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# Standing in the Way of Ceremony: Production Code Objections to The Bride of Frankenstein

The year was 1931. Universal was a struggling Hollywood studio. Salvation came from an unexpected place: the horror film. February saw the blockbuster release of Dracula, and only eight months later Frankenstein was released to become an even bigger hit. Inevitably this success led the studio to pursue a sequel, and in 1935 Universal released The Bride of Frankenstein, returning the director (James Whale) and most of the original cast. The film was a spectacular success at the box office. What the average 1935 movie-goer saw in the theater, though, was a film heavily tweaked from the original script Whale had been pursuing. Unlike its predecessor, The Bride of Frankenstein was exposed to the heavy hand of Joe Breen and the Production Code Administration; a review of the shooting script and notes Breen wrote to the producers reveal forced alterations that change the nature of the film and its characters.
When the original Frankenstein was released in 1931 the Production Code had not yet been put into enforcement. Censorship was yet the dominion of various local and state film boards. Though these groups cut various scenes from the screened prints of the original, there was no federal censorship to deal with until the film's re-release in 1937 (Manguel 14). Bride of Frankenstein, however, had to deal with the Production Code Administration from the beginning. Many cases of censorship centered around the depiction of the female form and sexuality, but for the most part the issues raised in Bride of Frankenstein were ones of violence and religion.
Breen, as a devout Catholic, was especially sensitive to unfavorable portrayals of religion in the movies. In this film Breen was especially worried by any scenes that would compare Frankenstein to God. Very early on in the process he cautioned the studio against pursuing this obvious analogy. ``Throughout the script there are a number of references to Frankenstein ... which compare him to God and which compare his creation of the monster to God's creation of man.'' Here Breen was blunt: ``All such references should be deleted'' (Gardner 66). The subject matter was too tied to the comparison for such an ultimatum to be completely followed, however, and a back-and-forth on the topic went on throughout the production process. In one scene of the shooting script Frankenstein intensely monologues: ``I could have bred a race and have found perhaps the secret of eternal life. All that was in my brain -- my very grasp. I conceived it -- it was like being God!'' (Riley B-7) Predictably, Joe Breen was not amused. He suggested omitting the line, saying that it had in the past ``proven somewhat blasphemous'' (Gardner 67). Whaler responded by offering to refer to ``being the Creator'' instead, but in the end the offered proved moot as the entire line was cut from the theatrical print. Later in the sequence Dr. Pretorius was to derisively tell Frankenstein to ``follow the lead of Nature ... or of God -- if you are fond of your fairy tales'' (Riley B-26). Breen wanted the line cut; Whaler instead changed ``fairy tales'' to ``Bible stories.''
Another religiously oriented cut provides a good example of the way in which Code-required cuts could alter the attitude of a scene. While running from a pursuing mob Frankenstein's monster happens into a cemetery. The script called for the monster to happen upon an ``imposing monument'' depicting Christ on the cross (F-8). The monster, in a show of compassion, tries to help the stricken figure, thinking it to be a human mistreated as he has been. The monster's effort ends up toppling the monument, revealing the crypt entrance below. Breen objected to the scene, saying that Whaler ``should omit the figure of the statue of the Christ from this scene, substituting some other type of monument'' (Gardner 67). Changing the monument, however, changes how the audience views the monster's actions. Instead of attempting to be compassionate, the monster is instead shown lashing out at a random statue, toppling it in an act that is far more aggressive than the original was to be. Though Breen meant only to prevent a conservative public from finding offense in the scene, the effect of his action was to force upon the monster an entirely different motivation.
Aside from depictions of religion, Breen was primarily concerned with the gruesomeness and violence the film promised. Even after primary shooting had ended Breen wrote to Universal warning them that the film would not get its seal as it then stood. ``This picture seems to us definitely to be a violation of our Production Code,'' he wrote them, ``because of its excessive brutality and gruesomeness'' (69). Scenes already filmed were targeted for removal. Early in the film a man and his wife are left standing by the burning wreckage of the mill as the crowd that watched the monster destroyed wanders off. The man moves closer, wanting his eyes to confirm for him that the monster was truly dead. Instead the man falls into the water below and comes face-to-face with a monster very much alive. The man is killed, and as the monster crawls up to the surface the wife is brought to a similar fate. The script gave a scene in which the drama between monster and man unfolded slowly; Breen wanted the man's drowning to go unshown. He also wanted deleted the shot of the monster pulling the wife into the water. He won one and lost one, as Universal cut the drowning scene but kept the image of the wife being tossed to her death. Later there is a scene where the monster kills a small girl. This body is viewed by a group of ``little girls coming out of church in their white dresses'' and later carried through the streets by the mother. The final print of the film still contained the shot of the girls viewing the off-camera body, but cut the one that would have shown the body itself (69).
Breen was concerned not just with visuals that might upset the public, but dialogue choices as well. The opening shots of the film originally included a scene where Mary Shelley says that she, her poet husband, and Lord Byron are ``all three infidels, scoffers at all marriage ties, believing only in living fully and freely in whatever direction the heart dictates'' (Riley A-5). The line, along with most of those meant for these three, was cut completely from the theatrical print. Elsewhere Breen got detailed enough to be squirmish about the word ``entrails,'' getting it replaced with ``insides.'' (Gardner 67-68). Breen also took objection to the idea of the monster as a sexual creature. Reviewing an early script he wrote that ``the monster's use of the word ``mate'' should be dropped in this scene. All material which suggests he desires a sexual companion is objectionable. We suggest you substitute the word ``companion'''' (66). In the end the monster does refer to his soon-to-be-created partner as a ``wife,'' though whether this implies more or less of a sexual connotation than mate is debatable (Riley F-16).
Only a few of the scenes censored in Bride of Frankenstein involved sexuality. In the scene where Dr. Pretorius shows Frankenstein his created miniature creatures, one of the jars contains a tiny mermaid. Breen wrote that, ``The scene of the miniature mermaid should be handled in such a way as to avoid any improper exposure'' (Gardner 67). The shooting script made gave no guidance on what the mermaid should look like, but the final release made sure the mermaid was well-clothed. Cut entirely from the film were scenes in which Mary Shelley was considered to be showing too much of her breasts. Breen's memo after photography had finished tersely demanded that the studio ``Delete all the ``breast shots'' in Reel 1'' (69). These shots went, and their late removal might have been part of the reason so much of the dialogue from these scenes was gutted.
The ending of the film was also changed after primary shooting had ended, though in this case changes were due more to Universal's concern that the film have a happy ending than to any censorship concerns. Where the shooting script has Frankenstein and Elizabeth dying alongside the Doctor and their almost-human creations, the final theatrical print does not. The principals were brought back to reshoot an ending in which the monster allows Frankenstein and Elizabeth to leave the tower before its destruction. However refilming the entire sequence was too costly and in the final shot before the tower is destroyed Frankenstein is seen still inside, even though just previously he had been shown to leave.
In the end Breen gave Bride of Frankenstein a seal despite the fact that it had not addressed all the objections he had raised. Just because the Production Code Administration signed off on the film did not mean the rest of the way was smooth sailing, though. Breen warned Universal to expect trouble with other censoring agencies:

> It is more than likely that this picture will meet with considerably difficulty at the hands of [state and local] censor boards both in this country and abroad. The nature of the production is such as to invite very critical examination on the part of these censor boards, and you may well expect difficulty with it wherever the picture is shown (71).

Breen's warning proved to be absolutely correct. A few states did make cuts to the film, but primarily trouble came when the production was shown abroad. The film was gutted in several countries and banned outright in a few others.
Despite its censorship troubles, Bride of Frankenstein was an enormous fiscal success. Audiences were able to look past the plot holes introduced by the many minutes of footage cut after filming and find a compelling horror film. Today many of Breen's cuts look petty and the remaining content entirely tame, but to the audience of the time this was an amazing film. The Production Code Administration greatly affected the cinema of its time, and in Bride of Frankenstein you can see how the required changes altered the tone and character of the film.

## Works Cited

Gardner, Gerald. The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office. New York: Dodd, 1987.
Manguel, Alberto. Bride of Frankenstein. London: British Film Institute, 1997.
Riley, Phillip. The Bride of Frankenstein. Absecon, NJ: MagicImage, 1989.