Der Fall X701

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.

Amiable Mark Stevens and scientific partner, the enigmatic Marianne Koch combine to tackle malignant diseases through cryogenics, but their experiments on apes are just a prelude to their ultimate test on a live human being which Stevens himself undertakes shortly following a murder in which he's implicated in absentia. Koch attempts to resuscitate Stevens to answer the allegations under the watchful eye of a Detective (Lukschy) and an independent observer (Lohde), concerned she may sabotage the experiment to protect Stevens from punishment.

Capable German-US-British cast deliver realistic dialogue and create a genuine tension that is based less upon the primary plot (cryogenics) and more on Delphi Lawrence's character as Steven's almost perpetually inebriated wife, jealous of his working relationship with Koch, seeking solace in the scotch bottle and that of her old flame and work mate Joachim Hansen. Lawrence's performance dares to be bold and obnoxious, and while sometimes intense, doesn't become melodramatic. I thought her performance injected a maturity that was a welcome diversion to what could have become a simple science experiment gone awry picture.

While the momentum is not always fluent, the pace sometimes stilted, and the suspense often telegraphed too early, the acting compensates to some degree, Stevens and Koch enjoying a on-screen rapport that serves the narrative well. My only significant criticism is the overly-simplistic conclusion - the elements are present for a firecracker ending, but it's resolved too quickly and conveniently to do the rest of the movie justice. Should have been better, but in my opinion still superior to the average 3 rating it currently attracts.

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...

Frozen Alive is an odd mishmash of science drama, murder mystery and soap, but the narrative never really reconciles any of the threads. Moreover, when the frozen solid 'action' finally arrives, the pace is so slow that you may think that your screen has frozen. In this context, the creakiness of the film often makes it feel like a film made much earlier than the 1960s. Perhaps it was made earlier and kept in suspended animation? Anyhow, 1960s low-budget potboilers are often fun, but I'd recommend that if you get the chance to see this frozen-based caper, let it go.

Made and set in Berlin under a veteran British director with a largely German cast and crew (the stern presence of Walter Rilla is always a sure sign during this period that we're watching an Anglo-German co-production) and a characteristically noisy Germanic jazz score; the title 'Frozen Alive' suggests an early film on the then hot (if you'll pardon the expression) subject of cryogenics: a word never actually used in the film itself. Unfortunately it proves disconcertingly similar to the previous year's 'The Mind Benders' (1963), which showed far less interest in the potentially fascinating subject of sensory deprivation than - as with this film - the marital problems of the scientist at the centre of the narrative.

Delphi Lawrence is, however, a blast as Dr.Overton's glossy blonde wife - supposedly a famous fashion journalist, and with distinctly Germanic dress sense - first seen pouring herself the first of many, many drinks with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she also pours out her heart to her long-suffering German lover (Joachim Hansen). The film's production values, photography and pacing feel more like a TV production of the period; and even at just 75 minutes it feels wearisomely drawn out (such as a bizarrely irrelevant sequence in a bar with Joan Overton and her lover watching a fire-eater, of all things). Occasionally the film cuts back and forth between Overton in his lab and his wife's drunken maunderings as if something sufficiently dramatic is happening that actually calls for such emphatic editing, and even Ms. Lawrence begins to outstay her welcome when she starts waving her lover's gun about as if it's a toy - although it results in a wonderful death scene; both ludicrous and then moving as it finally sinks in on the poor woman just how completely she's screwed up...

After meandering for so long, the film then suddenly rushes headlong towards an extremely abrupt conclusion - as if director Bernard Knowles has finally realised that if it's going to be sold as science fiction, 'Frozen Alive' needs some laboratory footage to include in the trailer and on the posters. Wolfgang Lukschy (reunited with his recent 'Fistful of Dollars' co-star Marianne Koch), as Inspector Prenton goes out of his way to be as boorish and unprofessional as only the detective in a German crime film can be (while his sidekick provides one of the film's occasional flashes of mellow humour by actually showing an interest in what the scientists are getting up to and ruefully pleading with his boss "Can't I watch, sir?" when instructed to watch the door while Overton is defrosted).

Apart from Ms. Lawrence, the other Brit in the film is the veteran actor John Longden as the avuncular Professor Hubbard, making his final film appearance 35 years after starring in Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' (1929).