BEFORE: Peter Cushing carries over again from "Frankenstein Created Woman", and this will be my last Frankenstein-based film for the year. I've got to move on to other creature-based films, I'm on a tight schedule if I want to both keep the list from expanding out of control and finish this year's films in time for my vacation.
THE PLOT: Together with a young doctor and his fiancée, Baron Frankenstein tries a brain transplant to save an associate, the mentally ill Dr. Brandt.
AFTER: Well, it's about time someone took Dr. Frankenstein down - and make no mistake, the titles of the Hammer Films series clearly and correctly refer to the DOCTOR when they say "Frankenstein", not any creature that he may have created. So, points for that - the original novel is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", and Prometheus was the Greek god who gave humans fire and life and knowledge, so even in the original story's title, it's the doctor, not the creature being discussed. The creature should always be nameless, or if that's too weird, then "Frankenstein's Monster" will suffice.
But even in this Hammer Films series, at some point they reached the point of ridiculousness - I realize now that each film is meant to be taken individually, the story doesn't really carry over from one film to the next to form one larger story. None of the films make references to events from a previous film, or Dr. Frankenstein can be working anonymously in one film, then openly in the next, as the story requires. He can even appear to die in one film, only to be miraculously revived for the next one.
But what really stretches the bounds of credulity is his stubbornness in continuing to conduct brain transplant experiments, when none of them ever really turn out well. I guess if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail, and Dr. Frankenstein's "hammer" is brain transplants, because we're back on that bus tonight. "But, Dr. Frankenstein, the patient has a sore foot!" "Tut, tut, a brain transplant will fix that problem, just wait and see!" So what if he becomes a raging beast with a giant scar around his scalp, he's in a new body with a perfectly fine foot!
Which leads to a few questions, like if Dr. Frankenstein can fix his former associate's mental illness, why does he have to put it in a new body to do so? Why can't he open the skull, fix the brain, and keep the brain where it is? OK, so the first body "died", but doesn't the second body also die when you take its brain out? And if he can bring that second body back to life, why couldn't he just bring the first one back instead, without scooping out the brain? I may not be a doctor, but I think I can tell when a medical process is not being implemented in an efficient manner. Like if you brought your car to the auto shop with a bad spark plug, would you let the mechanic transfer the whole engine to a different car just so he could replace that plug? It would be little consolation if you came in with a 2016 Ford Mustang and left with a 1975 Ford Pinto that had the other car's engine in it.
But I digress. The first time we see Dr. Frankenstein here he's robbing labs for equipment, but wearing a disturbing mask while doing so. Because if he's arrested, there's no chance that the police will remove that mask and identify him. He soon moves to a boarding house, and he learns that the woman who runs it is engaged to a doctor who works at an insane asylum, who's stealing narcotics to help pay for his fiancées mother medical expenses. Dr. F. leaps at the opportunity to blackmail them both into working for him, raiding more labs for equipment and supplies. All so he can "help" out his old associate, Dr. Brandt, who's an inmate at the asylum.
If there was any doubt about Dr. Frankenstein sociopathic nature, this film confirmed that he would do anything - lie, cheat or steal - in order to keep his experiments funded. He uses all kinds of blackmail and manipulation to keep his assistants in line, and in this film, that even includes rape, in a very controversial scene that was added late in the production process. Cushing said repeatedly that he hated the scene, because he didn't want Dr. F. to be seen as a sex fiend - but I guess being a thief, murderer and a doctor performing illegal brain transplants was better by comparison? I don't know where one draws the line, I guess.
It seems like a shame that TCM didn't run two of the Hammer Films Frankenstein films, especially since the final one, 1974's "Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell" featured Dave Prowse as the new Creature, and that's an interesting pre-cursor to the first "Star Wars" film, with Cushing and Prowse later appearing on screen together as Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader - I'll have to try to track that one down someday, but I just don't have a slot for it now.
Also starring Veronica Carlson, Freddie Jones (last seen in "The Elephant Man"), Simon Ward, Thorley Walters (also carrying over from "Frankenstein Created Woman"), Maxine Audley (last seen in "The Prince and the Showgirl"), George Pravda (last seen in "Anastasia"), Geoffrey Bayldon (last seen in "To Sir, With Love"), Colette O'Neil, Peter Copley (last seen in "Oliver Twist"), Jim Collier, Windsor Davies, Allan Surtees.
RATING: 4 out of 10 scalpels
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