OH yeah - bring on The Bride of Frankenstein!!
This caricature by some very knowing people is a macabre comedy classic. The monster (Boris Karloff) is the only sympathetic character. James Whale, who had a good gothic sense of humor, directed, with Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley in the prologue, and then as the Bride. A character in Elizabeth Macklin's story "Circle of Friends" describes the Bride's birth, how she is "zapped into life by the lightning coming down the kite wires into the laboratory." And then "she's standing there, the bandages are just off, the bells are ringing, and her hair is flying all around her face and she's actually scintillating, moving her head around in quick jerks, like some kind of electrified bird!" For many of us this scene -- and the way she said "Eeeek" in revulsion when she saw her intended -- was so satisfyingly silly that whenever we saw Elsa Lanchester in other roles we were likely to break out in a grin of childish pleasure. She won our hearts forever, as Margaret Hamilton did as the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. (Who cared about the icky sweet Glinda?) This Bride drives the poor monster to despair.
"Satisfyingly silly" is the PERFECT way to describe that movie. I love her affection for Elsa Lanchester and her performance.
Posted by sheila