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Stars:
Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, and David Prowse
Writer:
John Elder
Director:
Terence Fisher
Feature
length: 93 minutes
Extras:
Commentary By Actress Madeline Smith, Actor David Prowse, And Genre Historian
Jonathan Sothcott
Languages:
English Monaural Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 12
Sound:
Monaural Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 1974/DVD Release: 2003
Theatrical
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
I
think one can argue that the Hammer Studios films between the 1950s and 1970s
could be considered the renaissance or rediscovery of the classic Universal
monsters with such outstanding genre icons as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing
providing chills for generations of moviegoers who were either too young or not
yet born to appreciate the likes of Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Bela
Lugosi. I cannot say enough how much I love the Hammer films and how much I love
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In the last few years American home video
distributors that include Anchor Bay Entertainment, Warner Home Video,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, and
most recently Paramount Home Entertainment have been steadily releasing their
various catalogue of Hammer film titles with most of them benefiting from
anamorphic widescreen transfers and commentary tracks with the filmmakers that
quite honestly were something I never thought I’d see happen in the days
before DVD. The fact that so many distributors hold the rights to these films in
North America makes collecting some of the ongoing series like the Frankenstein
films with Peter Cushing or the Karnstein vampire movies a bit of a challenge.
For instance if you wanted to own all of the “Frankenstein” films with Peter
Cushing on DVD, you had to buy whatever Anchor Bay had available and then wait
until Columbia TriStar released the second film in that series “The Revenge Of
Frankenstein” and then wait a few more months for the first film in the series
“The Curse Of Frankenstein” to be released by Warner Home Video. Now
Paramount Home Entertainment has released the final film in the series
“Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell” to DVD complete with an audio
commentary by Actress Madeline Smith, Actor David Prowse, and Genre Historian
Jonathan Sothcott as well as an anamorphic widescreen presentation.
“Frankenstein
And The Monster From Hell” was the sixth film in Hammer’s “Frankenstein”
series to feature Peter Cushing as the Baron Frankenstein. It is easy to forget
that film sequels and even prequels have been being produced for years before
George Lucas was born and amazing to consider how many sequels Hammer produced
in various franchises. I noted this in a DVD review for another Hammer DVD title
released in the USA earlier this year and I will repeat myself here by stating
how many contemporary filmmakers of varying degrees of notoriety have or at
least appear to have been influenced by the gothic style Hammer features
presented. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Kenneth
Branagh’s “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” Tim Burton’s “Sleepy
Hollow,” and even Werner Herzog’s “Nosferatu – The Vampire” starring
Klaus Kinski all appear in one form or another to have been influenced by the
“Hammer” look.
In
“Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell,” the Baron has managed to convince
the greater world that he is dead while blackmailing the administrator of the
insane asylum where he was committed into letting him assumes the identity of
“Doctor Victor” and continuing his hideous experiments using mental
inpatients as guinea pigs. When a young surgeon (Shane Briant) is committed to
the asylum under the trumped up charge of sorcery because he was trying to
follow in the footsteps of the Baron leftover from his journals, Frankenstein
takes the young surgeon under his wing and soon begins new gruesome research
into attaching the brain of genius into the body of a murderous brute (David
Prowse) and replacing the hands with that of a gifted artisan.
Of
course things go haywire from thereon as Frankenstein’s nightmarish creation
breaks loose upon the hospital and goes on a rampage culminating in a
nightmarish, tragic, and quite gory end for the creature. Actor Shane Briant was
being groomed by Hammer Studios to be the new lead in future Frankenstein
stories. Briant eventually went on to become a successful Novelist in Australia.
This sixth and final appearance of Cushing as “Baron Victor Frankenstein”
was supposed to be a comeback vehicle for him and it succeeded in getting him
more work that included working with David Prowse again in “Star Wars: Episode
IV: A New Hope.” The audio commentary track reveals much about Cushing’s
meticulous nature as an Actor, who not only was generous to his fellow players,
but had a few quirks of his own that included constant note writing while on the
set and always wearing a white glove to smoke a cigarette off camera. It also
reveals his never ceasing great sadness and depression that followed after his
wife’s death. David Prowse shares an amusing anecdote regarding Cushing during
the production of “Star Wars.” It seems that a pair of boots were custom
made for his character of “Grand Moff Tarkin,” but Cushing found wearing
them to be extremely uncomfortable so for most of the production, Cushing
actually wore slippers and Lucas simply shot as many scenes as he could that
never required the viewer to see a full body image of the character. Prowse also
shares some recollections of his work in “A Clockwork Orange” as well as his
career from being a professional bodybuilder to launching a successful film
career in the 1970s and early 1980s playing screen villains like
Frankenstein’s monster and of course Darth Vader. The decline of Hammer Film
Studios is also discussed between Prowse, Smith, and Sothcott as being a
combination of a loss of studio funding that started during the Vietnam War and
the oversight of ignoring the trends of horror films in the 1960s like
“Rosemary’s Baby” and “Night Of The Living Dead” started. By the mid
1970s the gothic horror films Hammer produced were considered dated by American
audiences who were far more interested in seeing thrillers like “The Omen”
and “Jaws” than the kind of films the late great British studio was making.
Overall this is an informative commentary track for anyone with an interest in
the Hammer Films of the 1970s as well as learning a few recollections about
genre icons like Peter Cushing.
“Frankenstein
And The Monster From Hell” is presented in an anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1)
aspect ratio and for the most part the transfer is pretty good though there are
some scenes with a shimmering effect that appear to be from the source print
used and not a fault of the DVD mastering. The English Two-Channel Monaural
Soundtrack is clear and free of any analogue background noise. English Captions
and Closed Captions for the hearing impaired are encoded onto the DVD as options
too. There are no other extra value features beside the feature length audio
commentary track. Not even a trailer. The menus are standard interactive still
frames that are easy to navigate. Look for cameo appearances by Patrick
Troughton, who played the second “Doctor” in the BBC series “Doctor Who”
from 1966 to 1969 and Bernard Lee, who portrayed the character of “M” in the
James Bond series from “Doctor No” to “Moonraker.”
“Frankenstein
And The Monster From Hell” was originally released theatrically by Paramount
as a double feature along with “Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter” and both
DVDs make for an excellent Halloween double feature for any Hammer fan.
“Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell” as well as “Captain Kronos:
Vampire Hunter” are available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline
from Paramount Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2003 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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