Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

REVIEW

The turning point for British horror came on 2 May 1957, with the release of Terence Fisher's Curse of Frankenstein, the foundation on which Hammer's gothic cinema was constructed and the blueprint for British horror films for next two decades.

For all its importance and undoubted greatness, Hammer would do much better work than this in subsequent years. It's very much a fledgling effort, the company still finding its way in a genre that it was busy redefining. It's hampered somewhat by the necessity of having to retell a familiar story - ironically, given the legal threats issued by Universal, The Curse of Frankenstein actually doesn't deviate all that much from the Universal model. It may add more gore, but the basic essentials remain broadly the same.

Where it does step out of the Universal mould is in its construction of Frankenstein himself as the central character for this film and all its subsequent sequels. Universal had, of course, used the monster as the recurring link between films whereas in Hammer's series, the same monster never appeared twice. Hammer could only do this because of the strength of Peter Cushing's central performance. Sangster's original screenplay doesn't really give him much to work with, painting the good Baron as a one-dimensional study in obsession, but Cushing works hard to find a character in the thin script. Cushing and subsequent writers would later develop the character into something more rounded and interesting. In the Universal films, Frankenstein himself had been a rather weak and unlikable characters, constantly whining about his pitiful fate and prompting only disdain in the audience. Hammer's Frankenstein was to develop into an altogether stronger character, an arrogant, decadent and self-indulgent man more monstrous than his poor creations could ever be.

This time out, the creature is magnificently played by Christopher Lee beneath a Phil Leakey make up which even the artist himself was unhappy with. In 1978, he told Dick Klemensen of Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine: "I was utterly ashamed of it. Used a little bit of string for stitching and rubber bits on the cheeks. But it was too late then, when they'd shown it to all the publicity people." Leakey is being a little harsh on himself. Thou it isn't as instantly memorable as Jack Pierce's iconic design for Karloff, it's nonetheless a fine job of work given the meager budget, looking not unlike, in Lee's words, "a road accident." Cushing was certainly impressed: "A story was put about by the Publicity Department that when (the make up) was removed at the end of the day's work, he and I came face to face in the corridor and then I screamed!" (Peter Cushing: An Autobiography (1986) p.127)

But the strength of the creature's presence in the film lies not with the make up but with Lee's performance, a truth lost on many horror directors who have sought to plaster over poor performances with effects overkill. Lee gets a chance to display his considerable talent for mime (a rare opportunity which he was only offered one more time at Hammer, in The Mummy (1959)), giving a tremendously physical performance and bagging the single most memorable sequence in the film: our first sight of the creature is of it swathed in bandages in Frankenstein's laboratory. As it turns to face its creator, the camera lurches forward in a dizzying tracking shot as the creature rips away its bandages to reveal that hideous face.

The unveiling of the creature more than adequately demonstrates the brilliance of another member of Hammer's original 'dream team', director Terence Fisher who, along with production designer Bernard Robinson and cinematographer Jack Asher, was to create a whole new look for the horror film in the these first few Hammers. Already a veteran of several films for the company, Fisher's subsequent career would exclusively be within the genre as he became the first British director to build a coherent body of work within the genre since George King in the 1930s. Fisher was to become Hammer's most important director and one of the most significant directors in the entire genre, though he has been all-too-readily dismissed by many as simply a journeyman, a director who was only ever as good as the technicians he had working for him. This narrow point of view, which denies the man's obvious talents, has thankfully come to be challenged by more progressive thinking. This rethinking started with Davie Pirie's ground-breaking and courageous re-examination of Fisher's work in his 1973 book A Heritage of Horror: "Once one begins to look at Fisher's work closely, it becomes clear that, unlike almost any other director working in the British commercial cinema, they appear to embody a recognisable and coherent Weltanschaung" (p.51). Fisher's rediscovery and rehabilitation by the critical mainstream may not yet be complete, but his standing is certainly a lot better than it was when he died in 1980.

Ironically, Fisher himself was sceptical of any claims for his work to be seen as anything other than pure entertainment: "I'm only a working director," he often said. Attempts to elevate him to the status of auteur have always been thwarted by the fact that Fisher was a hired gun, one who was never able to pick his own scripts or actors. But he certainly had something which set him apart from other British directors of the period, a knack for telling a good story effectively and with the minimum of fuss, and his uncanny way of creating a moody ambience with next to nothing being his key attributes.

Fisher had already had something of a dry run for The Curse of Frankenstein a few years earlier at Hammer with the science fiction film The Four Sided Triangle (1952). In that film, Stephen Murray had starred as a scientist who loses his love to a rival and uses a machine to duplicate her, creating a new love for himself.

There are of course a number of other players in the success of The Curse of Frankenstein. The contributions of both Bernard Robinson's magnificent sets (which created the blueprint for 'Hammerland', the mythical Mittel European never-never land where the best Hammers are set) and James Bernard's rousing score have both been well documented elsewhere. Perhaps less well documented than it deserves to be is Jack Asher's astonishing photography - although Asher was a less frequent visitor to the house of Hammer than Fisher or Robinson, his contribution to the look of Hammer was just as crucial. At a time when the flat, lifeless tones of Technicolor were de rigeur, Asher chose to shoot in the newly available Eastmancolor, allowing him to capture a much fuller and richer palette of colours. He and his cameraman Len Harris (another Hammer regular) also made good use of the Vinton / Everett TTL camera which allowed for much sharper focusing than most other cameras available at that time. Their work gave The Curse of Frankenstein a look quite unlike any other horror film of the time, contributing enormously to its appeal.

In retrospect, it could be that The Curse of Frankenstein is more important now for what it did than for what it actually is. It created a whole new look for the genre, returning to its gothic roots after a decade of films in which the horror was invariably spawned by the atom rather than the supernatural. As the SF boom of the 1950s began to show the first signs of slowing down, Hammer were waiting to fill the void with something new. It also introduced the world of horror to Fisher, Lee and Cushing - although Lee had made a handful of genre films prior to The Curse of Frankenstein, the timing had never been quite right and it took his role as the monster to make him a household name. It was the beginning of a new era for the British horror film and a transformational moment for the British film industry in general.
KEVIN LYONS

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008