Frankenstein and the Women - Hammer / Universal Monday

 

I had a realization not just today but on Saturday. These are great movies that I have personally pigeonholed into one particular month when they deserve to be essential viewing any time of the year. I had a fun revisit of "Frankenstein Created Woman" (1967), where Victor has now focused his attentions on the soul (or our human presence opposite the body we inhabit), regarding how to isolate it in some apparatus and hold it there until a body comes available. What makes this particular film interesting is how Victor decides to isolate the soul of a wrongfully executed assistant and eventually "implant" it into the resurrected body of his girlfriend (who drowned herself in a suicide attempt), who happened to pass by the guillotine as his head was chopped off. Inside his beloved girlfriend, Hans takes the body of Christine and kills the three privileged hoods who were responsible for the death of a shop owner whose death he was executed for. So Frankenstein has no problem isolating the soul of a guy without Hans' knowledge, going the extra mile to putting his presence in the body of his girlfriend. And Hans, really pissed off, knowing that the trio of assholes responsible for their deaths are still out there, preparing to mete out justice. Victor even orders around his alcoholic and often clueless village doctor colleague, seemingly too cuckolded to ever tell him no. Thorley Walters, as Herz, seems to be Hammer's go-to pushover, often a weak-minded character heavily influenced by others who have the disposition capable of pressuring him to do whatever they want. I hope to watch "Dracula - Prince of Darkness" (1966) with Walters as a savant at a monastery easily controlled by Dracula. Walters might be a capable doctor in "Frankenstein Created Woman", with the hands Victor needs for surgery, but other than that he seems to be moving about each day in a fog. One singular link of continuity to "The Evil of Frankenstein" is the burned hands of Victor from the fire in his chateau. That's it. I can understand why Fisher and his team just avoided trying to maintain some type of continuity since "The Evil of Frankenstein" went out of its way to isolate itself on an island as a stand-alone.

I'm not going over "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935). I just love the scene where The Monster and Pretorius meet in the mausoleum. Pretorius is just all at home eating chicken, gulping wine, and talking with a skull and bones as he laughs aloud. The Monster has lost his blind hermit friend, pushing over the Catholic Priest statue in the cemetery (after Whale had Pretorius introduce to Henry Frankenstein to one of his "cultures", a little human dressed as a priest, blowing on a whistle at the Henry the 8th human culture), when he decides to hide away in the underground mausoleum, away from anymore humans. Pretorius can use The Monster to get Henry to agree to working with him on creating a mate. The Monster wants a friend and has the height, mass, and power to convince Henry it is in his best interest to do as Pretorius wants...especially since Elizabeth is held captive somewhere. The Una O'Conner exaggerations remain a sort of "good grief" to me, but Whale obviously loves her. It is clear he encouraged her to just go way overboard. In other characters, O'Conner knows how to be a lot less outrageous. But tonight, my main interest was maintained by Thesiger and his willingness to accept any kind of depraved help in order to get what he needs to be successful in building a mate with Henry's help.  His Burke and Hare ghouls will pretty much do whatever instead of face the gallows if they cross Pretorius the wrong way. This was my first time watching the film with a brand new scan from a Blu-Ray set of all the classics. It was stunning. And I had seen this in a theater in a double feature with "Frankenstein" (1931).