Directed by Franc Roddam | Written by Lloyd Fonvielle, adapting Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein | 118 min | ▲▲▲ | Shout Factory/Scream Factory Blu-Ray, VOD

Sometime in the months ahead a picture called The Bride will arrive, another adaptation of Shelley’s Frankenstein, or maybe a direct remake of James Whale’s classic Bride of Frankenstein. With Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) at the helm, and starring her brother Jake and Christian Bale, I’m expecting something unorthodox and interesting.

In advance of the new version, I went back to this forgotten 40-year-old take on The Bride. It’s directed by Franc Roddam who gave us Quadrophenia, before finding a lot of success with MasterChef on TV. With Quadrophenia, he’s responsible for introducing Sting to cinema-goers,

The shaggy-maned former Police man is here again as Baron Charles Frankenstein. We arrive with the famous story already in progress — Frankenstein is in his tower attempting to bring his creation to life, this time she’s played by Jennifer Beals. Waiting in the wings is Frankenstein’s Monster, otherwise known as Viktor (Clancy Brown) and other associates, Paulus (Timothy Spall) and Dr Zahlus, played by Quentin Crisp — who inspired Sting’s song, “Englishman In New York.”

In a bolt of lightning and violence, the Bride, or Eva, is brought to life — but the ensuing explosion costs the lives of Paulus and Zahlus, and the Monster cast out on his own. Filmed in the gorgeous, summery French countryside, the Monster, an innocent, finds a friend in Rinaldo (David Rappaport, Time Bandits), a little person travelling for work in a circus. Rinaldo helps Viktor find some self-esteem before Alexei Sayle, in broadly obnoxious form, gives them jobs under the big top. This while Charles aims to instruct Eva — with the help of Geraldine Page’s castlekeeper, Mrs Baumann —  to be his equal, and the equal of any man. (That undercurrent of feminist ideology does bubble up in the third act, though it takes awhile to get there — and our independently minded lady still needs rescuing.)

Charles’ pal Clerval (Anthony Higgins) suspects she’s really Charles’ plaything, or will be eventually. Look out for small roles for German supermodel Veruschka and Cary Elwes, his brow set on sinister.

Roddam directs this material as a throwback — The Bride is a fable told in the spirit of a Hammer Horror, draped with an extra layer of 1980s camp.  The camera likes Sting but he’s stiff as the pretty baron — a light lacing of humour would’ve helped matters. Too bad this picture bombed and ended Sting’s leading-man career — he otherwise proved his versatility in films like David Lynch’s Dune, Brimstone & Treacle, and Stormy Monday. Beals, however, is magnetic. It never made any sense to me why, given her arrival on the scene in the wildly successful Flashdance and all her good work after that, she hasn’t been a bigger star in Hollywood.

Despite the titular character and the rock star who made her, the heart of the film lies in the relationship between Rinaldo and Viktor, which is fully half the divided story. The make-up does no favours to Brown, who looks less like a monster and more like a drunk uncle, but the characters’ connection brings all the sweetness the film needs, even as you know it’s likely to end in tragedy. The locations, sets, and costumes also do a lot to make this watchable.

The Shout Factory disc includes a fine interview with Clancy Brown and with the director, Franc Roddam.