Revenge of Frankenstein

****

I have always liked this film. Now back in 2006 I might have liked it a bit too much, even remembering calling it one of Hammer’s very best, even the best Frankenstein movie. It certainly features a more likable Frankenstein than what you saw in Curse but still not quite as easy to embrace as in Evil of Frankenstein. He was responsible for the beheading of a priest at the guillotine, after all, and was using the poor sleeping in the beds of a home he offered for body parts! But he’s still building up bodies and swapping brains so that he can create man from scratch. But it [no surprise] produces tragic results. Cannibalistic urges and a series of circumstances (being released from restraints too early, Karl heads out into the world too soon, encountering a violence that reverts him back to how he was in a damaged body, told by Frankenstein’s assistant that he’d be studied and the product of much attention) unleash an animal that Frankenstein realizes wasn’t as he intended. And dealing with a league of doctors that either want him to join them or go away, not to mention, a janitor always snooping around and causing trouble; Frankenstein can call himself Dr. Stein and try to play the part of surgeon/doctor just offering his services to the needy and privileged both, but his work never quite leaves him with the success he so desires.

Review from October 21, 2006...
This is the 1958 sequel to the wonderful first film, Curse of
Frankenstein. It stars Cushing as the Baron, saved from certain
head-chopping thanks to a badly paralyzed Karl who is promised a brand
new host body with his brain being transplanted into it. Assisting
Baron is Dr. Kleve, but the experiment hits a snag when the body
irritates during the final stages of the procedure with the body going
out of control damaging one cell in the brain. In an impromptu fight
with a drunken janitor of Baron's laboratory, Karl's body is again
damaged, this time his body receives paralysis like before with tragic
results occurring in the aftermath.

It's interesting that the culprit behind all the tragedy of the film is
the man who Baron pays to sweep the floor, but he does more snooping
and lounging than his own job. He motivates most of the action, first
spying on Baron and Kleve when they move Karl to a certain room in the
surgery building of the doctor's practice, showing Baron's "goods
supply girl" Miss Conrad where they keep Karl, and even providing the
poor who seek Baron's help info on where the parts the doctor uses come
from.

The film is well executed, I think, because this time the end results
did work and it is not exactly Baron's fault for the tragedy that will
eventually occur. But, Karl's failure to heal his body before leaving
his bed is really the turning-point of disaster for Baron. The film
takes an interesting detour from the first film showing Baron as a much
more sympathetic person..still determined to see his experiments
through, but no longer mad as he was willing to do anything to continue
his work.

But, I think the film's statement regarding Baron's work is as long as
he continues playing with the laws of man in trying to create like God
in the name of science, he'll always most surely hit some sort of snag.