Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)

Dir: TERENCE FISHER
Country: UK

Hammer Film Productions’ fifth entry in their cycle of Frankenstein movies is a major accomplishment. Those Frankenstein films directed by Terence Fisher have a remarkable consistency, and each subsequent instalment sought too extend the moral arguments set up in previous entries. There is a definite sense of thematic progression in Fisher’s Frankenstein films, and a sense of fragmented morality that centres on the twin pillars of these films; The Baron, and ‘The Monster’. In most of the films the creature is a reflection of a certain facet of the Baron’s personality - the best example is the vanity and pride of Karl/The Baron in The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958). But in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed this aspect of the characters’ is subsumed into the Baron’s uncompromising sadism. Prior entries had shown The Baron to be an astute reader of social situations, a well mannered aristocrat cleverly using the mask of benevolence to hide his diabolical schemes. There was at least a sense that somewhere amid the dismembered body parts The Baron’s motivations were noble and progressive. This moral tension is totally excised from Bert Batt’s screenplay, and The Baron is free to murder, blackmail, and even rape his way to the achievement of his nefarious goals. Depending on your point of view this is either a major weakness of the screenplay, or a major strength. I personally think it is a great strength, it leaves Peter Cushing free to indulge in some wonderfully cruel behaviour, and gives ‘The Monster’ an opportunity to fully explore the moral wasteland within which he resides.



The callousness of The Baron is best exemplified in the opening sequence; a wonderfully tense and beautifully shot set piece in which the masked Baron stalks a doctor in the fog filled streets of London. The Baron decapitates the poor fellow, and later when his lair has been discovered by a petty thief he unceremoniously kicks the head into the sewer beneath his laboratory. In the boarding house of Anna Spengler (Veronica Carlson) The Baron’s resolute and forceful personality soon sees him assuming total control. He resorts to blackmail with an astute deftness when he discovers that Karl (Simon Ward) is lifting cocaine from the asylum he works at for Anna’s ill mother. This is a young romantic couple who, unusually for Hammer, are given no opportunity to be romantic. They are both completely broken to the will of The Baron, who makes them complicit with every vile deed he performs. Anna is especially abused, if she isn’t being ordered to make cups of coffee, she’s being raped by The Baron; her eventual demise is a pure act of petty vengeance, her treatment and death the most nihilistic and depressing aspect of the whole movie. However the boarding house comes alive as a space, especially in a brilliantly Hitchcockian moment which sees a burst water main reveal the flailing hand of a freshly buried corpse.



In this particular adventure Herr Baron is obsessed (to the exclusion of rationality) with the brain of Dr. Brandt (George Pravda). Brandt and Frankenstein were collaborators until Brandt went nuts, and locked within Brandt’s fevered brain is information Frankenstein desperately craves. In a cruelly ironic twist Frankenstein transplant’s Brandt’s brain into the body of Dr. Richter (Freddie Jones) the man who runs the asylum and earlier on declared Brandt incurable. This is symptomatic of a black sense of humour that runs throughout the film. In the shape of the excellent Freddie Jones ‘The Monster’ is a pitiable and wretched creation, but Frankenstein has progressed considerably from the amalgam of body parts seen in his first adventure. The only indication of Brandt’s operation is a scar across the forehead, but the eyes speak of fathomless pain, and much pathos and sympathy is elicited by the facial expression of Jones. A scene in which Brandt attempts to convince his wife Ella (Maxine Audley) of his true identity is subtly heartbreaking, and only serves to reaffirm Brandt’s desire for vengeance.



The film is padded with a number of unnecessary scenes featuring a perfunctory and uninspired police investigation led by Thorley Walters and Geoffrey Bayldon. Uncharacteristically for Walters, Inspector Frisch is brash, unfriendly, and emotionally hollow, and does not provide the comic relief which one would normally expect from such a character. This is another way in which the screenplay confounds ones expectations. Nevertheless the finale does play to type as Frankenstein is lured to Brandt’s lavish mansion, which soon takes the form of an obligatory inferno. However Brandt does take the opportunity of mocking his creator and frustrating his attempts to locate secret papers. This is a very literate and intelligent ‘Monster’ and one which most strongly evokes the character as conceived by Mary Shelley. The nihilism and brutality of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed may be off putting, but I for one enjoyed it immensely; this is up there with the very best of Hammer’s gothic horrors.

 
© Shaun Anderson 2010