The same year that Rankin-Bass put out its juvenile puppet show (Mad Monster Party), Hammer released its fourth Frankenstein picture. Once again Peter Cushing portrayed Dr. Frankenstein, and this time he creates a female creature. You can probably tell by the lobby card (above) that this theme had less to do with honoring Mary Shelley’s book, and more about pushing the envelope of titillation. But there’s also something else going on: Hammer moved its Frankenstein movies beyond the simple matter of animating dead bodies, and instead delved into the nature and meaning of souls. It’s a fascinating topic, and while this movie is hardly an authoritative theological treatise, it at least offers some thought-provoking ideas.

The Plot: Dr. Frankenstein (Cushing) has a young assistant named Hans, who has a crush on Christina, the innkeeper’s daughter. When three Victorian-era frat boys are taunting Christina, Hans fights them off and cuts one of them with a knife. But later, the frat boys kill the innkeeper and frame Hans for the murder. Hans is sent to the guillotine, and, in Shakespearean fashion, the distraught Christina kills herself. But wait! Frankenstein has been experimenting with a procedure for capturing the soul of a person who’s recently died. So he captures Hans’ soul and inserts it into Christina’s reanimated body. For good measure, he also corrects Christina’s physical deformities in the process. Seriously, this young lady could pass for a Playboy Playmate. (Actually, she is a Playmate–the actress [Susan Denberg] was Miss August a year earlier.)

Anyway, it turns out that as Christina harbors Hans’s soul, she shares in his quest for vengeance against the three frat boys. And so she methodically kills each of them. Then, with vengeance complete and yet with no actual Hans to love, Christina kills herself again. Dr. Frankenstein tries but fails to stop her, and in a final shot we sense that he may have come to realize the human cost of his experiments.

The Monster: Hammer claims that Frankenstein’s new creation is “the ultimate in evil: A beautiful woman with the soul of a devil!” To me, there’s nothing scary about this “monster.” Sure, she’s homicidal, but her rage is so pinpoint-focused against three completely repugnant men that you’re rooting for her.

It’s an interesting twist, though; I give them credit for that. However, the way it plays out this has more the flavor of Kill Bill than the Frankenstein story.

The Atmosphere: It’s what we’ve come to expect from Hammer’s Frankenstein movies: Gothic atmosphere, sumptuous costumes, some explicit gore, and plenteous cleavage. The requisite laboratory equipment is in operation, and the colors are garish.

General Comments: Compare the Hammer series to Universal’s Frankenstein movies. For Universal the creature was the constant. Even after Karloff stopped portraying the monster, the new actors adopted the same look. But in those Universal movies, Dr. Frankenstein was portrayed in many different ways, by very different actors. Hammer takes the opposite approach. The “monsters” are all different, and in this one it’s actually a beautiful woman. But Dr. Frankenstein is the same in these movies: It’s always Cushing, and we feel like we really get to know him across the course of the movies.

Tomorrow it’s on to Hammer’s fifth Frankenstein movie, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. It’s available on YouTube for two bucks.

Rankin-Bass is the shop that in the 1960s brought us a handful of Christmas-themed animated TV specials using semi-creepy stop-motion puppetry. In 1967 they released their only feature-length film, which actually played in theaters. It’s not the Frankenstein story, exactly, but it features Dr. Frankenstein (voiced by none other than Boris Karloff himself). The movie is meant as a spoof of various monster pictures.

The Plot: Dr. Frankenstein (an undisguised Boris Karloff) is about to retire as “leader of the World’s Organization of Monsters.” He plans to turn over the position, as well as his various medical discoveries and formulas, to his nephew, whose voice for some reason sounds just like Jimmy Stewart. Dr. Frankenstein calls all the world’s A-list monsters to a party (hence the title of the show) to share the news. But Francesca (Frankenstein’s voluptuous redheaded secretary) has other plans, and plots with Count Dracula to kill the nephew and take over the organization themselves. Dracula ends up double-crossing Francesca, and somehow the Monster and his bride also get in on the action. Eventually, though a lame plot device, Francesca has a change of heart, falls in love with the nephew, and the two of them escape during a climax that mimicks the Empire State Building/planes scene in King Kong.

The Monster: It’s a dopey-looking and dopey-acting monster. He doesn’t get much screen time, either. Boris Karloff (as Dr. Frankenstein) is much more interesting here. In fact, Karloff steals the show.

The Atmosphere: The atmosphere in this movie is actually quite good…for a stop-motion cartoon from the 1960s. Much of the action takes place inside Frankenstein’s castle, but there are some other venues as well. Most of the settings are solid renditions of monster-movie cliches. The groovy 1960’s soundtrack (sounding somewhat like the Pink Panther theme at times) obviously clashes with the standard monster atmosphere, but somehow it works.

General Comments: In many ways, this is an unwatchable movie. It’s too long, awkwardly clunky, eye-rollingly corny, and generally pointless. It’s possible that kids in the 1960s found it entertaining, but kids today would probably hate it. All that said, the anachronistic 1960s elements are oddly captivating. I’ve already mentioned the jazz-influenced soundtrack. And it’s got a number of lame song-and-dance numbers, which at times make it feel like a network variety show. At other times, its bizarre setpieces and goofy visual jokes involving bandaged mummies and toothless vampires make the film feel like Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Topping all this off, Phyllis Diller (yes, the Phyllis Diller) voices the Bride of Frankenstein character, who gets a surprising amount of screen time.

Somehow, each time I was about ready to turn off the movie, it sprung some surprise on me that managed to hook me for a few more minutes. Such as when Dracula tries to kill Dr. Frankenstein’s nephew. Or when Dr. Frankenstein improbably flies an early-20th century warplane. But the piece de resistance was when Francesca loses her dress and gets into a catfight in her underwear with Phyllis Diller. I’m not making this up.

It’s said that this movie inspired Tim Burton to do “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” That would explain a lot…

Tomorrow it’s back to Hammer’s Frankenstein series, with their fourth installment, Frankenstein Created Woman. I can’t find it online; the library is the only solution that I can find. But you can watch the trailers here.

You know how they say that some movies are so bad that they’re good? Well, that doesn’t apply here. This movie is so bad that it’s execrable. It was made with a minuscule budget and a bunch of no-name actors during a week in rural Florida. If that doesn’t have all the ingredients for a cinematic dog, I don’t know what does. Oh, and add to that that, despite the title, Frankenstein does not actually make an appearance in this movie.

But that’s not to say the film is without its merits. For example, it has a groovy early-60s soundtrack that some might find nostalgic. Also, one of the main actors had been Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1959. I’m not making this up.

But let’s go through this step by step:

The Plot: The movie opens aboard a Martian spaceship, commanded by the Playmate of 1959. Through painful expository we learn that Mars had a nuclear war, and the crew of this ship are the only ones to survive. What’s more, all the females (except for Miss 1959, presumably) were killed. So they’re on their way to find female “breeding stock” to take back to their planet.

Meanwhile, at a NASA press conference we are introduced to the astronaut who is going to make a solo mission to Mars. He’s a young, likable guy, but in the middle of the press conference he suddenly freezes, not moving a muscle. (It’s a lame “special effect,” achieved by stopping the film on a single frame.)

The astronaut’s handlers suddenly end the press conference and hurriedly usher the astronaut of the room. They then remove the top of his head and we learn that he’s actually an android. It seems the folks at NASA don’t want to risk any human lives on this mission, so they secretly developed this lifelike robot. Anyway, they fix the problem that led to his “freezing,” and they send him on his mission.

It’s worth mentioning here that there are many and long stretches of film depicting NASA buildings, missiles, space capsules, etc. And these are all grainy, black & white, stock footage, borrowed from news clips or official NASA films.

Anyway, you can probably guess what happens next. The ship from Mars encounters the NASA ship, and Miss 1959 has the NASA ship destroyed. The android astronaut parachutes out just in time (you have to wonder what altitude he’d achieved before he bailed out) and lands in Puerto Rico, where the Martians land and track him down. They shoot him with a ray gun that’s very obviously a Wham-O toy that was popular at that time. Observe:

Anyway, the guns manage to fry half of the astronaut’s synthetic skin. And the result, I think, is what had the producers thinking they could pass this off as a Frankenstein film. You have a man-made creature that looks deformed.

The astronaut manages to escape, but the Martians move forward with their plan to capture earth women. Naturally, they take their hunt to the beach and to pool parties, where they can more easily judge the quality of their quarry. This is perhaps the most laughable part of the movie. The women show absolutely no inclination to fight back, and in fact don’t seem to really care what’s going on at all. And the men who are with them at the pool party similarly just stand around resignedly, like a bunch of losers.

Meanwhile, the US military finally figures out there’s been an alien invasion, and they attack the Martian ship with reels and reels of stock footage from the Korean war or whatever. (One reviewer measured the amount of stock footage in this film, and it clocked in at 65 percent of the entire movie!)

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Through some plot contrivances, the injured astronaut finds himself aboard the Martian spaceship, and he frees the bikini-clad women. In response, the Martians turn loose their “Spacemonster” that they were keeping on board, presumably for this purpose. Even though the Spacemonster is laughably fake, it at least suggests the costume department put in a little effort.

And so, with only 4 minutes left to the movie, “Frankenstein” (i.e., the astronaut) finally meets the Spacemonster. There’s a brief battle, and its unclear how it ended, but somehow the astronaut gets hold of a Wham-O air blaster and destroys the ship, along with everyone on board (including himself).The world is saved.

The Monster: As noted earlier, I don’t think this qualifies as a monster at all, let alone a Frankenstein monster. He’s an android that works for NASA that just happens to have some damage to his synthetic skin. What’s more, he’s a “good guy” who ends up saving a bunch of women and, indeed, the planet.

The monster/astronaut is played by Robert Reilly, who appeared to two other minor movies in the 1960s. I can’t find any other intell on him.

The Atmosphere: This movie feels like boring, Eisenhower-era newsreel footage of American military actions and space launches. And that’s because literally two-thirds of the film is made up of boring, Eisenhower-era newsreel footage of American military actions and space launches. The one-third of the movie that actually involves new footage is largely composed of drawn-out, dialogue-free sequences of people walking.

The only truly interesting parts take place aboard the Martian spaceship. That’s mainly because an (inadvertently) campy Martian named Dr. Nadir keeps making the most absurd, melodramatic statements that make no real sense. He reminds me a lot of Uncle Fester on The Addams Family, only less dignified. You can see him in action here. (Seriously; you really have to watch this clip.)

Incidentally, Dr. Nadir is played by Lou Cutell, who would later appear as Amazing Larry on Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. He’s been in many movies (generally bit parts), and still walks the earth today at age 91.

The other thing we have to say about the atmosphere is the music. It actually seems to presage more modern movies, which use contemporary music prominently during dialogue-less scenes. It’s “hip” music from the early sixties, Daddy-O. You can listen to one of the songs from the soundtrack here.

General Comments: There’s a rumor that the writers of this movie originally conceived it as a parody of 1950s science fiction, but that the producers wanted to play it straight. Some humorous parody stuff may have originally been shot and later excised. I can’t find any such clips, though. Anyway, check out the trailer and decide for yourself whether this was intended to be viewed as a parody or as straight.

Whatever the truth, this movie fails both as a parody and as an earnest horror/science fiction movie. More to the point, this fails as a “Frankenstein” movie. (Evidently there were some alternative titles that had been considered, including “Mars Attacks Puerto Rico”. That would be less misleading, at least.)

Tomorrow: Remember Rankin-Bass, who made those unsettling stop-action animated Christmas shows like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman in the 1960s? Well, they also made a full-length Frankenstein movie with that same brand of puppet animation. You have to see it to believe it. Mad Monster Party is available on YouTube.

Peter Cushing returns in a continuity-free sequel to Revenge of Frankenstein, which itself was a sequel to Curse of Frankenstein. All three movies are from the British Hammer Studios, but this time the film is distributed by Universal-International. And as we’ll see below, that loosens up the restrictions on Hammer’s access to the the look and feel of the Universal’s original, 1931 Frankenstein.

The result, sadly, is a confused, cheesy movie that squanders all the momentum and excitement of Hammer’s first two Frankenstein movies. It has its moments, of course, but overall this film is an embarrassment.

The Plot: Remember where we’d left off with Revenge? Dr. Frankenstein (who was going by the alias “Dr. Stein”) is discovered for what he is, and is severely beaten by the angry villagers. His assistant transplants Frankenstein’s brain into another man-made creature, this time one that looks just like Dr. Frankenstein himself. And then the doctor goes to a new town, with a new alias: “Dr. Frank.”

Well, forget all that. When this film opens, the doctor is back to unabashedly using Frankenstein as his name, and he’s wandering around with his assistant looking for body parts to build a new creature. But he’s run out of money, and comes upon the idea of going back to his vacant, familial manor in Carlstaad to sell off some of the artwork or whatever. When he gets to town he discovers that his castle has been looted, and the Burgomaster is in possession of many of Frankenstein’s things. Frankenstein gets angry, picks a fight with the Burgomaster, and ends up getting chased out of town (never mind that the townsfolk believed him to be dead at the end of the last movie). He seeks shelter in a cave, and there he finds his old creature alive, but frozen in ice. (Haven’t we seen that trope a few times??)

Frankenstein thaws out the creature, takes it back to his abandoned castle, gets the equipment working again, and revives the monster. But he discovers that the brain is essentially on “pause,” and has to be rebooted by a hypnotist. Conveniently, he finds just such a person (named Zoltan) at the local carnival, and brings him to the castle to do his thing.

It works, but Zoltan secretly has the creature do his own bidding, killing his enemies and stealing valuables. When Dr. Frankenstein finds out, he has a row with Zoltan, who in turn commands the creature to kill Frankenstein. For some reason, though, the creature kills Zoltan. It then escapes and starts terrorizing the countryside. Somehow Frankenstein corners the creature back in his castle and it accidentally sets the laboratory ablaze. Frankenstein’s assistant and a mute girl who they’d befriended escape, and Frankenstein and his creature again appear to be consumed by flames and explosions.

There are actually a number of sub-plots that I glossed over, and some of them are fairly entertaining. But it’s hard to overlook how little this film advances the Frankenstein story.

The Monster: This is got to be one of the cheesiest monsters I’ve seen on film. And by that, I mean that its head appears to have been molded out of blue cheese.

You may note a vague similarity to Karloff’s monster, with the high, flat forehead and protruding brow. They say that this reflects Universal-International’s involvement with distributing the film. But I don’t really think it’s much of a homage to the original. This monster is laughably lame. What’s more, this film completely reverses the theme in the last film (Revenge), where the creature was sympathetic and relatable. This creature is just a hulking monster.

The creature is played by Kiwi Kingston, who, it should come as no surprise, is from New Zealand. Like a number of the actors portraying monsters, Kiwi had been a professional wrestler in his earlier years.

The Atmosphere: I have to admit that Hammer does pretty well delivering atmosphere. The costumes, sets, and especially the musical score are quite effective. It’s not realistic, mind you, but it feels like a well-done comic book.

But, as I’ve noted earlier, it’s all suffused with gory and lurid notes, and the whole thing comes across as tawdry rather than creepy. What’s more, the script, some of the acting, and some of the effects are so cheap as to be laughable. (One example is an obvious back-projection when Frankenstein supposedly rides a horse.)

Still, the overall effect is somewhat satisfying. Like a Big Mac. Which you end up regretting after you’ve time to digest it.

General Comments: This is not high art. It’s not even a good movie. But it’s a fun diversion for someone interested in the Frankenstein story, and who is intrigued by tracking the portrayals thereof over the years. So yeah, I guess it feels like research work.

I do have to credit Peter Cushing here though. He rises above the script, and offers a performance that is captivating and, dare I say it, believable. Thankfully, he’s in most of the scenes.

Tomorrow we review a movie that makes Terror of Frankenstein seem like Citizen Kane, by comparison. I am of course talking about Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster. It’s available on YouTube, for free! It’s worth every penny!

This is Hammer’s sequel to Curse of Frankenstein, which we reviewed a few days ago. At the conclusion of that earlier film, Victor Frankenstein (ably played by Peter Cushing) was on his way to the guillotine to pay for his crimes against humanity. In this sequel, we find that Frankenstein (again played by Cushing) managed to escape the guillotine by bribing the executioner.

Many consider this sequel to be superior to the original. I think the script is definitely better, but I’m not a big fan of Hammer’s growing obsession with pushing the envelope on gore. But let’s talk about the plot first.

The Plot: This movie takes place three years after Frankenstein had been sentenced to death. We learn that he’s moved to a small town in Germany (where, for some reason, everyone speaks with an English accent) to start his life afresh. In order to escape his past, he adopts an alias: “Dr. Stein.” (Surely no one will ever see through that.)

“Dr. Stein” has set up a medical clinic that serves the poor and destitute in his new community, and he is loved and respected by the townsfolk. He’s quite skilled at tending to the needs of his patients. So what if once in awhile he finds a need to amputate….and then keeps the severed limb for himself? Yes, it turns out that Frankenstein is secretly up to his old tricks, creating living beings by stitching together dead body parts.

With his assistant, Hans, Stein completes a strong and healthy body, and then animates it with the brain from a kind and intelligent (though physically deformed) man. In fact, this man (Karl) is completely supportive of the plan to transplant his brain. Once the operation is completed, Karl must recuperate for a few days in a locked room. But when he learns that “Dr. Stein” is going to take him on tour, along with the preserved, misshapen body he’d until recently inhabited, Karl escapes. He finds his old body in Frankenstein’s closet and throws it into a fire, and then kills a man (who definitely had it coming).

Eventually, with all the killing and disappearing bodies, the town leaders finally figure out that Dr. Stein is actually Frankenstein. And once Dr. Stein’s patients learn the truth, they beat him within an inch of his life in a horrific scene. Stein’s assistant takes him to the operating room, and tries to save Stein’s life. But Stein says “It’s no good. You know what to do.” “Yes,” says Hans, “I know what to do.” And he proceeds to transplant Stein’s brain into a preserved body that Stein had prepared “just for this eventuality.” And that leads to the final scene where, in another new town, a “Dr. Frank” appears, looking very much like Peter Cushing… (I’m not making this up.)

The Monster: This is one of the least scary-looking monsters you’ll find in a Frankenstein movie. He looks like a normal guy, except for the telltale scar across his forehead.

The monster is played by Michael Gwynne, who’d cut his teeth on the Shakespearean stage. He comes across as very sensitive and likeable. In fact, he’s befriended by the obligatory Hammer babe. You really feel for this guy, who’d been trapped in a misshapen body, and now he (or at least his brain) resides in a homemade body created by Dr. Frankenstein. But when he learns that Frankenstein is going to take him on tour as little more than a sideshow exhibit, he understandably freaks out.

After he takes a beating from a sadistic janitor, his brain seems to become damaged and his body begins to regress. The result is actually far scarier, in effect, than Karloff’s monster had been.

The Atmosphere: This film outdoes its predecessor (Curse of Frankenstein) for its lurid look. The colors are garish, the gore is gratuitous, and the musical score is melodramatic (though effectively so). The scenes of Dr. Stein’s medical ward show dirt, filth, and bloodstains marking most surfaces. His laboratory is full of freshly-cut body parts and disembodied eyeballs. Overall, I think Hammer successfully achieved the look they were shooting for, which I assume was intended to show the viewer the horror of Frankenstein’s experiments. Still, it was a little much for this viewer.

General Comments: I’m of two minds about this movie (if you’ll pardon the brain-transplant reference). On the one hand, this movie begins the movement of horror movies toward substituting blood and gore for creepiness, which I think is a huge mistake. On the other hand, it has an imaginative script and very good acting. In fact, Peter Cushing may be becoming my favorite Dr. Frankenstein.

It turns out that this movie represents the high water mark for Hammer’s Frankenstein ventures. Tomorrow we’ll see supporting evidence of the decline, which is The Evil of Frankenstein. You can watch it for free on YouTube. (Note that, in order to evade YouTube’s bots that can detect copyright infringements, this video shows the movie on half the screen, and random swirling stars on the other half. It’s a little distracting, but it’s the cost of not having to pay to watch this movie.)