Der Fall X701

Yes, I'm probably giving it way too many stars, but I really have a proclivity both for British films of the 60's and sci-fi thrillers about cryogenics and suspended animation. I didn't pay too much for this (it was part of my now-infamous Mill Creek 50-pack called 'Nightmare Worlds'), it wasn't very long (around 70 minutes in my cut), had jazzy, African and crooning music that I found highly enjoyable, had two gorgeous actresses at its core and a bizarre plot (which intercut plot lines of becoming the first to safely freeze and re-animate a human being, with an accidental shooting death that the scientist/first human subject is the main suspect of), and though it was rather predictable, I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would easily recommend it to anyone that likes B-movies from the 60's. You could do a heck of a lot worse.

Somewhat relatedly, I would to see any other films that either Marianne Koch or Delphi Lawrence were in. I loved both of them dearly in this film.

American star Mark Stevens ("The Dark Corner") stars in this German sci-fi flick as an American scientist, Frank Overton, working for the World Health Organization. He and his associate Helen Wieland (Marianne Koch) are performing experiments on chimps, putting them in deep freeze for a while and then resuscitating them. At roughly the time that Frank gets the bright idea to become a human guinea pig, something unexpected happens that lands him in trouble.

Screenwriter Evelyn Frazer and director Bernard Knowles don't have as much fun with this premise as one might hope they would. "Frozen Alive" is a classic case of "more talk than action", focusing on the personal problems of the characters (Overtons' wife Joan (Delphi Lawrence, "The Man Who Could Cheat Death") is resentful and an alcoholic) and not spinning a particularly interesting yarn. It's fairly static, and lacking in style, and one can see that this was done on a low budget. It starts to get better in its last half hour with its amusing twists of fate. Its opening credits are a gas, as the music segues from traditional ooga-booga sci-fi music to much more jazzy stuff.

The characters are reasonably engaging; nobody here is particularly dislikable. Stevens may be slumming, but he gives the material a straight faced go. Buffs will automatically realize that Koch and co-star Wolfgang Lukschy were also utilized in the legendary Spaghetti Western "A Fistful of Dollars" around this time. Joachim Hansen ("The Boys from Brazil"), Walter Rilla ("Day of Anger"), and John Longden ("Quatermass II") are among the solid supporting cast.

"Frozen Alive" is nothing special, but does offer a mild amount of fun.

Five out of 10.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Bernard Knowles; Produced by Ronald Rietti and Artur Bruaner, Presented by Harold Goldman, released as "Frozen Alive" by Feature Film Corp. Of America. Screenplay by Evelyn Fraser; Photography by Robert Ziller; Edited by Steve Collins; Music by Eric Spear. Starring Mark Stevens, Marianne Koch, Delphi Lawrence, Wolfgang Lukschy, Joachim Hanson, Albert Kessler and Walter Rilla.

Anglo-German straight sci-fi film made in the English language, notable for the fine acting and attractive presence of Marianne Koch, who co-starred in "A Fistful of Dollars" around this time. The plot of a scientist freezing apes and humans experimentally is too often sideswiped by romantic subplots.

As someone already said, this is a silly melodrama. It's more about a triangle with two scientists and the drunken wife of one of them. The fact that they are performing experiments in suspended animation using low temperatures is really not an issue. It is secondary to the efforts of the man to continue to live with this unstable women. At least her character is pretty believable. She is pathetic and unpredictable. The man is more than patient. The subplot has to do with the determination to perform these experiments on human subjects, which is met with resistance by the head of the lab. Even that is poorly portrayed and uninteresting.

I must have seen a lot more bad movies than the other reviewers who have reviewed this movie on the IMDb, because while it's definitely a long defunct sci fi flick, it wasn't THAT bad. In the world of bad movies, Frozen Alive is nowhere near the bottom of the barrel, but it's still pretty unendurable. The story is flat as a pancake and is never interesting, but the main problem is that it is so clearly two different kinds of movies squeezed into one, and the result just doesn't work.

A scientist is working on a system of deep-freezing monkeys, and then decides to use himself as a human test subject. Unfortunately, just before his own deep freeze, his wife dies a violent death and he becomes the prime suspect. The police investigators, of course, come knocking just as he is entering deep freeze, which is not exactly a quick catnap that he can be shaken awake from.

One half of the story deals with the scientist, a mid-50s or so man with salt and pepper hair and intense facial features, and his enormously alcoholic wife, a blonde bimbo who looks no less than 30 years his junior. It's too bad that they have no chemistry on screen whatsoever, otherwise this portion of the story would have been slightly less pathetic. The scene where he is holding her in his arms and telling her he wants them to try for a baby is highly disturbing.

The other half of the story deals with the deep freeze experimentation. This is the part that would make this a sci fi movie, although there is nothing really sci fi about it. If he had frozen himself and woken up in another time, then you have sci fi. Instead, he just freezes himself and then wakes back up. Who cares? As a result, it comes off as nothing more than a goofy crime drama soap opera about a guy trying to design a perfect cryogenetic freezer. And it's a shame, because there's a chance that there could have been two separate, and much better, movies made with this story...