The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)

 "Times are hard. People just aren't dying off so quick..."

This isn't the first time I've seen this film, but it's probably pushing two decades since I last saw this, and it's lost none of its power. It's a shame the film, apparently, flopped at the box office; the script, direction and Ralph Bates are all superb, and even Kate O'Mara's inexplicable mittel-European Irish accent strangely works.

The Curse of Frankenstein introduced Hammer Horror films properly, telling the familiat story with a focus on Frankenstein himself as an amoral and obsessive villain rather than a tragic figure. This film absolutely doubles down on that, with Bates' Victor Frankenstein being a cynical, manipulative, cold bastard who not only kills for his work but demands sex from his housekeeper and cruelly refuses to marry Elizabeth, who is besotted with him, but cruelly exploits her financial troubles to make her his housekeeper. This Frankenstein is a deliciously nasty piece of work, and Bates carries this film in an absolute tour de force of a performance, although Dennis Price is absolutely wonderful as the splendidly camp grave robber,.

The monster turns up fairly late on in the film, but that doesn't matter. It's all about Frankenstein himself as the antihero we love to hate. Best of all, he survives unharmed at the end, unlike all of those who have crossed or even annoyed him. This is peak, confident Hammer, and t's superb, box office be damned.

The Trollenberg Terror (1958)

"His head! It was torn off!"

Oh my God. Those special effects are... somewhat vintage. You can see why Mystery Science Theatre:3000 chose this almost-Hammer to start off with.

It feels uncannily like a third Quatermass film, with the plot and the character being played by Forrest Tucker both being very much in that lineage. Yet the original TV series upon which this is based (now sadly lost) was not penned by the mighty Nigel Kneale, and the whole effect is somewhat more light-hearted. And, yes, those monsters are... unique. Not for nothing was the film, under its US title of The Crawling Eye, used by Stephen King for an, er, tribute in It.

It’s fun and entertaining from the unconvincing matte paintings of the first scene to the realisation that the balding scientist with the balding late is being played by Alf Garnett. It’s formulaic, feels exactly like a sort of late Fifties Hammer monochrome sci fi film in spite of not technically being one (although it is from
Jimmy Sangster’s pen) and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. You can sort of tell it’s a truncated version of the lost six part telly series but it isn’t badly paced. And with that monster I think I may actually prefer it to either of its two Quatermass bedfellows.

The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959)

"I always have a small one before I operate..."

This early Hammer is a bit odd: the opening is genuinely atmospheric, the style of the titles is very Hammer and it feels like an early Hammer. But it's not really a horror film in that there little suspense- and the lack of suspense makes for a short film that feels so much longer. It really drags.

Christopher Lee is good as Pierre, the dignified hero (yes, he plays a hero!), while Anton Diffring phones it in as evil surgeon Georges, who is 104 but looks about 35, having achieved immortality by means of murdering a woman every ten years, and has an inexplicably German accent. Hazel Court impresses as Janine, the female love interest who... well, that basically sums up the character.

The basic plot, from a play by Barre Lyndon, should in theory make a good film in the same way Jekyll and Hyde has several times and yes, there's atmosphere, but the problem is there's never any suspense- and Diffring just doesn't have the charisma to carry the film. The result is a distinct lack of excitement, a rarity with early Hammer when the quality was generally high.

The film's riff on immortality achieved by the murder of others is hardly original although, with its murders of women including a prostitute in the Paris of 1890, and given Robert Holmes' fondness for Hammer, it's a probable influence on the Doctor Who story The Talons of Weng-Chiang. 

X the Unknown (1956)

"It's on it's way for the biggest meal of its life."

Yes, Mr. Kneale. We realise you refused permission to use the character of Professor Quatermass in this film. What's that, Mr. Kneale? Oh, no. Heaven forbid. The character of Dr Adam Royston is in no way a thinly veiled carbon copy of the good Professor. And the odd similarity of the format to your own work is just coincidence. Small world, isn't it, Mr. Kneale?

Suspicious coincidences aside, this is a good and entertaining film, if a rather shirt one. Not bad for the first ever Hammet horror, or not, depending how you define these things; to me this is very much science fiction.

Oh, it's a little odd that none of the characters seem to notice that Royston is American, and the young Frazer Hines' Scottish accent is a bit rubbish at this stage although, to be fair, give it ten years and he'll get a lot of practice. Also, it's the '50s, so everything is radiation this and radiation that. 

This is a fairly inconsequential diversion, but, if you can stand the sight of Leo "Rumpole of the Bailey" McKern bring indecently young, it's a fun and entertaining film.

The Mummy (1959)

“He’s a foreigner!”

“Well, he can’t help that, poor chap.”

This will be my last Hammer horror film for a bit (there’ll be plenty more, but this blog needs a bit of variety- perhaps a Western next?). It already feels different, though; the specific areas in both Egypt and England (an area where all the working class people seem to be Irish) may be fictional, but this is a far cry from the vague Mittel-Europa settings we’ve seen thus far.

This is the first time I’ve seen a proper mummy movie, but it amuses me how many of the tropes I recognise from popular culture, and not least certain episodes of Doctor Who. It isn’t the best Hammer horror but it’s entertaining enough once it gets going. This takes some time, though. This is a no-frills journey through the standard tropes, played dead straight, sort of. Like other early Hammers, there’s definitely an element of camp ironic humour, but it’s as deadpan as deadpan can be.

We begin in colonial Egypt, in 1895. Archaeologist Stephen Banning, his brother Joseph, and John, his son with a gammy leg (Peter Cushing) have spent ages looking for the hidden tomb of Ananka, an ancient high priestess. An Egyptian chap in a fez (cool!) played by the splendid George Pastell delivers the sort of warning of dire consequences which are de rigeur for these sorts of films, but this doesn’t deter John. He enters the revealed tomb, and it’s completely undisturbed. The inside of the tomb, incidentally, looks magnificent.

It all happens very fast; we hear a scream, and suddenly we’re in England three years later. Stephen is in a mental institution, John has an even gammier leg and none of them seem remotely capable of going more than ten seconds without lighting a cigar or pouring a glass of whisky.

After years of being completely out of it, Stephen wakes up and warns John of “the mummy”. Other things are afoot, too; that Egyptian chap is nearby, and we discover that drinking and driving was rife in the 1890s. Tsk. This leads to their cargo, a mysterious Egyptian casket, falling into a conveniently placed swamp. This seems not to upset the Egyptian bloke, though. Look at his face. Is he bovvered?

Later, Egyptian bloke reads the scroll and brings the mummy to life. It’s rather muddy and visually engaging. It seems such a waste of Christopher Lee to just put him in bandages like this. Still, the following scene, a nice bit of exposition from John, quickly segues into an extended flashback where Christopher Lee gets to play Kharis, during life as an Egyptian priest, and not only gets a good few lines but ends up looking really rather cool. Still, it’s always a shock to see how small a role Lee tends to play in these early Hammers.

These scenes of Ananka’s death rites feature some genuinely horrifying scenes, and this is where the film starts to wake up. The scenes of the handmaidens calmly bowing their heads, awaiting decapitation and death so they can serve the princess in the afterlife, make quite an impression as the camera cuts away and instead we hear the swords strike. The horror grows as Kharis returns at night, blasphemously, to attempt the resurrection of the woman he secretly and illicitly loved. He is caught, and doomed to an awful fate. The scene where his tongue cut out is the most horrible thing I have ever seen- the camera cuts away as the sword hits the tongue, but the process up to this point is quite graphic.

Kharis is sentenced to be buried alive, ready to be brought back to life to avenge any desecration of his beloved’s tomb. And, the backstory now revealed, the mummy is sent forth by Egyptian Bloke to kill Uncle Joseph. John fails to stop him, but manages to let off a load of gunshots which, naturally, entirely fail to kill the mummy.

Then we get the really shocking bit: John casually admits to a police inspector (with an uncanny resemblance to Nicolas Sarkozy and an inexplicably North American accent) that he shot the murderer several times, and there’s absolutely no suggestion of any legal trouble whatsoever. Even more incredibly, he tells the inspector everything and, while the inspector is at least sceptical, you’re left with the impression that the police are extraordinarily deferential to country gents on Planet Hammer.

John knows the mummy is after him, though, and we’re not surprised to see the Egyptian Bloke send it to kill him. At this point John’s wife, Isobel, the only woman in the film, finally gets the first of what must be less than a dozen lines. The character is a complete doormat. John “orders” her to lock herself away while he waits for the mummy. It’s feminism gone mad.

Oh, and John’s wife is the very image of Ananka, it seems, and the mummy promptly buggers off for a bit. It there anyone who’s seen this film and didn’t immediately guess the entire rest of the plot at this point?

Conveniently, the inspector has been making enquiries which lead him now to believe John’s story. He tells John that under no circumstances whatsoever should he make contact with Egyptian Bloke so, naturally, he does exactly that. It seems his actual name is Mehemet Atkill, which sounds Turkish rather than Arabic, but never mind. It’s amusing to see John’s staggering lack of tact in scoffing at those who worship the god Karnak- in real life not a god at all but a temple complex near Thebes. I don’t think John realises that the man facing him worships this god; he’s just not very bright, is he?

Inevitably, Mehemet and the mummy come after John, but he’s expected. The mummy is about to kill John, but again he sees Isobel. When Mehemet tells him to kill Isobel, he is casually killed, and things start to go all King Kong as the mummy takes Isobel into the swamp. This is a bit of a weird love triangle- I wonder which of them Isobel prefers? Probably the mummy. I can’t imagine John would be much good in bed. Alas, he puts her down, and gets riddled with bullets.

It’s a film of two halves, really, this. But it’s probably short enough to be worth seeing.

Dracula (1958)

“Sleep well, Mr Harker…”

We get a statement of intent very early on, with some blood spattering on to a coffin- these early Hammer horror films certainly like their bright Technicolor red blood!

We're in some vague part of Horror Film Mittel-Europa in 1885. As with Curse of Frankenstein, this is a stylised and intentionally vague setting.  Jonathan Harker is heading to Castle Dracula and, in a slight nod to the epistolatory nature of the novel, this part of the plot is narrated through his diary. The inside of the castle is at the same time luxurious and bleak, with the large rooms marked by harsh straight lines and a total absence of carpets or any hint of softness.

After a brief and disturbing encounter with a woman whom Dracula is apparently taken prisoner, Harker finally meets Christopher Lee’s Count who, although sinister, appears polite enough, to the point of complimenting a picture of Harker’s fiancée, Lucy Holmwood. It seems Harker, a scholar, is to work as his librarian, but it soon becomes apparent that Dracula is only available during the hours of darkness, and that Harker’s door is locked during the night.

But Harker, we learn, has ulterior motives, and is here to kill the notorious Count, who from this point on ceases to be a character and just becomes a monster, never speaking another line for the rest of the film. But poor Harker is doomed; he agrees to help the temptress he met earlier, and gets bitten in the course of a vamp-fight between her and the, er, vampire. Both she and Drac look great, and there’s lots and lots of blood.

Harker, himself doomed to become undead, manages to make it to the crypt before sundown, but chooses to stake the woman before the Count himself. WHY?

The inevitable happens, and we cut to Peter Cushing in one of those Hammer inns where all the locals stop talking as soon as a stranger enters. Still, armed with Harker’s diary, he’s soon delivering the news of Harker’s death to Arthur Holmwood (played by Michael Gough, later to play the Celestial Toymaker in Doctor Who and Alfred in Tim Burton’s Batman), brother of Harker’s fiancée, and his wife Mina, future star of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s splendid The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He receives a frosty reception, however, and Lucy can’t be told the news as she’s very ill with anaemia.

We soon see the reasons for this, however; Lucy is delivering her windows open at night and removing her crucifix, allowing Dracula to come in and bite her, night after Night. The erotic charge is so electric here that I’d be tempted to say “get a room, you two” except… they have. For the first time in the film we have the obvious use of vampirism as a metaphor for sex, and as we’ll see this tells us quite a lot about the sexual mores of late Victorian times as opposed to the late 1950s. On the surface this is an unhealthily puritanical message about sex but I don’t think the film is quite playing this straight. Like Curse of Frankenstein there’s something camply humorous about this film, even if it’s played very, very deadpan.

It’s a bit jolting to see Van Helsing listening to audio recordings of himself, even if it is from an ancient-looking gramophone and even though his butler seems to be amazed. There are plenty of audio recordings from the 1880s on Youtube (look for Gladstone and a very drunk Robert Browning!) but none of them have anything approaching this sound quality.

Van Helsing uses this rather obvious expository device to inform us that vampire bites are addictive and that this eventually results in death through loss of blood. Consulted by Mina, he soon discovers that this is what is happening to Lucy. He orders the windows to be closed and Lucy’s bed to be surrounded by garlic, but this is not adhered to and the girl dies.

Van Helsing now has no choice but to let Arthur into his confidence, especially as the undead Lucy is now walking the grounds of the house, threatening their daughter Tania. Arthur catches the undead Lucy the following night, and is only saved from being bitten by Van Helsing. These scenes are atmospheric, effective, and really bring home how this film is set in a dreamlike, stylised world of cemeteries, castles, inns, sleepy border guards and nothing else, which feels culturally German, Slavic and Romanian all at once, and vaguely evokes the cultural mix of Habsburg Austria, yet is full of characters with English names.

Lucy is stakes, and Van Helsing and Arthur have a bit of a chat in some comfy chairs with some brandy, as gents in Hammer films are wont to do. It seems that vampires cannot in fact turn into bats; evidently the budget won’t stretch that far. But, just as our heroes are beginning to get a grip, Mina is lured to Dracula’s base of operations, and from that point onwards is under his spell. Again, there’s a sexual subtext here, and in this case it’s a rather emasculating one for poor old Arthur; apparently he’s not satisfying her. Actually, given the blatant eroticism of what can only be described as the sex scene between Dracula and Mina, I’m not sure the word “subtext” is entirely appropriate…

Arthur’s implied emasculation is even more tragic as he’s clearly a decent and loving husband, as we see him selflessly donating an alarming amount of blood to save his wife, who presumably shares the same blood group. Understandably, he’s a little sapped after this, but Van Helsing has some sound medical advice: “Now, you need plenty of fluid. Tea, coffee or, better still, wine.” Yes, that’s right, Van H. Wine isn’t in any way dehydrating, is it?

We finish with a chase, incorporating a bit of comic relief at the border, and Dracula’s final gruesome death by sunlight. An excellent film, this- atmospheric, just erotic enough, just gory enough and very well-acted indeed.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

“Pass the marmalade, Elizabeth.”

Right then, here begin the movie reviews! And we start with, er, some text in a Gothic font. And then the credits, and the music, and the picture quality, and the vistas- definitely not TV! Interesting from the start that, although nominally set in Switzerland, this is a stylised and not necessarily realistic Mittel-European setting. The outdoor scenes seem to be sets at least some of the time, and any vistas of Alpine scenes are not really intended to look natural.

Peter Cushing is fantastic as Victor Frankenstein, and it’s interesting to see how straight he plays it, as he dominates the film such as to set the whole tone. Of course, the whole thing is, deep down, terribly camp, and feels as though it is intended as such, but it’s a very, very deadpan sort of camp.

The film is told in flashback, with the main narrative bookended by scenes of a desperate Frankenstein awaiting his execution. We then cut to scenes of him as an intelligent, enthusiastic but rather cold young man, who uses his vast inherited wealth to ensure that he gets the best scientific education money can buy, striking up a close friendship with his tutor, Paul.

But all this starts to fall apart as soon as the pair succeed in bring a dead dog back to life. The cracks immediately begin to appear in their relationship; Paul thinks only of the medical benefits this could bring, while Victor immediately shows signs of Evil Genius Syndrome, interested only in his own knowledge and personal glory. And the morally dodgy decisions start here; first he steals the body of a hanged man, then he buys a pair of eyes, and then he robs the grave of a celebrated sculptor for his hands! Interestingly, though, towards the end of the film Victor protests that all doctors rob graves, for the benefit of humanity, and Paul doesn’t demur. This is a rare moment of moral ambiguity.

The part played by Victor’s doormat of a cousin, Elizabeth, is disturbing. Firstly, because they plan an incestuous marriage (eurgh!). Secondly, this is the second quarter of the nineteenth century (going by the fashions), and yet no one raises an eyebrow at the two of them living together. But she is so naïve, not questioning Victor’s obsession with his experiments or his extreme neglect of her. The only one who genuinely seems to care about her is Paul.

Victor’s even worse than that, though; he’s having an affair with his maid, Justine, and has promised both women that he’ll marry them. From this point on, having established that he’s a cad and a bounder, the film shows him becoming more and more morally repulsive.

The visit from Professor Bernstein highlights an odd thing about this film; why is it that the main characters speak with Received Pronunciation while the minor characters all sound a bit German? Aren’t they all supposed to be speaking Swiss German? Also amusing is the scene where Elizabeth naively bemoans the time her fiancé spends in the laboratory,, and we pan to the two men with their brandy and cigars. The gender roles in this film are quite hilariously antediluvian at times.

Be that as it may, Victor’s casual and shocking murder of the Professor is a huge turning point. Of course, the Professor is then buried in Frankenstein’s family vault, from where he can cheerfully obtain the brain. This film’s version of Baron Frankenstein is much more villainous than is usually the case.

Paul, by now, has huge scruples and, in a scuffle between him and Victor, the brain is apparently damaged- although we only ever have Victor’s word for this. It isn’t long, though, until Paul is persuaded to help. But the monster has unexpectedly been brought to life, and it looks very effective indeed. Christopher Lee’s make-up looks nothing like the Universal version, for legal reasons, but this is a real strength.

The argument between Victor and Paul after the monster escapes is interesting. Paul wants it killed, but is it not a sentient being? This monster has nothing of the pathos of Karloff’s version, though. He simply terrifies the blind man and (implicitly) kills him, while the child by the lake (in this version a boy) apparently survives.

The scene where Paul shoots the monster is visibly shocking and horrible, with plenty of blood, but that’s it. The monster’s dead. Paul can now leave. Except--- has it not been foreshadowed that Frankenstein can bring the dead back to life.

Victor further demonstrates his utter caddishness in cruelly mocking the pregnant Justine, whom he had promised to marry with no intention of doing so. Now he simply dismisses her, very possibly to a very grim fate. The power imbalance between them, in terms of both class and gender, is huge. She looks for evidence in the lab with which to prove his crimes to the authorities, but he locks her in with the monster; his second murder.

Paul finally returns on the eve of the wedding to see the monster, resurrected and pathetic, reduced to spending its life on the end of a chain, obeying simple and pointless commands from its master. Paul, appalled, resolves to go to the authorities but, while they remonstrate, the monster escapes, heading to the roof for the climax. In the end it is Victor, threatened by his own creation, who shoots the monster.

We return to the cell, where Victor begs first the priest and then Paul to support his story that it was the monster, not he, who murdered Justine. But he is, of course, being disingenuous; it was he who locked her into the room with the monster, and in any case he was already a murderer by this point. A last scene between Pauil and Elizabeth strongly implies them to be a future couple, as our last shot lingers over the guillotine.

That was good, albeit with a lack of irony that would be impossible for such a film nowadays. The ethical dilemmas look a little different, too, in these days of stem cell research. A good start for Hammer horror, though. I’ll have to watch the Universal version soon…