Bride of Frankenstein
went through several iterations on its way to becoming the greatest monster
movie ever made. Philip MacDonald, who’d later adapt Rebecca for Hitchcock and The
Body Snatcher for Robert Wise, imagined Frankenstein’s invention of a death
ray as an integral plot element of the sequel to James Whale’s 1931 smash. L.G.
Blochman, who enjoyed greater success as a mystery novelist than a screenwriter,
had a more fanciful vision in which the mad doctor and his bride Elizabeth
leave their troubles behind to work as puppeteers in a traveling carnival. John
L. Balderston, who’d adapted the original Frankenstein,
got closest to the film we know and adore, though his screenplay was a much
darker affair, more faithful to Mary Shelley with a meatier role for the Bride
than Elsa Lanchester got to play in the finished film. There’s no Dr. Pretorius
in his draft dated June 1934, no Minnie, no humor or homunculi. The Monster,
however, does get to talk a lot more and a lot more articulately. He also gets
to milk a cow and eat a muskrat. Plus, Fritz is back, because Balderston
apparently forgot that the Monster wrung his neck in the first film. So much
for continuity.
Philip J. Riley compiled MacDonald and Blochman’s treatments
and Balderston’s complete screenplay in his recent book The Return of Frankenstein (this was the preferred title for a
while since the producer’s realized the Bride wasn’t actually Frankenstein’s
intended…though Balderston does have the Monster refer to himself as
Frankenstein a couple of times! So much for knowing who your main character is…).
Like all entries in Riley’s “Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters”
series (or the “Filmonster Series-Lost Scripts,” as it’s now called), The Return of Frankenstein is a juicy
tidbit of film history cluing us in on what might have been. Sometimes the
scrapped scripts are better than what ended up on screen, as was the case with Dracula’s Daughter, the most essential
entry in Riley’s series. In the case of Bride
of Frankenstein, we ended up with the very best monster picture imaginable,
elevated incalculably by James Whale and William Hurlbut’s witty and
imaginative revisions. The treatments and screenplay in this book aren’t nearly
as much fun to read as Whale’s movie is to watch, but they are still
fascinating, essential documents for any classic monster education. If nothing
else, they really make you appreciate the depth of James Whale’s genius.
