Review: Frankenstein Created Woman

Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) is thawed and revived, and now working on an idea to trap the soul of a recently deceased person, with his assistants Hans (Robert Morris) and Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters). The idea being that he may be able to take that soul and put it into another dead body in order to revive it. Susan Denberg plays Christina, Hans’ lady love, who is paralysed and disfigured on her left side. Peter Blythe plays one of a trio of dapper but rotten young fops who cause a fracas one night at the in run by Christina’s father (Alan McNaughten), which starts a whole chain of events that eventually supply the single-minded Frankenstein with two freshly deceased bodies for his experiment.

 

After the disappointment of the previous “The Evil of Frankenstein”, I was sceptical going into this 1967 sequel from director Terence Fisher (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Revenge of Frankenstein”) and screenwriter Anthony Hinds (“The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Evil of Frankenstein”). A favourite of filmmaker Martin Scorsese of all people, I’m happy to report that Hammer put the series back on course with this solid entry.

 

In addition to the ‘woman’ of the film’s title, Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) himself actually gets resurrected in this one. Ironic for a film with a title that firmly (and rightly) establishes Frankenstein as the doctor not the monster, here’s the one film where you could also potentially refer to the monster as Frankenstein. Not quite of course, but closer than in any other “Frankenstein” film at least. Cushing is in typically single-minded, no-nonsense form here as the ruthless scientist. At one point, I found his complete lack of interest in court procedure on his own precious time utterly hilarious. The man does not suffer fools when there’s scientific breakthroughs to be had! Thorley Walters is immediately terrific as his assistant, and there’s also a nice bit of hamming early on by Duncan Lamont as a drunk about to get the guillotine chop (The character is also Hans’ father). Former Playboy Playmate Susan Denberg gives an interesting, slightly sad performance as the ‘woman’ of the film’s title, whilst Peter Blythe is wonderfully odious and pathetic in support as a snazzy dressing utter bastard who gets everything he deserves. He and Walters vie for show-stealing honours here for my mind. In fact, the only dud turn here comes from the thoroughly dull Robert Morris.

 

Like “The Evil of Frankenstein” it takes too long to put all the pieces into place for such a short film. Unlike that film, at least the majority of the pieces here combine for an entertaining experience. The choice of brain and body for the title ‘Creature’ in this are quite interesting and different from previous entries, but scientifically it makes even less credible sense than normal. So that’s a slight annoyance, interesting or not.

 

Although not quite as good as “The Revenge of Frankenstein” or the underrated “The Horror of Frankenstein”, this entertaining entry is still pretty well-made, if scientifically absurd even by this series’ standards. 

 

Rating: B-

 

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