Tales of Frankenstein (1958)

the leading man is my tpye

How sad is this?

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Baron Victor Frankenstein(Anton Diffring) needs to make quality alterations to his human junk heap which has a murderer's brain and is unstable. Ms. Halpert(Helen Westcott) begs for help in regards to her sick sculptor husband(he's ill, it's his heart), even pleading for Frankenstein himself, yet no one seems to be able to. Ms. Halpert had heard about Frankenstein's experiments with life and death and believed if anyone could assist her husband, it'd be him. But, Frankenstein was only concerned with what his own creation could attain from fresh corpses of the newly dead and when Christine's husband dies, he sees a golden opportunity to gain a new brain for his monster. After his death, Christine discovers Frankenstein raided her husband's grave, wondering if the scientist has brought him back to life. What Christine does see is anything but the man for whom she married. Frankenstein's efforts to control the monster once he awakens becomes taxing because the brain belongs to another man and he sees Christine who forces her way into the scientist's laboratory.After watching this pilot I will always question just how good such a show could've been with the caliber of an Anton Diffring in the role of Frankenstein. Hell, I'd like to have seen Diffring in a movie as the Baron. This pilot came right after Hammer's popular revival of the Frankenstein franchise with Cushing as Baron Victor. What might've been..*sigh*. Screenplay writer Curt Siodmak got a chance to sit in the director's chair, and this 28 minute show is but a brief glimpse at the potential of a major mind behind several Universal movies associated with Hammer studios. I had a good time while this lasted, but, damn, I wish it were longer. It's almost like the appetizer before a great meal, yet it never arrives. One of the only chances Hammer fans can see a horror film released by the studios in beautiful B&W. Interesting enough, this looks a lot like a Universal film!

Frankenstein's reputation has done well for him. He has created another "monster", but needs a mind to control it. When a terminally ill subject enters his lab, he sees an opportunity to create the perfect being -- not having to rely on dead or criminal brains.Anton Diffring ("Beast Must Die") stars as Baron Frankenstein and does a fine job. So does everyone else. For a television show, I'm uncertain ho this would have fared, particularly in the 1950s. And what would the story be? Would Frankenstein try a new brain each week? That would get old... or I've heard rumor it as to feature a different monster. That has some merit, but how many monsters are there? Dracula would make a much better ongoing character...Luckily for us this pilot survived as a short film, and a decent one at that. Perhaps not a memorable one, but a strong piece of the Frankenstein story from a director ho knows the man and the monster ("Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman", for example).This one crossed my desk through a box set. I'm not sure ho easily available it is, but if you get a chance to check it out, do so. It's only 27 minutes long, so you'd hardly be "wasting" time on this better-than-average attempt at a good horror story. "Tales From the Crypt" has done worse.

A very ill man and his wife approach Baron Frankenstein to help keep the man alive through whatever means. He refuses, fearing that this may be a lot of trouble. It works for him because the man dies in the village and, through a bribe, Frankenstein uses this man's brain and modifies a failed experiment. As is always the case, things don't go so well. The village is always cognizant of what goes on in that house, and this is no exception. What I am most interested in is what the next episode would have produced. What has happened to the "monster," who is now an intellectual, and what will the Baron do for an encore. At one point I noticed for a brief moment, the brides from the Lugosi "Dracula" movie. The laboratory was also, apparently, at least in part a reconstruction of the Karloff films. The print I have is very bold. This must have been a bold venture for the makers of this pilot. I suppose the powers that be just didn't see any heroes in this venue. Most of the fifties was dominated by gunslingers. Maybe James Arness could have reprised his carrot man from the thing and played one of the monsters that Frankenstein produced.

Like a previous poster I was familiar with this unsold pilot mostly through stills in the old Famous Monsters magazine. I recently picked up a cheap DVD (from Alpha Video, who release a lot of interesting stuff) containing TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN with Corman's THE TERROR as a second feature. TERROR I'd seen many times before, but FRANKENSTEIN was truly interesting. It has the unmistakable feel of a 50s TV show but at the same time is reasonably well mounted and maintains a lot of the atmosphere of the old Universal Frankenstein movies, complete with raging thunderstorms and a laboratory full of crackling equipment. It was supposedly a co-production between Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems division and Hammer films, but there's very little Hammer atmosphere here (except for the costume worn by Anton Diffring as Frankenstein, which looks like Peter Cushing's hand me downs). Don Megowen makes a very formidable Monster, with a flat-topped make-up not unlike the old Karloff monster. Which is strange since Universal usually protected their copyright quite aggressively. At any rate, fans of vintage horror could do a lot worse than check this out.