Bride of Frankenstein - How Women Are Presented and Their Otherness

Blog Post #1: Scene Analysis

Bride of Frankenstein (1935): “Blackmail”

Maureen O’Donnell

            Cinema has had a difficult time with depicting women. Traditionally, the writers, producers, editors, and directors in Hollywood have been male and create movies targeted towards a heterosexual male audience. Robin Wood states that horror movies rely on the concept of “the other” and its “otherness” to be the driving force that instigates fear within the horror movie and is depicted through the monster. To the intended male audience, one of the possible others that Wood suggests is woman. Wood states that “The dominant images of women in our culture are entirely male created and male controlled.” Within horror films in the early twentieth century, women tended to be placed in certain submissive positions that were merely meant to have them move the plot forward rather than to participate in the action. The scene “Blackmail” from the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein depicts how women are presented as passive props for the plot and embody the otherness for the male lead characters.

            The scene starts with the protagonist Henry Frankenstein becoming emotional and reluctant to carry on his work with Dr. Pretorius, who plays the villain in the film. In previous scenes, Henry and Pretorius were distinctly depicted with strikingly contrasting characteristics such as their clothing and in their desires. Pretorius dawned black attire and wished to create another monster while Henry was dressed in light colored clothing and wanted nothing to do with creating another creature like the one he already made. But in this scene, the two men are presented more like equals as they are now wearing matching white surgical uniforms and are now working towards the same goal. The otherness of the villain has shifted a little away from Pretorius as he becomes more like the protagonist which the audience identifies with. There is still a distinction between the men as Pretorius is always in a higher position or angle than Henry throughout the scene and has more control over Henry. This signifies that Henry is powerless to stop Pretorius leading for the audience to conclude that the bride of Frankenstein will soon be created regardless of Henry’s hesitations about Elizabeth.

            Henry’s fiancé Elizabeth has been kidnapped and is being used as leverage to get Henry to go along with Pretorius’s wishes. Both men dominate the scene and carry the action of it while she is essentially just the final goal whom Henry is meant to work towards.  The camera angles are slanted while the men discuss Elizabeth to help draw attention to their conversation in which Elizabeth is spoken of as a stolen good that will be returned to Henry once his work is complete. Although she is the main subject of the scene, she is only shown for a total of five seconds. In that time, she interacts with the main characters in an indirect way via telephone while she is tied up. She is frantic and emotional when conveying her message to Henry while she sits passively next to her abductor, thus portraying two unflattering stereotypes of women. The rope that binds her is rather loose and in her last second in the shot while she is being gagged, her arm accidently comes up which was previously behind her back showing that she wasn’t completely bound. This implies that she could have fought back against her attacker but didn’t. She instructs Henry to come to her rescue instead.

Work Cited

Wood, Robin. “The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s.” (1979): 25-32. Print.