Frankenstein Created Woman

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Directed by:  Terence Fisher
Starring:  Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris
Format:  Personal Collection NTSC Region 1

     Hammer's version of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is my all time favorite film Frankenstein story.  Sure Universal was first and Karloff was great as Frankenstein but one thing I never liked about those movies was the focus on the creature as the monster when the real monster is in fact it's creator.
     Peter Cushing is in my top 10 actors of all time and his inclusion in any film adds a bloody hand print just for that.  Yes I gave this film 5 bloody hand prints and I do this because as I've said Peter Cushing plays my favorite Dr. Victor Frankenstein and also because this film is directed by one of my top ten favorite directors of all time Terence Fisher who directed almost all the Hammer Frankenstein films.  The man was the best British director of all time in my own personal opinion he directed The Mummy, Curse of the Werewolf, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Horror of Dracula, and many more.  It was these films and the sequels and spinoffs they produced that saved Hammer studios in the 50s much like the monsters did for Universal studios in the 30s. 
     Frankenstein Created Woman once again follows the trails of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. While Frankenstein can no longer perform surgery from injuries caused in a previous sequel he does have Dr. Hertz to carry out his experiments.  The two of them embark on the ultimate experiment to cheat death this time.  They are trying to trap the soul and it's energy in a large machine they have created and are trying to use that soul to reanimate a dead body. 
     Frankenstein has tried many times in the sequels before and after this one to either clump together body parts or just plain re-animate a whole dead corpse but in this film he tries to take another alley, the soul.  I have always found this to be quite amazing.  Now Dr. Frankenstein sees the soul as some unexplained form of energy and not as a religious spirit of sorts but either way I just find the whole story very interesting.  The problem of course is he uses his experiment to take the soul of his dead helper Hans (Robert Morris) and throws it into the body of the boy's drowned girlfriend Christine played by the beautiful Susan Denberg...too bad she wasn't in more films I thought she did very well. 
    

 Christine was in love with Hans but Hans was put to death by the guillotine for killing her father.  So upon seeing his death by decapitation she ends her own life by jumping off a bridge.  A sort of horror version of Romero and Juliette if you will.  Of course it was not Hans it was 3 very disgusting rich young men who beat her father to death when he discovered them inside his tavern after hours.  The three young men had a habit of torturing the landlord and his daughter most especially because she had a deformity on her face and body.  However after Dr. Frankenstein is finished with Christine's body she has no deformity and now also has two souls, one of which is very vengeful and that's when the murders begin.  One by one Christine dispatches the three rich young men tricking them with her beauty.  "I'm Christina Clave," she says just before stabbing one of the fair gentleman to death.  And she does all this murdering while carrying around the head of her late lover.  My favorite sequel to the Hammer Frankenstein legacy.  Another notable addition to the film crew is director of photography Arthur Grant who photographed  other such Hammer productions as Paranoiac, Curse of the Werewolf, Plague of the Zombies, The Reptile, and many more his talents are appreciated by this reviewer.  Highly recommended to those of us who can enjoy the classics.