Frankenstein Created Woman

UK • 1967 • 86m •

• Directed by: Terence Fisher. • Starring: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris, Duncan Lamont, Peter Blythe, Barry Warren, Derek Fowlds, Alan MacNaughtan, Peter Madden, Philip Ray, Ivan Beavis, Colin Jeavons. • Music by: James Bernard.

Baron Frankenstein has the body of a young woman and all it lacks is the spark of life. He captures the soul of a recently executed young man and installs it in the young maiden, Christina. With the memories from the young man still intact, she starts to kill the people whose false accusations led to the young man's execution.

Trailers:

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Trailer #1

2:40

Trailer #2

1:01

Review:

Image from: Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

An odd little film for various reasons, but nowhere near as bad as had been reported to me. It's quite slow - the "monster" doesn't actually kill anybody till way past the 1 hour mark - and the title is very misleading, suggesting a "Bride of Frankenstein" style romp. What we actually get is Cushing languishing in a nice little cottage somewhere whilst various characters act unpleasantly in a nearby tavern for a while and some chap gets wrongly accused of murder. Frankenstein doesn't "create woman" (nice grammar), and in fact he doesn't even create anything at all, merely transferring the "soul" of said wrongly-accused-chap into the body of chap's girlfriend, which is an... interesting plan to say the least. Quite why he's bothering with all this is quite beyond me, as is why he's decided to recruit 50s60s stiff-upper-lipped comedy-romp actor Thorley Walters as his assistant. However, Thorley is rather sweet and terribly nice, so we'll let him off.

What's even stranger is that Derek "Bernard in 'Yes, Minister'" Fowlds is wandering about for most of the duration of the film, clad in man-about-town attire (complete with top hat and cane) doing not very much at all until the final 15 minutes. He's meant to be one of three disgraceful and thoroughly loathsome individuals who accost a serving wench near the beginning of the film, but poor Derek isn't really up to it - and why should he be? I mean, he's Bernard, for crying out loud! He's sweet and lovable and top notch! He's not meant to be nasty! As a result, he's vaguely unpleasant and lusty, but can't help being all nervous and gentlemanly, laying out his coat on the ground for the lady when going for a picnic a short while after having been snogged passionately in the coach ride to get there etc. Actually, this film, made in 1967, appears to have fallen in something of a period of transition for films. Every one of us, perhaps subconsciously, plays the "Oh, it's him!" game when we watch films. "Oh, it's ____ - I've seen him in ____," you know how it goes. For most films in the 50s and early 60s, I find myself going "Oh, it's ___ who I remember from such-and-such a film." However, at some point during the late 60s and certainly throughout the 70s and 80s, this turns into "Oh, I remember him from such-and-such a sitcom sci-fi fantasy series random BBC costume drama". As a result, in this film we have one of the chaps from "Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks" getting beheaded in the first few minutes, and blustering, rocket-mad old fool Eldred from "Doctor Who: Seeds of Death" as a judge (who even gets several "Pained but resolute" close up moments).

And so it is that the thrilling climax of this film features a desperate race against time as Peter Cushing frantically rides a coach in order to save Derek Fowlds from almost certain death. You heard me right. And, if you want....

POSSIBLE SPOILERS.... I'm warning you....

... he fails. Poor old Derek. :-( Still, any film that has Bernard getting stabbed to death by a male-within-a-female walking cadaver has got to be something a little different.

Review by The_Secretive_Bus from the Internet Movie Database.