PETER CUSHING CREATES HAMMER'S 'THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN'

Title: THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN Year: 1957 Rating: ****

What Hammer did for FRANKENSTEIN is made people know that, unlike what it seems having grown up with James Whale's otherwise brilliant Universal double-feature, is that that's not the name of the monster, whose name is basically, The Monster, but here he's constantly established as the Victorian-era scientist himself...

As classy and sophisticated phenom turned idealistic heir, with a castle all to himself, Victor Frankenstein begins as a frustrated teenager, and there's never been such aesthetically perfect casting from child to man...

Robert Urquhart and Melvyn Hayes in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Initially played by Melvyn Hayes, his impatient prodigy's tired of scientific education even at the top schools... and the scenes hiring (and bonding with) second-lead Robert Urquhart as his personal at-home tutor like a short film all its own, with a beginning, middle and end, including the introduction of Victor's arranged child fiancé...

When grown, Hammer starlet Hazel Court looks perfect as the perfect wife, that Victor... now Peter Cushing with a fervent drive to recreate the dead, acting as his very own Igor in stealing necessary body parts... has no time for love when so much laboratory work's to be done...

Hazel Court and Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Leaving the best Hammer starlet to dark-haired, full-lipped, Gothic-looking actress who would soon portray the initial vamp girl to Christopher Lee as DRACULA... and here Valerie Gaunt's a love-smitten, envious maid sharing secret kisses with Victor, who's more a charming scoundrel/cad than the icy brooder portrayed in further installments...

All he really cares about are those hit-miss surgeries, beginning with resurrecting a dead dog before finally creating the patchwork Monster in Christopher Lee, who couldn't be more different than the bolt-headed giant played by the iconic (because of his portrayal of FRANKENSTEIN) Boris Karloff...

Peter Cushing in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

While not intelligent like in Mary Shelley's source novel, Lee's performance is like Cushing's... in that both are tightly connected to the plot: his trudging gait and looming, formidable threat is built more around his creator's failure on creating a perfect specimen than adhering to the horror genre's need for a ruthless body-count killer...

But that kind of stuff happens too, first in the woods outside and then the castle inside with Valerie Gaunt's curiously-doomed maid, leading to the impending threat of Hazel Court in danger... which is where the progressively annoyed and reluctant Urquhart's arguments with Victor has more urgency than his guilt in helping to educate/assist the same mad scientist he now has to stop...

Christopher Lee in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Making THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN more of a character-driven melodrama than terrifying horror... yet still wielding terrific bouts of suspense by Hammer auteur Terence Fisher: including an early scene where Cushing's Victor, progressing from body collector to cold-blooded killer, lures an intellectual old man to his demise...

And while Cushing continued a string of loosely-connected followups, none match the sheer simplicity of a scientist out to prove his creation alongside Hammer proving that their own recreated FRANKENSTEIN, the man not the monster, actually had somewhat of a soul... until his (own) brains got in the way.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Peter Cushing in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Peter Cushing in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN with Valerie Gaunt

Christopher Lee in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Peter Cushing in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Melvyn Hayes in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Robert Urquhart and Peter Cushing in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Valerie Gaunt in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Peter Cushing in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Top Secret (1984)