Spot on, Mr. Hack. I don't know why so many people carp about his "poor scholarship": that he got stuff like this back in print is surely the main thing. Besides, if he got his facts
exactly right,
every time, what would they have to feel so smug and superior about?
Now ...
In
Horror: a Connoisseur's Guide To Literature And Film, Leonard Wolf writes:
"If there is a pantheon for truly exquisite horror films then surely The Bride Of Frankenstein deserves the preeminent altar. To have seen the film when one was a child, in 1935 when it first appeared, is one of the privileges of being no longer young. To see it again at intervals is one of the lovelier privileges of being alive". How beautiful is that?
Connoisseurs need not trouble themselves any further with this post or, indeed, with Guy Preston's novelisation as there is zero for you here. For the rest of us ... well, condensing the action into 25 pages is a tricky one to pull off and doesn't leave you much room to ponder the subtle nuances of the bastard. Guy wisely avoids them. And my God, does he hit the ground running! Out goes the Byron-Shelley's Diodati preamble from the film to be replaced with a swift - very swift - recap of the events in the first film. Put it this way: by page 3 the old mill has burned, the villagers are congratulating themselves on how great they are, the monster has drowned poor old Hans in the convenient underground cistern and now a worried Mrs. Hans is calling to her husband. A hand emerges from the tunnel. Thank goodness for that, I'll help pull him out ...
The pace doesn't relent from start to finish. There's some top diabolical dialogue which may or may not originate from the film (i've not got a copy to check) and there's no doubt who the
real stars are: the monster and Dr. Pretorius. Henry Frankenstein is being a namby pamby goodie two-shoes and doing what Elizabeth says like a big gurly (fortunately the bride of demonik doesn't read my crap
). Also, there's plenty of grave-robbing - you know how I love a good grave-rob!
For those of a certain literary bent, this is just
such a find. I hope to God PH got his author attribution right (for once
) because this might not be another
The Inn but it's still a brilliant addition to Guy Preston's short but sweet horror CV.
Later ... Locus seem to agree: according to them it first appeared in
Pearson’s Weekly (Sep 28-Oct 12 1935) where it may or may not have been given the immortal shared credit "by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley & Guy Preston".
Dick Donovan - Some Experiments With A Head: The head in question is that belonging to Gaspard Thurreau who hacked his wife, mistress and children to pieces so can't have too many complaints about being sentenced to the Guillotine. Despite it all, he's an obliging chap and readily agrees to co-operate with Dr. Grassard and the narrator, a young medical student, in their quest to determine whether or not the brain briefly lives on after death. Thurreau meets his death with great dignity, his head is placed in a basin of softened wax to seal the bleeding and,, by means of his eye-movements, he manages to answer a couple of questions until, when an electric current is applied to the blob of grey matter, his eyes roll in their sockets and that's the end of him.
Robert Muller - The Workshop Of Filthy Creation: 1882. Following in the footsteps of Byron and Shelley, the narrator, his wife Elizabeth and daughter Mary travel across Europe until they wind up at a remote Alpine Inn where they decide to remain for a few weeks until after Mary's nineteenth birthday. The Inn is run by the ancient Hubert family, and, aside for their hospitality and culinary accomplishments, they are skilled puppeteers, putting on a unique show once a year which is as brilliant as it is horrifying. The star of the show is the black murderer: when he rises from the grave to commit his crimes it is almost as if the life-size victims bleed ...
Mary who, like her father, has become obsessed with the
Frankenstein novel during their stay, is to suffer the fate of the puppet show's White Princess: she is abducted by the killer and becomes a mindless doll, having discovered the Huberts' secret and their
workshop of filthy creation ...
In the Muller-edited
Supernatural (Fontana, 1977) where this story originally appeared as
Heirs, or The Workshop Of Filthy Creation, authorship was attributed to Brian Leonard Hayles working from Muller's screenplay.
Theodore LeBerthon - Demons Of The Film Colony: Hollywood. LeBerthon is privileged to be present on the occasion of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff's first meeting. Each of the monster men attempt to scare each other to death, but its LeBerthon who gets the shock of his life. Was it all an elaborate joke or are the actors really slimy ancient monsters in human guise?
Harry Harrison - At Last, The True Story Of Frankenstein: Panama City, Florida. After witnessing the extraordinary performance of a 'monster' seemingly entirely oblivious to pain, reporter Dan Bream interviews its master, monocled Carney showman, Victor Frankenstein V. Frankenstein confides that the creature is wearing out and he'll need replacing very shortly ...