The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) - film review

Victor Frankenstein is a precocious young man whose passion for science is matched only by his interest in the female sex, which is good because it helps him in his understanding of human anatomy.  When his skinflint father refuses to pay for his further studies, the cunning Victor arranges for him to have a convenient death and heads off to Vienna to begin his university career.  All to soon, Victor becomes bored with the dull routine of lectures and lab work and so, when he learns he has made the Dean’s daughter pregnant, he jacks it in and heads back home to continue his research in the comfort of his own castle.  Assisted by his young friend Wilhelm Kassner, Victor begins experiments to understand what causes life.  When he succeeds in reanimating a stolen tortoise, he decides to create a man from the body parts of corpses.  Naturally, young Wilhelm objects, so Victor has no choice but to shove a few thousand volts through him.  Ironic, really, that in order to create one life a chap is obliged to destroy so many others.  Such is the price of progress.   Anyway, Victor perseveres, employing a friendly grave robber to supply him with the raw materials for his work.  Although obsessed with his endeavours, Victor still finds time to amuse himself with his housekeeper, Alys, although she too becomes an irritant and soon ends up on the scientist’s blacklist.  Good thing he has a large supply of sulphuric acid.  Several grisly murders later, Victor’s efforts are finally rewarded.  Once he has assembled all of the body parts, he puts them together and – to his delight – he has made a living, breathing man.  Unfortunately, the thing he has created turns out to be a surly beast with absolutely no manners whatsoever.  Instead of showing gratitude for the life it has been given, the brute merely smashes things up and starts killing people.  Victor is most vexed.  Perhaps splitting the atom would have been a more fruitful line of research?

With its fortunes beginning to show a marked decline in the late 1960s, Hammer Films took the decision to focus its efforts on the genre that had given the company its biggest success over the previous two decades - the Gothic horrors.  The Horror of Frankenstein was conceived as a remake of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Hammer’s first film in the fantasy horror genre and the one that effectively launched the career of its stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.  The studio approached the writer of that film, Jimmy Sangster, for a new script treatment.  Sangster, who had scripted many of Hammer’s early horror films, was at first reluctant to come on board but agreed when the studio allowed him to produce and direct the film.  One thing Sangster was keen to do was to give this Frankenstein film a new slant, by introducing some dark humour into the story and making the scientist much more of an irresponsible villain.

Up until this point, Peter Cushing was the only actor to have played Baron Frankenstein in the Hammer films.  When the actor was unavailable for The Horror of Frankenstein, the studio was keen to hire as his replacement Ralph Bates, a rising young star who had won acclaim for his portrayal of Caligula in the ITV series The Caesars.   Bates had originally been intended to play Dracula in Hammer’s previous Gothic horror, Taste the Blood of Dracula, but this was vetoed by the film’s distributors who insisted that Christopher Lee reprise the role of the famous vampire.  With his Byronic good looks and flair for downbeat comedy, Bates proved to be an ideal casting choice for the part of the young Baron Frankenstein.  Ralph Bates would come a familiar face on British television in the 1970s and ’80s, starring in such prestigious series as Poldark, but he died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 51.

The part of the monster went to Dave Prowse, who would later become known to millions of schoolchildren in Britain as the Green Cross Man, before finding even greater fame as Darth Vader in the Star Wars films.  Kate O’Mara, who played Victor’s buxom housekeeper and all-round playmate, would also become a major star, best known for her role as the villainous Cassandra Morrell  in the American super-soap Dynasty.  The most distinguished actor in the cast at the time the film was made was Dennis Price, who plays the graverobber; he is best remembered for his portrayal of the man who repeatedly killed Alec Guinness in the Ealing classic Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).      

Although it shares the impressive production values of Hammer’s other Gothic horrors (as well as the derisory budget), The Horror of Frankenstein is an altogether different kind of film.  With its quirky humour and portrayal of Frankenstein as an anti-establishment sex-hungry rebel, the film is an obvious attempt to attract a younger audience.  Unfortunately, this departure was far from successful and Hammer would revert to its tried and tested formula for its subsequent Gothic horrors.  For the next (and final) Frankenstein film made by Hammer, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), the part of the scientist would once again be played by Peter Cushing.  

The Horror of Frankenstein may not be the best film in Hammer’s series of horror films, but its radically different take on a familiar story makes it interesting and entertaining.  However, you can’t help wondering that it might have been a much better proposition if Hammer had shown a little more daring and made it as an out-and-out parody, as Mel Brooks did so successfully in his 1974 film Young Frankenstein.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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