Movie: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

IMDb Trivia:

• Marilyn Harris, who played Maria, the girl The Monster accidentally kills in the original Frankenstein (1931), appears uncredited as another young girl. She is the leader of the group of young schoolgirls who encounter the Monster as he runs away from the blind man’s burning house. Director James Whale deliberately gave her a one-word line (“Look!”), so she would be paid more by the studio as an actor with a speaking role, instead of as an extra.
• Not long before filming began, Colin Clive broke a leg in a horse riding accident. Consequently, most of Henry Frankenstein’s scenes were shot with him sitting.
• Boris Karloff protested against the decision to make The Monster speak, but was overruled. Since he was required to speak in this film, Karloff was not able to remove his partial bridgework as he had done to help give the Monster his sunken cheek appearance in the first Frankenstein (1931). That’s why The Monster appears fuller of face in the sequel. He sweated off 20 pounds laboring in the hot costume and makeup. Boris Karloff was paid $2,500 per week, for a total of $12,500, a large sum in the mid-30s but perhaps not enough to compensate the 48-year-old for playing the role in the elaborate make-up and heavy costume, exacerbating his already severe arthritis.
• When filming the scene where the monster emerges from the burnt windmill, Boris Karloff slipped and fell into the water-filled well. Upon being helped out, it was discovered that he had dislocated a hip in the fall. The hip was strapped into place and Karloff soldiered on. He continued to receive massage and heat treatments for the hip for the rest of the shooting of the film.
• Elsa Lanchester said that her spitting, hissing performance was inspired by the swans in Regent’s Park, London. “They’re really very nasty creatures,” she said. Elsa Lanchester was only 5’4″ but for the role was placed on stilts that made her 7′ tall. The bandages were placed so tightly on her that she was unable to move and had to be carried about the studio and fed through a straw. There was an epilogue to this movie featuring Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley, but it was cut from the final film.
• The original trailer promises “a lifetime of entertainment in two hours”. The final edit ran 75 minutes.
• The tiny mermaid in Dr. Pretorius’ bottle was Josephine McKim, a member of the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Women’s Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four members of that team to win the 1928 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay. McKim was also Maureen O’Sullivan’s body double in the wonderful nude swimming scene of the previous year’s Tarzan and His Mate (1934).
• Several scenes were cut after censor’s objections. References to the scandalous sexual arrangements of Mary, Shelley, and Byron were eliminated, particularly the line of dialogue: “We are all three infidels, scoffers at all marriage ties, believing only in living freely and fully.” Breen’s office also objected to shots they considered too revealing of Elsa Lanchester’s cleavage in the prologue.
• Doctor Pretorious’ full name is “Septimus Pretorious”; this is actually Latin and means “royal seven”, a reference to the seven deadly sins – as well as an indicator of his true nature.
• As a result of audience reactions from the film’s preview screenings during the first week of April 1935, the film was extensively re-edited. Many scenes were deleted and trimmed, and at least one, the scene where the Monster stumbles into the Gypsy Camp, was added in. As a result of the editing, the original uncut film was approx. 15 minutes longer than its official release length of 75 minutes.
• Though virtually all of Billy Barty’s scenes (as the little baby in the bottle) were deleted, he can still be briefly glimpsed in a wide shot of all the bottles on Dr. Pretorius’s table (as well as in still photographs).
• The scene in which the monster encounters the Gypsy camp was filmed shortly before the scheduled release date as a substitute for a scene that had been edited out after sneak previews because of censorship concerns. Since the scene was filmed long after the completion of principal filming – and after the film’s musical score had been completed – the Gypsy camp scene is the only segment of the movie that has no musical score.
• Contrary to popular belief, Henry Frankenstein was not a doctor. He left medical school because he felt they couldn’t teach him what he needed to know. In neither Frankenstein nor Bride of Frankenstein is Henry referred to a doctor. Only Herr, or Baron. The only Frankenstein that was a Doctor was Wolfgang Frankenstein in The Son of Frankenstein, as played by Basil Rathbone.
• John Carradine is one of the two hunters that appear at the hermits cabin proclaiming the hermits guest is in fact the monster .
• “The Bride”, the most obscure of Universal Studios’ Classic Monsters, is on screen for less than five minutes and is the only “Classic Monster” never to have killed anyone. Although it could be argued her rejection drove the Monster to Suicide.
• The “body count” in the original cut was 21. This was trimmed to 10 after pressure from the censors.
• The closing credits have the heading “A good cast is worth repeating”.
• In the opening and closing credits, “The Monster’s Mate” is listed as being played by ” ? ” . Elsa Lanchester is only billed as playing Mary Shelley.