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.

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Until only recently I had never seen a episode of the British television production, by Granada Television, of the 1984 to 1994 Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett as Conan Doyle’s master sleuth and David Burke and Edward Hardwicke taking turns at Dr. Watson. There were a few reasons for this that I will go into but in the end I think I may have been simply hard headed and biased towards anyone playing the role other than Basil Rathbone. But that is not the only reason and as time has gone on I can see some flaws in the Rathbone films, though not in his particularly perfect portrayal of Holmes. I picked up the boxed set with Brett a month or so ago and at the same time begin re-reading some of the stories in my two volume collection of the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I keep on my bedside table, usually along side a couple books by Louis Lamour and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (my moods fluctuate obviously). I went into the series with some skepticism but not to the degree I will approach the new Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr. interpretation.

My main concern was not with Jeremy Brett, who I knew nothing of but had read for some time that his performance is highly praised, but with the fact it was a British TV production. I typically do not like British TV shows, with exceptions of course, simply because of the way they look. The sets usually look like stage sets (even when they’re not) and the camera work looks jumpy and washed out, as if it were all shot on video rather than film. For all I know it may be. Sometimes the camera work is in and out of focus and the sound quality is flat at best. More like some drama you would see on PBS than on American prime time or cable. Which is not to say that what shows up on US TV is really better in substance but is usually better in form than most British TV which is in strange contrast to the usually above average look and feel of British cinema.

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KONGA

1961/Director: John Lemont/Writers: Herman Cohen, Aben Kandel

Cast: Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon, Austin Trevor, Jack Watson, George Pastell

Detroit born producer/writer Herman Cohen is a name that will be popping up here at the Café on a regular basis. Eventually there will be posts on his great dive-in classics The Bride of the Gorilla, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, I Was a Teenage Werewolf,  I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, How to Make a Monster, and Horrors of the Black Museum. In fact this posts feature, Konga, is not our first introduction to the works of this dedicated film-maker. I reviewed Trog starring Joan Crawford and Michael Gough, a few posts back and it, like Konga, was one of the color films Cohen made while in England during the 60’s and 70’s. He would also make the thriller Berserk (I do not even know if I have that film here or not. I need a hunchbacked, mute assistant to sort out all the stuff I have on DVDs or on my hard-drive) with Crawford while in England and I understand most people like it more than Trog, but I thought Trog was pretty darned entertaining. Appearing in five of his British productions was actor Michael Gough who seems to have been given free reign with his roles and he had the time of his life hamming them up to the extreme. While some consider his ultimate over-the-top achievement to be the insane curator and scientist Edmond Bancroft in Horrors of the Black Museum I think he is utterly hysterical as Dr. Charles Decker in the sadly underrated Konga.

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THE HOUSE OF HAMMER

The House of Hammer was a British movie magazine put out in the mid 70′s when Hammer as a film company was grinding down to a near stand still. But at the time the magazine was the best selling movie magazine in Britain. The publication tried to combine what Warren magazines was doing with Famous Monsters of Film Land and its black and white comic magazines. The artists that contributed to the magazine were also frequent Warren contributors and they may have jumped at the chance to illustrate some of the classic Hammer films in narrative form. The magazine however did not only focus on Hammer films or exclusively on British cinema but contained articles on classic American horror as well.  I included an illustrated version of one of the better latter day Hammer films Vampire Circus drawn by the fantastic Brian Bolland. I have all the issues on my hard drive and look forward to posting some more samples from this curious magazine including some comic strip hosted by an illustrated Peter Cushing as Abraham Van Helsing. For now enjoy Vampire Circus and a couple page samples.

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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.

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THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

1957/Director: Val Guest/Writer: Nigel Kneale

Cast: Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marlé

The Abominable Snowman was one of Hammer’s ealry films that came out right before Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. It was written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Val Guest, the pair who earlier had created the two Quartermass films. It stars a young and intense Peter Cushing before he became legendary as the morally ambivalent Victor Frankenstein and the morally unshakable Abraham Van Helsing. I had earlier reviewed X-The Unknown and like that film I will say the same thing about The Abominable Snowman and that is that it is too bad Hammer did not do more films like this after they took off in the early sixties. This is a fine film, well written, directed and acted and I wonder what else this great studio could have produced along these lines had they set their minds to it. Of course Hammer did do other films during the sixties than just their classic retakes of old Universal horror films like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman and The Mummy. Other than The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Cushing playing Sherlock Holmes, I have not had a chance to get too many of those suspense and crime style films from Hammer but hopefully I will be shortly. But this film, released the same year as but prior to Curse of Frankenstein, was from their very early days when they were just beginning to emerge as a so to be major horror studio and there is a certain quality the film has that their later non-Universal style films, the few I have seen, did not usually have though The Hound of the Baskervilles is a very good film.

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THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

1957/ Director: Terence Fisher/ Writers: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay), Mary Shelley (novel)

Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee, Melvyn Hayes, Valerie Gaunt, Paul Hardtmuth

The Curse of Frankenstein is truly a history making movie. Prior to Curse Hammer had had some success as a film studio and with the Quartermass films and X The Unknown found a niche in the horror genre. Curse was their first color film, and what a first it was. The scenes are lush and vibrant as well as chilling and nightmarish. Under the direction of the brilliant Terence Fisher the movie revived the gothic horror film. While it was a return to the classic, atmospheric horror themes established in the 30’s by Universal studios, Hammer would certainly tell the stories with their own style. Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster would turn the focus of the story on the character of Victor Frankenstein rather than the monster. The obsessed doctor and his hideous creation are played by Hammer first timers Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee got the role basically because of his 6’4” height, a feature that almost prevented him from landing the role he would make legendary, that of Count Dracula. However it is Cushing that shines as the driven and insane Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He does frequent himself with hunchbacks as he robs graves but he aligns himself with his brilliant tutor. In later Hammer Frankenstein films the Igor type hunchback is eschewed for career driven young men who fall under Frankenstein’s evil charm. Cushing is dashingly handsome and his face conveys the doctor’s charisma and madness. He is a sociopath really who will let no one stand in the way of his ambitions.

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