Frankenstein Created Woman - Underrated/Overrated? in Hammer Horror Forum

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Frankenstein Created Woman - Underrated/Overrated?

Author	Comment
Ted Newsom		#81	[-]
Mar 30 11 12:50 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Best of the bunch. Beats the hell out of the low-key wimpoids in the TV shows. Could've shown Andrew Keir a thing or two. And John Mills? Oy.
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skelton knaggs		#82	[-]
Mar 30 11 3:21 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Heh,heh..... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
BijouBob8mm		#83	[-]
Mar 30 11 4:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	No matter how you slice it, Donlevy's no Denberg.
.		#84	[-]
Apr 13 11 2:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Other than the first entry in the series, this was the one I enjoyed the most. I love the bits where she has her lover's head and the whole revenge angle to the story and I enjoy the tragic love story and the evil upstarts getting just desserts. Certainly one of my favourite non-vampire Hammer movies.
SAM33		#85	[-]
Oct 16 11 7:54 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Underrated IMO. I quite liked this one as a child on first run, even though it has no "monster" so to speak. I guess even at 9 or 10 Susan Denberg held some proto-charms for me. Just re-watched this last night, spurred on by the footage on the BFI site someone here linked to with behind-the-scenes color film from this. Agree, this one is my favorite after the first one, a bit better even than REVENGE, and I'm one who doesn't care much for the rest. EVIL does have cool sets, but otherwise is a dud for me, and the REALLY nasty character of the Baron in subsequent films loses the complexity of the character we see in this outing. Really like Cushing's look and performance here, and while I agree the sets are few and cramped, somehow I think it all adds to the feeling of desperation and distress all the characters experience. A place to be escaped from that somehow no one can. The disc transfer is pretty nice on this, feels like how I remember it (although how could I really after 45 years?!!) in the theater so long ago. SAM33
tonyrivers		#86	[-]
Oct 18 11 1:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Technically you could call Christina, after the transference of souls, a monster since it's her dead lover's "soul" or spirit that has her seek revenge.
skelton knaggs		#87	[-]
Jan 15 12 11:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Found this little treat. Hope it's something some have not seen.And my apologies if it's been posted before. And just in case to sweeten the deal.... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
Zombie Dad		#88	[-]
Feb 2 12 9:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	ZD Zombie Dad's Online Art Store www.zazzle.com/zombiedad
Monsterpal		#89	[-]
Feb 3 12 3:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's tough to get a head in the mad scientist business.
Zombie Dad		#90	[-]
Feb 5 12 12:38 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Monsterpal wrote: It's tough to get a head in the mad scientist business. One usually has to head on down to the graveyard. ZD Zombie Dad's Online Art Store www.zazzle.com/zombiedad
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Monsterpal		#91	[-]
Feb 5 12 2:58 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That guillotine shot looks like a gag with Bill Bixby.
pulp novelties		#92	[-]
Mar 1 12 3:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bumped this up. I took in FCW last night for the first time in awhile, and I gotta say it was pretty weak tea this time. The lab sequences are rather dull, and there is a real feeling of "formula" setting in. Half the film seems set at that dam village in that seems a like the same village in that draws out many a Hammer film. The best thing about it is Peter Cushing, and his wit an delivery just serve to punctuate how by-the-numbers the rest had come to feel. The scenes where tarted-up Christina avenges her lover Hans seem very abrupt with no build-up or satisfactory climax. They don't even make dramatic sense. Hans will go to the guillotine to protect Christina's honor, but his soul compels her to use her new saucy body to seduce the jerks that murdered her father to their doom? Kinky, maybe a tad misogynistic, but it just doesn't make dramatic sense to me. It can see why Hammer sought to turn a different (not terribly successful) direction with HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, before they came out swinging one last time with FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED.
Ted Newsom		#93	[-]
Mar 3 12 2:37 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I do not understand the "formula" comment. This is a love story between the boy and the girl which goes bad; Frankensnstein is the vehicle which supplies the method of resolving the problem. How is that formulaic? It's certainly nothing like any of the three previous stories. It is a "Frankenstein" movie, and the character will always, always create an imperfect "human," but that's hardly something that's only seen in Hammer's films with the character. Hans is hot-headed. Maybe not tainted by his father as indicated by the trial's prosecutor, but certainly capable of violence when provoked. He was unjustly condemned and executed, instinctively knowing (and sure of it mystically after his death) that the three louts are responsible for his beheading. And he does explicitly say he'd kill them to Christina when he hears their taunting and how it hurts her. Why then does it not make sense that his soul (mind, whatever) would do exactly that through the only vehicle he has, the re-formed Christina?
pulp novelties		#94	[-]
Mar 3 12 4:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ted Newsom wrote: Why then does it not make sense that his soul (mind, whatever) would do exactly that through the only vehicle he has, the re-formed Christina? He may well have wanted to kill the boys who tormented Christina, but he was also pretty concerned about her reputation, so much so that he'd allow himself to be executed before having it known they were having it off while her father was being beaten to death. I don't know if that's an act of pure love, or extreme chivalry, but the upshot is that it leaves her alone without a father or lover, and her fathers killers to run free. That his "soul" would then then use his loved-ones body to seduce and murder doesn't seem all loving or chivalrous. In fact it seems rather selfish and with no regard for what was once someone who's honor he'd die to defend. Was I wrong in assuming Christina was also part Christina sometimes too? Then why not have some concern for her welfare, rather than make her a tart and murderess?
Rick		#95	[-]
Mar 3 12 11:27 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Of course, part of the "problem" with this one -- with really loving it, anyway -- is that, of all the Hammer Frankensteins, this is the least monstrous. At least REVENGE had Michael Gwynn de-evolving, and MUST BE DESTROYED had Freddie Jones with a stitched on pate. Denberg may be a nut job and a murderer. She could maybe even be creepy, but she is never gonna be a monster. But even more than that, to me at least, is the whole subject of "soul transference." It just doesn't seem very Frankensteinian to me. Too mystical, too spiritual. I always think of Frankenstein as more of a "hardware" guy -- brains, bodies, eyeballs. This is the "software" Frankenstein and it's just never cut it for me.
Wich2		#96	[-]
Mar 3 12 12:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Interesting point, Rick... In the Shelley original, and in some of the better films including "Bride" and others, it is The Monster who has to teach Victor/Henry that he's meddling with souls/inner beings, when he thought he was just stitching tissue. Last Edited By: Wich2 Mar 3 12 12:30 PM. Edited 1 times.
pulp novelties		#97	[-]
Mar 3 12 1:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rick wrote: But even more than that, to me at least, is the whole subject of "soul transference." It just doesn't seem very Frankensteinian to me. Too mystical, too spiritual. I always think of Frankenstein as more of a "hardware" guy -- brains, bodies, eyeballs. This is the "software" Frankenstein and it's just never cut it for me. I agree, and it doesn't make for very interesting lab sequences. At one point the Baron and assistant peer in at the captured soul of Hans, and it looks like a flashlight beamed on a wall. Not only that, I traditionally think of our souls as being our more "godlike" self, not the part of us bent on revenge, so I'm not sure what's meant by "soul" here other possibly the mind itself. Last Edited By: pulp novelties Mar 3 12 3:28 PM. Edited 1 times.
Ted Newsom		#98	[-]
Mar 3 12 8:48 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I don't think THE ASPHYX has souls shaped vaguely like human beings, does it? And it's not identified as a "soul," more like an amorphous essence, a personality. The idea that a spirit will hold on to certain (often diagreeable) human attributes is a classic ghost-story theme, as is the idea that any given chunk of flesh also contains the "character" of its source, as in HANDS OF ORLAC or DONOVAN'S BRAIN.
pulp novelties		#99	[-]
Mar 4 12 4:32 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ted Newsom wrote: I don't think THE ASPHYX has souls shaped vaguely like human beings, does it? And it's not identified as a "soul," more like an amorphous essence, a personality. The idea that a spirit will hold on to certain (often diagreeable) human attributes is a classic ghost-story theme, as is the idea that any given chunk of flesh also contains the "character" of its source, as in HANDS OF ORLAC or DONOVAN'S BRAIN. The movie plays it both ways. Hans says he "could kill" these guys. He doesn't though, his brawling is stopped and we really don't know if he would have gone so far as to commit murder or not. He's also shown to have a winning personality and love and compassion for Christina more than the instincts of a killer. I'd argue that dolling up for seduction and a little per-meditated murder isn't shown to be much in either of their characters.
sthorntn		#100	[-]
Mar 4 12 10:32 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I haven't watched this one in a while but my memory is that Frankenstein becomes something of a secondary once Hans/Christina is resurrected. The film would have been stronger if it had made better use of Cushing in the final reels.
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Frankenstein Created Woman - Underrated/Overrated?