Doctor Omega
Member: Rank 10
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
- Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein
- Susan Denberg as Christina
- Thorley Walters as Doctor Hertz
- Robert Morris as Hans
- Peter Blythe as Anton
- Derek Fowlds as Johann
- Duncan Lamont as The Prisoner (Hans' Father)
- Barry Warren as Karl
- Alan MacNaughtan as Kleve
- Peter Madden as Chief of Police
- Philip Ray as Mayor
- Ivan Beavis as Landlord
- Colin Jeavons as Priest
- Bartlett Mullins as Bystander
- Alec Mango as Spokesman
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.