Review Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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Frankenstein Created Woman is a 1967 British Hammer Horror film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Susan Denberg as his new creation. It is the fourth film in Hammer's Frankenstein series.

Where Hammer's previous Frankenstein films were concerned with the physical aspects of the Baron's work, the interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body.


Cast
Production

Frankenstein Created Woman was originally mooted as a follow-up to The Revenge of Frankenstein during its production in 1958, at a time when Roger Vadim's Et Dieu créa la femme (And God Created Woman) was successful. The film finally went into production at Bray Studios on 4 July 1966. It was Hammer's penultimate production there.

Critical reaction

Leonard Maltin is blunt: "everything goes wrong, including script."[3] Halliwell's Film and Video Guide describes this film as a crude and gory farrago"[4] while the Time Out Film Guidesays it is full of cloying Keatsian imagery which somehow transcends the more idiotic aspects of the plot."

Some commentators on Frankenstein Created Woman have been more positive. Martin Scorsese picked the movie as part of a 1987 National Film Theatre season of his favourite films, saying "If I single this one out it's because here they actually isolate the soul... The implied metaphysics are close to something sublime."[6] The film currently holds 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.



 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Really like this one - and it has more depth to it thematically than one would first think.

That must have been a heck of a confusing time for poor Hans' soul!
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Behind-the-Scenes at Hammer (X the Unknown, Frankenstein Created Woman & More) | British Pathé


The archive contains some interesting material on that famous horror movie studio, Hammer. In particular, there's a look behind-the-scenes of "X the Unknown" and legendary star Peter Cushing on the set of "Frankenstein Created Woman". You can also see newsreel footage on Cushing during his time off, a model-maker who worked on "One Million Years B.C." in his studio, some shots of the old Hammer building on Wardour Street, and a section from the TV show "Film Fanfare" discussing "Frankenstein and the Monster", which must have become "The Curse of Frankenstein".


 
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