The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) - film review

Baron Frankenstein is on the verge of making another scientific breakthrough when a bunch of irate locals turn on him and drive him from his laboratory.  Penniless but not defeated, Frankenstein makes the journey back to his hometown of Karlstaad, accompanied by his faithful assistant Hans.  Only by selling off the furnishings in his abandoned castle will the scientist be able to raise the money to finance further research.  But his castle has been ransacked, his valuable property stolen!  After a run-in with the thieving Burgomaster, Frankenstein flees into the mountains, where he discovers his monster creation perfectly preserved in a glacier.  With Hans’ help, the baron manages to get the creature back to his castle and hastily sets about reviving him.  Realising that his creation’s brain is scrambled, Frankenstein enlists the help of carnival hypnotist Zoltan in taming him.  Unfortunately, Zoltan uses his power over the monster to direct it in a series of robbings and killings.  When Frankenstein finds this out, Zoltan orders the creature to kill him...

Loved by some, reviled by others, The Evil of Frankenstein is an oddity in the Hammer series of Gothic horrors in that it is a direct homage of the Universal classic horror films of the 1930s and 40s, overtly exploiting the famous iconography of these films.  As part of their deal with the film’s distributors, Universal, Hammer were allowed, for the first time, to replicate the design of these early films, and replicate they did, with a vengeance.   You’d almost think that plagiarism was going out of style.

The sequence in which Baron Frankenstein first animates his monstrous creation is a close approximation to what we see in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), and is easily the film’s highpoint.  The story is itself a hideous Frankenstein-like creation, a hotchpotch of ideas wantonly pillaged from Universal’s films, barely assembled into the vaguest approximation to a coherent narrative (just why wasn’t the film called Frankenstein’s Best Bits?).  The design of the monster is Hammer’s closest attempt at copying Jack Pierce’s famous square-headed creation for the original Frankenstein films - admittedly the job was completely botched, the result being more comical than frightening.

Hammer horror aficionados generally loathe this film because it breaks continuity with the preceding two Frankenstein films, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958).  There are other, more justifiable, reasons for disliking this film: its ramshackle plot, some absurd characterisation, and the scene in which the monster inexplicably acquires a taste for vintage wine and starts behaving like a stroppy teenager.  Yet, whilst the film does plumb the depths to an embarrassing degree in parts, it also has many plus points which prevent it from being written off as the cinematic equivalent of a multiple pile-up on a motorway.

With Universal’s backing, Hammer had more money to spend than usual, and this is apparent in the film’s lavish production design.  Few of Hammer’s films appear this expensive: the sets genuinely look as if they are made out of stone, not wobbly sheets of hardboard painted grey.  The film was directed by Freddie Francis, a last minute stand-in when Hammer’s horror director of choice Terence Fisher injured himself in a car accident.  Francis’s expertise was cinematography, and this is apparent in the film’s striking visual impression.  In contrast to many of Hammer’s films, which are shot far too statically, this one has a fluidity and pace that adds as much to the atmosphere and tension as the familiar chiaroscuro lighting and creepy Gothic set design.

A gripping performance from Peter Cushing keeps us distracted from the film’s weaker points (the clumsy attempts at humour and the risible plot) and allows the film to retain some vestige of sanity.  Cushing’s character isn’t the sinister fiend that he portrayed in the previous two Frankenstein films, but a misunderstood, almost likeable scientist who wants merely to extend the frontiers of human knowledge.  The film’s title is an obvious misnomer, since here Baron Frankenstein is pretty well the good guy (albeit one who spends much of his leisure time doing such anti-social things as ripping hearts out of dead bodies).  

It’s a shame that none of the supporting artists is able to match up to the excellence of Cushing’s bravura performance.  Peter Woodthorpe’s Zoltan is little more than a moustache-twirling villain (without the moustache), David Hutcheson’s Burgomaster looks as if he has been hired for the day from a third-rate Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, and, as the lumbering monster who unfortunately looks like the result of cross-fertilising the Mummy with a cornflakes packet, Kiwi Kingston really should have stuck with his day job, as a professional wrestler. 

Still, for all its shortcomings, The Evil of Frankenstein is all good clean fun, and surprisingly violent for a Hammer film of this era (hence the extensive cuts and re-shoots for the syndicated American TV version).  Whilst this is by no means the best of Hammer’s Gothic horrors, it still manages to be an entertaining romp, all the more enjoyable if you like spotting the references to Universal’s own horror offerings.

© Alex Sullivan 2010

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