In the 1930s, the major studios of Hollywood each had a ‘brand’ of movies that they were best known for: MGM for glitzy, polished, and extravagant films; Paramount for movies with an air of European artistry; Warner Brothers for gritty, ripped-from-the-headlines stories; and Universal, of course, was the House of Horror and the Universal Monsters.
Warner Brothers Studios
Because Universal’s best-known and best-at-filling-theaters monsters were adaptations of classic novels that were in the public domain, they could not keep Dracula and Frankenstein all to themselves. As such, there have been nearly countless remakes and adaptations of the novels, often taking the course of making Dracula a love story stretching across centuries (an aspect not found in the source material) and, with Frankenstein, making the creature more and more sympathetic (an element found in the novel) until it was elevated to heroic status.
Next spring, writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal will give us perhaps the most unique adaptation of a classic Universal Monster with her feature film The Bride!
Starring Christian Bale as the Creature and Jessie Buckley as The Bride, Gyllenhaal reimagines the Frankenstein myth. It may have started as a novel, but I feel Mary Shelley’s tale has evolved into myth, as something that might have come out of Warner Brothers’ studios in the late 1930s: a prohibition-era gangster movie.
This take is so wild, so out of the box, that I think I may have no choice but to see it in the theater, giving it my attention as a reward for its sheer audacity.
