Frankenstein Created Woman

U.K. / 1967 Directed by Terence Fisher Starring Peter Cushing Susan Denberg Thorley Walters Color / 92 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC) Anchor Bay Entertainment

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	Review by Brian Lindsey

5     6   10 = Highest Rating

The fourth film in Hammer's Frankenstein cycle takes a very different slant than its predecessor, 1964's Evil of Frankenstein. That movie, a valiant attempt to evoke visual themes from the heyday of Universal's original monster films — it even has an exploding castle! — ultimately torpedoed itself with a cartoonish, episodic script. In Terence Fisher's '67 follow-up the nefarious Baron is again hard at work in the lab, only this time he's delving into the metaphysical: the transference of souls from body to body. This results in a gender-bending plot that's surprisingly amoral and comes to resemble a latter day slasher film, rather than the traditional Frankenstein story, in its denouement. In this case all the better... for the most part.     Baron Frankenstein (the always terrific Peter Cushing) has set up shop on the outskirts of a rural Balkan village, where he's assisted in his labors by the alcoholic, addle-brained Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters) and Hans Werner (Robert Morris), a young local man. With his customary fanaticism, the Baron is pursuing research into the nature of the human soul — how to "trap" it after death and transfer it from one body to another. We first encounter Frankenstein when his cohorts pull him from a freezing chamber in which he's lain clinically dead for one hour. He deduces that the soul resides within the body for at least 60 minutes after death; this time frame provides the needed window of opportunity to take his experiments to the next level.     With the Baron's successful revival, Hans is dispatched to the village inn to pick up a bottle of celebratory champagne. Something of a local outcast — his father was the town's most notorious blackguard, executed by guillotine when Hans was a boy — the young man is treated disparagingly by Herr Kleve, the innkeeper, who warns him to stay away from his daughter Christina (Anita Denberg). Hans has a crush on the shy, awkward girl, who would be considered beautiful if not for a gimpy leg and the terrible scars that mar one side of her face. Hans doesn't care about her physical imperfections, however. He sees the beauty within. Naturally it doesn't sit well with him when a trio of pompous young dandies, all scions of rich, powerful families, arrive at the inn and proceed to cruelly mock the woman he loves. A fight ensues, and Hans is hauled off by the pointy-helmeted police.     Later that night Herr Kleve is found murdered, beaten to death. Hans is implicated, though of course it is the three young punks who are responsible. The unfortunate Hans, who has an alibi — he spent the night in bed with Christina — refuses to disclose his whereabouts to protect her reputation. His gallantry assures him an appointment with the guillotine. As the police chief ominously intones in court: "Like father, like son!" Christina, the one person who could save Hans, isn't even aware that her father is dead. She's away visiting another town, consulting a doctor about her face. Meanwhile, Baron Frankenstein — never one to miss an opportunity — makes arrangements to get hold of Hans' corpse immediately after sentence is carried out.     The coach returns Christina to her hometown on the very day of Hans' execution, which she witnesses and is powerless to stop. Devastated, the misfortunate lass kills herself by jumping off a bridge into the river. When villagers bring her body to the house of Dr. Hertz for dispensation, the Baron can't believe his luck. With Hans' soul safely stored within a "frame of force" — an electrically-generated shield of impenetrable matter — fate has delivered to his doorstep another body with which to test his theory...     Frankenstein Created Woman is an offbeat entry in the Hammer cycle, and not just for its substitution of a lumbering male creature with a beautiful woman. (Of course the Baron and Hertz perform the greatest miracle of 19th Century plastic surgery on Christina once they've transplanted Hans' spiritual essence within her.) Cushing's mad scientist is actually likable here; he gets all the best quips and doesn't murder a single soul — pardon the pun. Urbane, with a rapier-like mind, he's clearly an intellectual giant among pygmies in this rural Balkan burg, so his arrogance seems almost justified. The true villains are the three young dandies, snobs of the privileged class who are insidiously cruel in their taunts of the disfigured girl. You really, really hate these guys and they fully deserve what's coming to them.     Denberg, though inexperienced (and dubbed), effectively conveys her dual role as the pre/post-experiment Christina. Focusing as much on Hans and Christina's doomed love as Frankenstein's activities, the screenplay and director Fisher present what is actually more of a tragic, gothic romance than a horror story. This could have been more intriguing had the film been made in Hammer's last few years, spiced up with more blood and (particularly) nudity. As it is, it's an acceptable time-waster with the usual excellent performance by Cushing. Fans of the late cult film legend should be entertained.

Yet another example of Anchor Bay's commendable treatment of Hammer titles. The letterboxed video transfer has never looked better. While flat, the Dolby mono audio track is clear and resonant. A segment of James Bernard's opening titles theme plays over the main menu.     Like others in AB's first batch of Hammer Collection DVDs, the disc comes with a few extras: two trailers and two TV spots, plus a short World of Hammer documentary (narrated by Oliver Reed) featuring clips from all the company's Frankenstein films, most of which starred Cushing and spanned Hammer's history from 1957's Curse of Frankenstein until the final chapter in the cycle, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974). 7/17/01

UPDATE This disc went OOP in 2003, then was reissued by Anchor Bay as part of a 2-disc set (pairing it with Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, also starring Cushing) during the summer of 2004. As of April 2007 the set was still available (new) at sites like Amazon.

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