The Top 14 Hunks of "The Bride," including Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, a gay guy, and a lot of queerbaiting

 

Link to the n*de dudes

This weekend we saw The Bride! (2026).  I assumed that it would be a sequel to Frankenstein (2025), but it is not.  The frenetic, lunatic ghost of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, channeling Bellatrix LeStrange from Harry Potter, complains that she died before she had a chance to write anything meaningful (lady, you died at age 53, having published dozens of novels, short stories, essays, travel journals...)  So she possesses a 1930s floozy named Ida, who starts a lengthy diatribe and falls down a flight of stairs.  Frank the Monster (Christian Bale, left) convinces a mad scientist to revive her, and they go on a rampage, channeling the Joker and Harley Quinn, Bonnie and Clyde, and the Me, Too Movement.   

There are a few nods to 1930s gay culture: Ida kisses a lady in the first scene, and takes Frank to a nightclub frequented by a few LGBTQ couples.  But it is ruined by a monumental queerbaiting.  

Detective Jake Willis (Peter Saarsgaard) and his partner Myrna, who has to pretend to be his secretary because female detectives aren't allowed, investigate the murder of a railroad cop in rural Indiana.  After Jake gets intel from the small-town sheriff, Partner Myrna points out that she does all the detective work; all he has to do is seduce small town sheriffs to get intel.  

In the 1930s, all sheriffs were male.  She very clearly and unambiguously states that he has sex with men. 

But at the end of the movie, he admits that he keeps letting Ida get away because he is in love with her; they used to be romantic partners, before her accident.

WTF?  A real life person could be bisexual, of course, but in movies, a hetero-romance obliterates gay references.    Myrna's statement was an outright lie, a nasty joke played on the audience. 

This is not a review of the g*ddam monstrosity (it would get an F----).  I was so angry that I looked through the entire cast list, hoping to find a gay person to profile.  I finally found one, after researching a gaggle of straight hunks:

1. Christian Bale as Frank the Monster

2. Peter Sarsgaard as the queerbaiting Detective.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal as Ronnie Reed, a Fred Astaire-like dancer.  Frank idolizes him, so they travel to all of the sites where his movies were filmed.

4. Zlatko Buric, left, as mob boss Lupino.  The Mafia is involved, too.

5. Will Dagger, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as a guy at a movie theater who is trying to get with his girlfriend in spite of her protests.  Frank and Ida intervene.

6. Louis Cancelmi,  on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as Officer Goodman, one of the cops that the couple kills.

7. Neil Vincent Smith as a patron in a restaurant that the two disrupt.  Sorry, I couldn't find a photo where he isn't hugging a lady.

8. Antony Abbato, left, as another restaurant patron.

The gay guy after the break

9. The gay one, Ethan Dubin, as Spooked Passerby. He's done mostly theatrical work, starring in Bobby Clearly, Rancho Viejo, My Six Therapists, Variations on Crossing the Alps, 60 Miles to Silverlake, The Ferryman, and Antigone (This Play I Read in High School).

10. Oliver Palmer as a Rough Boy who tries to sexually assault Ida outside the "gay" club.  Frank murders him.

11. Alex Morf, left, as an Indiana train cop who catches the couple on the run, and gets killed by accident.

12. Josh Caras, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends,  as a cop who gets killed during the ballroom scene.

13. Curtis Cook, Jr., on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends, as a cop at the couple's final destination, Niagara Falls

14. Joe Marsh Garland as Henry.  I don't know who that is, but I wanted to get to an even number.

See also: Frederick Koehler: Chip from "Kate and Ally" grows up, shows his d*ck, plays some psychos, and vanishes. With bonus Beau Mirchoff dick

Max Casella after dating Doogie: Christian Bale's buddy, Tony Soprano's driver, Timon, Bottom, bi. With a small d*ck bonus.

Gary Conway: Art, Wine, and Bodybuilding