Our Saturday night pizza and bad movie night resumes. This one catches Baron Frankenstein late in his career. He’s been run out of town, lost his creation, and is ready for a comeback. Can’t keep a good mad scientist down.
Plot:
A grieving middle-aged couple leaves their humble home to find a priest. They don’t notice the man (Tony Arpino) lurking in the woods outside. He’s not after them. While their young daughter walks through the dark house, and their recently deceased adult son lies with a crucifix on his chest, the man opens a window and drags the corpse through it. The little girl screams and flees through the woods, briefly meeting a silently sinister, well-dressed man (Peter Cushing), Baron Frankenstein. She keeps fleeing.
The body snatcher knocks on a door, where he’s admitted. Inside, the viewer hears the thumping of various scientific equipment. Beating organs hang suspended in jars. The body snatcher shows his curiosity about the goings-on, but Hans (Sandor Elès), the Baron’s assistant, pays him off and sends him on his way. Over the titles and some dramatic music, the Baron cuts out the corpse’s heart.
The bereaved couple and the little girl have not been idle but have summoned the priest, who then comes to the Baron’s lab and threatens the Baron, smashing some of his equipment. The Baron and Hans take off.
The Baron returns to his hometown of Karlstaad, intending to sell the furnishings of his chateau to buy more lab equipment. Ten years earlier, the authorities ran him out for assaulting a police officer and crimes against God.
They find a fair going on in the village. They also find the Baron’s chateau has been trashed.
The Baron and Hans have to return to the village for dinner. Until the police break up the show, a hypnotist (Peter Woodthorpe) calls our heroes up onto his stage. After attracting attention to himself, the Baron takes to the hills. It’s the only way out of the village. Of course, a storm overtakes them, but a deaf and mute woman (Katy Wild), seen earlier at the fair, comes to their rescue and shows them a shelter in caves in the mountainside. And guess what they find in those caves.
Thoughts:
From the lab where the Baron cuts out a heart to music in the beginning to the flashback of his creation of the monster before the good citizens of Karlstaad sent him packing, the sets in this flick are all elaborate and make all the appropriate buzzing and hums. How very cool. Some have more in common with Buck Rogers than the old Universal monsters. A dome opens with a probe reaching into the sky to attract lightning.
The monster (Kiwi Kingston) is not the traditional, green-skinned monster (copyright issues) but a clay-faced monstrosity that would give anyone nightmares. Peter Cushing is a great Frankenstein, a cold-blooded evil scientist who sees value only in his research and proving his theories about the origin of life. And he’s pretty pissed at the self-satisfied “Burgomaster” (David Hutcheson), who somehow ended up with a lot of loot from the Frankenstein chateau.
The Baron doesn’t count on the hypnotist coming into the picture as the one who can control the monster and thus control him.
While I would hardly call this a work of art, this scored high for me on the entertainment value. And the melodrama! The only thing missing was a burning windmill at the end.
I know these things are not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you enjoy monster movies, you should find this one fun.
Unfortunately, it’s not available for streaming for free. It can be rented or bought on YouTube and the usual places.
Title: The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
Directed by
Freddie Francis…(directed by)
Writing Credits
Anthony Hinds…(screenplay) (as John Elder)
Cast (in credits order)
Peter Cushing…Baron Frankenstein
Peter Woodthorpe…Zoltan
Duncan Lamont…Chief of Police
Sandor Elès…Hans (as Sandor Eles)
Katy Wild…Beggar Girl
Released: 1964
Length: 1 hour, 24 minutes
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 
Cool…the kind of flick i grew up watching on Saturday afternoons
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein lives on in so many ways. I listened to her book on tape. And while I think it is sometimes flawed,, I feel it has many powerful themes. Something I picked up in the book was a tension between the rich and the poor. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but to me there is a unfairness about how the poor are perceived and treated in her book.
I never thought of that. But I read the book so long ago. The poor family the monster observes is loving and happy, but marginalized and vulnerable to tragedy, as I recall it.