“C.S.O. to Screen Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Young Frankenstein (1974)” by S.M. O’Connor

In a double feature, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association will screen Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – the sequel to Frankenstein (1931) – and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will play the score by Franz Waxman (1906-1967) and then screen Young Frankenstein (1974), the Mel Brooks send-up of, and homage to, Bride of Frankenstein (and, to a lesser extent, Frankenstein) on Friday, October 26, 2018. Emil de Cou will be the conductor. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. To buy tickets, click here. This event is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Many film critics feel The Bride of Frankenstein is one of the rare sequels to be superior to the original film. Carl Laemmele, Junior (1908-1979) produced both films at Universal Studios. James Whale (1889-1957) directed both films. Colin Clive (1900-1937) reprised the role of Dr. Henry Frankenstein (based on the novel character Victor Frankenstein). Boris Karloff (1887-1969) reprised the role of Frankenstein’s Monster.[1] Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986) played both Mary Shelley (1797-1851), the authoress of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, in a prologue; and the Monster’s Bride. Ernest Thesiger (1879-1961) played Dr. Septimius Praetorius, an original character.[2] The title had a double meaning as Dr. Praetorius lures Victor Frankenstein away from his bride, Elizabeth, who nursed him back to health after the events of the first film, to resume his work with The Monster and to create a bride for that monster.

Mel Brooks directed Young Frankenstein as a spoof of Bride and Frankenstein and co-wrote the script with Gene Wilder (1933-2016), who starred as Professor Frederick Frankenstein (who at the beginning of the film, ashamed of his ancestor Dr. Victor Frankenstein, insists on mispronouncing the surname “Frankenstein-steen”). It is a 20^th Century Fox film. In a hilarious performance, Marty Feldman (1934-1982) played Igor. Peter Boyle (1935-2006) played The Monster. Madeline Kahn (1942-1999) played Frederick Frankenstein’s fiancée, Elizabeth. Terri Garr played Inga. Cloris Leachman played Frau Blucher. Kenneth Mars (1935-2011) played Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Kemp. Richard Haydn (1905-1985) played Herr Falkstein. Gene Hackman, a great dramatic actor, had an uproariously funny cameo as “Blindman.” As a joke, a real Baron Frankenstein, Clement Georg Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein, had an un-credited role as one of the villagers. John Morris (1926-2018) composed a suitable score. Brooks, Wilder, Mars, and Morris had all previously worked together on The Producers (1967), another astoundingly funny film. Like the classic Universal monster films, it is a black-and-white film. To read Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert’s review of Young Frankenstein, click here.

Symphony Center is located on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, across from The Art Institute of Chicago. The address is 220 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60604.

ENDNOTES

[1] For some reason, many monster film fans called Frankenstein’s Monster “Frankenstein.”

[2] It is he who gives the toast, “To a new world of gods and monsters!” This line inspired the title for the James Whale biopic (biographical film) Gods and Monsters (1998), which starred Sir Ian McKellan as Whale.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.