:16:00
not always convincingly.
:16:02
Bride of Frankenstein was cast
mainly with British players.
:16:05
Mae Clarke, the original Elizabeth,
:16:07
was replaced by the 17-year-old ingénue
Valerie Hobson.
:16:10
Valerie Hobson gives an amazing
performance, I think, as Elizabeth.
:16:14
Very stylised. She's like
a Christmas angel,
:16:17
the way she appears with the dress
and the flowing hair.
:16:21
I talked to her in 1989 and she had
warm memories of making the film.
:16:26
She said the first time she saw Karloff,
it was an extraordinary experience.
:16:30
There he was in complete
Frankenstein monster make-up,
:16:33
and she said "I just was so amazed.
All of a sudden he opened his mouth
:16:37
and out came this very gentle
British accent with a lisp."
:16:42
She said that he was like
the great clowns who make you cry.
:16:46
He really made you cry.
:16:48
This monster whose heart was just
bleeding to get out of his monstrous self,
:16:52
to find somebody to love,
to find somebody to love him in return.
:16:56
And he pulled it off. Remarkable feat
of acting. She was very impressed by it.
:17:00
Valerie Hobson was very
appreciative of James Whale.
:17:03
Not only was he a great director,
but he was, as she put it, so English.
:17:07
Here she was, a 17-year-old
British girl in Hollywood,
:17:11
and he made her feel very much at home.
:17:13
She said she was the victim of
James Whale's rather bizarre wit,
:17:18
because the first time she met
Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein,
:17:21
it was the scene where she becomes
hysterical and falls into bed with him.
:17:25
As they rehearsed this scene
and she fell into bed,
:17:28
James Whale said "Mr Clive, this is Miss
Hobson." And she was in bed with him.
:17:32
So she said it was pretty strange,
even for Hollywood, as an introduction.
:17:37
Colin Clive played Henry Frankenstein
again in one of his last performances.
:17:43
Emotionally tortured and ravaged by
alcohol, he died two years later aged 37.
:17:47
Frankenstein's mentor,
Dr Septimus Pretorius,
:17:50
a role originally
intended for Claude Rains,
:17:52
was played by James Whale's real-life
theatrical mentor, Ernest Thesiger,
:17:56
an actor reportedly
just as eccentric off-screen as on.
:17:59
To a new world of gods and monsters.