Terence Fisher’s favourite among his Hammer film and it certainly is very well directed, with some particularly strong sequences (break and enter at the beginning, the revival of the creature, etc). It also has a logical, decent script – Frankenstein discovers an old colleague of his is in an insane asylum, so he busts him out and tries to revive his brain. He blackmails a pair of sweet but wet young lovers (Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson) to help him. This has the famously awful scene of Cushing raping Carlson for no good reason, or impact on the story – it’s yuck (if they wanted sex why not have one between Ward and Carlson).
Ward and Carlson are effective and good actors, although they play pathetic, characters – Carlson can’t even get a horse ready to flea, and Ward is easily talked into things loses all his fights (does he die in the end?). Mind you they are believable and it’s a nice change to see Frankenstein blackmailing people into helping him.
Excellent work from Peter Cushing and Freddie Jones as the new monster – he’s really touching, similar to Mary Shelley’s original. I think he should have been revived in the second act rather the third – this was really meaty stuff, better than Carlson/Ward/Cushing stressing that the authorities would find them. (I like the way the cops are shown to be believably hopeless).
No comments:
Post a Comment