The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I like "The Curse of Frankenstein" which is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the novel Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour horror film, and the first of their Frankenstein series. Its worldwide success led to several sequels, and the studio's new versions of Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959) and established "Hammer Horror" as a distinctive brand of Gothic cinema. The film was directed by Terence Fisher and stars Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein, Hazel Court as Elizabeth, and Christopher Lee as the creature.Peter Cushing, who was then best known for his leading roles in British television, was sought out by Hammer for this film. Christopher Lee's casting, meanwhile, resulted largely from his height (6' 5"). Hammer had earlier considered the even taller (6 '7") Bernard Bresslaw for the role. Universal fought hard to prevent Hammer from duplicating aspects of their 1931 film, and so it was down to make-up artist Phil Leakey to design a new-look creature bearing no resemblance to the Boris Karloff original created by Jack Pierce. Production of The Curse of Frankenstein began, with an investment of £65,000, on 19 November 1956 at Bray Studios with a scene showing Baron Frankenstein cutting down a highwayman from a wayside gibbet. The film opened at the London Pavilion on 2 May 1957 with an X certificate from the censors.

Watching the extras to the Blu-Ray of Hammer's Dracula a few days ago,I found out that was Dracula was the one to make Hammer's Gothic Horror style famous,that there had actually been a "test run" a year before on Frankenstein. Planning to buy the disc,I was taken aback to learn that the BBC were about to air it!,which led to me getting set to witness the first ever Gothic Hammer Horror.The plot:Waiting in jail to be hanged, Baron Victor Frankenstein tries to convince a priest that a spree of murders were done by a monster,and not him.Weeks earlier:Left in sole control of the family estate after his mum dies, young Frankenstein hires Paul Krempe.Becoming interested in science over the years, Frankenstein and Krempe start working on scientific experiments. Encouraged by them bringing a dead dog back to life, Frankenstein comes up with the idea of bringing a "perfect human" to life from different parts of dead bodies. Soon put off by their corpse robbing,Krempe tries to tell Frankenstein to stop crossing a line in science,but finds he is unable to destroy the dream of Frankenstein's perfect Creature.View on the film:Letting the Hammer Horror relish flow during the Creature's first steps,directing auteur Terence Fisher & cinematographer Jack Asher take a discreet turn to the build up,via covering all the body parts and bloody clothes in jars and test tubes which delicately allow the viewing to build their full image of the horrors that lurk within. Taking a restrained approach to the unveiling of the Creature, Fisher soaks the title in an extraordinary Gothic Horror atmosphere, painting everything in delicious reds,greens and whites, (which shine,even though the original negative is sadly lost) and also displaying a superb eye for the use of space, brilliantly used by Fisher to express how no one can get close to Frankenstein.Aware of Universal Studio's watching over his shoulders as "their" monsters changed hands,the screenplay by Jimmy Sangster gloves Frankenstein in a rich Costume Drama,that allow the Hammer Horror shocks to always feel grounded,thanks to all of them relating to the broken friendship between Frankenstein and Krempe.Bringing Hammer's Gothic Horror bursting to life, Sangster chillingly keeps the Creature silent and deadly,hitting pelts of cracking tension,as Frankenstein begins to lose control of his creation.Complaining about having no dialogue (until his co-star pointed out that he was lucky!) Christopher Lee (who got the role after Bernard Bresslaw asked for too much cash!) gives a roaring performance as Creature,whose handmade nature is perfectly captured by Lee's jerky walk and unsettling stop/start movement of arms and head. Joined by alluring Hazel Court and a passionate Robert Urquhart as Krempe,Peter Cushing offers a glimpse of the fatherly warmth he would give to future Hammer Horror,but wickedly off-sets the calm with an excellent, threatening belief that he spits out at anyone who tries to stop Frankenstein from creating his landmark Creature:the Gothic Hammer Horror.

...and Victor Frankenstein is shown not that sympathetic even as a small boy. The story is being told in flashback by Victor (Cushing) as he awaits the guillotine. Baron Victor's mother has just died, leaving him an orphan, and he looks to be in his young teens, yet he apparently doesn't have a guardian nor a tear for his dead mother. Instead his interest is in hiring a tutor, Paul (Robert Urquhart). Paul takes the job, and their experiments and work together show that Paul is probably neglecting the liberal arts part of Victor's education in favor of the sciences. Their ultimate work together - by now Victor is a grown man - is to bring a small animal back to life.Victor wants to go further, he wants to bring a dead human back to life, and not just a deceased human. He wants to build him from body parts. Paul at first assists Victor in this experiment, but his heart isn't in it. His heart really isn't in it when Victor's distant cousin Elizabeth (Hazel Court) comes to live there, since she and Victor are betrothed. It is an arranged marriage. You get the feeling Elizabeth feels she owes this to Victor for supporting herself and her mother all of their lives, but she is fond of Victor, what little she knows of him, and she does NOT know about the human in progress in the lab.Victor crosses the line you just knew he was going to cross when he invites a great professor to his house to dine and then pushes him off the balcony of an upper floor and makes it look like an accident so he can have his brain for the creature. Paul didn't see the murder, but he does figure it out. Paul damages the brain so it will be useless to Victor, and implores Elizabeth to leave the castle and not marry Victor. Both acts are in vain.Victor builds the creature with the damaged brain anyways, and brings a very angry brute to life. I'd be angry too if I were the creature, since he (Christopher Lee) looks like one of the Beatles, down to the 60's haircut and the Nehru jacket, except a recently deceased version. To further add to Victor's crimes, he is bedding a servant girl in the house, and would probably continue to do so post marriage to Elizabeth, but the servant girl winds up pregnant. Hmmm. What to do? He has an angry murderous creature and a blackmailing overly curious pregnant servant girl. Watch and find out.Now Paul knows the whole story, and knows it to be true. The authorities think that the murdered were the work of Victor. After all, how could a man make a man out of body parts and bring that man to life? Poppycock. A word from Paul and Victor is free. But Paul has grown a fondness for Elizabeth and knows the darkness of Victor's heart. What will he do? Watch and find out.If you want atmosphere go watch the original Universal horror films. If you want pretty good storytelling in a horror film, even if isn't close to the original story, done on a budget but done fairly well- and what isn't done well is funny to the point of being endearing- see the Hammer horror films. They do tend to satisfy.

Movies starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are a subgenre of horror films, one that I have never cared for. Actually, this is one of those Hammer productions, which I do not care for either, even when they do not star these two actors. Such movies are typically ponderous and dull. In the original story, Dr. Frankenstein is dedicated to science, which he believes will benefit mankind, but ends up creating a monster instead. Though we feel sorry for the monster, he is dangerous and has to be destroyed. In this movie, Dr. Frankenstein is more evil than the monster, committing murder to get the brain he needs, which then makes the monster seem superfluous. Furthermore, whereas the original story was a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of science, the only moral to this story is that if you commit murder, you will probably be punished.