"The Revenge of Frankenstein" Review

 

by Daniel White

"To the laboratory, tonight we give Karl his new body!"

Films from when we are children are so powerful, so potent. They possess a magic that stays with us long after the arrival of adulthood. For example, my fondness for the Universal horror flicks from the thirties and early forties are so strong they transcend the actual quality of some of those gems. They are beyond rebuke, above criticism, free from judgment. I suspect fans of the Hammer horror movies feel the same way. I did not encounter these particular fright flicks until I was a doddering old dude so I look at them with a clear eye, free from any sentimentality. But I understand, I get it. To many others, they are irreproachable.

Directed by Terence Fisher, The Revenge Of Frankenstein (1958) is the follow up to the studio's international success from the previous year, The Curse Of Frankenstein. Both movies star Peter Cushing and it's easy to see why the producers wanted to bring back the engaging actor as Victor Frankenstein. Killed off in the first film, scenarist Jimmy Sangster employs the old bodies switched at death trick. It's a shaky premise, but who cares. Cushing is essential to the franchise. Elegant and brooding, he breathes new life into the well worn tale.

Presumed dead, the determined Dr. Frankenstein has changed his name (Stein) and relocated to another city in Germany. However he is still dogged in his desire to slap some body parts together and create a living creature from scratch. The man he builds is not the gruesome blockhead that Boris Karloff embodied. No, this man made "monster" (Michael Gwynn) is proportioned with a noble countenance. And though Stein does have his ungainly, lame lab assistant helping him (Oscar Quitak), he also is enabled in his ungodly pursuit by the well dressed and distinguished Dr. Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews).

With minimum gore but a solid story, The Revenge Of Frankenstein looks great, with vibrant colors and detailed, intricate set designs. If it doesn't set my heart a pitty pattying, that's only because I am viewing it for the first time as a staid, seen it all old man of 59. If I had been an impressionable lad of 9 or 10, I'm sure I would have reacted quite differently.

Distributed by Columbia Pictures, with cinematography by Jack Asher, set designs by Bernard Robinson, and a meddlesome missy played by Eunice Gayson, The Revenge Of Frankenstein is streaming on Tubi.