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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMEPLTELY DIFFERENT: LECHEROUS GIRLY MAGAZINES FROM JAPAN

Uranium Willy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:53:46 +0000

Got these files in as PDFs and edited them using my trusty Fastsone Image Editor. Not really sure what the title would translate as. I think it is ‘Young Animal’ but it is Japanese and I speak and read zip thereof. There is a website connected to these two magazines at http://www.younganimal.com and I checked it out and it is not, I promise, any sort of bestiality site. If it had any such connection, even remotely, the site or the books would not be here. The images below are not nude images and fall not a type of photography form from Japan called gravure. The word can refer to a printing process or, more in line with the ‘research’ done for this post, to a type of modeling in Japan where the models pose in usually non-nude shoots. The style ranges in its scope from modeling cosmetic products and fashion wear to borderline porn. The models have the appearance of being nymphets at best. This sort of modeling has spread across across Asia as the standard practically for product promotion. The recurring themes seems to be a coquettish nature mixed with the Japanese penchant for cosplay scenarios. The magazines have the initial appearance of being aimed at teenage girl readers and in fact a certain percentage of the readership are young girls reading the fashion tips and looking for models to imitate. But there seems to be no secret that the bulk of the readership is made of slimy old guys, er, who like looking at girls, um, in bikinis on a ski slope. The lack of nudity keeps the magazine out of the pornography category technically but there is something even more titillating about the non-nude images. One more reason why Japan is the greatest culture in all of Asia. All the girls in the magazine are over 18 as far as I can tell from the web site.

BARON FRANKENSTEIN GETS METAPHYSICAL IN HAMMER’S 1967 FILM: FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN

Uranium Willy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:43:32 +0000

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN

1967/Director: Terence Fisher/Writer: Anthony Hinds

Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris, Duncan Lamont

Frankenstein Created Woman is the fourth of the Hammer Frankenstein films and sees the return of Terence fisher as director after a brief absence from the helm while Freddie Francis directed The Evil of Frankenstein. Anthony Hinds is back as script writer under the familiar pseudonym John Elder. We will get to The Evil of Frankenstein another day as I will eventually get all the Hammer Frankenstein efforts reviewed then move on to the Dracula films. But I did want to clear something up that puzzled me for a while regarding the film Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. In that film I made the error of stating in my review of that film that Baron Frankenstein shows the damage he received at the end of Frankenstein Must Be destroyed. I was recalling that from memory and I am far from an expert on the films but it would seem that in Frankenstein Created Woman Frankenstein already shows some damage to his hands. We may infer from this that the injuries were received at the end of 1964’s The Evil of Frankenstein when the castle burns down and then explodes (like in the James Whale version) though it not shown or explained. Anyway, I always wondered about his hands in that film and need to go back and rewatch Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, a fine Terence fisher film as well, and see if his hands are gloved in that one.

There are a few things that set Frankenstein Created Woman apart from the other Hammer Frankenstein features. The most obvious would be the selection of lovely Susan Denberg to the play the ‘monster’. The Hammer male monster were all loathsome creatures to be sure with the possible exception being Frankenstein Must Be destroyed where Freddie Jones shows the scars of brain surgery but looks fairly human. The other monsters were mutilated messes that could not speak and were violently insane. Denberg as Christina is beautiful and intelligent (after her transformation, getting to that) though confused and possessed. She is gentle when she is not butchering the men who had her lover Hans take the fall for the murder of her father. This leads to another difference in this film with the other Hammer masterpieces; the Baron (played again with sheer brilliance by Peter Cushing) is more sensitive and caring towards his creation. And who wouldn’t show more affection towards doe eyed, victimized Playmate Denberg than Christopher Lee’s mutilated lunatic in The Curse of Frankenstein.

In this case Cushing’s Frankenstein is perhaps the most likable of his screen interpretations, though he still reeks of pompous arrogance and a tendency to see living humans as nothing more than potential for another of his experiments with the dead. But, unlike some of the other films, he does nothing to expedite anybody’s demise but he does not look gift horses in the mouth either. He is certainly an opportunist and manipulator but his goals in this film are not centered on stitching together rotted chunks of dead flesh to ultimately create a deformed mockery of humanity that is supposed to wow all the skeptics in Geneva but they are centered instead on the human soul itself. Yes, Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein in this film is concerned with the state of the human soul and how long it remains in the human after death. The only operating he does is when he performs the most miraculous example of plastic surgery in history on the deformed Christina and turns her from a scarred and limping bar maid into a stunning beauty. He shows concern and affection for Christina and other people as well, to some extent anyway. In one scene that takes place in a court room he is even shown thumbing through the Bible in a fashion that, while not indicating he was about to be born again, shows more curiosity than contempt.

The story takes place in a small and remote village on the edge of the Balkan Mountains. This time the good Baron is assisted by the good natured but mumbling and sometimes addled brained Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters) and by the young man Hans Werner (Robert Morris). Though bright and a hard worker Hans has a tainted past I that his father was the village rascal who wound up with his head in a guillotine for killing a man. Hans witnessed this as a lad and while he is none the worse for the event on the surface he harbors a volatile temper that he sometimes loses control of. As stated already Frankenstein’s experiments center on the human soul itself. In most of the Hammer Frankenstein films the Baron is presented as a scoffing man of science who seems to have little use of religious gobbledygook or those who profess any sort of faith in any of it manifestations. Here the Baron does not even try to establish the existence of the soul and it is taken for granted it exists. What he is concerned with is how long the soul lingers in a body right immediately following death. After an experiment where he is revived from a frozen state the conclusion is about one hour. The success of the experiment is cause for celebration and the two men send Hans to the local tavern to get a battle of campaign on credit. The doctor and Baron between them cannot afford a bottle of campaign! To make sure he can get the drink Dr. Hertz gives Hans his nice over coat to offer in trade. When Hans arrives the inn keeper, Herr Klive, is out but his daughter Christine has in the kitchen preparing food. Christina has some scars on the left side of her face that are never explained and walks with a limp. She also seems to have some partial paralysis in her left arm and hand. Well luckily handsome Hans is one of those rare guys who looks for the beauty inside and he is smitten to the core with Christina though her father thinks he is not good enough for her because, as they say, like father like son. It is not like there are hordes of other suitors beating down the door to his house to court his deformed daughter but he seems to be holding out anyway.

Three local lads born with silver spoons in their rude drunken mouths show up as Hans is leaving. They are looking for another meal and drinks on their growing tab. They do not want Herr Klive to serve them and insist on petrified Christina being their hostess. They ten begin to tease and torment her and soon Hans loses his cool and a fight breaks out. One of the young men, Anton the leader, receives a knife slash across his forehead from a now out of control Hans. When the police arrive in their little pointy Balkan helmets and subdue him the knife is wrested from his grip by Herr Klive. Hans, in anger, says he will kill Herr Klive for that. Well, I think we can see where is going to head right? Soon the Baron and Doctor arrive and manage to get the spoiled little rich boys to pay for their meal for them in exchange for medical treatment. These guys can’t even buy a meal at the local tavern! Thing cut to Hans in bed with Christina. He likes chicks with scarred faces, gimpy legs and paralyzed hands. She helps to cool his anger at the three lads as they serenade Christina outside her window with songs about the ’ugliest angel.’ We may have no clue as to what kind of creation the good Baron is going to come up with in this film but we know these three guys are monster fodder.

Later the lads go back to the inn and sneak in for free drinks and when Herr Klive returns they figure the only reasonable thing to do is cane the man to death. The police find Dr. Hertz’s overcoat and it soon linked to Hans. Since the apple never falls too far from the tree he is the only suspect and is soon before the judge in a kangaroo court that finds him guilty of murder. He will not tell them that he was in Christina’s bed the night before and destroy her reputation. Well, what reputation really. She is a crippled girl whose father was just murdered. She is away to another village seeking advice on her medical issues but returns in time to see Hans beheaded, the same way he saw his father executed years before. She is driven to commit suicide by leaping into a river. What does this mean? It means that the good Barn suddenly has two fresh bodies to try out his human soul experiments on. He bullied Dr. Hertz into threatening the jail guard with blackmail unless he was allowed to borrow Hans’s corpse for an hour or so. They extract his soul and keep it suspended in some sort of chamber. Soon the soul is being transplanted into the body of Christina who has also received miraculous reconstructive surgery from the baron and Doctor. If they did this as a sideline even they could surely pay for their own meals and a bottle of booze once in a while. Soon Christina wakes up looking like a Playboy Playmate and asking in a dubbed voice who she is. Frankenstein decides he needs to help jar her memory. Best to be delicate and sensitive in these areas. The mind of a such a girl must be a fragile thing. So with all the compassion Cushing Frankenstein has come to be known for he wheels her off in a carriage with her eyes covered then lets her get a sudden peek at…what, the old Inn she used to work at? Her old home? Nah, that would be too brutal on her delicate psyche. Better to uncover her eyes and let her see the guillotine where she was executed when her soul was still in Hans’s body and it had a head. She panics, screams and passes out and the Baron smiles and declares the ‘treatment’ a success.

At this point the film takes another slightly different approach to the story than the other Hammer Frankenstein films in that the creation becomes more of a stalker/slasher type killer with revenge as her motivation. Rather than having people run in fear from a hideous monster or chase the creature through the streets with pitch forks the victims here are willingly lured to their deaths by meat cleavers and knives by the sultry Christina. The only other monster in the annals of Frankenstein history as pretty would probably be Michael Sarrazin in Frankenstein: The True Story. After Christina begins her killing spree the metaphysical theme of the film is all but forgotten about. Too bad. It could have explored it a bit further. Frankenstein seems to have a pensive and reflective moment at the films conclusion when he stares off into the sky after Christina, successfully this time, commits suicide by leaping from a rocky cliff into a rocky surf. Still his Cushing’s Frankenstein remains amoral at best through the film. His arrogance is born of his education and aristocratic upbringing. In fact he may well be above the ignorant town’s people. At the trial for Hans he does what eh can to vouch for the lad but the people in the court room are fueled by the knowledge that Han’s father was a killer and never are the character’s of the three well to do’s called into question but rather they are called on to testify against Hans. They are suspicious of the Baron and are convinced he is engaged in black magic and witchcraft, an accusation he denies but admits that if doctorates were presented for such studies he would no doubt have one. It may have been a strange move on the studio’s part to dub Denberg’s Austrian accent since the story takes place in the Balkan Mountain region. Sure, that would require maybe a Serbian accent but I think her real voice would have been fine.

Luckily, in my opinion, this film was released before Hammer went into its nude phase in the late 60’s. While Denberg is lovely it may have ruined the film if the studio has slipped in gratuitous breast shots, which were soon to become common in their Gothic Horror films. I love Terence Fisher’s work but I am not an expert. Did he ever show any exposed breast in any of his films? There would be no need to as this master story teller was more than capable of doing his job while the actors kept their clothes on. Another pretty good Frankenstein outing from Fisher, Hinds (Elder), James Bernard (score) and Mr. Cushing.

POSTERS FOR THE FILM FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN

PUBLICITY STILLS FROM FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN

Don’t expect to see these spicy shots in the film. They are from a publicity shoot for the film to capitalize on Susan Denberg’s charms and have nothing to do with what happens in the film at all. The scenes were so spicy and cool they inspired some exciting poster art such as the Spanish poster I have at the top of the post.

SMALL COLLECTION OF SUSAN DENBERG IMAGES

GIRLS WITH GUNS 04

Uranium Willy — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:03:14 +0000

I am a little more than half way through one of my long posts right now and need a break and need to keep some posts coming. So time for some eye candy and a return to my Girls With Guns fetish. It has been a while since I did a Girls With guns post and felt it was about time to get back into it. I have my first two original GWG posts listed in my sidebar under my pages section. GWG 02 is my award winning Asian Girls themed post featuring loads of Asian DVD covers of the CAT III variety. These two posts wound up as pages when I moved all my posts over from a previous URL. Guess I will make GWG 03 and 04 pages eventually. After I get these up I will get back to my post on Inglourious Basterds and comparing it with three other WWII films. That should be done by tomorrow I hope. For now lets check out this new collection of hot babes with big bad guns.

I am sure some people think I am sexist or even deviant by posting these images of sexy and some times sweaty babes packing hot iron in their frail little fingers. Well would you rather have me indulge my other twisted fantasy… Monkeys With Guns?

I hope the choice is clear.

BAI LING ASSASSINATES GENE HACKERS IN: THE GENE GENERATION

Uranium Willy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:34:43 +0000

THE GENE GENERATION

2007/Director: Pearry Reginald Teo/Writers: Keith Collea, Pearry Reginald Teo

Cast: Ling Bai, Alec Newman, Parry Shen, Faye Dunaway, Ethan Cohn

The Gene Generation with Chinese actress Bai Ling (or Ling Bai as it sometimes appears if you put the family name first) is one of those films that definitely falls into the category of it ‘could have been better’. The movie is not a waste of time and as the Café has evolved from its early posts I have taken a rather neutral position on most of the films I write about and I do not feel I actually recommend or pan films. I will leave that up to the reader to decide. While I cannot say I liked The Gene Generation all that much it seems to earn a post here not so much for the erratic storyline and touch and go production quality of the film itself but for the presence of lanky and luscious Bai Ling. Before talking about, and hopefully defending, the sometimes (actually usually) maligned Bai Ling I think I will say a word about my blogging process and why sometimes it is a drawback for me.

One problem I have is that I watch simply more movies than I can do decent posts on. I am not the type of person who wants to review every movie right after I watch it, like better reviewers do I suppose. I started the Necrofiles category which is a way to skim over four or so movies at a time with comments of a brief paragraph or two at most. I work as an ESL teacher in China and the job, as well as life here at times, is draining. I may have the time to write but not the mental energy. I think over the last year I have begun to develop a writing style I like a little. I like to create a post that draws information from different sources on the net, as well as my own personal opinion, and brings them together in one place with images I either find online or make myself in the form of vidcaps, some that are pretty decent. The first thing I do when I decide to write about a film is find articles I like and make them into PDFs for future reference, get cast and crew info from IMDB or a similar site and then start collecting images and then they are all brought together in a rough form and stored as a nearly complete draft that I may save for months sometimes before I get around to writing the article. I must have over a dozen drafts now that have are laid out with images and cast/crew info but no written article. During that time of course I am watching more movies of a Uranium nature as well as mainstream films and sometimes doing posts as well on something I just watched.

Now what is the point of all this. Well, I checked the draft date on The Gene Generation and the draft goes back to the middle of August. It’s been close to two months since I saw the film and to be honest I can’t really remember that much about it but I do know I have no desire to watch the film again to refresh my memory on the minutiae. One thing I remember distinctly is that I had a hard time following the film while I was watching it so I do not think it will help me much to skim back over the movie just to churn out a review. So as can often happen in a situation like this I must rely on my over all impressions of the films and information from the PDFs I made to give the reader some idea of what the movie may be about and they can decide whether or not to see the movie. My feelings about most all movies here at the Café is that they should be seen. I know my taste can be questionable at best but I am trying to promote or bring to public awareness films that are overlooked, forgotten or not well known for a variety of reasons, not the least being that they are simply bad movies. But does bad equate to unenjoyable? That is a question of a deep philosophical nature I may take up another day.

But one thing I remember is enjoying Bai Ling in the role of Michelle the assassin. She had the look the part needed and she did well with the action sequences. She conveyed all the necessary elements needed in a brooding, lethal femme fatale and at this point I will diverge once again to say I am a fan of Bai Ling as a personality while not a huge fan of her films roles in general. I liked her as the dirty talking peep show girl who helped to push William H. Macy further over the edge in Edmond and I have a copy of Shanghai Baby here somewhere but have yet to pop it in the player and watch it. She seems to be most known for showing up at swanky parties and movie premiers with her humongous nipples hanging out of some selection from her gaudy wardrobe. She has dated or spent quality time with a mixed selection of Hollywood guys like Mickey Rourke, Ralph Fiennes and Lionel Ritchie. She draws scorn and ridicule from every direction but like the proverbial duck lets it all run off of her. She receives the most viscous vitriol from sores of nationalistic Chinese who see her has a near traitor for becoming an American citizen and living such an open hedonistic lifestyle in the west with no repercussions. The same scorn lately has been directed at Gong Li and Jet Li for becoming citizens of Singapore.

She is from Si Chuan province and lived in the fairly well developed city of Chengdu, which has a reputation for simply gorgeous and open women. I have been to Chengdu and did not notice any of the legendary women because I was dying from the area’s equally notorious heat. Chengdu is called, rightfully, one of the Four Furnaces of China. She is no doubt a wild party animal but if you peruse her blog, with the misleading title of Naked Seduction, she conveys a type of human insight, sensitivity and kindness you tend to find in many Chinese people and that is sorely lacking in many Western people these days. But that is way off topic. I do suggest you check out her blog which she writes herself and so there are certain grammar mistakes related to articles and prepositions common to people who think in Mandarin and then write in grammar rule laden English but I would give her an A+ in my class. She has led an exciting and sometimes tragic life (she was committed to a mental institution in China, which usually reeks of political dissent more than actual mental disorders here where psychology and psychiatry as a practices really do not exist) that makes her the type of person that gets promoted here at the Café.

The film is about what are known as gene hackers. In the post apocalyptic civilization we see in the film people with a certain type of DNA are allowed to live outside what are essentially ghettoes and the gene hackers steal the proper DNA sequence and sell it to people who want to escape the horror and drudgery of life in the dark and violent world they are trapped in. The film here resembles, in look and concept, some other films like Blade Runner, Gattaca and The Matrix. But of course those were all great movies and when you rip-off ideas and visual appearances from great movies you had better do a good job of your movie will simply look like a rip-off. I am not saying that The Gene Generation is a horrible rip-off but it suffers from trying too hard to look like something else than it is. One good example is the use of the hovering crafts over the city the way they hovered over future LA in Blade Runner, with the huge faces of Japanese women promoting products or services while Vangelis’s haunting soundtrack played in the background. In The Gene Generation we have basically the same thing. Huge dirigibles that resemble Chinese junks hover over the ghetto advertising some things or promoting propaganda. It looks sort of cool even given the low budget but it is too obvious that the idea came from Blade Runner and that is not really a bad thing.

There is a group of evil scientists who want to take a DNA device that can be used as a medical wonder tool and turn it into a weapon of some sort. The team is, or was led, by Dr. Hayden, who has had her DNA all scrambled up by the device is now hangs from the wall in a mass of slithering tentacles in a state of constant pain. Hayden is played by Faye Dunaway who appears as herself on screen for all of about five minutes. The one remaining by one of it inventors Christian (Alec Newman) who does not want the device used for evil ends. Of course Hayden and her equally evil associates want the device back and will stop at nothing to get it. Now as it so happens Christian’s next door neighbor happens to be Michelle (Bai Ling) who is a paid assassin who kills gene hackers. Little does she know that down the chain her employer actually happens to be one of the evil scientists looking for Christian and the DNA contraption.

Their paths cross when her sniveling weasel of a brother Jackie (Perry Shen) breaks into Christian’s apartment to steal things to pay off gambling debts to a loan shark who seems to have a perverse attraction to Jackie as well as an urge to kill him. The story really gets too convoluted here and that is where most of the problems arise. Too much time is spent on trying to get under the surface of the sibling discord and they both ask each the other ‘would mom and dad be proud of what you do’? Michelle is always bailing out Jackie but this time he has gone too far and the gangsters accept her paying off the debts but they have decided to do in the little smart ass anyway. Michelle gets all tangled up with Christian in more ways than one. And if I have to spell it out for you Bai Ling gets naked with him.

Some people criticize the action sequences but I thought they were pretty good. I may have some reservations about the over use of CGI blood spatter rather than good old fashioned real fake blood but that is where a lot of new films seem to be headed and in particular here in Asia. The film is working on a low budget and spotty script but young Asian director Pearry Reginald Teo handles things admirably and with a bigger budget and tighter script I think will turn out some good, gritty films in the future. The story is based on a comic book but I did not check into that too much. I just wish there had more action in this one and less brother/sister/family emotional struggle. Now living in Asia I know that that theme can be more important in films than in the West and we are even treated to a protracted and excruciating death scene that is really becoming cliché in Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong films. Probably in mainland Chinese films as well but I end to avoid movies made on the mainland because they are not watchable anymore to me. If Bai Ling had killed more bad guys and been naked more this would have been a pretty good movie. Sadly her skills wasted by trying to emote too much with her loser brother who we never come to like anyway. There are certainly moments in this film and I would not be adverse to a better budgeted sequel. The film has a following so who knows. I would only watch it however if sultry and sassy Bai Ling returned as Michelle.

TRAILER FOR THE GENE GENERATION

THE URANIUM CAFE PIN UP COLLECTION: YVONNE CRAIG

Uranium Willy — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:52:21 +0000

Yvonne Craig will always be remembered Batgirl in the great 1960’s TV series Batman with Adam West playing a campy caped crusader and Burt Ward as his trusted sidekick Robin the Boy Wonder. The series featured a host of great villains played by Hollywood notables like Caesar Romero, Burgess Meredith and Vincent Price. Craig played Commissioner Gordon’s daughter Barbara and in a few episode donned a mask and cape to lend a hand to the dynamic duo. She sported a nifty motorcycle and had her own them song. Besides the Batman series she played in a few films along side lead men like Bing Crosby, James Coburn and Elvis. Born in the Midwest in Illinois she has an impish all American girl look but with a just a proportioned dab of the naughty brunette thrown into the mix to make her a little exotic. She was trained in ballet and dance and some of her fight sequences in Batman show her lithe agility and strength and in the famous Star Trek episode Whom Gods Destroy she does a titillating dance sequence before winding up in an insane asylum. Yvonne comes from a time when women had curves and femininity still. All the sex bombs of today have lousy tattoos, six pack abs and chronic hostile angst. In some of the selected images here I think her charm and sex appeal come through without any of the angry attitude that we have to suffer through these days. Recently saw her along aside Tommy Kirk in Mars Needs Women and expect an in depth analysis of that Z-classic soon. Also just got in How to Frame A Figg where she tempts an always antsy Don Knotts and that will show up eventually as a double feature with The Love God?, which sadly she does not star in.

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE: TED V. MIKELS’ ASTRO ZOMBIES

Uranium Willy — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:21:39 +0000

TODAY’S MIND NUMBING FEATURE:

THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES

TRAILER FOR ASTRO ZOMIES

Post coming shortly on this great American classic.

THE URANIUM CAFE MATINEE: FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

Uranium Willy — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:35:13 +0000

TODAY’S FEATURE: RUSS MEYER’S

FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

PETER CUSHING’S FINAL PERFORMANCE AS VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN IN HAMMER’S: FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL

Uranium Willy — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:47:43 +0000

FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL

1974/Director: Terence Fisher/Writer: Anthony Hinds

Cast: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse, John Stratton, Michael Ward, Elsie Wagstaff, Norman Mitchell

This was the last of the Hammer Frankenstein series and it actually takes up where Frankenstein Must be Destroyed left off as the prior film, The Horror of Frankenstein, broke the continuity of the films by going back to when Frankenstein was younger. Horror also suffered a bit by the absences of Terrence Fisher as director and Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein, but more on that film another post. Cushing and Fisher are both back for this 1974 film, as are Anthony Hinds (writing as James Elder) and Hammer composer James Bernard. In a couple more years Hammer would see itself all but out of business as the British film company that revived Gothic horror and with Monster from Hell they ended on a pretty good note. The only flaws for me are the title that does not really suit the film’s atmosphere and the rather shoddy monster played by David Prowse (Darth Vader) who also played the creature in Horror of Frankenstein as well. There were understandable budget constraints with the film since Hammer itself was going under. The idea of some sort of Neolithic monster is not in and of itself that bad and certainly the monster here is one of the most unique in the annals of Frankenstein films. I think it could have worked better really with less rubber makeup and poorly applied fake body hair. But it is easily over looked after a while really. Some people have criticized Madeline Smith’s as the mute assistant Angel but I liked it. The close ups of her face are beautiful and the innocent character’s charm may have been soiled by exploiting her ample endowments with a title corset as is known to be the attire of most Hammer queens.

In Monster from Hell it is now some seventeen years since we have been introduced to Cushing’s generally maniacal and unsound Victor Frankenstein. In this final chapter he is the now resident doctor Carl Victor and treats the inmates of an insane asylum where he himself was initially housed as a resident. He has since gained his position of power by having information that would spell the nasty end of the current director Herr Klauss (played with superb sleaze by John Statton). Soon admitted into the asylum for “sorcery” is the brilliant young doctor Simon Helder (Shane Bryant of Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter) who has long admired the works of Victor Frankenstein. His acts of sorcery involves the creation of life, or of the reanimation of the dead more accurately. He is carted away after the drunken grave robber he employed spilled his guts to the local constable.

In the young Helder Frankenstein sees the opportunity to return with full vigor to his life’s dream of creating not only a living human being from the rotted and mangled parts of dead bodies, but a literal superman endowed with genius and artist talent. The film at times makes note of the Baron’s own lack of refinement in these areas. He admits he is tone deaf and unable to appreciate beautiful music and he shows no interest in higher mathematics. He sees these are the necessities his creation must possess in order that his own brilliance will be revealed. Before the arrival of young Helder the Baron had to rely on the hands of Angel to do the intricate surgical work required to bring a collection of corpses back to life as his own hands were burned and crippled. This no doubt is a tie in to the ending of Frankenstein Must be Destroyed * where his creation in that film (played excellently by Hammer regular Freddie Jones) walks into a burning house with Victor thrown over his shoulder.

In Monster from Hell Frankenstein selects as his subject the body of a inmate who recently attempted suicide. The man is Neolithic in appearance and is easily driven to violence and shows particular interest in dicing up people with broken glass. Victor soon is sewing on the hands of a sculptor and making “arrangements” to acquire the brain of the melancholy (though not insane) Professor Durendel (Charles Llyod Pack). In this sequence we can see how obsessed and ruthless Frankenstein has become regarding his goals and the gaunt faced and wild eyed portrayal by Cushing is one of his best.

The film version I have is the DVD version released in the states which is from their original edited and censored prints. I understand there is a foreign version fans are waiting for that contains a few extra minutes of gore that is unusual for Hammer. In one scene during surgery Frankenstein becomes frustrated with his useless hands and takes a severed bleeding artery in his mouth to clamp it. There are a few other quick scenes in the operating room that do not appear in this American version.

The monster, as in most Hammer Frankenstein films, is a tortured creature who is more than vaguely aware of his dire situation. While I did not care much for the appearance of the cave man type monster in this addition to the series I certainly felt it was one of the most suffering. A musical and mathematic genius’ brain trapped inside the body of a grotesque and suicidal apeman. The thread that connects all Frankenstein films is that the monster turns on its creator and rather than give the doctor the worldwide acclaim he seeks it sets about to destroy him.

In the final scenes the monster runs amok in the madhouse and kills Herr Klaus in a scene that, according to my research, was edited by a few seconds of some spurting blood from a throat wound. The film ends in a most bizarre and un-Hammer style when the inmates, for some reason, turn on the monster and rip it to shreds. They literally disembowel the beast and in yet another edited out scene are supposed to trample its entrails underfoot. Certainly extreme for a Hammer scene that would often show blood but not delve much into actual gore. The movie seems to end on at tone that may have been a set up for yet another sequel with the Baron perhaps assuming total control of the madhouse and young Helder becoming his protégé and successor. It was not to be the case and the Hammer Frankenstein saga ended here.

One closing thought I have about the film is that it captured the feeling and atmosphere of the early films one last time. Though made in 1974 the movie, through Fischer’s able direction, retains the appearance of Hammer’s early glory days. My only criticism of this film might the monster but it is a small criticism really when held in light of the movie’s entirety. Not the greatest film to ever come out of Hammer but still one of its better horror offerings.

* Correction here. I believe his ruined hands date back to the ending of the third Hammer Frankenstein film Evil of Frankenstein. Though it is not shown at the end of that film when the castle burns down and explodes we discover in the next film, Frankenstein Created Woman, that the Baron’s hands are kept hidden in black leather gloves and he needs an assistant to handle the scalpel for him now.

GALLERY OF HAMMER SCREAM QUEEN MADELINE SMITH

25 WOMEN I ADMIRE MEME

Uranium Willy — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:09:15 +0000

This was to be the twenty women I admire meme. My concern when I started this post was could I come up twenty women I truly admire in the entertainment business. Not just females I drool over, though a couple here fall into that category as well. After it I got going I had to actually trim it down to 25 from 29 and slow myself down. While to me most all of this women are extremely beautiful there is some other quality I am attracted to than there physical charms alone. Some survival quality that helped them to stay afloat in a tough business ran, mostly, by tough men with flexible scruples. Some of them did not always fair so well in the end but they are all intelligent fighters.

EIGHTEEN MINUTES OF ACTION FROM THE MACHINE GIRL

Uranium Willy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:50:48 +0000