Ghoul Assembly: Part five - Spent Penny

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…

We watched the last ever episode of Penny Dreadful this week - a wholly unique series which falls perfectly into this series of posts about 'monster mash-ups'. Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and his intended Bride, a Wolf Man or two, Dorian Gray, Doctor Jekyll and various witches and demons all collided over the three years which this series lasted.

Not all of these people are quite human.  Hardly any, actually...

But none of these figures were mere archetypes, they were all as complex and nuanced as any of the programme’s human characters. To say this was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen done right is to pay disservice to both works - Penny Dreadful was like nothing else on television, stately in it’s pacing, utterly unpredictable and sometimes infuriating in it’s determination to avoid convention. 

 Oh how I gnashed my teeth in frustration when they introduced the very great David Warner as Van Helsing, no less, only to kill him off in the following episode!

Ethan's real last name is Talbot and he has an affinity with wolves.
Nope, nothing sinister here...

But above all, this was one of the most beautifully shot period drama TV I’ve ever seen - absolutely suited to a huge cinema screen - particularly the wild west vistas of this last season. Pause any frame from any moment of this series and you could frame it to hang it on your wall.

Victorian factories on the Thames - it's like being there

Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives was arguably the central character, initially drawn into events through there friendship with a certain Mina Murray. Mina doesn’t survive her encounter with a particular Transylvanian Count in this story, but her father Sir Malcolm (played impeccably by a grizzled but formidable Timothy Dalton) does. He becomes Vanessa’s protector and they gather an extraordinary league about them, all with their own secrets and dark pasts.

Dark events always centre on Vanessa - she's a spook magnet

To try and précis the dark and spiralling twists the series took is a fool’s errand, but moments stand out above the others. The first appearance of the Frankenstein creature and Greys portrait are unforgettable but for me Billie Piper’s Lily has the most startling scene. In the process of leaving her cringing creator Victor Frankenstein after terrorising him into submission, she suddenly turns and retrieves a bouquet of flowers he had naively offered. Her arm darts out like a striking snake, attention utterly focussed on this one action as if he no longer even exists, and then she’s gone. Something about this explosion of animalistic intensity in a harmless, even endearing, act is very unsettling.

Billie Piper as Lily Frankenstein - she's nobody's Bride.

It hasn’t been a flawless ride. Season two took a swerve from the Dracula story to involve us in what seemed to be a very long encounter with a coven of demonic sorceresses. It had it’s moments, but seemed to lose momentum and meander a little, concluding unsatisfactorily in one of those hallucinatory ‘confronting your own guilty past’ sequences.

https://vimeo.com/173809812

(A 4:43 effects reel for Penny Dreadful season 3 - well worth a look.)

This final year was an absolute return to form. Every character given more depth, and some welcome new ones added, particularly Victorian adventuress Catriona Hartdegen, played by Perdita Weeks with an unusual delivery which makes it appear as if she’s being dubbed.

A lengthy interlude in the United States provides a fascinating Western adventure with added werewolves and Brian Cox, before returning to London, and Vanessa, both now in the sway of Dracula. The silent, fog-shrouded city, abandoned by the living and haunted by rats and ragged clusters on the undead, has all the elements for a worthy sequel to Bram Stoker’s novel.

The final showdown...

But now Penny Dreadful is gone, the usual masterpiece title sequence replaced with the simple caption ‘The End’. Victorian London will never seem so sumptuous, or foreboding, again - and these familiar characters may not be re-interpreted so memorably for a very long time.

Ghoul Assembly: Part four - Rumble in the Castle

Stitch this - fur flies in the original monster smack-down

Lon Chaney jnr, having played the Monster and the Wolf Man in their previous solo films,
was originally slated to play both roles in this film.

The monster mash-ups I’ve looked at so far have involved generally amicable meetings of monsters.  Disagreements are inevitable, but that hasn’t been the core of either Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Monster Squad, or Bride of Frankenstein.  This first sequel to The Wolf Man and fourth to Frankenstein was set up purely by Universal t have it’s two most profitable monsters ‘throw down’.  Despite going on to arguably eclipse the other horror-nati, Dracula wasn’t given a franchise of his own by Universal (even the Mummy got his own film series)! I’ll speculate on the reasons for this when we look at our next film.

But the fact that poor Bela Lugosi never received the recognition which he deserved at the time is undeniable, and here we see him reduced to playing the Frankenstein Monster - in his sixties.  He had famously turned down the role in his hey-day, rightly deeming it ‘not sexy enough’, and so unknown actor Boris Karloff took the role and his own name to undying stardom instead.

Didn't your mother tell you never to thaw out Monsters you don't know?

Not only were Lugosi’s speaking scenes cut in Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (at this point the monster has the brain of Ygor - also played by Lugosi in a previous instalment), but so was any reference to him being blind as a result of that transplant.  This renders Lugosi’s flailing movements a little puzzling to audiences, but did also set the template for the arms-outstretched ‘Frankenstein Monster walk’, forever.
Another theory for Lugosi's lines being cut was the studio's reluctance in having a heavily European-accented antagonist delivering scripted dialogue about world domination in 1943. 

Either way, the Lugosi is more often doubled by stuntmen in this film - particularly in the climactic battle.

Or open wolfsbane-filled coffins on the night of a full moon?

In the other corner, poor Lawrence Talbot finds that the werewolf curse he gained in The Wolf Man also appears to make it impossible for him to stay dead.

In a splendidly creepy scene, Grave-robbers get the fright of their lives when they break into Talbot’s tomb, allowing moonlight to shine into the wolfsbane-filled coffin.

Revived and more determined than ever to rid himself of the curse, he travels to Universal’s fairy tale Europe to once again seek help from gypsy woman Maleva who only offers spectacularly bad advice.  She recommends a certain doctor familiar with the secrets of life after death - and they journey together to castle Frankenstein.

The first part of this film - the ‘Wolf Man sequel section’, is as good as anything Universal ever produced.  Lon Chaney jnr is as one note as ever, but it is the perfect note for his tortured character.  It is only when he thaws out and befriends the weakened Frankenstein monster that the film seems to veer off the rails.

Larry Talbot and the Monster seem to get on, but his alter-ego takes exception.

I first saw this with friends at a legendary Sunday Horrors session in my youth, and it certainly entertained. A scene beginning with an excruciating musical number, cut short by Talbot understandably losing his temper and ending with him leaving the scene on a horse drawn cart with the Monster kicking wine barrels off the back, is comedy gold.  We had to include that it was some elaborate improvised sequence performed to pad out the running time.

Our irritating hero - who begins the film as a normal surgeon but seems to rapidly graduate to international detective and mad scientist, has equally confusing motives.  Instead of curing Talbot and draining off the Monster’s remaining energy as promised, he suddenly decides to supercharge Lugosi instead.

No-one seems to have their heart in it in this publicity still -
but at least Ilona Massey as Baroness Frankenstein looks
like she's toppled out of a Hammer film.

This seems to both revive the Monster’s eyesight and his libido as well, promptly, and understandably, carrying-off the rather delicious Baroness Elsa Frankenstein.  Larry is having none of this however, and thanks to the experiment being carried out on yet another night of a full moon, transforms and defends the lady’s honour in a brief, but enthusiastic, tussle with Lugosi’s stunt double.

It all kicks-off in the castle - art by Joe Jusko

The biffo is cut short when the local publican, looking disturbingly like Benny Hill’s character from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, dynamites the dam above the castle and deluges the battling beasts in mighty flood. Hopefully it also wipes out the asinine villagers and our dull doctor/detective as well.  (Are we really supposed to care more about these extras than the monsters?)

And no, I haven’t made any of this up.

I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t love this film, because I do.  It is the original, definitive creature clash, rightly paid tribute to in the form of clips and music cues appearing in other movie matches to come - King Kong vs Godzilla, Freddy vs Jason and Alien vs Predator.

Universal itself was to repeat the multiple monster formula from here on, but sadly this film also sees the point at which the studio’s once prestigious Horror output dropped from A to B-movie status.

Marvel comics get in on the act in the early 1970s.

Ghoul Assembly: Part Three - Bridal Vile

Looking for love?  If you have the right connections it can be a straight-forward operation…

In our Ghoul Assembly monster-mash-ups series so far, we’ve looked at an Abbot and Costello comedy and a 1980’s coming-of-age family adventure.

This time, we’re looking at a romance - the great romance of horror cinema, even if it was a disastrous first date.

1935’s Bride of Frankenstein is cinema’s first big-budget horror sequel (as opposed to quick cash-in) and director James Whale’s masterpiece. Perhaps a little like Tim Burton and his smash hit 1989 Batman, when the studio finally convinced the director to do sequel he made his film first and foremost, which also just happened to have the title character in it.

Pretorius also has success in creating life - on a much smaller scale

I can’t agree that Bride of Frankenstein surpasses the original Frankenstein as it has been too long since I’ve seen that film, but film historians certainly think so. It is clearly a more expensive, expansive production, make-up genius Jack Pierce has perfected Karloff’s monster (looking more bulked-up and menacing in this film) and Ernest Thesiger’s fruity, frosty Dr Pretorius is one of macabre cinema’s greatest villains. 

His miniature creations still invoke a response of ‘how did they do that?’ today, and the cavernous expressionistic sets and painted skyscapes drip with atmosphere.

All this, and we haven’t even mentioned Elsa Lanchester’s startling bride. Horrifying and weirdly attractive in equal measure, her few, wordless moments on screen have earned the actress and her portrayal screen immortality. Perhaps the then current art-deco influenced fascination with ancient Egypt inspired her look: semi bandaged with an Egyptian head-dress style beehive which makes the bride look like an electrified Nefertiti.

Lanchester’s performance is also a masterstroke, conveying post-birth disorientation with her darting eyes and weird snaps of her head, and finally rejection of her intended mate with that goosebump-raising 'swan hiss'.

We only see this magnificent character for a few moments when she is barely aware and functioning - what a force she would have been at the height of her powers. Perhaps Billie Piper’s amazing performance in Penny Dreadful is an example of what might have been.

Elsa Lanchester also plays Mary Shelley, seen here with Percy Shelley and Byron,
in the prologue.  Her impressive decolletage was censored from the final film.

I have to be honest and say that the middle of the film, like the poor monster, tends to meander a little. But the final act makes it all worthwhile. It’s only appropriate that groom and wedding party are kept waiting for the bride.  Her eventual entrance, to a ghastly parody of wedding bells on the soundtrack, is unforgettable.

Here comes the Bride...

Ghoul Assembly: Part two - Stand By Mummy

In 1987, the world was saved from the combined forces of darkness by an elite team who operated from a treehouse...

Monster Squad(s)

Films finding their way to New Zealand in the days before multiplexes could be a very hit-and-miss affair.  Before a collection of yawning big screens under same roof needed their endless appetites fed, there were the video rental shops on almost every street - and video-release only in this country was the way many of us caught up on films.

In fact, in these obviously very pre-internet days , this was sometimes the only way we found that some films existed at all.

I was working for film company, which subscribed to American Cinematographer magazine, and it was here that I found out about The Monster Squad.  I haven’t grown up now, and certainly hadn’t back then, so this film sounded fantastic.

Although the publicity material traded hard on the still-strong reputation of Ghostbusters from three years earlier, The Monster Squad has been more accurately described as’The Little Rascals meet the Universal monsters’, in the middle of the 1980s, of course.  Makeup genius Stan Winston was given the opportunity to update the universal creatures and, despite the film’s modest budget, brought them all into the era of MTV with obvious affection and respect.

The amazing Stan Winston and his Wolf Man

The Wolf Man is apparently modelled on Winston’s own features, while this decades’ possibly only representation of Dracula seems to pay homage to both Lugosi and Lee. American Cinematographer told me that Winston also made the supremely logical decision to make the Mummy look like a walking corpse, rather than an already burly, heavily swaddled stuntman, and cast “The thinnest actor they could find who could still move around”. (this gave me hope for a future horror film career). 

Young Eugene's Dad 'clears all the monsters out of his room',
but doesn't look in the closet

Tom Noonan’s sympathetic and expressive performance as the Frankenstein Monster is facilitated by an expert  makeup job which stays just the right side of copyright infringement on Universals’ original design. But the icing on the cake is a gorgeous piscatorial reworking of the Creature from the Black Lagoon which would hold its own if that film were to be remade today.

The creature walks among us

On the side of the angels we have a collection of kids who are definitely not your saccharine Spielbergian Goonies cast.  Honesty would probably bring you to the conclusion that you were more like these little rascals when you were their age, than Elliot from ET - complete with all the sexism, homophobia and inappropriateness which might make us cringe a little now. It’s ‘not OK’, but is at least an truthful depiction, and for the most part the young actors mainly portray an untarnished belief in doing the right thing, despite spending a good part of the film terrified. 

Main character Sean’s little sister Phoebe is a perfect example of this film’s perfect casting.  She is not the genetically-perfect poppet that you’d find in a children’s clothing catalogue - but her sweet and innocent nature allows her to befriend the towering Frankenstein monster and ultimately save the day.

Phoebe, and her new best friend.

They have help in the form of ‘Scary German Guy’, a reclusive elderly immigrant who subverts the children’s expectations by proving to be the kindest and gentlest of souls. He is crucially also able to translate Van Helsing’s diary despite the fact that I’m sure that character was supposed to be Dutch.  In one of the film’ s many effective shifts of tone from light to dark, our young leads remark that 'SGG' (his name is never given) sure knows a lot about monsters.  “Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.” he remarks, as the camera pans down to the concentration camp tattoo on his wrist.

Scary German guy would also be able to translate this poster -
which really emphasises the Ghostbusters connection with an unsubtle title change.

The performances are key but this film but visually it also delivers in the way that we expect from pre-CGI mid eighties mid-budget adventure films.  The previously-mentioned Stan Winston was an undisputed genius in his field, while Star Wars veteran Richard Edlund headed the visual effects team.  His crackling, ‘blue-lightning’ optical effects enhance the practical creature work in an organic and believable way which modern digital effects work often fails in.

Van Helsing, about to 'blow it'.

The opening sequence in 19th century Castle Dracula is splendidly creepy while the exciting climax satisfies on every emotional and visual level.  Films of this era do have their drawbacks of course, we also get a standard Second Act 'training montage' orchestrated to a forgettable single by Flashdance’s Michael Sembello, while the closing credits crawl embarrassedly under a horrendous rap theme.

I first watched this one with my Mum, and we both loved it. It is inescapably ironic that a film which is essentially comedy succeeds in bringing together cinema’s most beloved monsters in ways that Horror films have failed.  But the last film we looked at, Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, also triumphed in this regard and in fact shares many plot points with The Monster Squad.

Like many of the films I enjoy the most, this was a notable failure at the box office but has built a strong cult following in the year’s since.  A cast reunion and re-screenings in 2006 were sold-out, enthusiastically attended by fans from all across the United States, and subsequent DVD releases have disappeared quickly from shelves.

Like Van Helsing in his slightly confusing reappearance at the climax of the film, The Monster Squad gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

How does the dog get into the treehouse?

Ghoul assembly: Part One - Comedy of Horrors

The winter months are drawing in - it’s time to light the fire and spend some quality time with old fiends.

I wish there was time to watch more films.  In these days of wi-fi and remote connections, work can now seep into every aspect of our lives - I know it’s my own fault, but my commute went from leisure time to work some time ago.

In the weekends we’re not madly social but 15 years of living rurally has also taught us that you have to work at it - a large property needs to be constantly maintained, but we wouldn’t still be here if we didn’t enjoy it.

But now the days are shorter, nights longer and weather less clement - all opportunities for catching up on more films.  As another summer of superheroes fades into history - marked by one unqualified triumph, one middling entry in a venerable series, and one insulting disaster - the darker months make me want to cosy up with some monsters.

I’m a Hammer guy and always will be, but it’s high time I looked further back,  to the source of some of Hammer’s early inspiration, and heyday of figures who will lurk forever in the pantheon of screen Horror’s greatest - Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney.

Having said this, I love the actors and their work, but starting with the original Universal Dracula and Frankenstein does feel a little like a chore at this stage.  The lead actors are magnificent, but those productions somewhat less so.  I feel I might appreciate them better after I’ve seen some subsequent entries in the original horror cycle.

So I decided to start at the very end, with a film which should have been a final indignity for these classic creatures, but instead impossibly manages to be both amusing, and a fitting send-off for each character: Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948).

It’s long lamented that Universal used and then abused their classic monsters.  Received wisdom states that when box office takings began to level out, they first corralled them together in low budget team-ups, and then finally threw their misshapen children to Bud Abbot and Lou Costello as victims of ridicule.

But for this film at least, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man inexplicably emerge with dignity definitely intact, while fans of Abbot and Costello are still given plenty of what they enjoy. It’s a fusion of comedy and horror which actually works.

I am biased, but I believe this is down to excellent performances from our monsters.  Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jnr were very much fighting personal demons of their own at this time.  Lugosi, criminally mistreated by the studio, was battling a drug addition which he eventually overcame. And Chaney had his own battle with the bottle, physically ageing considerably since his last performance.

I feel certain Chaney wasn't really wearing a green 'onesy',
despite what the lobby card colourist thought.

His haunted demeanour works perfectly for the tormented Larry Talbot, a good man wracked with guilt over the carnage his unwilling transformations bring.  In my opinion he informs every interpretation of Marvel’s Bruce Banner which has followed.

Some of the film's funnier moments feature Lou Costello's
 inept impersonation of Lugosi's signature gesture.

Lugosi, meanwhile, is now into his sixties but gives a performance of immense dignity and urbanity - with a charm which makes his nefarious character irresistibly likeable.  It is only his second and final performance as the vampire count, but he amply demonstrates why even 80 years later he is still the definitive Dracula to many.

Rounding out the menagerie, Glenn Strange may be no Karloff, but he impressively carries the mantle of a character who had gained enough popularity to be the subject of this film’s title.

Frankenstein crated a monster?

The plot is perfunctory and your mileage will vary depending upon how much you enjoy slapstick, but somehow Abbot and Costello director Charles Barton manages to deliver a film which visually stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Universal horrors classics.

In that studio’s first monster team-up, Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man,  Chaney’s lycanthrope faced off against Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster.  In Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein  he throws down with Lugosi once more, as the film’s final act sees a prolonged confrontation between vampire and werewolf.  They literally fall in and out of scenes, the retreating Count employing a wooden chair and potted plants as projectiles, while our two human stars are left to evade the unstoppable, scenery-smashing Monster.  This might be comedy, but no-one could complain about a lack of creature action.

Horror films often showcase a spectacular demise for their creatures and the climax of this battle is no exception. Such memorable ‘death-scene’s are fortunate as it really is their end - these actors would never portray their famous characters again in a Universal film, and nor would anyone else for many decades.

I was left feeling a little flat by Universal’s House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein team-up films, ’serious’ productions which I will need to revisit as part of this ‘Ghoul assembly’ series because I remember very little of them.  But this silly film works ways these two didn’t in bringing these iconic monsters together.

Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz produced the wonderful animated film titles.

In fact, it has inspired me to revisit more of the memorable monster team-ups, most, but not all, from Universal.

Next is going to be a film from the 1980s which parallels this one in many ways, comedic but made with a palpable love for these characters.  It features a whole squad of monsters…

Electric Dreams

How does an 18-year-old woman called Mary pass her time during a wet holiday in Geneva, in 1814?  She only goes and writes the world’s most famous horror story.

Frontispiece to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

When I got my first summer holiday job it nearly killed me.  Helping set up posts and wires for now famous marlborough vines, as a gangly 15 year old I was labouring way above my weight. I lost all the skin off my hands to blisters, more skin to sunburn and slept at nights like never before.

Certainly not for the last time I found an evening escape from this punishing routine in fantasy media - most particularly, a two-night television event which I’ve never forgotten.

Audaciously, and mendaciously, called Frankenstein the True Story this was a TV movie shown in two parts with an incredible cast. It boasted James Mason, David McCallum, Jane Seymour and even a cameo from Tom Baker, and seemingly lavish production values (the closing scenes in the Arctic were especially cinematic).

Mason played a sinister character called Dr Polidori, and one of my strongest memories is David McCallum speaking through the monster’s lips and mocking the Doctor in his distinctive, acerbic tones by referring to him as “Polly-dolly”.

James Mason (right) as Polidori about to bring Jane Seymour to life
through the wonders of chemistry. Never got to do that in School Cert science...

John Polidori was actually the vain and long-suffering doctor who attended Lord Byron during that fateful stay at Villa Diodati where 18-year-old Mary Shelley first imagined the story which would become Frankenstein, but what I’ve learned recently is that Byron did actually refer to the hapless medic as ‘Polly-dolly”!

As someone who thought he knew a lot about the creation and countless adaptations of this story, I’ve discovered even more I didn’t know from a book, written, fittingly by a female academic Roseanne Montillo.

The Lady and her Monsters is a fascinating look not only at the remarkable life of Mary Shelley and the famous figures around her, but contemporary factors which would have contributed to her most famous story. Body-snatching and early experiments in the electrical stimulation of deceased tissue are examined in a historical and medical context, which in turn provides an often uncomfortable view of the society of the time.  More than just dead frogs were made to jump around on the end of leads from a galvanic battery.

It’s easy to decry early medical experimentation as barbaric, particularly as many human dissections were made accessible to the general public for entertainment, but discoveries made also helped ensure that we are all so fit and healthy now.

Shelley was the daughter of a writer regard as the 'first Feminist', Mary Wollstonecraft, and went on to lead a sensational but mainly unhappy life. The first edition of Frankenstein was published anonymously in 1818, it would never have done for the public to know that a woman had written it. Even after she was finally credited, it was Shelley’s collection of her late husband's poetry which finally brought her something approaching financial security.  Percy Shelley died in a sudden storm on the Gulf of Spezia, Byron expired on a remote Greek Island of self-inflicted ill health, and a destitute Polidori poisoned himself.

The achievements of the two Poets are well-known, but even 'Polly-dolly' managed, through his own ghost story conceived at Villa Diodati, to give the world Lord Ruthven, establishing the image of the ‘modern’ aristocratic vampire before Stoker ever wrote Dracula.

The first edition of Polidori's The Vampyre
was erroneously credited to Lord Byron,
which pleased neither men.

And speaking of which, I’ll finish with a piece of trivia which Montillo uncovered which binds the two protean figures from the dawn of literary horror together:

" The real Frankenstein family had settled in a formidable castle overlooking the Darmstadt (Rhineland) region, where their deeds, famous and infamous began to be recorded in the annals of history...

 In the mid-1400s the castle was the site of much bloodshed when a member of the family was locked in mortal combat with an enemy of unusual fortitude and cunning, with a deep understanding of psychological warfare...

Known for his brutality, Vlad the Impaler and his doings provided, in part, inspiration for another gothic masterpiece: Bram Stoker's Dracula."

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Assembly Line: Part Six - Days of Suture Past

“There’s nothing more for you to see. It’s all over now, all over…”

Baron Victor Frankenstein

Unlike the swan song of Hammer’s Dracula series, which ended with an outrageous experimental fusion of Kung Fu cinema and Gothic horror, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell finished the Baron’s story with a return to form and the style of this film cycles’ roots, infused with an apt sense of melancholy finality.

Approaching 70, Legendary hammer director Terence Fisher was coaxed back for his final film. Anthony Hinds scripted this, his last Hammer (under his usual pseudonym of John Elder), and of course Cushing gave his last performance as the title character (could the Baron himself be the ‘Monster from Hell’?) Distinguished character actors from Hammer’s past like Patrick Troughton and Charles Lloyd Pack and Peter Madden were brought back for this farewell party, and even David Prowse, the only actor to play a Hammer Frankenstein creature twice, returned.

Copying from the best: The preproduction poster on the right, by Keenan Forbes, is clearly
inspired by Frank Frazetta's 1967 painting Nightstalker (detail on left).  But whatever its origin,
the art seems to have been the inspiration for the look of Dave Prowse's eventual costume.

Despite the fact that this was now 1974, and Hammer horror was fast becoming considered passé in these days of The Exorcist, Monster from Hell is a conscious return to the studios’ original style. This is evident in the fact that the gorgeous Madeline Smith, almost completely undressed in her previous Hammer appearance, is scrupulously covered from head to foot in this film and actually cast for her acting ability as the mute asylum inmate ‘the Angel’. A dialogue-free scene she shares with Bernard Lee ('M' in every Bond film up to Moonraker) is particularly impressive and affecting.

Madeline Smith (left), fully dressed but still acting her socks off.

It is a period setting, apparently an asylum some time in the Regency period - actually earlier than the previous films were set, but it works.

The Baron is sporting badly burned hands from his previous misadventure, however, leading to an infamous scene where he holds a wrist artery between his teeth while his assistant Shane Briant completes a hand transplant. Apparently Cushing’s idea, it perfectly conveys the Barons obsessive drive to achieve his goal, and become the ‘creator of man’

Frankenstein's cat really didn't like being wormed.

The fruits of his labours this time could barely be called a man, however. A hulking hominid creature, brought to life by 6ft 5-and-a-half inch David Prowse in a hairy semi-ape suit, this creation has been the target of some derision over the years. Despite this, the Baron’s last monster has become somewhat iconic, and has been represented in various kit sets and even an ‘action figure’.

Action figure and kitset model of the titular monster.

Apparently the Angel assembled him under the Baron’s supervision, so perhaps we have her to blame for the massive retrograde step in surgical skill.

Despite an unflinching amount of gore, the film is built solidly on the strength of its characterisations, none more than Cushing’s Frankenstein. Still very capable of action scenes, subduing the monster with chloroform while the much younger Briant just stands by, his descent into madness only becomes fully evident at the end of the film. Cheerfully sweeping up the mess while announcing plans for his next attempt, his assistants can only watch in dumb horror and disbelief.

There was never to be another attempt, of course. The Frankenstein film series was over, and shortly afterwards, Hammer themselves.

If David Prowse and Peter Cushing were disappointed by the response to their
first collaboration (left), their next film together gained slightly more recognition.

This film was not successful on its original run but, like many of it’s Hammer stablemates, has gained acclaim throughout the years. Perhaps because, although the values it embodies were outdated upon it’s release, this film perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the Hammer Frankenstein films, a beautifully directed and acted self-homage and epitaph, crafted by experienced veterans with most advanced techniques Hammer was ever able to bring to the screen.

Assembly Line-up

It's impossible not to make comparisons to Hammer's other great film cycle - the Dracula series.

As much as I love Christopher Lee's moonlit flits as the Count, it seems to me that the shorter Frankenstein series was more successful in bringing something new its own formula each time.

While the Count became a proto-slasher villain cypher, the Baron becomes increasingly more fascinating (if sometimes inconsistent). Cushing brings, and is afforded, far more range then Lee ever was as the Lord of Vampires.

I'll always be in the Hammer Dracula camp, but the quality and originality of the Frankenstein films has pleasantly surprised me, and I can now understand why many prefer them. 

The Baron clearly peaked in the middle of his career.

Creatures featured - by the numbers:

Appeared in Star Trek: 1

Appeared in Star Wars: 2

Were Decorated: 2 (plus Cushing was awarded an OBE)

From New Zealand: 1

Over six feet in height: 5

Appeared in Playboy: 1

Assembly Line: Part Five - Young Frankenstein

Ralph Bates might have had a short career at Hammer, but he did land some plumb roles, positioned, (unsuccessfully), to take over from both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

  

I looked at how Bates' Lord Courtley was supposed to cut in on the increasingly reluctant Mr Lee's vampire Count in Taste the Blood of Dracula here:
http://fasmatodea.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/count-down-part-five-tasting-notes.html

This strategy was scotched by American co-financers and distributors Warner Bros, who insisted they were putting their money in to see Lee as Dracula.  In Horror of Frankenstein, Ralph Bates then moved in on  Hammer’s other icon and took the lead in a film which was to reboot the popular film series, beginning with a quasi-remake of Curse of Frankenstein.  But this time it appears that the public voted with their feet, the only Baron they wanted was Peter Cushing.

For Bates it was to be third time lucky, playing the last of his trio of iconic horror Characters, Doctor Jekyll, opposite Martine Beswick's Sister Hyde in 1971.

But neither of his previous efforts were his fault, Ralph Bates does as excellent a job as ever in Horror of Frankenstein (1970), despite having hair almost as big as the two lovely female leads, Veronica Carlson and Kate O'Mara. In fact in direct opposition to everything I'd always been led to believe, it is hard to find any real deficiencies with production.  Despite the impressive décolletage on display this is not Carry On Frankenstein,  Mad Doctor at Large or even Monster About the house.  But the weakest element does remind me inescapably of another famous British comedy series:

"I didn't get where I am today..."

Really, resembling the immortal CJ from The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin might be Dave Prowse's greatest achievement in this film.  The disturbing and somewhat deviant fact that the 'monster' is nothing but a body-builder in a bald cap, dog collar and nappy just can't be overlooked and only makes Christopher Lee's achievement of emoting through several layers of mouldy pudding in the 'original' that much more remarkable.

If I'd have to make a guess at why this film is not considered a success it would have nothing to do with the cast, or even the script but the intention of the film.  The earlier films in this cycle succeeded because the essence of Mary Shelley's novel was interpreted by Hammer with their first film, freeing up the ensuing chapters to explore innovative new directions in storytelling (perhaps with the exception of Evil of Frankenstein - tailored specifically  for Universal to emulate their original films).

Horror of Frankenstein gives us a bright new cast and a more modern sensibility, but unfortunately feels the need to tell the original story yet again.  Apart from this repetition, the re-stitched plotline also depends intrinsically upon a 'creature' whose deficiencies have already been mentioned.

Cushing would know what to do...

A new series of Frankenstein films starring Bates was not forthcoming, but lets close by focusing upon an important success.  The previous two cinematic outings for Cushing's Baron had been gradually establishing more central roles for women, but here we have the epitome of that shift.  Kate O'Mara and Veronica Carlson (her second Frankenstein film in a row) have as much screen time as their male co-stars and easily as much significance to the plot.  O'Mara relishes in her vampish role: Alys showing a ruthless streak of her own when her livelihood is threatened. And Carlson brings depth and conviction to what could too easily have become merely an over-virtuous polar opposite to O'Mara's earthy and mischievous housekeeper.

Horror of Frankenstein is a worthy experiment, but like the results of the Baron's own researches, is only a partial success: a product of great skill but somewhat clumsy, misshapen and unfairly shunned by those who don't understand its intent.

"One day I'm going to play the most famous villain in film history!"
"Sure, Dave..."