The Curse of Frankenstein

The Curse of Frankenstein
File:Curseoffrankenstein.jpg original film poster
Directed by	Terence Fisher
Written by	Jimmy Sangster
Produced by	Anthony Hinds Max Rosenberg
Starring	Peter Cushing Christopher Lee Hazel Court Robert Urquhart
Cinematography	Jack Asher, B.S.C.
Edited by	James Needs
Music by	James Bernard
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release dates	May 2, 1957
Running time	83 min.
Country	UK
Language	English
Budget	$500,000 (estimated)

The Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions. 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. 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.

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 succeed in bringing a body he made to life utilising a corpse found swinging on a gallows, hands and eyes purchased from charnel house workers and 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 creature Frankenstein creates does not have the professor's intelligence and is both violent and psychotic due to its brain having been damaged before being implanted. The creature is locked up but escapes, is shot by Krempe and buried in the woods. Frankenstein later revives the creature and uses it to murder his maid, Justine, who he refuses to marry even though he has made her pregnant, 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 the death of Justine. 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 for his crime.

Cast

• Peter Cushing (Baron Victor von Frankenstein)
• Christopher Lee (The Creature)
• Hazel Court (Elizabeth)
• Robert Urquhart (Dr.Paul Krempe)
• Valerie Gaunt (Justine)
• Noel Hood (Aunt Sophia)
• Melvyn Hayes (Young Victor)

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. The film opened at the London Pavilion on May 2 1957 with an X certificate from the censors.

Significance

The Curse of Frankstein is important for a number of reasons. The film 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. The level of gore and violence was pioneering, and much condemned at the time — although this film, and Fisher/Hammer's subsequent Gothic horrors, can be seen as the forebear of the modern horror film.

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).

The film's structure also opens it up to an interesting interpretation, that being that the story of the creature is nothing more than an hallucination of Baron Frankenstein's. The majority of the film takes place as a flashback, with the Baron relating the story to the priest who visits him in his prison cell, which means that this version of the truth of the murders for which the Baron is condemned might be taking place only in his own mind. This is reinforced by Paul's comment to Elizabeth—who had been the Baron's fiancée—at the end of the film, that there is nothing more they can do for him. Taken one way, they can't help him avoid the guillotine. Taken another way, Paul is cynically sacrificing the Baron (and the truth about the creature's existence) so he can run off with Elizabeth. Taken a third way, Paul recognizes that the Baron is hopelessly insane, and is guilty of the murders, despite his desire to blame them on his imaginary creature. No subsequent Hammer horror film had this level of ambiguity.

Critical reception

When it was first released The Curse of Frankenstein outraged many reviewers. Dilys Powell of the Sunday Times regretted that such productions left her unable to 'defend the cinema against the charge that it debases' whilst the Tribune opined that the film was 'Depressing and degrading for anyone who loves the cinema'. The film however was very popular with the public and today directors such as Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton have paid tribute to how the movie has influenced their work.

Sequels

• 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.

External links

• The Curse of Frankenstein at IMDb
• The Curse of Frankenstein at AllMovie
• BFI Screenonline article
• Britmovie article