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Frankenstein after 1950

After the American run of Frankenstein films petered out near mid-century, the monster was becoming a kid's comic character. But then the British took up the tale and took it seriously. Not so much continuing the now very confused storyline, but re-imagining the Frankenstein myth from the beginning.

The Hammer Film studios started with The Curse of Frankenstein, pairing Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as the doctor and monster respectively and bringing a more psychological flavour to the tale. Once again the film is only very loosely based on the Shelley story. Victor Frankenstein (at least he's named Victor now, rather than Henry as in the Universal flicks) carries out experiments on reanimating dead animals, becoming obsessed with creating a superior human being. He turns evil himself, stooping to murder to protect his project. He uses the flawed creature he creates to carry out further dirty work and is brought back to his senses only when his fiancée is threatened by it.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD DOCTOR: Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein.

The colour is beautifully rich, after all those black-and-white Hollywood movies. By today's standards this is a low-keyed film for the genre but at the time it was considered a grisly, bloody sensation. Its success, coupled with that of the studio's Dracula the same year, turned Cushing and Lee into major horror and suspense stars.

Far from being upstaged by the monster, as in the Universal films, the doctor of the title has centre stage. And he's a steely-eyed, determined man, not given to the previous Frankenstein's hysterics.

It also led to several sequels, starting with The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) with the same director Terence Fisher and same writer Jimmy Sangster (who wrote almost all Hammer's Frankenstein and Dracula films). Cushing returned as Frankenstein, but without Lee as the monster. The original monster is not resurrected—unlike the Americans, when the Brits kill off a monster at the end of a film, it stays dead. In the subsequent Frankenstein films in this series, the good doctor works on new re-animation projects.

After a break, Fisher made four more Frankensteins with Cushing for Hammer studios: The Evil of Frankenstein (1964), Frankenstein Created Woman (1966), Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973). The third is considered the best and the second—in which the "monster" is a beautiful young woman's body containing her lover's soul bent on revenge against some local dandies—is probably the worst. Hammer also threw in another one in 1970, Horror of Frankenstein, without Fisher or Cushing, but the attempt to introduce a young, hip Frankenstein flopped.

Dozens more Frankensteins appeared in the second half of the twentieth century, but the one that's received the most attention is Kenneth Branagh's opus Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994). Beware all films that carry the author's name in the title—they're trying to tell you that they, unlike others, are presenting the real story, faithfully to the original literary work, but this is seldom true. And when it is true, it's often a bad decision cinematically.

	METHOD MONSTER: Robert De Niro as Frankenstein's monster.

Both problems are evident with this film. Yes, it follows Shelley's story somewhat accurately, including that Arctic chase enclosing the tale. But it's so grandiose and melodramatic. Shelley's novel is related rather matter-of-factly, which makes the horror all the more effective. But in Branagh's film the big romantic gestures and special effects pretty soon tire you out. By the time the monster appears, it's an anticlimax. Then we find the monster is rather a non-entity. Robert De Niro may be one of our greatest actors but his method approach drains all the juice from the main role here. He just looks like someone who's been in a bad car accident. And he just acts like a petty criminal with a screw loose, the kind of lost souls you see on the streets of big cities every day.

This is Frankenstein's monster as a human sociopath, rather than as the ungodly creature of Shelley's conception. This is a "monster" in social, not metaphysical, terms. Okay, what's wrong with translating a classic into terms to be better understood by our own times? Nothing. But the other incredible elements of the plot—such as having the monster learn to speak and read by observing others—are retained, throwing realism out the window.

The film is worth viewing as an attempt to make a Frankenstein that is faithful to the original novel while recasting it in a more modern mould, but ultimately it dissatisfies on both counts.

Among other Frankensteins that might be worth a look or a giggle:

HEART ON A STICK: Udo Kier cuts up as Baron Frankenstein.

Flesh for Frankenstein (1973, also called Andy Warhol's Frankenstein) is for those with peculiar tastes—for campy, gory silliness presented with laughingly bad effects, over-the-top acting and a script that makes little sense. In other words, a taste for bad cinema, some would say. Others rave over this film as ahead of its time, a hoot in a class with Rocky Horror Picture Show. But I'm with the critics here. Flesh for Frankenstein is not even a competently directed parody.

Low point is when Baron Frankenstein tries to animate his female creation (I think) by having intercourse with her gall bladder (I think). Actually that sounds kinda funny in print but on the screen it's another static, overlit, boringly shot scene. Frankenstein's male creation is played by a young Serbian who, both before and after his transformation into the monster in this film, appears to have no clue how to act—he just sulks unconvincingly and turns his head left and right as directed. (I believe the actor never appeared in another film after this.) Director Paul Morrissey made Flesh for Andy Warhol's Factory in tandem with the equally awful Blood for Dracula. In both films he shows pretensions of being an artistic director in the mould of Fellini or some other such European master, but instead reveals himself to be another Ed Wood—with more money. Udo Kier, however, made a cult name for himself by ridiculously overacting the title role.

The movie was initially presented in 3D, which I haven't seen.

Young Frankenstein (1974) on the other hand is a genuinely funny spoof on the genre, one of Mel Brooks's little comedic masterpieces. The cast is hilarious: Gene Wilder as the doctor, Peter Boyle as the monster, Marty Feldman as Igor, and Madeleine Kahn as the doctor's sex-tease of a fiancée, plus Cloris Leachman and an early Teri Garr. Also watch for a sequence featuring a hard-to-recognize Gene Hackman as the blind man who befriends the monster.

Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle as Frankenstein and his monster.

Wilder is actually Frederick Frankenstein, the grandson of the infamous Victor Frankenstein, who dissociates himself from his forbearer by pronouncing his surname Frawnkenshteen. But after he inherits his grandfather's castle laboratory, he is soon caught up in the same attempt to create life from dead body parts.

The script is spot-on in its loving deconstruction of the typical old Hollywood approach to horror films. This black-and-white movie imitates the first three Universal films so closely it could at times be mistaken for them. The humour is tempered, offering only a few outright yucks but lots of knowing chuckles. Quite a few fans of the genre give this comedy higher marks than the classics it parodies, for good reason.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990) is a curiosity, based not on Shelley's story but on a novel by British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss. Directed by Roger Corman, the king of B movies, Frankenstein Unbound stars some A-list actors. John Hurt is the twenty-first-century scientist whose experiments with weapons of mass destruction go awry and cause him to be hurled back into the past where he meets Doctor Frankenstein (Raul Julia), Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda), Percy Bysshe Shelley (late rock star Michael Hutchence), Byron (Jason Patric), and of course the monster. He also has a talking computer-driven car, which helps him get around the old countryside. Needless to add, the plot often makes no sense. The film was obviously cheaply made and offers only low-to-medium entertainment value, unless you're a bad-movie buff like me.

if you're over thirteen, don't bother with Frankenstein and Me (1996). This Canadian production is really for kids. Teenager Earl Williams is obsessed with monsters. His fantasies are shown in the re-enactment of several famous horror scenes from old movies (including a great take on Hammer's Bride of Dracula) with kids in all the roles. Then Earl finds the possibly real Frankenstein's monster, which has been lost by a travelling carnival, and sets about trying to re-animate it. But this part of the plot goes nowhere, as attention is shifted to Earl's relation with parents and friends. Burt Lancaster phones in his part as the kid's dreamy father and Louise Fletcher does her usual Nurse-Ratched bit as a forbidding teacher who picks on Earl. In the end we're left not knowing the monster's fate as the focus remains on the family morality tale.

— Eric