Bride of the Monster

( 1 )

Overview

To most outside observers, Bride of the Monster probably seems like a ridiculously inept horror film, and in many ways it is just that. To connoisseurs of the work of director Edward D. Wood Jr., however, it is the biggest budgeted film in his entire output, made with the resources of a normal B-movie as opposed to his usual totally emaciated finances and the most easily accessible of his three horror films. Bela Lugosi, in his final complete performance, portrays Dr. Eric Vornoff, a renegade Eastern European ...
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Overview

To most outside observers, Bride of the Monster probably seems like a ridiculously inept horror film, and in many ways it is just that. To connoisseurs of the work of director Edward D. Wood Jr., however, it is the biggest budgeted film in his entire output, made with the resources of a normal B-movie as opposed to his usual totally emaciated finances and the most easily accessible of his three horror films. Bela Lugosi, in his final complete performance, portrays Dr. Eric Vornoff, a renegade Eastern European scientist with a plan to create a race of atomic supermen, giants charged with radioactivity. The problem is that the hapless hunters and other passersby at Lake Marsh, where he has set up shop with his hulking, mute assistant Lobo Tor Johnson, whom the pair waylay, keep dying when he straps them in and switches on his atomic ray machine which is a not-at-all disguised photographic enlarger. A dozen victims later, reporter Janet Lawson Loretta King goes out to investigate the disappearances -- attributed to a monster -- and falls into Vornoff's hands, with her police detective fiance Dick Craig Tony McCoy hot on her trail, and a devious spy George Becwar from Vornoff's former nation also nosing his way around the swamp and the old house. Vornoff dresses Lawson in a wedding gown and plans to irradiate her but Lobo refuses to allow it, straps Vornoff into the machine, and turns him into a radioactive giant and into stuntman Eddie Parker, totally unconvincing in his doubling for Lugosi.
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Special Features

Closed Caption; Rare interview with Bela Lugosi; The Strongest Man in the World; Legend films trailers
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Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder
There's a lot that's been said about Bride of the Monster, and most of it is true. It is ineptly made and it has seams -- including mismatched interior and exterior sets and scenery that shakes during the fight scenes -- that show a mile off. And it has a script that's a mix of clichés from mad-scientist movies and hardboiled reporter lingo, interspersed with some of the strangest incidental dialogue that anyone had ever heard in an English-language movie up to that time -- at least, one made in an English-speaking country, but therein lies its charm. Bride of the Monster was the biggest-budgeted movie ever made by director Edward D. Wood Jr., and is, along with the crime-thriller Jail Bait, his most accessible film. Although it has continuity problems (a pencil behind the ear of a newspaper morgue clerk won't stay put from angle-to-angle -- although, to be fair, no less a director than Alfred Hitchcock had those same kind of problems in movies like North By Northwest) and badly matched footage, it is a smoother movie than Wood's magnum opus, Plan 9 From Outer Space. In contrast to Plan 9's ultra-cheap surroundings, which gave it an almost other-worldly look throughout, like a nightmare in slow-motion, Bride of the Monster follows the conventions and expectations of a B-movie crime-thriller and horror story, giving the viewer some familiar points of reference to work from. The typical Wood sexually tinged argot is also muted somewhat in the dialogue, and what is here manages to be entertaining without diverting the viewer's attention from the plot. This movie was as close as Wood ever got to making a successful film, although he had to compromise in many areas of the production to get it shot. Wood's significant other, Dolores Fuller, who ended up with a tiny scene in the film, would have been a better lead, but would-be actress Loretta King played the female lead because Wood had thought she had a significant amount of money to put into the production (she didn't). Tony McCoy, the male lead, isn't bad for a non-actor. Wood got financing from McCoy's father, a meat-packing magnate, who insisted that his son play the lead and also that the movie end with a huge nuclear explosion as a warning about the atomic bomb. There is a lot to laugh at in the movie, most of it unintentional, although one attribute that is a complete myth concerns Bela Lugosi's dialogue . His accent is very thick, as always, but in describing Tor Johnson's Lobo, Lugosi does NOT say "he is as gentle as a kitchen." The movie was the first of what was ultimately a trilogy of horror films from Wood -- the others were Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls -- all linked by one common character (police officer Kelton, played by Paul Marco) and their plots, which mix elements of police procedural and horror films.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 10/21/2008
  • UPC: 844503000682
  • Original Release: 1955
  • Source: Legend Films
  • Region Code: 1
  • Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
  • Presentation: Black & White
  • Time: 1:08:00
  • Format: DVD
  • Sales rank: 45,979

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Bela Lugosi Dr. Eric Vornoff
Tor Johnson Lobo
Tony McCoy Lt. Dick Craig
Loretta King Janet Lawton
Harvey B. Dunn Capt. Robbins
Bud Osborne Mac
John Warren Jake
Dolores Fuller Margie
William Benedict Newsboy
Ben Frommer Drunk
George Becwar Prof. Strowski
Paul Marco Kelton
Technical Credits
Edward D. Wood Jr. Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Warren Adams Editor
Ted Allan Cinematographer
Pat Dinga Special Effects
Alex Gordon Screenwriter
Tony McCoy Associate Producer
William L. Nolte Asst. Director
William C. Thompson Cinematographer
Frank Worth Score Composer
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Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Bride of the Monster
1. Opening Credits [1:24]
2. The Old Willow Place [9:04]
3. Fact or Figment? [7:30]
4. A Monster Hunt [9:16]
5. A Monument to Death [5:12]
6. Gentle as a Kitten [5:49]
7. To Rule the World [6:52]
8. Missing Persons [4:15]
9. Here Comes the Bride [4:49]
10. Betrayed [7:18]
11. A New Monster [6:33]
12. End Credits [:34]
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Menu

Disc #1 -- Bride of the Monster
   Play in Color
   Play in Black and White
   Scene Selections
   Special Features
      1950 Interview With Bela Lugosi
      The Strongest Man in the World
      Legend Films Cult Trailers
         Plan 9 From Outer Space
         House on Haunted Hill
         Night of the Living Dead
         Carnival of Souls
         Reefer Madness
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Customer Reviews

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