Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

this movie clocks in at 75 minutes.  and the first 5-6 minutes are the prologue with the Shelleys and Lord Byron so it's actually shorter than the first movie.  that just astounds me that it can do and say so much in such a short time.  I wish there were still effective film editors for movies these days.

anyway, this is the movie where many of the Frankenstein Monster cliches are born- the limited vocabulary, the fear of fire, the bride and her hair, and the monster being actually sympathetic.  Boris Karloff is much better here than in the first film.  and Doctor Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) really sets the bar high for nearly every future mad scientist, though he never really goes into scene chewing like many others would.
he actually steals the movie with his witty lines and performance.  there's a lot more humor in here, which is good to balance out the scary stuff.

Una O'Connor also is wonderful, as always.  this movie is really better than the original.  I was never sure of that before, but watching them back to back shows that.

the DVD is really nice.  I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the movies, though I might be missing one in the "series".  I am still shocked about the short running times of these movies.  they are economy of film making is a lost art these days.