Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

Forced to align himself with Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), a young doctor working at an asylum finds his life and career in jeopardy while his fiance must somehow recover from her mistreatment by the evil scientist who wants to discover the secret behind successful brain transplantation.
****

If you had any inclination that this Hammer Frankenstein film would feature a more humane and sympathetic Baron Frankenstein was answered in the opening scene when he beheads an innocent doctor with a scythe, taking said head in a rusty old barrel to his dilapidated castle nearby, interrupted by a thief who broke into his abode, discovering his freshly prepared corpse/creation, disrupting the operations in a scuffle. The thief gets away, caught in a state of hysterics by a copper, later taken to the station to report what he had discovered. The Baron must flee, destroying the body and newly acquired head, having to retreat to a new place to conduct his experiments. This Frankenstein film features a human monster. There were even signs in Curse of Frankenstein ('57) of a semblance of a human being, even if remote. Here, he's so consumed with transplanting a brain by his own hands that he'll destroy the lives of a doctor and his fiance. Not only that, he thinks so little of them that unless they have use, he doesn't even want to bother with them. He wants them to do what he asks and that's it.

This mask describes his character.

From what I have read, many of my horror peers consider this one of--if not the best--of the Hammer Frankenstein series. I do agree with most horror/Hammer fans that Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has the most cold-blooded, all-consumed Baron of the series. He's damned determined to do whatever it takes. He cares about no one except his own work's success. The fact that he, like the Baron of Frankenstein (1931), is punished by what his mad dream creates--it is a success, but it comes with a terrible price he's willing to kill for--is fitting considering the limits he's willing to go to succeed.

He has the incriminating evidence.

Dr. Karl Holst (Simon Ward) works at the Holborg Mental Hospital where he's been stealing drugs to sell on the streets to support his fiance's mother's hospital bills (an illness that costs and costs), with the Baron capitalizing on the knowledge of such improprieties. Under the guise of "Dr. Fenner", Frankenstein has found a new place to conduct his experiments, in the boarding house's cellar where he's letting a room. I was amused at how Frankenstein tosses the Hippocratic Oath around at Karl for stealing drugs...if there ever was someone who abused this Oath, it's Frankenstein. It is a means to get some assistance in experimenting on the brain of a scientist who shared his belief that the brain of one body could be transplanted into the skull of another. Not just that, but there are notes where Brandt (the scientist Frankenstein collaborated with prior to his madness; it is hinted at that his madness derived from the drive to succeed in his experiments, Frankenstein significant in pushing him to the brink...) might know  how to keep the brain from dying absent a body. Frankenstein has Anna, the owner of the boardinghouse for which he lets, kick out the other boarders (this is not just because he wants privacy but also it is a bit of sweet revenge for their remarks about him and his science; not to mention, their views on progress, on the experiments he was conducting, and the now-mad doc held in a cell in the asylum--how both were run out of their own villages for their beliefs--really poked the bear), and through Karl, stolen lab equipment will benefit him in brand new project with Dr. Brandt, the mad doc in the asylum whose "brain he wishes to fix". Not just the lab equipment, but Frankenstein wants Karl to help him snatch Brandt from the cell in the asylum.

What fascinates me is how Karl isn't a hero; in fact, he's quite morally ambiguous. He kills a man who was about to fetch the police when this guard discovers him and the Baron in a supplies room. He was taking drugs (regardless of his reasoning) illegally and distributing them on the black market. He's willing (with some hesitance, resistance, and reluctance) to help the Baron perform some highly unethical deeds to further the Frankenstein experiments. Anna is his life, though, and once she is taken from him, he's pushed too far. We watch as the film continues how Frankenstein abuses this couple. How he orders them around, forcing his will upon them, always waving their crime in their faces. He has leverage but this desire he had for Anna, an irresistible urge, is the irreparable damage that will splinter what was already fragile between Karl and the Baron. In most of the films in the series, Frankenstein has a somewhat agreeable relationship with his assistant. Curse (1957) started that way with the eventual meltdown, but in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, this is never the case. Karl is trapped, bound by shackles to the Baron, and Anna must follow suit as Frankenstein uses prison terms as threats (he says he'll report them for their crimes) to both of them. When he wants something done (like getting in and out of the asylum with Brandt, help in surgery, or coffee), it is expected, no questions asked. He doesn't take "no" for an answer. It's his way. Plain and simple. Cruelty doesn't begin to define this Cushing Frankenstein. He damages anybody he goes near. He believes in progress and if anyone questions his science, the Baron assures them he's right and they're wrong.

Dr. Brandt in his cell.

Particularly interesting here is that in most of the Frankenstein films, the Baron's assistant in the laboratory volunteers to a certain degree (or all the way in some cases) to join him on his quest to break down barriers set by "backwards" public and The Church, detrimental in the progression of science (or his idea of science in how the limits set before him can be breached and defied). In Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, however, his assistant, Karl, is forced into helping the Baron. Not just Karl, but poor lovely Anna is dragged through the muck and mire of her boarder's obsessive quest. She is forced to lie and hide the Baron, aiding her fiance in his thievery of the drugs, and later raped. After the rape, Anna holds to her wits the best she can. It is always there, though. If she could just be free of him. Never to be. Her fate casts a pall on the Baron; if the script, character, and performance wasn't already testing how far he could push the buttons of those watching this movie, the rape certifiably brings a disgust and repulsion that will beckon cheers when he's carried into the fiery inferno of what was once a castle where Brandt's notes on the brain transplant were set aflame by the very creation his hands brought to life.

Stealing lab equipment, blackmailing people, beheading an innocent man, and raping Anna, not to mention disregarding the couple with absolute disrespect (he treats them with contempt and his attitude is of ordering them to do whatever he asks without backtalk). But nothing compares to what he does to Professor Richter (Freddie Jones)...and, his former colleague, Brandt. Dr. Brandt (George Pravda) has gone mad, takes to rages and violent outbursts, under sedation because he's seemingly too far gone to save, his mental state deteriorating. Brandt "has a secret" that Frankenstein "must know", and it involved the transplantation of the human brain, which Karl quickly dismisses. To freeze the brain without the living cells dying. Being able to store the human brain for future use. Brandt was successful, while Frankenstein wasn't. Frankenstein wants Karl to get him in the cell to take Brandt. It is successful but not without a few rough patches. During the process of being taken out of the asylum, Brandt has a heart attack and will be dead in three/four days. He will transplant Brandt's brain into another body (meaning murder; Baron takes jabs at Karl for killing the night watchman), and "repair" the brain's insanity. Frankenstein almost immediately suggests scientist Richter, an intellectual who is renowned for his diagnosis of various neurosis; he's an authority in his field. He's taken from his home, subdued, rendered unconscious, and put under Frankenstein's surgical saw. We hear the gnawing sound of the saw as it cuts through skull, Karl's face aptly displaying disgust with the procedure. Once Baron pulls away the top of Richter's skull (the squishy sound is just plain unnerving), Karl surveys their handiwork, his hands bloodied, acknowledging through facial expression what he's done, his part in this gruesome display.

I had only watched this one time before this viewing for the blog review primarily because of the rape scene which I considered as uncalled for as the one in Tombs of the Blind Dead ('72). It isn't needed; we get it already, Baron is a bad, bad man. He's a reprehensible monster with no disregard for the welfare of others, just for his own benefits in his field of scientific research. If you are hurt by his pursuit of success, so be it. I understand he's willing to do what it takes to see his experiments come to fruition, but there's no sense in the rape. The rape doesn't have anything to do with success in his experiments. We get it. He's evil. We don't need the extremes of a rape to detest this guy.

In this scene above, after burying Brandt's body with help from Karl, Anna still shaken by the rape, the Baron demands a specifically made breakfast at 6:30 a.m. Yes, he's despicable. He may be good at playing the heroic crusader against the undead vampire, but Cushing was just as capable performing the heel.When he later dispatches Anna for "defending herself" in fear of the awakened "Brandt", the Baron makes her pay. Not only did he take her innocence, her pride, but not to be denied, this scumbag takes her life. I can't imagine anyone will quite look at the Frankenstein character quite the same. He's totally, wholly, completely devoid of humanity. His ambition. His obsession. This is all there is.

 

The hand moves.

Freddie Jones does deserve a mention, although his part is primarily featured in the final act. You get a sense of what his Richter was like by the way he carried himself (you could see he held his opinion, knowledge, and status is high esteem) and later he portrays the horror of Brandt finding himself in the body of another man. The shock of it all and the later attempt to confront his wife, reconnect with her, and the rejection she provides (this isn't her husband; her husband is dead) give Jones a chance of some real brevity. He has a really meaty part even if it is confined mostly to the third act. Thorley Walters' brash and hostile Inspector Frisch (he is not tolerant of much, often criticizing and chastising anyone that performs in a questionable manner according to his standard of behavior; he should take a look at how he acts, such a belligerent, blustery, and haughty asshole) and his partner (underling?)--played with a sense of "eye-rolling" tolerance by Windsor Davies--are secondary characters on the trail of Frankenstein. Davies, it is clear to see, conducts himself with a more professional and analytical manner than his boss. When Walters is annoyed, he loudly calls a person out; it is totally played for comedy. He's a boob with a bit of authority. He never catches Frankenstein, always one step behind.

There's a fitting end to the Baron in this film. He gets what's coming to him. I realize some found this moral sense of punishing the wicked for their sins a bit much when it came to Hammer films meting out proper justice to the evil among their horror pictures, but if ever there was a film that had little shades of grey and removed any hint that we could possibly like a character the least little bit, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is it.This film went out of its way to make it a point of emphasis that the Baron is deserved of a horrible fate.