Catching up with The Horror of Frankenstein

Now Playing: The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)

Pros: A couple of the supporting characters are lively; the black humor works well for the most part
Cons: Slow and talky for much of the running time; the monster is a disappointment

A long, long time ago, when I was a snot-nosed kid growing up in America’s Heartland, I lived in monster kid paradise. The local TV stations broadcast not one but two (!!) creature features on successive nights. On Fridays, I’d get into my pajamas and plant myself in front of the TV to watch sci-fi epics from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and then on Saturday nights fire up the old boobtube again to watch Gravesend Manor’s Malcolm the Butler and his fellow cracked cast members introduce the Universal monsters in all their black and white glory.

That lasted only a few years, but as I transitioned into awkward adolescence, I discovered something new and exciting… Girls, yes, but as a clueless pencil-neck geek I was in no position to do anything about that at the time… Rather, it was Hammer Films’ bloody, technicolor re-imaginings of the Universal monsters (not to mention the exposed skin of Hammer's female protagonists) that occupied much of my still developing brain.

The Hammer horrors, which got more and more “adult” as time went on, were a sort of pop culture rite of passage for a secular nerd such as myself. I remember sitting in a darkened theater for a matinee of Dracula: Prince of Darkness, watching a victim being hung upside down like a side of beef and bled dry over the ashes of the sinister count. Who knew you could bring back a vampire that way?

Like any reasonably obsessed film nerd, once I’d gone through Hammer’s Horrors, Curses and Evils, I wanted to see what else they had to offer. I started exploring the studio's sci-fi (the Quatermass movies, X the Unknown, etc.), thrillers (Scream of Fear, Paranoiac, The Maniac, etc.) and even swashbucklers (see my review of Night Creatures elsewhere on this site).

This is your brain after bingeing on Hammer horror films.

While I was wandering down those genre byways, I was keeping an eye out for any of the horror films, especially the late Hammers of the early ‘70s, that I had somehow missed. Over the years I checked off such titles as Twins of Evil and Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde that were rarely shown on TV or were slow to crack the U.S. home video market.

In spite of my nerdish zeal to see as much of Hammer’s catalog as possible, one film -- and one of their horror films at that -- remained unseen. And it wasn’t as if it was hard to find.

For years, Horror of Frankenstein sat there, fat and happy, mocking my pretensions of being a Hammer horror film completist. Sure, Hammer was in decline by the time the film was made. Sure, it committed the cardinal sin of casting Ralph Bates as Victor Frankenstein, instead of the beloved Peter Cushing. Sure, many reviewers have dismissed it as too glib and tongue-in-cheek.

But dammit, it’s a Hammer horror film, and as such I should have watched it years ago! For example, right now it’s streaming on such platforms as YouTube, Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu for anywhere from $1.99 to $3.99, less than the price of a small popcorn at the theater.

But I am a cheap SOB, and I just hate to shell out even a measly dollar beyond what I already plunk down for streaming privileges. So I will try to find a free copy on YouTube or at the library, or anywhere, before I dig into my metaphorical wallet for a couple of bucks (it’s a sickness, it really is).

Every time I thought about finally getting around to seeing The Horror of Frankenstein, it snickered at me behind some teensy-tiny paywall. But I had the last laugh. A few weeks ago, as I was browsing movies in the Hoopla app (subsidized by my local library), I stumbled upon The Horror sitting there on a virtual shelf, just waiting to be borrowed for free... nothing, nada, zero, zilch!

It's easy to lose your head when you're a film nerd.

So now I’ve seen just about everything in Hammer’s Gothic horror catalog, and my inner Scrooge is content. Was it worth the wait? Well….

The Horror of Frankenstein is a reboot of Hammer’s Frankenstein saga (almost a remake of the original Curse of Frankenstein), reprising the rise of Victor Frankenstein from a precocious and arrogant medical student to a sociopath willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in his quest to create artificial life. And in its bid to look cooler and more youth-oriented, Hammer inserted 30-year-old Ralph Bates into Peter Cushing's old role.

Writer-producer-director Jimmy Sangster freely admitted that he created a subpar entry in Hammer’s line of Gothic horrors. In his memoir Do You Want it Good or Tuesday, Sangster recalled being contacted by Hammer about polishing a new Frankenstein script by Jeremy Burnham. He initially declined, but told them he’d do it if he could also produce and direct the film. They readily agreed, but his bubble was about to burst:

“Three days later the script arrived. I read it and my heart sank. It was virtually identical to the script I’d written for Hammer umpty years ago, the first Frankenstein movie they made [The Curse of Frankenstein]. As far as I could see they needn’t have bothered paying a writer to come up with something they as good as owned already. All of a sudden I didn’t want to do it any more.” [Jimmy Sangster, Do You Want it Good or Tuesday: From Hammer Films to Hollywood! A Life in the Movies. Midnight Marquee Press, 1997, p. 113]

Sangster also recalled that, in spite of his initial reservations, he and Bates had a great time during the filming:

“Indeed we had a good laugh, but we also took the shooting very seriously. At least, I did. I’m pretty sure Ralph did too. Because we enjoyed ourselves it didn’t mean we were turning out bad work. Some directors believe that unless the set is rife with fear and tension the end result won’t be any good. Reduce the cast to a state of helpless terror so the director can better force his own will on them. Personally, I think that’s a load of bullshit. … Nevertheless, happy set or not, I am forced to admit that I didn’t make a very good movie. I meant it to be lighthearted. It was so lighthearted its feet never touched the ground. … I think one of the reasons it wasn’t as good a movie as it should have been was that there was nobody to keep me in check. I was the writer/producer/director, the closest you can get to being God. Nobody was around to say ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘that doesn’t work.’ [Ibid., p. 115]

All the main elements of The Curse of Frankenstein, which launched Hammer’s Gothic horror craze, are in The Horror of Frankenstein: the depiction of the Baron’s early life, illuminating his single-mindedness; his obsession with his experiments to the exclusion of everyone and everything else; the lab assistant with a conscience that the Baron lacks; Frankenstein resorting to murder to get ahold of a decent brain for the creature; and even the brain being damaged by broken glass before being transplanted into the creature’s skull.

But where Curse had energy and daring (and Peter Cushing) going for it 13 years before, Horror is a comparatively by-the-numbers exercise trying to milk a fading genre one last time with the inclusion of some **wink wink, nudge nudge** sexual innuendo, bountiful cleavage and black humor.

If anything, Ralph Bates’ Frankenstein is even more of a sociopath than Cushing’s, not even pretending to be interested in anything but his experiments, and remorselessly eliminating anyone -- friend, foe, colleague, or servant -- who stands in his way. But his delivery is so flat that he sucks the energy out of scenes that should have been rousing or at least titillating. He may have had a great time on the set, but you couldn’t prove it from the film that made it into the can.

The first two thirds of Horror is very talky, amounting to a character study of a very unlikeable Victor Frankenstein. When he’s not making sly references to boffing his housekeeper Alys (Kate O’Mara), Frankenstein spends an inordinate amount of screen time making notes in his lab or preparing corpses for dissection.

The monster doesn’t make an appearance until well after an hour in, and is a big disappointment for all the build-up. 6’6” muscleman David Prowse (who would later play Darth Vader in the first round of Star Wars movies) sports a sloppy head prosthetic with a few scars and staples and body sutures that look like they were drawn on with a red marker.

"Welcome to the family!"

Still, a couple of Horror’s supporting characters keep things relatively interesting and lively. The housekeeper-with-benefits Alys is a dark, scheming beauty who gives as good as she gets and is not above using sex and blackmail to manipulate her amoral employer. (In contrast, the ethereally beautiful Veronica Carlson doesn’t have much to do playing a neighbor and childhood friend of Victor’s.)

The real star of The Horror of Frankenstein is Dennis Price, who plays the graverobber that Victor employs to supply body parts for his experiments. Price is a stout, self-satisfied wheeler-dealer whose business happens to be digging up fresh cadavers from local graveyards. The jovial ghoul provides the film’s best moments of black humor.

In one scene, when Frankenstein asks what he can get his hands on, the man responds that the selection is poor, “...very poor. Times are hard. People just aren’t dying off so quick. It’s the welfare state, that’s what it is!”

Then, he tells Frankenstein that he needs to get going, since “I like to get to them [the recently buried bodies] before the soil settles. Digging is easier that way.” Cut to the graveyard, where Price is lounging next to the gravesite, drinking from a bottle, while his wife is furiously digging away.

Price plays his part to the hilt, and his character’s prominence in the film saves it from being just a garden-variety remake of The Curse of Frankenstein. At this relatively late point in his career, Price would go on to appear in such horror films as Twins of Evil, Tower of Evil, Theater of Blood, Horror Hospital, and a grab-bag of titles from schlock-auteur Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos, Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein). (See also my review of the underrated UK sci-fi B The Earth Dies Screaming, co-starring Price.)

"Anything I bring you will be so fresh, it will get past the government meat inspector!"

Jimmy Sangster and Ralph Bates may have had just a little too much fun to make a truly good movie, but a couple of supporting performances and some inspired black humor and sly social commentary make The Horror of Frankenstein worth a watch.

Where to find it: Streaming | Blu-ray

RIP Veronica Carlson

I was saddened to see the news that Veronica Carlson recently passed away at the age of 77. While she appeared in only a comparative handful of films and TV shows, her presence in three Hammer horror films -- Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, and The Horror of Frankenstein -- assured her a solid place in the pantheon of the studio’s stars.

According to her IMDb page, before being “discovered” by Hammer’s James Carreras, she had studied art and design. She willingly left show business to raise a family and pursue other interests. She lived in Florida and South Carolina, and became a very successful painter.

Years later, she would appear with three other Hammer veterans -- Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick and Christopher Neame -- in low-budget filmmaker Joshua Kennedy’s homage to Hammer, House of the Gorgon (2019).

I was lucky to be able to attend the world premiere of the film at the Monster Bash convention in Mars, PA in 2019. It was a special treat to see the film and hear first-hand the recollections of this gracious and talented actress and artist. See my review of the film and the convention here.

Veronica Carlson, 1944 - 2022

Dracula Exploits the Generation Gap: Special ‘70s Hammer Horror Edition, Part One

Now Playing: Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

Pros: The backdrop of Victorian-era vice and hypocrisy is different and engaging; Ralph Bates is wonderfully hammy as a depraved aristocrat
Cons: The final confrontation with Dracula is something of a letdown

Generation Gap. Noun. : the differences in opinions, values, etc., between younger people and older people
-- Merriam-Webster.com

Merriam (may I call you Merriam?) further elaborates:

“The most famous generation gap is the baby boomers, many of whom came of age in the 1960s, and their parents, who grew up around the Great Depression and tended to have traditional values.

This generation gap was clearly evident in the rapid evolution of music during the 1950s and 1960s, when rock music, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam war forced many of America's young people to question many basic values. The beginnings of the women's movement, civil rights and the growth in birth control reinforced the baby boomers' controversial sense of self-determination that changed the course of the next several decades.”

As a boomer who was alive and somewhat sentient in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I can attest to that “controversial sense of self-determination.” We were gonna end the war, man, and shed all those bogus hang-ups, man, and live in peace, love and flower power, dig it?

The youthful rebels of the late '60s and early '70s
had the establishment seeing red.

Then, as the ‘70s wore on and the bloom came off the counterculture rose, some of us looked around and realized that all that we’d accomplished was to participate in the greatest fashion catastrophe of all time, with its hideous polyester shirts, bell-bottoms, mini-skirts, go-go boots, and platform shoes. I challenge anyone my age to look at photos of themselves from that period and not wince at least a little.

At first The Man made fun of all those long-haired freaky people, but then realized he could pick their bell-bottom pockets just as easily as their parents’. Of course, all those regrettable clothes were a gold mine. On the entertainment front, pics like Beach Blanket Bingo and The Horror of Party Beach gave way to full-on youth rebellion stuff like the Hells Angels on Wheels and The Trip on drive-in screens.

Across the pond, Hammer Films, the birthplace of technicolor Gothic horror, was a little slow on the uptake. Motorcycle gangs and LSD trips weren’t their cup of tea, and were never going to be. But they did see the youth market’s writing on the wall, and gradually acknowledged it without abandoning the horror genre for which they were famous.

Taste the Blood of Dracula is set in Victorian-era London and is replete with Hammer’s signature costumes and mannered acting, but it also has a counterculture, don’t-trust-anyone-over-30 vibe to it. William Hargood (Geoffrey Keen) is an upper-crust patriarch who rules his home with an iron fist. He’s particularly hard on his sweet, innocent daughter Alice (Linda Hayden), having taken a visceral dislike to her intended suitor Paul (Anthony Higgins). He keeps her under practical house arrest to prevent the two from seeing each other.

Hargood and his friends are busy doing their "charity" work
rescuing orphaned boa constrictors.

Although appearing to be a grim paragon of rectitude, Hargood leads a double-life. On the pretense of doing charity work, he and two other outwardly respectable partners in vice, Samuel Paxton and Jonathan Secker (Peter Sallis and John Carson) go slumming periodically in the brothels of London’s East End.

But alas, after all the debauched binging, the trio have become jaded and bored. Not even watching a voluptuous exotic dancer (Mailaika Martin) and her pet boa constrictor can properly wax their mustaches, if you know what I mean. Enter Lord Courtly (Ralph Bates), a dissolute libertine who’s been disowned by his aristocrat father and mooches off of his equally corrupt friends.

A drunken Courtly barges into the trio’s private brothel room during the snake dance. After some initial outrage, the glib Courtly piques Hargood’s and his friends’ curiosity when he promises an experience beyond their wildest imaginations. He takes them to a shady merchant (Roy Kinnear) who has the infamous Dracula’s cape and ring, and a vial of his powdered blood. Courtly convinces his new-found wealthy friends to purchase the items for a small fortune, which they will use to celebrate a black mass -- everyone’s favorite way to stave off boredom.

They find an abandoned, de-consecrated church to conduct the ceremony. Officiating at the altar, Courtly, wearing Dracula’s cape, cuts open his hand and bleeds into his and the other men’s chalices, each containing a portion of the powdered blood. As the cups begin to boil like witches’ cauldrons he rails at the cowards to drink up.

It's happy hour at the old de-consecrated church, with two-for-one Bloody Marys.

It’s all too much for Hargood and his crew, who refuse to partake of the bloody concoction. After Courtly lustily downs his brew he collapses to the floor, gagging and flailing. Disgusted, the wealthy reprobates beat him to death with their canes and hightail it out of there.

That’s not the end of it for the trio, as Courtly’s body transmutes into Dracula, who once again is dead-alive and kicking and looking to exact retribution on the wealthy slummers for killing his acolyte. (On the other hand, Courtly’s body was the mechanism for Dracula’s resurrection, so maybe they did him a favor.) Dracula goes after the men one by one, using their own children to seal their doom.

The film gives more than a passing nod to the era’s youth rebellion zeitgeist. All the adults -- with the exception of Hargood’s well-meaning wife Martha, played by Gwen Watford -- are either corrupt hypocrites, actual monsters, or officious incompetents. Most of the young cast are victims drafted into Dracula’s small army of revenge -- Alice is seduced by Dracula and held in his thrall; Lucy Paxton (Isla Blair) and Jeremy Secker (Martin Jarvis) are outright turned into vampires. Only Paul is left to combat the evil that has seized his upper-crust world.

Cobb is a graduate of the Inspector Clouseau
Detective Academy.

There is no cool, collected Van Helsing to save the day. The cops are worse than useless. When Alice goes missing, Inspector Cobb (played by veteran Hammer character actor Michael Ripper) dismisses Paul’s concerns with girls-will-be-girls flippancy.

** CAUTION: SPOILERS (SORT-OF) **

Ultimately it’s the kids, Paul and Alice (conveniently rescued at the last minute from Dracula’s spell), who save their little corner of London armed with only youthful purity and a cross. Unfortunately, the fateful climax in the abandoned church is one of the film’s disappointments. Without going into detail, dispatching the centuries-old Count is surprisingly easy. Dracula is reduced to throwing objects from the balcony like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

Another big head-scratcher is Dracula’s failure to turn sweet Alice into a vampire. He has two opportunities, but is distracted each time before he can do the deed. In his thrall, she has committed one murder for him and helped in another. I suppose a hypnotized human assistant is as good as vampire for a lot of things, but his lack of follow-through comes back to bite him in the end.

"You are completely under my spell Alice. Now go
and detail my car. Here are the keys."

On the plus side, Ralph Bates’ few minutes of screen time as the degenerate wastrel Courtly is a treat. Courtly is blithely arrogant, yet smooth enough to talk Hargood and his buddies into turning over vast sums of cash in order to finance their kinky predilections. At the Black Mass, Bates positively chews the scenery (in a good way) as he browbeats the faltering men to drink from their cups of blood.

According to Marcus Hearn and Alan Barnes (The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films, Titan Books, 1997), when a reluctant Christopher Lee demanded a share of the gross to do yet another stint as Dracula, Hammer decided to turn the youthful Bates, only 29 at the time, into a new vampiric menace. Bates had a few TV series under his belt, but had yet to do a feature film.

The American distributor balked at the substitution, pointing out that they had co-financed the picture on the condition that Lee return as Dracula. Hammer execs had to backtrack and convince Lee to do the film. As a result, Bates’ role was drastically scaled back. (pp. 130-131)

Linda Hayden and Anthony Higgins (billed as Anthony Corlan) are fine as the young lovers. Hayden’s ‘70s horror resume includes The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), Night Watch (with Elizabeth Taylor, 1973), and Madhouse (with Vincent Price, 1974). Higgins/Corlan would go on to star in the excellent Vampire Circus (1972) as a handsome shape-shifting bloodsucker (see my review here).

"Alice, did you remember to bring the wooden stake? Alice?..."

James Bond fans will probably recognize Geoffrey Keen (Hargood) as the Defence Minister who appeared in 6 Bond films over the course of a decade, starting with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and ending with The Living Daylights (1987).

Although Lee vowed this would be his last movie for Hammer, he was dragged back 3 more times to portray the evil count for the studio: Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974). Scars is a throwback to Hammer’s signature 19th century, Central European setting. But A.D. 1972 is set in (then) present-day London, and takes the youth culture themes that Taste the Blood dabbled with and explodes them into a generational war: Dracula vs. the hippies.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where we will dig up more generational conflicts in Dracula A.D. 1972.

Where to find it: The 4 Film Favorites: Draculas collection, including Taste the Blood of Dracula and Dracula A.D. 1972 is available here.