BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1956)
Article #577 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 10-13-2002
Posting date: 3-8-2003

A female reporter starts her own investigation of a series of disappearances that have been attributed to a monster.

This is probably the most coherent movie I’ve seen from Ed Wood. I suspect that his intention was to make a Bela Lugosi movie, and that he modeled it off of Bela’s Monogram horrors from the forties, only updated (in story only, not in style) by throwing in atomic energy into the equation. It has certain eccentricities to be sure; Lobo’s attachment to an angora hat belonging to the heroine is one of the more striking examples of that particular obsession of Wood’s, and allowing Harvey B. Dunn to play with a bird throughout his scenes (he was apparently a clown with a bird act) adds a surreal touch that usually comes from an Ed Wood film, but despite this, it is his most conventional movie. There were some unsuccessful attempts at humor in the scenes at the police station, at least partially because he didn’t quite have the actors to pull it off, and there are some definite continuity errors, especially one involving a pencil. Still, Bela probably did more with his “I have no home” speech than Ed Wood ever dreamed, and even if it is a little over the top, the scene demonstrates that Bela himself was capable of a good deal of creativity. And at this juncture of his life, Wood was probably the only one willing to really give him a chance.