Bet you didn't know that :
It’s one of the most popular and financially successful sequels in film history. It’s on many top horror movies film lists. It’s been censored and banned from several countries and France was so impressed with it that they dropped their foreign film quota restrictions so more of its citizens could view it. Its director, James Whale, didn’t want to do it. The screenplay was re and re and rewritten. Its star Boris Karloff hated that the Monster was given lines to speak. He knew that if the Monster spoke, he'd become a big joke, but “Good” and “Friend” were necessary to the plot and symbolic meanings of the film. Its female’s star’s hair became iconic! All in all this little black and white film has a much richer history than most people know. It’s know by two titles: Bride of Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein.
It’s one of the most popular and financially successful sequels in film history. It’s on many top horror movies film lists. It’s been censored and banned from several countries and France was so impressed with it that they dropped their foreign film quota restrictions so more of its citizens could view it. Its director, James Whale, didn’t want to do it. The screenplay was re and re and rewritten. Its star Boris Karloff hated that the Monster was given lines to speak. He knew that if the Monster spoke, he'd become a big joke, but “Good” and “Friend” were necessary to the plot and symbolic meanings of the film. Its female’s star’s hair became iconic! All in all this little black and white film has a much richer history than most people know. It’s know by two titles: Bride of Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein.
One of the reasons this film was so controversial for its day was because it has some subtle and not so subtle Christian Imagery that many people found offensive. Let’s begin with the obvious, the death scene of the Monster when he’s all trussed up in a cruciform pose in a graveyard. I say it’s obvious because it’s an iconic Christian pose. When writers or filmmakers do this, we say they are aligning a character with an association of some kind...in this case Christ, making him a Christ Figure. Well the Creature is far from a Christ Figure, so what’s going on?
There are crucifixes in several scenes, but the other obvious link to Christian imagery is when the Monster is with the blind man and he eats bread and drinks wine. This is symbolic of the sacraments of communion and it is also LITERALLY the Monster’s Last Supper.
A deleted scene in the film where the Monster sees Jesus on the crucifix and tries to save him. There’s a kind of reversal in the Christ Figure role that plays out here with the Monster. Only it’s a perversion of the Christ story. Christ is killed and then resurrected from the dead. The Monster is resurrected from the dead and then killed. It makes a kind of mockery of the Christ story in no small part because the Monster is created through man’s efforts, not through God’s; therefore, he is without any Devine Spark. All the comparisons of man and God were a little too much for some countries, so they banned this movie. Understandably so, but it still stands as James Whale’s masterpiece, and it’s also just a campy hoot to watch: Christian Imagery and all!
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