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SYNOPSIS | REVIEW | PRODUCTION NOTES | TRIVIA | PRESS | QUOTES | KIM NEWMAN ARCHIVE | MEDIA |
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The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) Country of Origin: UK DIRECTION Director: Terence Fisher CREDITS PRODUCTION SCRIPT DIRECTION PHOTOGRAPHY EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION MUSIC SOUND MAKE UP AND COSTUMES DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION MISCELLANEOUS LOCATIONS CAST Anton Diffring (Georges Bonner) Dr Georges Bonner has found that regular replacements of certain glands every decade will retard the aging process. He's lived to 104 years old and is nearing the time for his next operation but his now aged partner, Dr Ludwig Weiss is unexpectedly delayed by a stroke and Bonner has to turn to murder in order to obtain a glandular fluid vital to his process. Complications set in when Bonner tries to persuade another doctor, Pierre to take over the operation and Bonner's former fiancé, Janine catches up with him. CAPSULE REVIEW The pacing and atmosphere that Jimmy Sangster brought to his earlier scripts for Hammer is completely missing here, The Man Who Could Cheat Death being unusually sluggish and Terence Fisher's direction is similarly less than we'd come to expect from him. The script uneasily tries to fuse the gothic with science fiction and falls far short of expectations - although Sangster removes an awful lot of the padding from Lyndon's original, all he finds to replace it with is yet more padding, much of it lengthy dialogue driven exposition. Despite an nicely icy performance from Diffring as the modern Methuselah, The Man Who Could Cheat Death is a disappointing effort, the first real sign that Hammer's relentless drive to get films into cinemas (this was their fourth film in 18 months, with a failed TV pilot, Tales of Frankenstein, also with Diffring, along the way) may have been taking its toll on the team's creativity. UK USA Finland Sweden UK TIMELINE 1959 November 1960 1962 1997 POSTER TAGS His terrifying secret - his hideous obsession made him... ALTERNATIVE TITLES Den Tod überlistet - German title LINKS SEE ALSO REFERENCES MAGAZINES Daily Cinema no.8163 (8 June 1959) p.4
(UK) Film Daily vol.115 no.119 (23 June 1959)
p.6 (USA) Film User vol.16 no.189 (July 1962) p.328
(UK) Hollywood Reporter vol.155 no.29 (19
June 1959) p.3 (USA) The House That Hammer Built no.2 (April
1997) pp.96-99 (UK) The House That Hammer Built no.10 (October
1998) p.98 (UK) Kine Weekly 11 June 1959 p.8 (UK) Monthly Film Bulletin vol.26 no.306 (July
1959) p.90 (UK) Motion Picture Herald vol.215 no.13 (27
June 1959) p.316 (USA) Variety 24 May 1959 (USA) KEYWORDS doctors, glands, immortality, play into film, scientists, surgery Last Updated: 1 January, 2009
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