The Curse of Frankenstein
| The Curse of Frankenstein | |
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 original film poster |
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| Directed by | Terence Fisher |
| Produced by | Anthony Hinds Max Rosenberg |
| Written by | Jimmy Sangster |
| Starring | Peter Cushing Christopher Lee Hazel Court Robert Urquhart |
| Music by | James Bernard |
| Cinematography | Jack Asher B.S.C. |
| Editing by | James Needs |
| Distributed by | Warner Brothers |
| Release date(s) | May 2, 1957 |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $500,000 (estimated) |
| Followed by | The Revenge of Frankenstein |
The Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, based on the novel Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour 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.[1] The film was directed by Terence Fisher and starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Lee and Cushing would both go on to enjoy long film careers, usually as the protagonists in other films of the same genre.
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[edit] Plot
The film starts with Baron Victor Frankenstein, in prison awaiting execution for murder, where he tells the story of his life to a priest. After succeeding to his father's estate at a young age, he is mentored by Paul Krempe. As Victor Frankenstein grows up, the two become great friends, and they eventually collaborate on the Baron's scientific experiments. One night, they successfully bring a dead dog back to life. Frankenstein suggests that now they must create life from scratch, but Krempe withdraws when Frankenstein suggests using human body parts.
Victor Frankenstein does eventually create his own creature, utilising a corpse found swinging on a gallows, and hands and eyes purchased from charnel house workers. Next, he seeks the brain of a distinguished professor. Frankenstein invites the professor to visit in order to murder him by pushing him off the top of a straircase, making his death appear accidental, before having him buried in the Frankenstein family vault. Unfortunately, the professor's brain is damaged in an ensuing scuffle, with the result that the creature Frankenstein creates does not have the professor's intelligence and is both violent and psychotic. Frankenstein locks the creature up, but it escapes; Krempe shoots it and buries it in the woods. Frankenstein later revives the creature and uses it to murder his maid, Justine (whom the Baron refuses to marry even though he has impregnated her) when she threatens to tell the authorities about his strange experiments.
The creature escapes again and threatens Frankenstein's bride-to-be, Elizabeth. It is shot and falls into a bath of acid. Its body is completely dissolved, leaving no proof that it ever existed. Frankenstein is imprisoned for Justine's death. He implores the returning Krempe to testify to the priest and his gaolers that it was the creature that killed Justine, but Krempe refuses and Victor Frankenstein is led away to be executed.
[edit] Cast
- Peter Cushing as Baron Victor von Frankenstein
- Christopher Lee as The Creature
- Hazel Court as Elizabeth
- Robert Urquhart as Dr. Paul Krempe
- Valerie Gaunt as Justine
- Noel Hood as Aunt Sophia
- Melvyn Hayes as Young Victor
- Paul Hardtmuth as Professor Bernstein
- Fred Johnson as Grandpa
[edit] Production
Peter Cushing, who was then best known as a ubiquitous television star in Britain, was actively sought out by Hammer for this film. Christopher Lee's casting, meanwhile, resulted largely from his height (6'4"). 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.[2] The film opened at the London Pavilion on May 2, 1957 with an X certificate from the censors.
[edit] Significance
The Curse of Frankstein began Hammer's tradition of horror film-making. It also marked the beginning of a Gothic horror revival in the cinema on both sides of the Atlantic, paralleling the rise to fame of Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein series in the 1930s.
Hammer's version of Frankenstein differed from Universal's in several important ways:
- the films were in colour, not black-and-white,
- the focus was on the Baron rather than the creature,
- Frankenstein was assisted by young men eager for greater knowledge rather than hunchbacks (like Fritz in the 1931 version of Frankenstein).
[edit] Critical reception
When it was first released, The Curse of Frankenstein outraged many reviewers. Dilys Powell of the Sunday Times wrote that such productions left her unable to "defend the cinema against the charge that it debases", while the Tribune opined that the film was "Depressing and degrading for anyone who loves the cinema". The film was very popular with the public, however, and today's directors such as Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton have paid tribute to it as an influence on their work.[3]
[edit] Sequels
Unlike the Universal Frankenstein series of the 1930s and 1940s, in which the character of the Monster was the recurring figure while the doctors frequently changed, it is Baron Frankenstein that is the connective character throughout the Hammer series, while the monsters change. Peter Cushing played the Baron in each film except for The Horror of Frankenstein, which was a remake of the original (Curse of Frankenstein) done with a more satiric touch.
- The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
- The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
- Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
- Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
- The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
- Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973)
A novelization of the film was written by John Burke as part of his 1966 book The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Sinclair McKay (2007) A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films
- ^ Rigby, Jonathan, (2000). English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 1-903111-01-3.
- ^ Sinclair McKay (2007) A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films
[edit] External links
- The Curse of Frankenstein at the Internet Movie Database
- The Curse of Frankenstein at Allmovie
- The Curse of Frankenstein at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- The Curse of Frankenstein at Britmovie.co.uk.
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