Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein

The lack of underscoring in Frankenstein had a huge impact compared to The Bride of Frankenstein, which did have underscoring. Although the movie had some diagetic music, it did not play a huge role in the movie. It's main role was at the wedding where people were dancing to music. It did show the excitement and joy typically surrounding the movies, but not much else.

Without underscoring, silence seemed awkward. The transitions between scenes also seemed awkward and not as smooth as if their was music, unlike The Bride of Frankenstein where many transitions between scenes seemed smoother because of the underscoring music which helped link the scenes together and take away from the awkward quietness.

Due to the lack of music in Frankenstein, I felt less emotional attachment to characters and scenes, and felt like I understood character less. For example, in the Bride of Frankenstein, I could understand the characters better based on the underscoring. When Dr. Pretorius entered for the first time, the underscoring helped identify that we would be more sinister and possibly create a bad situation based on the dark, sinister, and suspicious underscoring music in the background. And when Dr. Pretorius was showing Henry his "creations," the music associated with what he made. The ballerina had music one would associate with a ballerina: graceful and elegant underscoring. Also, diagetic music in The Bride of Frankenstein also helped identity the role of a character. The blind man, for example, played the violin and was playing a song that portrayed him as friendly, human, and loving. However, in Frankenstein, when the monster was first introduced to light, I was unsure what his reaction was. Was it sad, angry, mad, or scared? If underscoring had been present, I might have understood the situation better.

In Frankenstein, the intensity of a situation was mitigated by the lack of underscoring. However, In the Bride of Frankenstein, the background music helped intensify scenes and build foreshadowing. The dark, scary music, built suspense and made the movie have more drama. The drum beats in the underscoring of the final scenes built anticipation and kept me on the edge of my seat. And the light, feminine music after the "Bride" of Frankenstein was brought back to life added to the effect of her creation and her gender.

In all, underscoring plays an important role and without underscoring, I noticed that I felt like the movie was lacking excitement and intensity and was missing an important element of the movie.