Michael Mulcaster | Through the Shattered Lens

First released in 1957 and one of the films that put Britain’s Hammer Films on the map, The Curse of Frankenstein opens in Switzerland in the 19th century. It’s a time of superstitious villagers, judgmental priests, aristocrats who dabble in science, and lots of cleavage. It’s also a time when justice is harsh. That’s something that Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) has discovered as he sits in a cell in prison, awaiting his execution date.

Baron Frankenstein has been convicted of the murder of a maid named Justine and the public is eager to see this haughty and eccentric aristocrat put to death. Victor, however, claims that he is innocent of Justine’s murder. As Victor explains to a visiting priest (Alex Gallier), he is guilty of many things but he didn’t kill Justine.

The story that Frankenstein tells the priest is a familiar one. Victor inherited the Frankenstein estate when he was fifteen and, having always been interested in science, his hires a scientist named Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) to mentor him and ultimately collaborate with him on his experiments. Even as he falls in love with and become engaged to his cousin, Elizabeth (Hazel Court), Victor becomes obsessed with the idea of creating a human being from perfect parts collected from the dead.

Victor puts his creation together, piece by bloody piece. He has no trouble using a the body of a robber and the hands and eyes that purchases from the workers at the local morgue. But when it come time to pick a brain, he wants to use the mind of a distinguished scientist. Unfortunately, the scientist is still alive so Victor pushes him over a bannister. That kills the professor but the removal of the brain does not go quite as smoothly as Victor was hoping. The brain gets damaged when it’s removed. The Creature (an intimidating Christopher Lee) is eventually brought to life but, with that damaged brain, all it wants to do is destroy and kill. Victor isn’t happy about that but soon, he discovers that having a killer Creature has its uses.

As opposed to the well-meaning but obsessed version of the character that Colin Clive played in the original Frankenstein, The Curse of Frankenstein presents us with a Baron who is rather unstable from the start. It’s not just that the Baron is obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. It’s that he is fully willing to kill people for his experiment. Perhaps his only redeeming quality could have been his love for Elizabeth but he screws up even that by having an affair with the ill-fated Justine (Valerie Gaunt). From the start, the Baron’s main obsession is with his own power. Elizabeth is ultimately just another pawn for him to control.

Considering how evil this film’s version of Baron Frankenstein is, it’s a good thing that he’s played by Peter Cushing. Cushing gives an intense but charismatic performance as the Baron, capturing not only the character’s ruthlessness but also his fierce intelligence. The tragedy of the film’s version of the story is not that the Baron’s experiment goes wrong but that the Baron did actually have the potential to do a lot of good for the world. He’s smart and he’s determined but he’s lacking a conscience. If anything, the Creature he builds is a representation of his own dark thoughts and desires. The Baron is an aristocrat and the Creature is built out of common thieves and people who died in debt but they’re both different sides of the same coin.

Gory and fast-paced, The Curse of Frankenstein was a huge hit and it made stars out of both Cushing and Lee. I tend to prefer Hammer’s Dracula films to its Frankenstein film but The Curse of Frankenstein holds up well as a portrait of what happens when madness and science collide.

So, imagine this. Two years have passed since your film company released a low-budget film called Horror of Dracula. To the surprise of many, the film became an international hit that not only revived interest in the character of Dracula but also made a star out of an imposing and opinionated actor named Christopher Lee. Naturally, being a smart film mogul, you want to make a sequel to Horror of Dracula. Both director Terrence Fisher and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster have agreed to return to make a second part of the franchise. Now, all you have to do is recruit your star…

…and Christopher Lee doesn’t want to do the film!

There are conflicting reports on just how much Christopher Lee disliked the Hammer Dracula films. Lee, himself, has been inconsistent on the subject, occasionally claiming that he hated all of them and then other times saying that he only disliked the sequels. One thing that does remain consistent is that Lee reportedly feared being typecast as Dracula and, as a result, he initially declined to be a part of any sequel.

Nowadays, they’d probably just recast the role with Nicolas Cage. But this was the late 50s/early 60s and, instead of recasting, Hammer just made a Dracula film without Dracula. Yes, the film may have been called The Brides of Dracula but, beyond being mentioned in the film’s prologue, Dracula never makes an appearance. For that matter, there really aren’t any brides of Dracula either. There are three female vampires but none of them are turned into vampires by Dracula. Instead, the vampire in question is Baron Meinster (David Peel, who does a pretty good job in the role but who, needless to say, is no Christopher Lee).

Dracula does not return for The Brides of Dracula but his nemesis Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) does. Cushing was so well-cast as Van Helsing and brought such a sense of righteous fury to the role that his presence goes a long way towards making up for the absence of Christopher Lee. When you look at and listen to Cushing’s Van Helsing, you’re left with little doubt that this is a man who has dedicated his life to destroying vampires and that he’s quite good at it.

And it’s a good thing that Van Helsing shows up because, regardless of whether Dracula is directly involved or not, Transylvania has some issues. The Brides of Dracula opens with a French school teacher named Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) finding herself stranded at an old castle. The owner of the castle — Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) — allows Marianne to spend the night but asks her to please refrain from releasing her son, Baron Meinster, from the chains that hold him prisoner. Naturally, Marianne does exactly the opposite. She steals a key and sets the Baron free.

Of course, the Baron is a vampire and soon he’s feeding on the inhabitants of a nearby village. The Baron has also decided that Marianne should be his bride. Will Prof. Van Helsing be able to save Marianne’s soul and defeat a second vampire? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

And you certainly should. Once you get over the fact that Brides of Dracula does not feature Lee’s iconic Dracula, the film itself is surprisingly entertaining, filled with all of the gothic touches, creepy scenery, evil villains, bloody throats, and heaving cleavage that you would expect from a Hammer film. Peel, Hunt, and Monlaur are all well-cast and best of all, Peter Cushing is Dr. Van Helsing!

In short, it’s not bad for a Dracula film that doesn’t actually feature Dracula.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bNmNniIDsk