:38:45
Film editor Ted Kent maintained
that he executed the glowing crucifix
:38:49
behind this scene all on his own.
:38:51
Whale didn't much care for it,
but let it stay.
:38:54
Symbols of Christian ritual
are hidden in plain sight.
:38:57
When the monster says
"Bread good, wine good",
:39:02
he is really reading the Eucharist.
:39:05
This is his Last Supper, complete with
the holy sacraments of bread and wine.
:39:09
Soon the Romans will come for him.
:39:12
Perhaps this explains Dr Pretorius's
otherwise inexplicable name:
:39:16
From "praetor", a Roman magistrate.
:39:18
Like his namesake, Pretorius
is his own law, meting out life and death.
:39:23
Thesiger would play a genuine praetor
in the CinemaScope epic The Robe.
:39:29
In teaching the monster
the pleasures of a cigar,
:39:32
Whale lets the creature indulge
in the director's own trademark habit.
:39:36
When fire threatened to engulf
Whale's home in the early 1950s,
:39:39
his cigars were the one thing
he cared to rescue,
:39:42
and stood by, calmly puffing,
as he watched the blaze.
:39:45
Karloff thought giving
the monster speech was stupid,
:39:49
and destroyed whatever impact he had.
He argued against it.
:39:52
Karloff was right, for speech removed
the alien remoteness of the creature.
:39:57
But the monster could now no longer be
the totemic black Injun of the first film.