**Major Plot Spoilers**
I've always been partial to a good Hammer horror, and this was notoriously the film that began it all, launching Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Hammer itself into international fame on the back of two million pounds of box-office receipts from a fifty-thousand-pound outlay. It was certainly interesting to see Cushing playing a man in the prime of life instead of the spry, silver-haired intellectuals of his later career; but unfortunately this was probably the least enjoyable Hammer I've seen so far.
I think the main problem -- and this may be an entirely personal reaction -- was that there simply wasn't the necessary tug of sympathy for the characters present in so much of Cushing's later work, even the minor shockers from the Seventies like 'Legend of the Werewolf' or 'The Ghoul'. This Baron von Frankenstein is not merely an obsessive blinded to the potential outcome of his work; he's a cold-blooded seducer who manipulates his low-born mistress to her death, kills a man in order to obtain his his brain for the Creature and blackmails his friend with threats to his own fiancée.
On the other hand, the servant girl Justine -- in a confusing and surely unnecessary plot twist -- attempts to get the Baron to marry her by the convoluted method of getting herself pregnant by another man, supposedly his moral superior (but she still wants to marry Frankenstein). Cousin Elizabeth spends all her time trying to get him to give up his research to prove his devotion, and Victor's former best friend washes his hands of all responsibility but can't take his eyes off his friend's fiancée for long enough to bring himself to leave the shelter of his roof. The Creature itself is a homicidal lunatic that murders without apparent reason or intelligence and can evoke no more sympathy than its creator -- how such a limiting and limited role could have proved an asset to Christopher Lee's career seems something of a puzzle.
The musical score, which I had heard praised, appeared to have little distinction or subtlety, simply telegraphing every move before it was made, and the off-stage peasants, commended for their ingenious budget-saving non-appearance, were absent beyond even the promised torchlight reflection. Conspicuous by their intrusion, however, were the blind man and his grandson, whose sole purposes in life were to be menaced and murdered by the Creature (apparently without consequence) and who aroused a good deal of unfortunate giggling in the auditorium.
There is a good deal of play with body parts, acid baths, and the like, which may have thrown out a challenge to the censor but is not in itself horrific. Indeed, as presented, it becomes rather difficult to sympathies with Paul's violent moral revulsion of feeling and insistence that the work will inevitably "lead to evil", and his constant nagging comes across as merely unattractive. As a horror film, it derives its few terrors from stock situations like the underclad woman alone in the dark room with an unseen menace, and these, like the blind man scene, are largely robbed of their effectiveness by being over-milked. Considered as a story in its own right, it fails to elevate its characters beyond the one-dimensional or to capitalise on the ironic potential of the various conflicts: e.g. it is Paul's actions that create the disaster he is claiming to prevent, and Elizabeth is bound by gratitude to one man but attracted to the other.
The most horrific scene for me was the merely human drama at the end, where Paul deliberately lies in order to condemn his friend to death. (For what, it is never made clear. I'd assumed it was for the accidental shooting of Elizabeth while attempting to hit the Creature on the roof, but she is subsequently revealed as alive and well.) But since I suspect this was supposed to be regarded in the light of righteous justice catching up with the Baron to provide the moral to the tale, I doubt that the revulsion of this scene can be laid to the screenplay's credit. The whole relationship between the two had potential that was largely ignored in favour of simplistic carping.
In my experience, the late Hammer horrors like 'Hands of the Ripper' tended to have a humanity and style that compensated for special effects on the cheap. 'Curse of Frankenstein', for all its financial success, suggests to me that they hadn't yet established their winning formula.
I've always been partial to a good Hammer horror, and this was notoriously the film that began it all, launching Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Hammer itself into international fame on the back of two million pounds of box-office receipts from a fifty-thousand-pound outlay. It was certainly interesting to see Cushing playing a man in the prime of life instead of the spry, silver-haired intellectuals of his later career; but unfortunately this was probably the least enjoyable Hammer I've seen so far.
I think the main problem -- and this may be an entirely personal reaction -- was that there simply wasn't the necessary tug of sympathy for the characters present in so much of Cushing's later work, even the minor shockers from the Seventies like 'Legend of the Werewolf' or 'The Ghoul'. This Baron von Frankenstein is not merely an obsessive blinded to the potential outcome of his work; he's a cold-blooded seducer who manipulates his low-born mistress to her death, kills a man in order to obtain his his brain for the Creature and blackmails his friend with threats to his own fiancée.
On the other hand, the servant girl Justine -- in a confusing and surely unnecessary plot twist -- attempts to get the Baron to marry her by the convoluted method of getting herself pregnant by another man, supposedly his moral superior (but she still wants to marry Frankenstein). Cousin Elizabeth spends all her time trying to get him to give up his research to prove his devotion, and Victor's former best friend washes his hands of all responsibility but can't take his eyes off his friend's fiancée for long enough to bring himself to leave the shelter of his roof. The Creature itself is a homicidal lunatic that murders without apparent reason or intelligence and can evoke no more sympathy than its creator -- how such a limiting and limited role could have proved an asset to Christopher Lee's career seems something of a puzzle.
The musical score, which I had heard praised, appeared to have little distinction or subtlety, simply telegraphing every move before it was made, and the off-stage peasants, commended for their ingenious budget-saving non-appearance, were absent beyond even the promised torchlight reflection. Conspicuous by their intrusion, however, were the blind man and his grandson, whose sole purposes in life were to be menaced and murdered by the Creature (apparently without consequence) and who aroused a good deal of unfortunate giggling in the auditorium.
There is a good deal of play with body parts, acid baths, and the like, which may have thrown out a challenge to the censor but is not in itself horrific. Indeed, as presented, it becomes rather difficult to sympathies with Paul's violent moral revulsion of feeling and insistence that the work will inevitably "lead to evil", and his constant nagging comes across as merely unattractive. As a horror film, it derives its few terrors from stock situations like the underclad woman alone in the dark room with an unseen menace, and these, like the blind man scene, are largely robbed of their effectiveness by being over-milked. Considered as a story in its own right, it fails to elevate its characters beyond the one-dimensional or to capitalise on the ironic potential of the various conflicts: e.g. it is Paul's actions that create the disaster he is claiming to prevent, and Elizabeth is bound by gratitude to one man but attracted to the other.
The most horrific scene for me was the merely human drama at the end, where Paul deliberately lies in order to condemn his friend to death. (For what, it is never made clear. I'd assumed it was for the accidental shooting of Elizabeth while attempting to hit the Creature on the roof, but she is subsequently revealed as alive and well.) But since I suspect this was supposed to be regarded in the light of righteous justice catching up with the Baron to provide the moral to the tale, I doubt that the revulsion of this scene can be laid to the screenplay's credit. The whole relationship between the two had potential that was largely ignored in favour of simplistic carping.
In my experience, the late Hammer horrors like 'Hands of the Ripper' tended to have a humanity and style that compensated for special effects on the cheap. 'Curse of Frankenstein', for all its financial success, suggests to me that they hadn't yet established their winning formula.