In 1967 Hammer
Films’ most famous director and one of the best ever filmmakers of the horror
genre Terence Fisher returned to helm his third Frankenstein feature. ‘Frankenstein
Created Woman’ ignores the inferior Freddie Francis stand-alone effort ‘The
Evil of Frankenstein’ (1964) which was a limp dick attempt in paying homage to
the previous Universal incarnations of the Mary Shelly mythology and was
actually distributed by the Hollywood studio. It was a shoddy shot in the foot
for the franchise with a terrible cartoonish screenplay and woeful SFX work.
This entry put the series back on track returning to the continuity established
with Fisher’s own ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ (1957) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) but with a refreshing new take on the material.
The
movie is a mixture of fairy tale atmosphere and science fiction themes with
Frankenstein’s experiments this time to isolate the soul and transplant it into
a new body entailing cryogenics and creating forcefields. It also has a revenge
plot incorporating elements that could arguably be influential to the rape and
revenge and slasher sub-genres.
The film
opens with a young boy Hans Werner witnessing the execution of his town drunk
father beheaded at the guillotine for the crimes of burglary and murder.
Forwarding many years later to Hans as a young man (Robert Morris), he is now taken
care of by Doctor Herz (Thorley Walters). Herz also happens to be a lab assistant
to the infamous doctor Baron Victor Frankenstein (late great genre veteran Peter
Cushing) who Herz has just resurrected from being technically dead for an hour
after being frozen. Frankenstein realizes his past mistakes with his previous
creature creations as when frozen his soul did not leave his body during that time
frame and so he takes a break from his physical experiments and concentrates on
the metaphysical to capture the soul before it leaves the body so it may live
in another.
In
celebration of Herz’s successful revival of the good (or not) doctor he sends
Hans to fetch a bottle of champagne. He decides to go to a local cafe so he can
see Christina (Susan Denberg) a disfigured and crippled waitress working for her
father. While Hans is still there three despicable young upper class men turn
up to drink a bottle of wine. The leader of the trio of posh spoiled brats Anton
(Peter Blythe) asks specifically for Chritina to serve him and his friends Johann
(Derek Fowlds) and Karl (Barry Warren) so that they can make fun of her. When
Christina has an accident spilling a glass of the wine on Anton he becomes
furious pushing her away and calling her a “bitch”. Hans demands an
apology from Anton. When Anton refuses Hans attacks him and takes on Johann and
Karl as well in a brawl. When the police turn up and restrain Hans as he is
holding a knife Christina’s father (Ivan Beavis) takes it away from him and
Hans threatens to kill him.
This brash
reaction in the heat of the moment proves to be Hans’ downfall as the three
toffs return later that night while the cafe is closed to break in to help
themselves to the wine. When Christina’s father disturbs them when he returns
to his establishment to pick up his forgotten keys, they beat him to death with
their canes. The next day after the discovery of the body, the police arrest
Hans when he turns up at the cafe. Put on trial with Anton testifying against
him as a character witness he is convicted of the murder and sentenced to
death. Seeing Hans beheaded at the guillotine before her very eyes Christina
commits suicide by throwing herself in the river.
Frankenstein sees Hans’ death
as the perfect opportunity to capture his soul. After Herz procures his body, the
two set about preserving it. After completion they are brought to their place
of work Christina’s body that has just been retrieved from the river in which
Frankenstein seizes the moment and immediately plants Hans’ soul in her body. Repairing
her facial scar and disabilities and renamed Anna, she awakens as a striking
picture of health and a woman of such beauty. However, she has retained Hans’
memory and takes revenge on the horrible rich boys who cost him his life.
The movie sets
up the intriguing concept of the confusion felt by a man living inside a
woman’s body but never actually realizes these crossed gender roles. On top of that,
we also have here the bizarrely interesting idea of the soul of a wrongly
executed man and his vessel being his girlfriend’s body who committed suicide
that again is not elaborately explored. Although, it is still a cleverly
disturbing premise with Anna listening to the commands of her dead lover Hans as
she holds his severed head and obeys his demands of seeking his retribution.
The film
descends into a well ahead of its time prototype of rape and revenge and
slasher movies. Okay there is no rape committed on Christina but the well
executed sequences of her Hans driven body with a thirst for revenge on the
foul rich boys does indeed employ the sub-genre’s characteristic traits. Anna
lures her prey in with seductive charms with their weakness for female flesh
trapping them and it is too late by the time she uses what blunt instrument she
has at hand. Despite the missed opportunities here it is still very satisfying
to see these loathsome upper class twats get their comeuppance and it makes a
nice change to see a piece of eye candy committing the murders this time around
rather than a unsightly monstrosity dealing out the death. There is also a
social sub-text of the class system with the poor peasant boy taking revenge on
the rich whom the justice system favours.
Despite the
brilliantly naturalistic Cushing taking more of a back seat in like a
supporting role here playing a secondary role to the characters of Hans and
Christina/Anna, he still manages to steal the show eating up the screen
whenever he is on it with his cool persona delivering crisp dialogue so
effortlessly. Playing more of a caring fatherly figure here to Christina/Anna
this is the most empathic we have seen the character of Baron Victor
Frankenstein under the direction of Terence Fisher. Frankenstein has also lost
the use of his hands in this instalment due to them being severely burnt. This
could be a direct reference to the destruction of his laboratory in the climax
of ‘Evil’ but that was a stand-alone
entry and in the following ‘Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed’ (1969) he has the
full use of his hands so the only logical explanation is that ‘Created Woman’
takes place after ‘Destroyed’ which ends in a burning house. Another downside is that the title and the movie's promotion is misleading, as Frankenstein does not actually
create a woman at all.
With
another of Fisher’s trademark downbeat endings and although it has its shortcomings,
‘Frankenstein Created Woman’ is a worthy effort and a solid addition to the
Hammer Frankenstein franchise and to the great production company’s legacy in
general. It might not be quite as strong as the very best of the series - ‘Curse’, Revenge and ‘Destroyed’ but it is still well worth the time of any fan
of golden age horror and new genre fans looking to go back a bit further. Recommended.
*** out of ****
Dave J. Wilson
©2012
Cinematic Shocks, Dave J. Wilson - All work is the property of the credited
author and may not be reprinted or reproduced elsewhere without permission.
Nice review, Dave! As a Hammer fan, I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't seen this one yet, but I'll have to remedy that. Judging from your review, Hammer tried to do something a little different with this one. ...And Cushing is always watchable!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Barry. FCW is well worth a watch for attempting something new with the series and is a return to form for the most part after the God-awful TEOF. And yeah, Cushing was always great.
ReplyDelete