Frankenstein's curse

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Movie
German title Frankenstein's curse
Original title The Curse of Frankenstein
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1957
length 82 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Terence Fisher
script Jimmy Sangster
production Anthony Hinds for Hammer Productions
music James Bernard
camera Jack Asher
cut James Needs
occupation

Frankenstein's Curse is a British horror film by the film production company Hammer from 1957, based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley . Directed by Terence Fisher . Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as "the creature" can be seen in the main roles .

action

After the death of his parents, the wealthy Baron Victor Frankenstein hired the private tutor Paul Krempe for himself. The two become friends because they share a common interest in scientific and medical experiments, so that Paul stays with Victor after his teaching assignment. Victor and Paul manage to bring a small dead dog back to life. While Paul wants to use the knowledge he has gained in the service of medicine, Victor is obsessed with the idea of ​​creating a perfect superman, whose intelligence and intellect are above all else. Paul does not fit this intention, but since he is economically dependent on Victor, he helps him. Victor steals the corpse of a hanged criminal with the intention of implanting the brain of a brilliant scientist.

Victor's cousin Elizabeth appears, who was once promised to be his bride. Paul tries to talk Elizabeth out of marrying Victor, because he is no longer sure about his experiments. However, this remains unsuccessful. In the meantime, Victor also knows that he only intends to use one particular brain for his creature: that of the most brilliant scientist in his country, Professor Bernstein. He invites the elderly man to his house. While Professor Victor is sitting across from him, having a drink and talking about his work, Victor is working on a drawing of Bernstein and is already inserting the surgical lines and brain sections on the forehead. He later throws him off a balustrade and removes his brain. Paul suspects that Victor killed the professor, but cannot prove it. The brain is damaged during a fight between the two. Victor still uses the brain of his creature and conjures up a catastrophe. She breaks free from the laboratory and kills an old man and his grandson. Paul manages to shoot the creature, but Victor brings it back to life. The housekeeper Justine, with whom Victor has a relationship, tells him that she is expecting a child from him. Since he doesn't want to marry her, Justine threatens to betray Victor. This gets rid of the problem by having Justine killed by the creature. Meanwhile, Paul asks Elizabeth to leave the house as she is in mortal danger. But before it can do that, the creature takes control of it. Elizabeth manages to break free, however, and the creature eventually breaks through a skylight after a fight with Victor and falls into a tub of acid.

Victor is sentenced to guillotine death for the murders of Professor Bernstein and Justine.

Sequels

Frankenstein's horror (1970) is the only Frankenstein film by Hammer in which Peter Cushing does not appear and Ralph Bates plays Victor Frankensteininstead. The film is also seen less as a sequel, but more as a remake of Frankenstein's Curse (1957) and is therefore actually outside the Frankenstein series.

In the last sequel, Frankenstein's Hell Monster (1974), Cushing can again be seen in the role of Baron Victor Frankenstein.

Reviews

  • “Unhealthy fantasies. Reservations. ” - 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958 . Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 121
  • “The British remake relies less on fantasy and suggestion - with slight deviations from the plot - but achieves its horror effect through naturalistic presentation and gruesome details.” - Lexicon of international films

Miscellaneous

In contrast to the 1931 film adaptation of the Frankenstein theme by James Whale with Boris Karloff as the creature and Colin Clive as Baron Frankenstein, in Terence Fisher's film it is not the creature but the scientist that is in the foreground.

The film was a huge financial success and prompted Hammer Production to make more films of this style. There followed on the one hand direct sequels, on the other hand the Dracula film adaptation with the same actors, which also drew a whole series of sequels.

Hammer Film Production, founded in London in the early 1950s, reissued many classic horror films, mostly with low budgets. Many of them have now become classics again themselves. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee gained great popularity through the Hammer films, especially in Horror of Dracula (1958), where Cushing played the vampire hunter Van Helsing and Lee played Count Dracula.

In 2012 Studiocanal in France, Anolis Entertainment in Germany, Pinewood in Great Britain and illuminate Hollywood fka HTV in the USA released the film for the first time in HD format on Blu-ray Disc .

World premieres

  • Great Britain: May 2, 1957
  • USA: June 25, 1957
  • Germany: September 27, 1957

literature

  • Karin Kaltenbrunner: Mad Medicine. To represent the scientist in the Frankenstein cycle of Hammer Film Productions (1957–1974) . LIT Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-50562-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frankenstein's curse. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Hammer classics going hi-def
  3. ↑ World premieres according to IMDb