that's what makes it good, it's a very campy movie
so many movies, so little time

The acting here by most of the supporting characters is terrible by the standards of any time and medium be it stage or film.
It seems to me that the director thought that the kind of people who might go to see an horror film don't appreciate fine acting anyway so why waste time on it.

It is important to realize, that in these very early films, the actors got their training on the stage.
Stage acting is much larger and hammier than screen acting.
Television acting is different from screen acting, and stage acting is different from both.
The hamminess is forgivable here. Great film. Loads of fun.
This film is 80 years old. You can't think about it in 2013 terms.

Its weird, I usually love O' Connor when she was in a Errol Flynn, here I wanted her to shut her up, only so much screaming of that caliber that I could take!

Whale had worked with O'Connor in some British stage plays and loved her. She could also tone it down, if you see her in THE INFORMER (1935). And she was pretty restrained, comedically speaking, in ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"

Whether she served a good purpose or not, I agree with Whale she was a delight to watch, very amusing and much of the film was meant to be funny.
While here, I'll add two things about this entertaining movie:
(1) while I liked the innkeeper's wife, too many of the other characters (cops, townspeople)were just like her: funny faced, silly acting boobs. It got tiring (and silly) after a while, too many buffoons.
(2) I wish I had time to document this, but it seemed to me that the movie had lots of director flaws in it! A lot of scenes ended abruptly when there were great opportunities to milk them for more. And Travers (the father of Stuart), who is a great character actor I suppose, seemed very weak here. He delivered his lines without any enthusiasm, as though he were bored!

Yes, she was annoying to me until I read that she was used as comic relief because of her rubber face.

I thought her over-the-top screaming - especially when there was actually no particular reason to scream meaning, most of the time - was totally hilarious. And Im quite sure the director was aware of it as well; lots of funny stuff in the movie.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

I watched the bonus features on this and I remember film historians saying James Whales just LOVED the woman who played the inkeepers wife just BECAUSE she was so annoying and dramatic. But I have to say, it got extremely annoying after a while
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-#1 site for Dustin Hoffman fans-

I totally agree. The Innkeepers wife was very annoying character and thoose are some of the fakest faces in a movie I've seen.

Yes it was.

Great film, but 20 minutes too short to really flesh out the story and do the novel justice. Was 70 minutes typical for the main feature length at that time?

yeah I kind of agree the extras where lame
still a great film
8/10
I Worship The Goddess Amber Tamblyn

I actually thought in Bride of Frankenstein she was used a bit too often, and it made her performance redundant and didn't serve the movie : as great as she was in these two films (absolutely loved her in the Invisible Man), it seems she always plays quite the same way. But I only saw her in these two

She was wonderful in everything she did even the nude hula scenes now excised.
Nothing exists more beautifully than nothing.

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Aw, Una O'Connor ruled!! She was a great actress, and if you notice in the film she's even told "Aw, shaddup!" while she's wailing away. Loved her in Bride of Frankenstein too.

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