Frankenstein 1970 (1958) review

7. Frankenstein 1970 (1958)

Directed by: Howard W. Koch

Produced by: Aubrey Schenck, George Worthing Yates

Screenplay by: Richard H. Landau

Starring: Boris Karloff, Tom Duggan, Jana Lund, Donald Barry

I’ve reviewed a lot of “Frankenstein” films over the years, haven’t I? Roughly 20 or so featuring Dr. Frankenstein and/or his Monster, and that’s barely even scratching the surface. The original Mary Shelley novel is public domain, so it can be adapted as many times as filmmakers want. Some of the titles of the ones I haven’t reviewed are downright weird; they range from “Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster” to “Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter” to “Blackenstein.” Yeah, that last one doesn’t sound the least bit exploitative. But back in 1958, the name hadn’t yet devolved into that level of goofiness. At that time, it was limited to the Universal series, the first two Hammer films, a few silent movies, and the cult classic “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.” But today’s film—which came out just seven weeks after Hammer’s second effort—is called “Frankenstein 1970.” An especially mystifying title; in fact, it was originally called “Frankenstein 1960,” but they decided it didn’t sound futuristic enough. Anyway, it’s super cheap and super silly, but it has Boris Karloff, so what the hell; let’s take a look.

Well, the opening looks pretty spooky; it features a woman (Jana Lund) running away from what’s supposed to be a Frankenstein Monster (Mike Lane) staggering around. It’s nighttime, there’s fog everywhere, she frequently trips over nothing, he chases her into a swamp, starts strangling her, this looks exciting…but then it turns out we’re watching a film crew making a movie. Specifically, it’s a movie about Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Karloff), a descendant of the original doctor; the crew is filming in his castle re-enacting scenes from his family’s history, and having the Baron act as a sort of host of the show or something. However, using the money he earns for his participation in the project, he’s following in the family footsteps and making a monster of his own in his secret laboratory. Isn’t that how a lot of these “Frankenstein” movies go? Someone wants to create or revive a Monster just because? One of the gadgets he uses is an atomic reactor, which I guess is supposed to justify the time jump, even though it sounds like something that would’ve been more appropriate in the 1950s. But when the Baron runs out of body parts, he resorts to using the Monster to kill off members of the crew for more.

It’s almost pointless to talk about Boris Karloff’s personal history in the “Frankenstein” films, as I’ve talked about it so much. He’s the most recognized actor to have played Frankenstein’s Monster, having done it in Universal’s first three movies, all horror classics. He next outing was as a mad scientist in “House of Frankenstein,” but then he seemed to make a conscious effort to distance himself from the name. However, after 14 years away, Karloff fits back into this environment like a glove; ever the professional, despite the shoddy and cliché material, you can tell he’s giving it his all in every scene. Reportedly, the movie was shot in only eight days, and he worked each of them.

One of my favorite bits is when director Douglas Row (Donald Barry) is casually rattling off what they’re going to exploit for the movie, and Victor just glares at him with the utmost disgust. He has a lot of monologues without any cuts, and there’s some genuine emotion in his delivery. You get the sense that Karloff feels a certain loyalty to “Frankenstein,” and he wanted to do it justice. Oh, and if you’re wondering why half of Victor’s face looks vaguely like melted wax, apparently it’s because he was tortured and disfigured by Nazis for not cooperating with them in World War II. He’s trying to create the Monster in his own perfected image, but the Nazi aspect is just kind of a weird detail that doesn’t really play an important role; maybe they want to suggest his mind has been addled because of it, but I don’t know. Now for as game as Karloff is in this role, there isn’t much else good to speak of. The rest of the characters are pretty damn boring; I mean, Row is occasionally funny for what a stereotypical skirt-chasing Hollywood big shot he is, but their stories aren’t very engaging, and you don’t especially care when the Monster snatches any of them up.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the Monster a little bit. It’s clear from the poster that this movie takes a lot of influence from Universal; the design of the Monster’s silhouette is clearly modeled after the Jack Pearce design that Karloff donned once upon a time. But unlike the Mary Shelley novel, Universal’s Monster design isn’t so easy for other movies to just borrow, so they had to invent something else; notice how in the opening, the Monster’s face is always out of frame. The overall result is rather stupid; it looks more like a mummy than anything. But even though nothing really unique or thrilling happens when it hunts these people down, I like the way they build up the process of Victor using it. The lab is a great-looking throwback lab; it has just about everything you want in a mad science setting.

So overall, you’d probably have a more exciting time watching the movie that the crew in this movie was trying to make, at least based on the opening. But there’s still plenty to enjoy here; for a budget of only $110,000—which would equal just over $1 million today—it looks quite good, and it hits all the classic “Frankenstein” tropes that you’d expect it to in that time period. I guess if you go in expecting nothing more than that, you’ll like “Frankenstein 1970” okay. Probably best to forget it has that title, though; there’s absolutely nothing remotely ‘70s about it. Karloff is by far the best reason to watch it; there’s very little in the way of suspense, character or dialogue, but if you feel like tuning in for a harmless little “Frankenstein” knock-off with Boris Karloff as the doctor, then go for it.

My rating: 6/10