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| Sue Verney (left) and Deborah Klein (right) flanking a banner of Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein. British Film Institute, London, May 2014. Photograph: Shane Jones |
The British Film Institute on London’s South
Bank is one of my favourite haunts. I’ve been going there since I lived in
London in the 1970s, not infrequently in the company of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Sue
Verney. I have so many happy memories of this place. For example, it was there,
many moons ago, that Sue introduced me to Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Director Max
Ophüls) for which I will be eternally grateful. On
another memorable occasion, I introduced Sue to what became another mutual
favourite, the dazzling film noir Murder My Sweet (1944,
Director Edward Dmytryk).
To my delight, the BFI interior is currently
festooned with banners of Elsa Lanchester (1909-1986) an actress Sue and I have
long admired. (She and I once sat in a pub in Nottinghill Gate and started a fan
letter to her. We finished our drinks, but never did finish the letter – I
guess we just couldn’t find the right words).
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Black
Swan, 2013, acrylic on canvas,
12.5 x 7.5 cm
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My miniature painting Black Swan, 2013, is a playful homage to Elsa Lanchester in what is arguably her most famous role: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, Director James Whale). It’s an
extraordinary film and her dual performances as Mary Shelley and the Bride –
particularly the latter - are simply astonishing, albeit far too brief. While
still in London, I looked her up online and discovered an absolute gem – a
two-part interview with Dick Cavett. In Part 1 she speaks of her late husband,
the incomparable Charles Laughton. (1)
On a personal note, however, the real revelation came soon after, when Cavett asked her about The Bride of Frankenstein. In one of the movie’s best remembered
scenes, the newly unbandaged bride first lays eyes on her husband to
be: Frankenstein’s unrequitedly smitten monster, touchingly portrayed by Boris Karloff. Horrified, but having no words, she begins to hiss – a scene once seen and heard, not easily
forgotten. Lanchester tells Cavett that her character's reaction was based on a swan’s warning hisses
and promptly launches into a marvelously spirited recreation of the sound.
Ironically, a swan wasn’t the first choice
for my painting. Initially I considered other animals, including a skunk, but
after much trial and error the black swan, with its downy white flight feathers
was the only creature that worked compositionally. The pictorial reference to
Elsa Lanchester’s portrayal of Frankenstein’s Bride was completely serendipitous
- and not a little uncanny.
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| Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff, The Bride of Frankenstein, 1935 |