:07:04
At least, we have a very good indication
that he did this.
:07:07
People such as Elsa Lanchester
mentioned this,
:07:10
that this was his idea,
that that was his idea.
:07:13
The little people in the bottles
was his idea.
:07:16
He insisted that he have
the opening prologue
:07:21
with Mary Shelley
and Byron and Percy Shelley.
:07:24
That was essential,
otherwise he wouldn't do it.
:07:27
Elsa Lanchester, for example, told me
:07:29
that Whale insisted that she be
allowed to play Mary Shelley,
:07:37
and also the bride.
:07:41
It was either that
or he wouldn't make the film.
:07:44
It was a great thrill to meet
Elsa Lanchester. I met her in 1981.
:07:47
She said that it was Whale's intention
to show that very pretty people,
:07:53
which is how Mary Shelley
is presented in the film,
:07:56
actually inside
have very wicked thoughts.
:07:59
Can you believe that lovely brow
conceived of Frankenstein?
:08:03
A monster created from cadavers
out of rifled graves?
:08:07
The money was available to him
:08:10
to make a much more elaborate film
than the first one.
:08:14
Because of the success,
they let him go with the sets,
:08:19
and go with the care and the time
and the photography and the music,
:08:23
so that he could polish
and refine and elaborate,
:08:27
in a way that the earlier films, which were
made faster, wouldn't have permitted.
:08:32
It's an odd sequel in many ways.
:08:34
For example, after a brief glimpse of
the monster in the beginning of the movie,
:08:38
he doesn't show up again for a half-hour,
a third of the way into the movie.
:08:43
Meanwhile, you've spent most of your
time with this odd character, Dr Pretorius.
:08:48
I think if you look at Dr Pretorius,
:08:50
that's an example of how the movie has
changed so radically from the first one.
:08:54
In the first one, there was
the boring Dr Waldman.
:08:59
And in this one, suddenly
there's this full-blown eccentric,