Due to technical difficulties, The Invisible Man will not be seen tonight.
I’ve heard it said that he was going for a mythical/fairytale vibe, not tied to any specific time period.
Supposedly, most of the scenes are indirectly lit, and whenever you see a lamp onstage, you cannot tell whether it is electric, gas, or oil. Were there any automobiles in the first two movies?
The costumes had a deliberate mix of anachronistic styles.
So, in 1932, The Mummy was set in 1932, and in 1940, The Mummy’s Hand was set in 1940. But in 1942 and 1944, The Mummy was set in 1910, and The Mummy’s Hand was set in 1912.
They weren’t pushing forward into the future; they were pushing the past back.
You might also have mentioned the date on the tomb that Pretorius raids to obtain the corpse that will become the Bride–1899. This is presumably very recent, since the body is intact and undecayed.
Calling it an “alternate universe” may be a bit grandiose, but I think it’s obvious that Whale was primarily concerned with creating a fantastic, almost fairy tale world, and probably gave no thought at all to whether one could construct a coherent timeline of events. Questions like that, I imagine, were the last thing on his mind.
Ummm, wouldn’t most people just buy a cable? Probably cheaper than beef bourginonne for thirteen (the number of Dopers who’ll be showing up with a handful of cables and huge appetites).
ETA: Forgot to mention that I watched the movie (I’ve got a cable, nyaaah, nyaaah). That sky is terrible! Maybe we can dub in a peasant saying “Wow, we get to chase a monster and watch the Northern Lights, what a perfect evening!”
You should keep this thread alive - ALIVE!!! - at least once every decade, just to see how long the wrinkled backdrop will continue to bug people and take over their lives. I expect Roger Corman would have already been half-way to a script for ‘The Theatre Prop that ate my Brain’.
Well, I like to cook. I’d enjoy hanging out over booze and a good dinner with CalMeacham and other Dopers who like Universal monster movies. And I hate hooking up electronics.
This is a bullshit clip. In the actual movie, The Burgomeister says “You take the (something), Frankenstein, you take the mountains, I will go around the lake!”
'What are “cantal dumplings”?
The Bride of Frankenstein movie: Wikipedia says Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley wears a dress in an early scene embroidered with stars, butterflies, and moons and it took 17 women 12 weeks to embroider. I do wish every time this movie is on I can get a good glimpse of this awesome garment, does anyone out there know about it?
:smack: I read this as ‘Frankenstein’s Wrinkled Sack’, and thought, “Well, Duh!”. :smack:
He would have an enormous schwanstucker.
According to the Wikipedia page on the film, that information comes by way of hearsay from Lanchester, and is reported on page 80 of this book:
Vieira, Mark A. (2003). Hollywood Horror: From Gothic to Cosmic. New York, Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-4535-5.
She apparently wrote about it in her autobiography (which is probably where Vieira got his information:
http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDBrideofFrankenstein.htm
There’s a picture of Lanchester in the dress just below that quote, but I can’t see any of the details of the dress.
Here’s a hand-tinted lobby card of the same image:
Here’s the prologue (featuring that dress) on YouTube. I can’t make out any of the details in the dress myself.
I’ve never sen a picture of the dress, and have no idea where it is now.
I agree with Just Some Guy.
I’d like to hear that interview. He may have been simply waving away questions about anachronisms.
I rewatched Bride tonight. As mbh observes, most of the lighting is from candles or fires, or is indirect, or from sources which could be electric or could be oil lamps. Not all, however. It’s hard to believe that the lights in the laboratory aren’t electric – they don’t look like any oil fixtures I’ve ever seen.
In any event, the indicator lights on the lab equipment are indisputably little incandescent lights.
As Mr Atoz observed, the date on the young woman’s tomb is 1899. The body might be relatively fresh (although we don’t really see it), but I notice that Karl (Dwight FRye) still had to forcibly clean the dirt off it. I don’t think it was that recent*.
And then, of course, there are the other anachronisms. – the previously mentioned Pretorius-built telephone (which he calls a “machine”, and has to explain the use of to Frankenstein), the framing story set in 1816. I note that Henry Frankenstein’s and Elizabeth’s clothes are definitely 1930s modern, even if everyone else seems to be dressed in sorta dateless German traditional.
I notice that none of this appeared in the first Frankenstein – it seemed to be set in 1931, no question about it. Bride is just a weird, out-of-its-time film.
The later ones were other cases of the weird Universal lack-of-continuity. Son of Frankenstein seems to be set in the year it was made, 1939. But the setting is completely different – now the town of “Frankenstein”, and with a laboratory set right behind the house (and above a convenient sulfur pit). How did Wolf von Frankenstein get so grown up so fast? (and where did that “von” come from?) [I[ Ghost of Frankenstein* is definitely set in 1942, with yet another son of Frankenstein, Ludwig, who seems far too old for the date. (Also, his house/hospital seems to be frighteningly equipped with convenient sleeping gas dispensers. I want one of those.) Then Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, set only four years latere, gives us a grown-up Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, who is supposed to be Ludwig’s daughter, and therefore Henry’s grand-daughter. The film came out only 12 years after the original, and I’d think that there wasn’t any way for Frankenstein to have an adult grand-daughter in that time. It’s the Universal Time Warp.
*Why the hell was Pretorius in the tomb? He wasn’t using sewn-together bodies to build his homunculi, and he said he grew the brain from “seeds”. Maybe he just wanted to eat a dinner in eerie surroundings.
Pretorius said the had to “work together” and “combine their methods.” My assumption was that Pretorius was going to provide a nice tidy reasonable brain, developed by his organic work, but that the body would by stitched together via the Frankenstein design. They had to order take-out for a fresh heart, as you recall.
If you liked Frankenstein’s wrinkled sky, you’re going to love Dracula’s impromptu cardboard light shade: Cardboard in DRACULA – Vampires
And also here, apparently on a different lamp this time:
Yeah I’ve seen notices about this before, but somehow I never noticed it when watching the movie itself.