:13:00
even as she dallies with Fifi, the giantess.
:13:03
Enter the monster, wanting a love match.
:13:06
The bride is produced in a carnival wagon
:13:08
and the enraged monster dies
in the jaws of Emma's lions.
:13:13
Philip MacDonald's story
was absolutely up to date,
:13:16
equally original as Blochman's
and equally useless.
:13:19
War clouds over Europe, and Henry
has developed his delta death ray,
:13:23
that he wishes to sell to the League
of Nations as a deterrent to war.
:13:27
Henry has neglected
his sickly wife Elizabeth,
:13:29
over whom family friend Victor Moritz
is still spooning.
:13:33
A nocturnal demonstration of the ray
inadvertently revives the monster,
:13:36
and a second exposure
gives him superhuman strength.
:13:40
The monster plays with
the apparatus' dials like a child,
:13:43
inadvertently raining death
and destruction across Europe,
:13:47
decimating whole cities.
:13:48
A remorseful Henry apologises to
his creature, vaporises him with the ray,
:13:53
and then immolates himself in its beam.
:13:58
It was written that Elizabeth's vision
would be a classical grim reaper,
:14:03
a ghost of Christmas yet-to-come,
bearing a strong whiff of the monster.
:14:06
It would have been dangerous
to go over the top so early on,
:14:09
with so many fancies yet to come.
:14:12
Far better to drop the other shoe
with the arrival of Dr Pretorius,
:14:15
a literal figure of death.
:14:18
We're ready for our wake-up call, Dr P.
:14:22
Promethean hubris drives the story -
or this telling of it.
:14:25
Henry rationalises his blasphemy
:14:27
by conjecturing that his actions
are part of the divine plan:
:14:30
The devil didn't make him do it, God did.
:14:34
Having created a shambling revenant
with unpredictable powers,
:14:37
Frankenstein refuses to take
responsibility for its care or destruction.
:14:42
Whale was a man
of absolutely no religious convictions,
:14:45
according to his biographer,
James Curtis.
:14:47
It is fashionable to view
the religious parable
:14:50
and Christ imagery
in Bride of Frankenstein as mocking,
:14:53
and to attribute it
to Whale's nonconformity.
:14:56
This view assumes the fey Dr Pretorius
is the director's absolute alter ego,