The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Directed by Terence Fisher [Other horror films: Three’s Company (1953, episodes ‘The Surgeon’ & ‘ Take a Number’), Dracula (1958), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), The Brides of Dracula (1960), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), The Phantom of the Opera (1962), The Horror of It All (1964), The Gorgon (1964), The Earth Dies Screaming (1964), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Island of Terror (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Night of the Big Heat (1967), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)]

The Curse of Frankenstein is a classic that I don’t really have that much to say about. It’s not as classic a movie as 1931’s Frankenstein, but this Hammer production is still one of the best renditions of the story.

A large part of this is the very solid cast, and who could expect differently coming from a Hammer movie. Peter Cushing is a favorite of mine, and he’s been in so many movies of the genre that it’s really hard to narrow down his best performances. Playing Frankenstein here, Cushing was fantastic, and his sole focus on his work (at the expense of his fiancé, Hazel Court) was, as always, fun to watch.

Playing his long-time mentor and eventual foe, Robert Urquhart did a great job, and during their many arguments about the morality of Frankenstein’s experiments, Urquhart and Cushing really get into it, and you can really see his disappointment in Frankenstein toward the end of the film. These two are easily the most important, but Christopher Lee brings a lot as the Creature, playing a very different version than Karloff did, and Hazel Court too was a nice, although somewhat unimportant, addition.

I also really liked the layout of the story, with the bulk of the horrors occurring via flashback told by a condemned Cushing. The ending was somber, and truthfully I felt pretty bad for Frankenstein, though I certainly think he had his problems when it came to approaching his experiment (though the base of the experiment, I thought, was perfectly valid).

This is a Hammer classic, and I enjoy it more than the following year’s Horror of Dracula. Both are good movies, quality re-imaginings of classics, and I’d easily recommend the both of them to fans of classic horror.

8/10