:19:00
these great painted skyscapes,
:19:02
and the way the tombs
are all at weird angles.
:19:06
Magnificent stuff like that.
:19:08
One of the things that intrigues me about
Whale's career, his work in general,
:19:13
is the background...
the backgrounds that he had.
:19:17
That is, as a theatre actor
and theatre director,
:19:21
but as a set designer in theatre,
as well as a painter and so forth.
:19:25
One wonders to what extent he might
have had input into the visual appearance,
:19:32
the look of the sets of his films,
:19:35
in a way that most directors at that time
would not be likely to do.
:19:40
Elsa Lanchester said, when she was not
actually needed on the set at one point,
:19:44
he took her to the studio
and showed off the forest set.
:19:50
He was proud of his achievement here.
:19:54
I said "Was this his design?"
:19:56
This telephone-pole forest,
:19:58
where the tree trunks are just trunks
and it's just bare and stark,
:20:02
in contrast to earlier,
:20:05
when there's a bucolic scene
and it's a very attractive nature forest.
:20:12
She said "Yes, of course it was his idea."
:20:14
Not that he drew the plans for it,
:20:17
but he would give the ideas
and maybe make little sketches
:20:20
and give them to the department heads
and have them develop it.
:20:25
Cinematographer Mescall achieved new
visual heights with Bride of Frankenstein,
:20:29
the result of a seasoned working
relationship with Whale.
:20:32
John Mescall did a total of five pictures
with James Whale.
:20:35
Bride is probably his best remembered.
:20:37
The film itself is probably the high-mark
of Whale's late period at Universal.
:20:44
Mescall used a style of lighting
he referred to as Rembrandt lighting,
:20:48
which was to use a central light
:20:51
and a cross-light about three-quarters
through the scene,
:20:55
to provide illumination of the subject
against a dark background.