingernails(!) could be his undoing. Rather cleverly this prefigures the ending; snow, of course, is rather suspiciously not mentioned.

None of the other characters matter much, really, although the comedy police constable and the comedy pub landlady and landlord are fun. Cranley and Kemp are stock characters (although the slow unravelling of how Griffin manages to kill Kemp, as he says he will, is huge fun, and the car crash is great, too!), and Flora is the wettest female lead ever. In fact, aside from being wet, she has no other character traits whatsoever. Hardly a rewarding part to play, I’d imagine. As for Cranley, he seems to exist purely as a contrast with Griffin; a “responsible” scientist, concerning himself with the practical affair of food preservation, as opposed to “mad” scientist Griffin, with his self-centred and wild meddling into Things Which Should Not Be Disturbed. But no character here can compete with Rains.

The ending- with its mob and its burning building- is so similar to Whale’s earlier Frankenstein that it seems to be almost a deliberate tribute. But the ending is satisfying; it seems to follow on from lots of characters throughout the film, serious and silly, speculating on the various ways in which Griffin might come unstuck.  And it’s fitting that Rains, whose performance has been an utter triumph, finally gets his face on screen for the closing moments.