Frankenstein 1970

When I was a little guy, my dad and I used to watch creature features on Friday nights and I loved the low budget scares on this show. Now as a middle aged guy who occasionally watches one of these "scary movies" I am amused and amazed at how easily I was scared and fooled. When I saw Frankenstein 1970 was going to be broadcast, I was ready to be disappointed. However I was fooled again.

Is this a great movie, NO. Is it a fun movie YES! Any movie who has as the the hero "Red" Berry is low budget. It does however have the great Karloff. He is wonderful. His monologue for the "movie in the movie" is great. Karloff was starting to show his incredibly painful arthritis at this time of his life and it does pain one to think of the agony he is going through. But he is Karloff and actually portrays a Frankenstein for the first time in his career. He does not disappoint.

If you love 1950 horrors and you like Karloff you will enjoy this movie. The acting is mediocre (except Karloff) and the Monster Hokey but give it a try.

Atmosphere is important in any horror film and this movie has it in spades. Unfortunately, that's all it has. Really very little to recommend here. Karloff is good in this movie but completely wasted in this effort and far too campy and hammy to really chill the audience. The monster itself is also a huge problem. Not so much when we first see the monster but as it progresses in its various stages of creation, it just gets sillier and sillier. The music tries to scare up a few chills whenever the monster appears but it is all really wasted. The best thing about the movie as I previously stated is the atmosphere. I especially like movies that have isolated creepy castles in them that are filled with secret passageways and hidden laboratories from which all those mad scientists conduct their business. The opening sequence of the film is by far the best part of the movie but the surprise ending tries to come close only that it is really telegraphed all throughout the movie and really isn't much of a surprise when you think about it. Although this is by far not the worst Karloff film it is not the best either. It's really too bad that Karloff, if he wanted to spoof the Frankenstein character he played, that he should have offered to play the part in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.

Horror icon Boris Karloff, during the mid-1950s, significantly slowed down his prodigious output of the '30s and '40s. After 1953, fans would have to wait a full four years before his next horror picture, "Voodoo Island," was released, and that one is generally acknowledged as one of Boris' few stinkers. The British actor seemed to rebound a bit in 1958, however, with the releases of "Frankenstein 1970"--a shlocky yet entertaining picture--and the very-well-done British film "Grip of the Strangler." "Frankenstein 1970" was the fifth Frankenstein film that Karloff had participated in, following the classic original in 1931, the eternal glory that is 1935's "Bride of Frankenstein," 1939's excellent "Son of Frankenstein" and 1944's "House of Frankenstein," but--no surprise--the film in question is any number of rungs down the scale, qualitywise, as compared to those great others.

Here, the 70-year-old Karloff plays Victor von Frankenstein, the final descendant of the infamous House. Needing additional funds to purchase the atomic reactor that will enable him to complete his experiments (and at this point, need it even be mentioned what those experiments consist of?), he rents out his ancestral castle near Frankfurt to an American TV production company that is making a movie to celebrate Frankenstein's 240th anniversary. (Never mind that that would make for a birth date of 1730, if the film actually does take place in 1970, and that Mary Shelley's original novel came out in 1818, although admittedly set in "17--." Also, never mind the fact that the film makes no attempt to look as if it's transpiring 12 years in its then future.) But when body parts, such as brains and eyes, are in short supply, what is the good Baron supposed to do, other than use parts from the retainers, film crew and nubile actresses on hand?

"Frankenstein 1970" is a film that I never got to see as a little kid, despite its ubiquitous presence on television back then. When I mentioned to my Psychotronic Guru, Rob, that I had just acquired the DVD to watch, he enthused about the film's opening scene, which he said he'd found terrifying when he saw it in a theater over 50 years ago. Film historian Tom Weaver says the same thing on the DVD's commentary regarding this sequence, in which a claw-taloned maniac pursues a screaming, hysterical blonde through a fog-shrouded landscape and into a swamp, and in truth, that scene IS the best and scariest moment in the film; the only scary moment, as it turns out. For the rest of it, the picture is a tad slow moving, occasionally dull, with many scenes of the Baron puttering around with his creation in his lab, dictating his progress into a running tape recorder. The resultant monster is one of the most ridiculous looking in any Frankenstein film; indeed, swaddled in mummylike wrappings as he is, we never even get a good look at the pathetic thing, until the picture's admittedly startling final moment. A lumbering bundle of bandages, with a head that looks like a giant cardboard box residing under the wrappings, the monster here is an object of laughter, not fright. Eyeball-less as it is, the monster seems to get around just fine, leading the viewer to wonder just why the Baron is so obsessed with procuring orbs for his creation. Besides the monster, the film's laboratory equipment and creation sequence FX pale mightily in comparison to those earlier four Frankenstein films, which all featured stunning-looking lab sets and amazing creation sequences (particularly "Bride"). Still, it must be said that director Howard W. Koch (later, the producer of such classic films as "The Manchurian Candidate," "The President's Analyst," "The Odd Couple" and "Plaza Suite") makes nice use of his CinemaScope frame, that the score by Paul Dunlap is occasionally gripping, and that cinematographer Carl E. Guthrie has provided some moody B&W visuals. The film also offers fans of grisly horror some very mild gross-outs, such as a jar of spilled eyeballs, the massaging of a human heart, Boris' tale of the tongueless commandant, and a corpse-grinding machine (an inspiration for Ted V. Mikels, perhaps?). Basically, however, the film is of interest mainly because of Uncle Boris, who gets to overact deliciously and impress his many fans, once again, with that wonderfully mellifluous voice. As in the 1934 classic "The Black Cat," Boris also gets to play some chilling music on his home organ, always a dismal thrill! Bottom line: Filmed as it was in only eight days (!) in January '58, "Frankenstein 1970," cheezy as it is, remains a surprisingly decent, oddball entertainment. After 1958, fans would have to wait another five years before Karloff's next horror pictures, which he made under director Roger Corman. So this film, and "Grip of the Strangler," had to hold them for a while (in addition to TV's "Thriller," of course, which Boris hosted from 1960-'62). And really, where else can you find a line like "Torch, scorch, unforch"?

MORD39 RATING: **1/2 (of ****)

As a kid I recall being disappointed when catching FRANKENSTEIN 1970 on TV. I was expecting the 1931 original, and at the age of 8 or 9 I was understandably disappointed. But now as an adult I can appreciate this 1950's monster flick for what it is.

Most fans dismiss this film, but I believe it has much going for it. For one thing, we get Boris Karloff as the Baron. Too many folks have panned his hammy performance, but I think he is deliciously sinister and over-ripe. His character reminds me of the Boris puppet from the MAD MONSTER PARTY film, and I'm surprised that more viewers don't find his performance endearing.

The film boasts a surprise opening and a surprise ending (I won't give them away), and in between that we get to see a gloomy castle filled with an underground secret laboratory and hidden passageways. Boris plays eerie music on his organ, and he's creating a monster that runs around killing people. Is this not what makes a fun horror pic?

True, the monster isn't very convincing...but neither are most fifties creatures, so why all the fuss? Besides, the monster only looks as he does due to the fact that the bandages and head cast have not yet been removed.

With foggy swamps, unexplored corridors, and a mad Karloff, fans could do far worse than FRANKENSTEIN 1970.

Nostalgic for me in many ways. I managed to sneak into the theater in my home-town in '58 (it was an "X" certificate then) to watch it. Karloff was an old "relic" even then!!! I remember thinking just how futuristic 1970 seemed. Believe it or not, people were talking planetary COLONISATION by the 70's, back in those days. (Actually, what the hell HAS happened the last three decades?)

Anyway back to the plot - there ISN'T one! Karloff shambles around his old shadowy and fog-machine driven castle occasionally doing the Dr Phibes bit on his organ. The monster is a cack-fest and everyone should be having a good time.

Ok Ok, sad in a way to see Karloff basically sending up his own classic role, but hey its STILL Boris Karloff!

In MY mind though, I still see a 13 year old boy staring up in wonder at a big screen with an evil monster on the loose. It was fun, it was THEN......best tribute you can pay it now is to just enjoy it for what it is/was.