See, now this HAS a "the" - why did Hammer lose it between 1957 and 8? Anyway, this is the very first of the Hammer re-creations of classic Universal films, and as with Horror of Dracula, it changes the original in very interesting ways. Also like Horror, the star is unquestionably Cushing, who in this one is really stretching his acting chops to play somebody who veers easily from civility to crazed venality. (Did he ever do Jekyll/Hyde? For him it would have been Van Helsing/Frankenstein.) In fact, what really sets these early Hammers apart is how good the acting is in general, and in particular Cushing and Lee. Again, Lee has very little screen time, and in this case absolutely zero lines (it follows the first film and departs from the book in having the Creature be non-verbal), but once again you are struck by how important non-verbal acting can be. Just as Lee creates an entirely distinctive version of Dracula, miles from Lugosi's somewhat campy original, but also genuinely terrifying when in full bloodlust, his Creature is a sui generis and fully-realized creation. Yes, he staggers and lurches (no groaning, though, and somehow his utter silence (except for a death scream) is more chilling) but he is never cartoonish. In many ways he's a lot more like a modern Romero-esque shuffling zombie, only towering and with a baleful stare (with one milky eye,
which, knowing the limitations of 50s contact-lenses, must have made him glad only to be on screen for short bursts).
The film is bookended with Victor Frankenstein in prison, awaiting execution for... something. He seems deranged, but welcomes a priest just as an audience to whom to tell his story.
"It all started when I was a precocious schoolboy..." Cue Melvyn "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" Hayes (although he is unrecognizable, and sounds, as Jami pointed out, just like Davy Jones of the Monkees) as young Victor, at the funeral of his mother, which leaves him orphaned. His aunt Sophie is very worried about something, but Victor reassures her that he knew about his mother supporting her and will continue to do so. Sophie is effusive and makes suggestive comments about future entanglements with her now very young daughter Elizabeth. Victor, however, impatiently hustles everybody out of the house because he only wants to get going with his studies. To that end, and because his teacher is stupid, he hires a live-in personal tutor, Paul Krempe (the very familiar-looking (perhaps from Restless Natives) Robert Urquhart). They get on famously through the montage that jars rather when Melvyn Hayes, clearly younger than Urquhart, is suddenly replaced with Cushing, who, despite the best efforts of the makeup department, looks significantly older than him. All is well, as they progress to reviving a dead puppy, and Krempe is keen to take their findings to a scientific society and become famous. Victor is having none of it, as he has his sights already set on, you guessed it, human subjects. Krempe is immediately less than enthusiastic, but still goes along as they collect corpses (the first of which they retrieve from the gibbet, and it has a "partially eaten-away" head that Krempe is disgusted to watch Frankenstein casually hack off and dissolve in a vat of acid (a Chekhov's vat of acid). In fact, Urquhart gets to do every iteration of his appalled-and-alarmed face throughout the film, the facility in the making of which was presumably his reason for being cast.
Krempe is fretting about this while Victor is off somewhere getting body parts (they turn out to be the hands of a sculptor) when somebody arrives to live with them, to the shock of Paul and the maid, Justine - it is the now-grown Elizabeth (who is something of a weak link in the film: Hazel Court is neither a good actress or the later-typical Hammer babe, cast for other assets). She has been communicating with Victor (especially since Aunt Sophie recently died) but knows him so little she confuses Paul with him at first. However, Victor does not bat an eye when he returns, more excited to show Paul the hands. Paul refuses to help him sew them on, however, and in the first of many sulks, Victor tells Paul that he'll have to dine with Elizabeth without him. Paul clearly becomes besotted with Elizabeth, who only has eyes (albeit out of a sense of gratitude for the role he played in supporting her financially) for Victor, who has asked her to marry him. This is news to Justine, whom Victor, in the first sign of his more base nature, is seen snogging with in a passage. (They've done more than snogging, as emerges later when Justine accuses Victor of being responsible for her pregnancy. How did this film get released in 50s America?)
Anyway, things progress to the point that the almost-complete human needs a brain, and Victor asserts that he needs a genius one. Immediate cut to Victor entertaining an elderly professor, whom he toasts as being "one of the great brains of Europe." As you might imagine, the old man makes it up the stairs after the meal, but then very rapidly descends (on to his head, which seems suboptimal) because of "faulty" banisters. Paul is out of the house but when he returns is immediately on to Victor, and when, after the funeral, he catches Victor carrying the old man's brain, they wrestle, and the jar the brain is in is broken, which elicits a howl of rage and indignation from Victor that is enough to drive Paul away.
After Victor has carefully picked pieces of broken glass out of the grey matter, we cut forward to the fully-assembled creature in a vat of liquid (meant to stand in for amniotic fluid? seems a risky combination with all the electricity, but certainly differentiates it from the original film) all wrapped in bandages, as Victor attempts to animate him. However, he can't manage the equipment by himself and goes to Paul (still living in his house!) to ask for his help. Meanwhile we see that his attempt has in fact succeeded - the fluid drains away and the creature begins to breathe. As Victor is arguing with Paul we hear a crash and Victor runs to find the creature standing upright and removing the bandages from its eyes. And what a sight its face is - Jami didn't even recognize it as Christopher Lee, what with the pasty makeup, scars and milky eye. Turns out his brain is abby-normal and his first act is to strangle his creator.
Or at least, choke him until Paul comes up and clocks him with a chair.
After that, things start to move fast. The creature gets out and roams around the woods
where the scenes in the original where he meets a child and an old blind man are combined, in that an old blind man and his grandson are out gathering some kind of edible when the monster happens upon the old man. The monster doesn't immediately attack, and things might have been okay but the old man gets spooked and whaps him with his walking stick. Bad mistake. Thereafter things go poorly for the man and (shockingly - apparently the 50s was harsher on children than thereafter) the child, when he comes to investigate (although we never see him killed, we just see his satchel in the dirt later). Victor and Paul find the monster in the woods and while Victor wants to try to reason with him, Paul just shoots him in the head. They bury him and Paul can now move away, as he was only staying to protect Elizabeth, who knows nothing of the experiments (and is never allowed in the upstairs lab).
But of course, Victor digs him up and (somehow!) gets him back to the lab, where he does brain surgery. Meanwhile we get a confrontation between Victor and Justine
where she claims to know what's going on, announces she's pregnant and threatens to reveal all to Elizabeth. Victor calls her bluff and tells her to be gone in the morning. However, at night she waits outside his lab until he leaves and sneaks in. She finds the inner room where the monster is kept and goes inside...
and is locked there by Victor, as the monster closes in... Problem solved!
Victor and Elizabeth finally wed, and Paul is invited to the wedding. When he arrives, late, Victor proudly shows him that the monster obeys commands.
(Here Lee's physical movements are fantastic - it's like a badly strung puppet.) Nonetheless Paul is disgusted and runs out to get the police. Victor chases after him, and Elizabeth, long fed up with being kept in the dark, goes to investigate.
Meanwhile the monster has pulled out his chains and made for the roof, where Paul spots him as he and Victor tussle on the street. Elizabeth goes on the roof to investigate, and, when Victor runs up with a gun, everything ends with the monster crashing through the skylight that happens to be right above that acid bath...
And then we're back to the prison cell we began with. It turns out that Victor has been charged with the killings of the three victims (spoiler, although Victor seemingly shoots her in the shoulder by accident, Elizabeth has recovered, and Paul has swooped in) and nobody believes him that it was a monster that he created that has been entirely dissolved. Will Paul reveal the truth to one and all and save Victor from the gallows? Will he buggery.
Is this as good as the classic Colin Clive/Boris Karloff James Whale film? Of course not. But is it the best of the rest? Almost certainly, and the changes are enough to make it its own thing, which is genuinely exciting and a well-made thrilling (although cozy) film, with great performances from its leads, and excellent sets and atmosphere. The monster is definitely no pale shadow of the Karloff version, and Lee imbues it with real menace (and a little of the Karloff pathos, but mostly menace). No tortured "why was I created?" musing here, or even groans, just silent and deadly. So in a way, it's been stripped of all its philosophical trappings and is just about a crazy person driven to make life because he can, not because he should. Hey it's Jurassic Park! No it's Sam Altman!
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