Welcome to “Movies I’ve Seen at the PCC”: an exploration of a life enjoying movies through the lens of my favourite, cinema, the Prince Charles. This last Monday, my daughter Lydia and I went into London’s glittering West End where we saw Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Also, like an abnormal brain driving this monstrous engine, the evening started with Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein (1948), making for a truly splendid night out at the movies. And it wasn’t even overlong. A&C M F clocks in at 86 minutes. The original Frankenstein is
70 minutes and Bride of Frankenstein is 75 minutes. For a properly long cinematic experience, wait for my review of the French New Wave experiment in endurance, “Out 1.” It is 12 hours and 56
minutes long. That is not a typo.
I’ve been enjoying all sorts of movies at the Prince Charles Cinema since the late ‘90’s, when I lived in London. I now live a good hour away from the Big Smoke, but I still get into Central London for something special at my favorite cinema, a couple of times a year. You will get stories of odd things that have happened to me at this Mecca of Cult Movies including celebrity sightings, all night marathons, sing-alongs and other spectacular events. Some reviews will just be reviews, if seeing it at the PCC was a standard experience. In the last quarter century I’ve seen over 100 movies there, and this seemed like a good way to focus my selection of movies to write about.
Located off of Leicester Square, The Prince Charles Cinema has been up and running since 1962, when it had a seedy reputation. It was where you went if you wanted to see Caligula or Emmanuelle.
Hellraiser had its world premiere there. It was the little brat in the shadows of the towering Empire Cinema and the Odeon Leicester Square. When the PCC was bought by Robins Cinemas in 1991, it
morphed into the Cult Cinema Repertory house it is now. On any given day you can find Art House, World Cinema, Blockbusters, Silent Films with Live Music accompaniment, and so much more. I have been a Lifetime Member since the year 2000. For more information see www.princecharlescinema.com and www.timeout.com/london/film/an-oral-history-of-prince-
charles-cinema.
On Monday we were in the smaller Upstairs screen which seats just over 100 people. The upstairs screen was originally the
balcony but was split off in the 2000’s to allow for a more intimate space. All three Frankenstein films were sold out as was Mullholland Drive, which was showing in the 300 seat venue downstairs.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein played beautifully with an audience. Lots of laughs. At the PCC we are encouraged in a Housekeeping video to take a minute to watch the older films from the inside, so to speak. Not to judge the movies from our superior position in the 21 st century. A&CMF was a great lead in to our triple bill. Coming after the famous run of Universal Films, it played with our expectations of The Creature (Glenn Strange), Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and The Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) In this movie, Chick (Abbott) and Wilbur (Costello) are delivery men who are tasked to transport crates to a local House of Horrors. These crates contain Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster. Talbot (Chaney) is the troubled Wolfman who is bent on stopping Dracula from reviving the Monster to full strength. Dracula and the mysterious Dr. Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert) plan to put Wilbur’s
brain in the Monster, so that he will be less aggressive and more pliable. Sandra is playing at being Wilbur’s love interest. When she says she loves him for his brains, she means it!
The monsters are all played straight and the comedy came from Costello’s reaction to them. Lugosi and Chaney were both brilliant in this movie. As Dracula, Lugosi still had those hypnotic eyes and
regal manor. The Wolfman was a tragic figure and Chaney hits the right level of sympathy. Afterwards, Lydia pointed out that the wolf man needed to be better organised about the lunar cycle. More than once, the full moon seemed to be a complete surprise to him. Considering he was in the title, Glenn Strange’s Monster was given very little to do here. He is weakened at the beginning and only comes into his own in the climactic chase/fight where our heroes run from room to room, just to find one of the monsters waiting to jump out at them. It’s hard to see why the film isn’t called “Abbott and Costello meet Dracula.”
I grew up watching Abbott and Costello movies in Bay Village, Ohio on our local station, Channel 43. This is the only time I have seen them as an adult, barring the odd rewatch of their “Who’s on First?” routine. Lou Costello is a comic dynamo. So much energy, so many quick changes of reaction and emotion. But on his own, it wouldn’t work. You need an Abbott to keep Costello reigned in, like
having boundaries and a net for tennis. Their line delivery is perfectly timed, their asides often funnier than the big reactions. It easy to see why they had such a profitable string of movies in the
40’s and 50’s.
Frankenstein
Next up was the original Frankenstein. We are presented with a theatre curtain. Edward van Sloan, who plays Doctor Waldman in this film, enters and addresses us, saying that Mr Laemmle (Producer and Head of Universal Studios) wished to warn us of the terror in store. “So, if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now is your chance to, uh …. well, we’ve warned you!” They waste no time setting the scene. We start at a graveyard where a funeral is in full swing. After all the people leave, Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his hunch-backed lab assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) skulk out and dig the poor corpse up again, and we’re off to the races. James Whale is highly regarded in his direction of this and Bride. He established all of the visual cues we know of Mad Scientists and their creations. Clive has great intensity and drive as Frankenstein. He has a striking face and Whale uses Dutch Angles and closes ups to great effect. (Dutch Angles are where the camera is tilted in an effective way. There were a couple of surprises for me. A small cadre of Frankenstein’s friends arrive at the castle just as he’s starting his great experiment. In so many other versions of this story, it’s all played out in absolute secrecy. Here, he revels in his audience. “Quite a good scene,” he tells them before he starts. ”One man, crazy – three very sane spectators!”
Then we come to the Creature. Billed only with a ? at the beginning of the film, Boris Karloff’s Creature stands in the Pantheon of Movie Monsters. Under a lot of make-up, created by Jack P. Pierce, Karloff brings the Monster to life with his soulful eyes and expressive vocal work. He is limited to grunts and groans in this film and learns some basic vocabulary in “Bride.” After all of the sequels, spin-offs, cartoons and breakfast cereals, it was powerful to see the OG Monster on the big screen. He is very sympathetic, right from the start. He is abused by Fritz, who wields a fiery torch at him while he is chained up. The Monster escapes and after some tragic interactions with the villagers, he is forced to take refuge in a windmill. In this movie, the Creature is a victim. He has more agency in Bride and really owns the mantle of Monster. At the end we get the cast of characters again, (“A good cast is worth repeating” it says.) And this time, Karloff gets proper billing. I highly recommend Frankenstein. At 70 minutes, it races by. The tone is just right. Dark, brooding and with comic relief, sparingly used.
Bride of Frankenstein
As opposed to “The Bride of Frankenstein” which ratchets up the comic relief to dizzying heights. It starts with the Shelleys, Mary (Else Lanchester) and Percy (Douglas Walton) along with Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) on a dark and stormy night. Mary demurely does needlepoint while Byron mansplains the plot of the original novel (that she wrote!) to give the audience a catch up on the
action. Then she tells them what happens next. We start exactly where Frankenstein left off, with the villagers burning down the windmill with the Creature trapped inside. But the Monster, who did
NOT die, escapes and starts taking his deadly revenge. We are then introduced to Una O’Connor in the role of Minnie, maid to the Frankenstein family. She carries nearly all the comic relief. In spite of her clearly being the visual template for “Young Frankenstein’s” Frau Blucher (thunder clap, horses neighing), her character is quite different. Mel Brooks used the exact same costuming and hair for
Cloris Leachman’s memorable turn in his outstanding parody, but whereas Frau Blucher is stern and forbidding, Minnie is over the top, eye rolling, giving asides to the audience and also giving Lou
Costello a run for his money in double takes and comic reactions. We are set up for a very different style of movie, swinging from horror to comedy in a spirited way.
The next major addition is Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) who is a former colleague of Frankenstein (still played by Colin Clive), who is reluctant to continue his experiments, after all the trouble he’s
caused the first time around. Pretorius invites Frankenstein to his own lab where he’s also been playing God by creating life. He has a collection of tiny humans in glass jars. They are dressed up as a
King, a Queen, an Archbishop, a Ballerina and a Mermaid. They talk in high squeaky gibberish and blow kisses at each other. It’s played for comedy, but it’s truly bizarre. Frankenstein is
understandably appalled.
Meanwhile, the Creature just wants a quiet life. He stumbles across the Blind Hermit (O.P.Heggie) who befriends the monster without judgment. He plays the violin for him, teaches him some basic
English (“Bad”, “Good”, “Friend” etc) and offers him food and sanctuary. The scenes with the Hermit are the warm heart of the film. Young Frankenstein lovingly recreated this bit with a delightful
cameo from Gene Hackman as the Hermit. In Bride, the Creature enjoys a bowl of soup and a cigar and we had some light laughter in the cinema, as we anticipated possible injury to the monster. It
was all I could do not to shout out “Wait! I was going to make espresso!”
Pretorius convinces Frankenstein to create a mate for his Creation. (Frankenstein is surprised to learn that the Creature is a) alive and b) can talk now.) “Friend Good!” Elsa Lanchester endured a lot of make up, tight bandages, stilts and a wired lattice for her iconic hairdo as the Bride. She has a very short amount of screen time, but makes an indelible impression. She hisses and spits, reportedly
mimicking swans. Her physical performance, coming to grips with her own reality, is spellbinding. She got cheated out of proper billing, however. Like Karloff, in the Cast of Characters at the
beginning of the film, her character is marked with a “?”. But unlike him, at the end of the film, the Bride is still a “?”. Lanchester only gets credit for playing Mary Shelly! It took until “The Bride” (2025)
for the titular character and Mary Shelley for that matter, to get their proper due.
I hope you will enjoy the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein for your Hallowe’en entertainment. Feel free to throw A&CMF in there too, if you want a proper monster mash.
Next time: Godzilla Minus Zero (2026)
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