Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

[Chris Workman]

I actually think that both Robert Morris and Susan Denberg are very good. Christina's transformation from beautiful but defective sweetheart and beautiful and sexual monster is rather amazing (despite being dubbed).

[Troy Howarth]

I can't agree on those two. Denberg is dubbed throughout, and I wouldn't have a problem with this at all, but I simply don't think she's a strong enough actress for the role. Morris, I think, is just grating and often tends to over emote.

Originally Posted by Troy Howarth

I don't entirely agree. I don't think Created Woman fits into the self-contained "Fisher mythos" at all - from the use of the Baron's burned hands to his generally chipper disposition, it's far closer to Evil than is generally acknowledged. Of course, Anthony Hinds wrote both films so this makes sense. The "leap" from Revenge to Destroyed makes perfect sense - the Baron is disgraced and literally becomes his own creation at the finale of Revenge, thus leading into the embittered rage that fuels him in Destroyed. I'd say that Curse, Revenge, Destroyed and Monster from Hell fit together pretty neatly, however.

Actually, I there is no "Fisher mythos" for this series. There appears to be a "Sangster mythos," an "Elder (Hinds) mythos," and one film standing alone, written by Bert Batt.

The Sangster duo: CURSE and REVENGE. CURSE follows directly into REVENGE which ends with the Baron in his new identical body having set up a successful, fashionable, posh practice with Dr. Hans Kleve in Harley Street, London. Happy ending. One is tempted to group DESTROYED with these two because of the Baron's coldness, but it's simply not at all like them: DESTROYED finds the Baron alone and a hunted man; as is indicated by one of the stuffed shirts who discuss him without knowing that he's sitting in the room with them, "He lived in *Bohemia*. [He was] run out of the medical profession and...run out of his country [not England] as well; the Church in particular pilloried him." So, he's not coming from a successful London practice and there is no Dr. Kleve.

The Elder series of three begins with the re-envisioning in EVIL where to confuse things, a completely different assistant, impoverished like the Baron, happens to be named Hans (there's a lot of name recycling in Hammer films). The Baron's hands are badly burned in the explosion at the end, and he is therefore manually crippled and gloved in CREATED WOMAN. (Note that his hands are suddenly fine in DESTROYED.) The "Elder mythos" then proceeds to MONSTER FROM HELL, the Baron committed to the asylum he then takes over, still with crippled, gloved hands. In the Elder films, the Baron is much more sympathetic, droll, even sweet at times, and seemingly more sinned against than sinning--until his madness is revealed in MONSTER FROM HELL, making the asylum at last a fitting backdrop.

Batt's DESTROYED presents an entirely new, different, and dangerous Baron. Not content to cannibalize his surroundings for his experiments or even act as "an enchanter on the side of justice" (phrase from Pirie's book) as he does in CREATED WOMAN, he actively and violently destroys people's lives and relationships as it suits his obsessions.

So, really, there are three Hammer Frankensteins: Sangster's (CURSE-REVENGE); Elder's (EVIL-CREATED WOMAN-MONSTER FROM HELL); and one stand-alone virtuoso effort by Bert Batt (DESTROYED).

[Troy Howarth]

For what it's worth, I tend to agree with you, Robert. There's a tendency to want to apply an auteur status on every worthy director, and it sometimes simply doesn't fit. The very fact that Created Woman establishes a lineage with Evil has nothing to do with Fisher and everything to do with the practical reality that Hinds wrote both films.

Fisher was a magnificent story teller with a good sense of composition, and by virtue of the fact that he made so many films i love he is, of course, a favorite director of mine. I find it hard to apply the auteur label to his work, however, and in saying this it should not be misconstrued that this makes him a "lesser" talent in my eyes. His flair for the gothic and the romantic was superb - take him out of this context, and the work suffered. If he had never reached the plateau of Hammer horror, we wouldn't be talking about him today - this leaves a large chunk of his career pretty much by the wayside.

Uiltimately, it's a mistake to try to apply the auteur school to every single director. An auteur doesn't have to be talented - just look at Ed Wood, who most definitely qualifies - but a "jobbing" director like Fisher has talents that deserve consideration on his own merits without artificially trying to shoehorn him into a different style of filmmaking.

[Chris Workman]

I respect both of those opinions, but don't agree with either. Interestingly, one of the film's weaknesses is generally one of Fisher's greatest strengths: that he creates such vivid and wonderful characters that his films have emotional resonance, and as a result, we are horrified by the negative things that happen to the characters (re: THE GORGON, MUST BE DESTROYED, MONSTER FROM HELL, SO LONG AT THE FAIR). In CREATED WOMAN, we care very much about Christina and her love for Hans, and what happens to them both is thus more horrific. The problem is that, while this aspect of the story is heightened and generally works, the story about the Baron tends to be a tad bit dull (despite a terrific performance from Cushing). The result is that the film is schizophrenic. Usually Fisher melded his plots and subplots so superbly, and definted all of his characters so well, that his films are tour de forces. This is most obvious in movies like THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL, STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY, and FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED. Because he doesn't do this with all the characters and subplots in CREATED WOMAN, it tends to be a bit weaker, though still a generally good film with some wonderful directorial touches.

[Paul A J Lewis]

Originally Posted by Troy Howarth

For what it's worth, I tend to agree with you, Robert. There's a tendency to want to apply an auteur status on every worthy director, and it sometimes simply doesn't fit. The very fact that Created Woman establishes a lineage with Evil has nothing to do with Fisher and everything to do with the practical reality that Hinds wrote both films.

For me, the Fisher Frankenstein movies have a clear progression in terms of both their thematic content and their treatment of the Frankenstein character, outlined briefly in my post above (and in several other threads over the past couple of years). Their relationship in narrative terms is less clearly defined. It's been a long time since I read HERITAGE OF HORROR, but unless I'm mistaken Pirie argued something very similar about Fisher's work. (Leggett's book about Fisher also explores in great detail--and rather turgid prose--the development of key themes throughout Fisher's Frankenstein movies.)

However, I agree that Fisher isn't an auteur in the true sense of the word: his films are simply too diverse. And I've said it before, but as film fans I think we're too quick to ascribe authorship to our favourite filmmakers; it's easily done. Nevertheless, I think the authorship in Fisher's Gothics lies in a conjunction of Fisher's input as director, the ethos of Hammer at this specific period in the studio's history, the work of a certain core group of actors and the input of the several screenwriters with whom Fisher worked between around 1957-1973, not to mention specific shifts in British cultural life during this period. There's a certain amount of homogeneity (in genre, theme and sometimes aesthetic) in Fisher's output during this specific period, but in my view this is due to more the specific circumstances in which these films were produced, than to Fisher's 'hand' as a director. Whilst I enjoyed Peter Hutching's book about Fisher, he seemed to keen to try to bring together a very disparate group of films.

Cheers,
Paul

[Chris Workman]

About the auteur theory (which is, of course, an idea that cannot be proven or disproven about any one director, person, or talent), I don't ultimately think it matters. I can see both arguments in application to Terence Fisher. On the one hand, he took what jobs and scripts he could; but on the other, the same worldview can be found in them all, whether a period piece, a Gothic horror film, or a cheap film noir. This can't possibly be the intention of so many different and varied screenwriters.

So, that said, I understand why, on the surface, people would see that the Baron is a different person depending on who wrote the script for each film, but as Tim Lucas once explained, here we may have the single greatest characterization ever commited to celluloid, spread over a series of films. The Baron does definitely digress throughout the series, whether one moment he's being sweet and heroic or the next completely deadly. The only film, in this regard, that stands against the grain is THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN, where he is most decidely heroic and misunderstood. In both of the Sangster films, he is a cold, rational scientist who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. In CREATED WOMAN, there is some sense of his coldness having disappated, but he is still widly rational in achieving his hands, and once he's done so, he no longer exhibits any caring tendencies toward the object of his pursuits. In MUST BE DESTROYED, he has eschewed the outwardly heroic, even noble goals that he approached so rationally (and coldly) early on, simply to focus on the end result, no matter the cause. By the time of MONSTER FROM HELL, he has even lost that rationale and has clearly gone insane. He may be droll at times (perhaps an example of senility), but he is clearly insane and doesn't care about anyone or anything but his means, irrational as they are. For instance, upon first viewing, one may believe he cares about Angel; but look at the film again. All he really cares about is breeding her to an abnormal monster who may, in the end, hurt or or even kill her (certainly pregnancy from such a beast may result in irreperable damage or even death). There is nothing loving or caring in that. Nor does he care about Simon. He simply has found that Simon has the skills to help him.

There is an over-arching characterization for the Baron that does carry through Fisher's films; there is a clear dilutaion of nobility and rationale as the series progresses, resulting in the Baron being lost in a monster from hell, that is (as Fisher explained) the insanity of his own mind.

[Jonathan Douglas]

In order fave list:

Revenge of Frankenstein
Curse of Frankenstein
Frankenstein Created Woman
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
Evil of Frankenstein
Horror of Frankenstein
...Monster from Hell

While it's true FMBD may be 'the best' film, I'm entertained best in this order.

[Paul A J Lewis]

Originally Posted by Chris Workman

There is an over-arching characterization for the Baron that does carry through Fisher's films; there is a clear dilutaion of nobility and rationale as the series progresses, resulting in the Baron being lost in a monster from hell, that is (as Fisher explained) the insanity of his own mind.

I'm in one hundred per cent agreement.

As noted above, this development also extends to the Baron's changing attitude towards the nature of human identity--from being located within the brain, to being located in a fusion of brain, body and esoteric 'spirit'. The Baron's relationship with society also undergoes a development throughout the Fisher movies: in the first film, the Baron is a rationalist outsider in a predominantly superstitious society (the inverse of DRACULA, in which the titular character is a supernatural creation who emerges in a society on the verge of becoming dominated by science), and by the end of the series the Baron's experiments reveal a belief in identity that transcends pure flesh and blood.

However, as the Baron has 'regressed' into quasi-mysticism, the society around him has 'progressed' and has become increasingly obsessed with science. And so, in the final film the great irony is that the Baron is to be found incarcerated in the most vulgar example of 19th Century Britain's obsession with scientific and rational approaches to the mind and human behaviour: the insane asylum. In effect, he's imprisoned by the very values that, at the start of the series, he held dear (and from which the character has become increasingly alienated).

What enriches the final movie for me is its understanding of 19th Century British social and political thought: the asylum represents Bentham's panopticon gone awry. I like to think that Fisher and the other people responsible for this movie tapped into the same zeitgeist that produced Foucault's DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH (published one year later), which provided a similar (although more conventionally 'high brow') critique of social institutions like the insane asylum and the prison, which were the products of thinkers like Bentham.

Cheers,
Paul

I do not disagree with anything stated regarding the progression of the Baron from cold rationalist through semi-mystic to deadly medical adventurer (a term actually used to describe him in DESTROYED), and finally to the unhinged product of his own mental gyrations. My original point was that, while Fisher's brilliant manipulation of the material gives it tone, a sense of arc, and intensity because of his genius for narrative, the narrative itself does not stem from Fisher, nor even from one person.

The Baron's progress looks like an arc because of Fisher's and Cushing's skill, but its ingredients are products of different writers' perceptions and desires about what he ought to be. I take issue with Chris' rather contrived omission of Francis' EVIL from the schema, in which the characterization written by Hinds is almost exactly the same as in the Hinds'-scripted film that follows, Fisher's CREATED WOMAN. In both, he is misunderstood and has elements of nobility. The fact that Francis was not nearly as skilled at dealing with Hinds' material in EVIL as Fisher was in CREATED WOMAN, and of course, Universal's apparent desire for a 1940s-style film in EVIL, are the difficulties. I also disagree with the interpretation of the Baron's walking away at the end of CREATED WOMAN as "uncaring." That is not how I see it at all. He does his utmost to reveal the truth to Christina and save her from forces which even he did not suspect until moments before that. When he cannot, he doesn't shrug his shoulders: the pained look on Cushing's face with his hand still extended, and a brief shot as he glances upward tell the story. He has occupied the role of what Pirie describes as "an enchanter on the side of justice" throughout the film; he does not suddenly become the DESTROYED version of the Baron at the last moment. Moreover, narratively, it is *this* more humanized Baron who is finally subdued by the hypocritical citizens of the town; as we see in MONSTER FROM HELL, he is arrested and instituionalized on a charge of "sorcery"--a charge already leveled against him in CREATED WOMAN, establishing a clear narrative/character link between the two last Hinds screenplays. The Baron who finally self-destructs in the asylum is not the Baron in DESTROYED, a film which is a complete wild card. And he is certainly not the successful, savvy, coolly rational practitioner of medicine whom we see at the end of Sangster's REVENGE.

[dave hartley]

Part of the problem with properly evaluating Fisher is that what he particularly contributed - staging and pacing action and directing performances is not merely undervalued but also the least developed area of film studies.

Originally Posted by Paul A J Lewis

I think the authorship in Fisher's Gothics lies in a conjunction of Fisher's input as director, the ethos of Hammer at this specific period in the studio's history, the work of a certain core group of actors and the input of the several screenwriters with whom Fisher worked between around 1957-1973, not to mention specific shifts in British cultural life during this period. There's a certain amount of homogeneity (in genre, theme and sometimes aesthetic) in Fisher's output during this specific period, but in my view this is due to more the specific circumstances in which these films were produced, than to Fisher's 'hand' as a director.

I think thats right (though it doesn't mean that it isn't possible to distinguish Hammer's output, and within that Fisher's, from that of other production companies). I'd only add the key role of the major technical contributors 1957-62 particularly Bernard Robinson, Jack Asher, Arthur Grant, James Bernard, together with the other crucial element - Anthony Hinds unifying role as producer of most of the early gothics.

[Troy Howarth]

I agree with you, Dave. Fisher had a definite flair with performance and his films have a seriousness of tone that stands in contrast to the comparatively "comic book" Hammer horrors by Sharp, Gilling, Francis, et al. When assessing Fisher and looking for things to praise (which shouldn't be hard, as there is much to appreciate) it shouldn't be necessary to try and establish him as some sort of supreme auteur. Some great directors in the horror genre are indeed auteurs; many more are not - that doesn't make them unworthy in the least.

[Chris Workman]

Troy, you constantly go back to this "auteur theory." I don't recall - anywhere in this thread - Fisher being termed a auteur. (If I'm wrong, please feel free to point it out to me. Quite frankly, except in the most extreme cases, I don't buy the auteur theory at all: Bava, Carpenter, Argento, etc., none of these people were/are auteur's in the strictist sense of the term; if you play loose with the term to include them, then you might as well include Fisher as well).

Fisher did bring a certain pacing and look, a style of framing, and approach to characterization to his films. However, he also affected their screenplays in many ways, constantly tinkering with them to make them right, knowing when and when not to take actors' suggestions, etc. Was he a work for hire? Yes, but I seem to remember Bava claiming the same thing as well. It's no insult to Bava or Fisher (I love them both, as you all know), but on the one hand, Troy, you claim that you aren't insulting anyone by saying he or she isn't an auteur, and then you wield the idea that he or she isn't like a club. You can't have it both ways.

[Matt A]

I prefer FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE GIVEN A GOOD TALKING TO. It's more cerebral, IMO.

[Troy Howarth]

Originally Posted by Chris Workman

Troy, you constantly go back to this "auteur theory." I don't recall - anywhere in this thread - Fisher being termed a auteur. (If I'm wrong, please feel free to point it out to me. Quite frankly, except in the most extreme cases, I don't buy the auteur theory at all: Bava, Carpenter, Argento, etc., none of these people were/are auteur's in the strictist sense of the term; if you play loose with the term to include them, then you might as well include Fisher as well).

Fisher did bring a certain pacing and look, a style of framing, and approach to characterization to his films. However, he also affected their screenplays in many ways, constantly tinkering with them to make them right, knowing when and when not to take actors' suggestions, etc. Was he a work for hire? Yes, but I seem to remember Bava claiming the same thing as well. It's no insult to Bava or Fisher (I love them both, as you all know), but on the one hand, Troy, you claim that you aren't insulting anyone by saying he or she isn't an auteur, and then you wield the idea that he or she isn't like a club. You can't have it both ways.

No offense, Chris, but I brought it up because of the way you keep talking about Fisher's conception of the character; I'm merely agreeing with Robert that the actual screenwriters have much to do with this.. I've gone to great pains to emphasize that being an auteur isn't a badge of honor, so I fail to see why you're taking such exception with my posts. I'm not here to have a pissing contest between Bava and Fisher but, again, this seems to be something you insist on bringing into it whenever this point is raised. Do I consider Bava to be an auteur? Yes I do - I spent an entire book explaining this. Does that, in itself, make him superior to Fisher. No. I never said that. My saying Fisher isn't an auteur is hardly "insulting anyone," unless you're taking the comment on a personal level.