The Revenge of Frankenstein was the second of seven movies that Hammer Studios produced featuring Baron Frankenstein and his many creations. Six of them starred the remarkable Peter Cushing as the baron. The baron turned out to be one of the most memorable characters not only in Hammer history but in movie history. Revenge shows you many of his multiple facets, his contradictions as a human.
The Curse of Frankenstein, the first of the series, was a major money-maker in Britain, the USA, and in several other countries. The money it earned gave Hammer a great deal of freedom to explore their vision. This was especially true for one director, Terence Fisher, previously unknown except in Britain.
In general, Curse got terrible reviews from movie critics, who were horrified, scornful, contemptuous. Looking back, this is no big surprise. Horror movies, like rock and roll and comic books, were treated like an embarrassment by the mainstream; as if they
deserved no place in culture. Probably the most appropriate word for their status would be “marginalized.”
Remember too, that in 1956 people were a lot more frightened by other things. Atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just 11 years before. Not only the USA but the Soviet Union too, now had nuclear capability. Movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Them! had a strong emotional pull on
audiences frightened about bombs being tested, possibly used in
war. A wave of “giant” movies followed: giant wasps, grasshoppers, a praying mantis, spiders, a scorpion, a Gila
monster, even crabs and lots lots more. Never had Frankenstein or Dracula seemed so irrelevant.
But Hammer had the insight to realize that they had something worth sticking with, in the character of Baron Frankenstein. His contradictions kept you from judging him guilty—just when you were sure he had committed the unforgivable, he had the capability to make you change your mind…or at least reserve your judgment. You never doubted his superior intelligence or his skills as a doctor. Often you admired his lack of pretense, his no-bullshit
attitude that few characters around him shared.
Yet none of that could blind you to his arrogance, his self-centered motives. He was more than willing to use people, then throw them away with no regret. He viewed his personal success as more important than the lives of the unenlightened. And for the baron, “the unenlightened “was a group that included practically everyone.
The Curse of Frankenstein ends with the baron checkmated, condemned to death for the killing his monster did. Revenge picks up the story soon afterward, with him awaiting execution. But you notice a new character along with the priest and the executioner. A man with a paralyzed, contorted arm and leg but something in his expression revealing native intelligence and calm under stress. This is Karl, a man the Baron has gotten to know well in prison. Karl’s eyes meet those of the executioner; you hear sounds of a struggle. Soon afterward, you find the baron healthy and free.
Months later, the baron, now calling himself Dr. Stein has re-invented himself, far better than anyone could have imagined. Not only has he become the most respected (and best-paid) doctor in his town, he has established a clinic for the poor which allows him to cover a multitude of sins. The charity work makes him a teflon man; it is impossible to criticize a humanitarian like Stein. Other doctors in town are jealous of his money and reputation, but have no way to bring him down.
The truth is far more ambiguous. Though Dr. Stein is dedicated to his moneyless patients, these same patients serve as organ banks for the new creation he intends to show the world. He dreams of the glory that awaits him for his achievement. But he is obsessed too, with all who have condemned him in the past. Almost as important as the admiration of fellow scientists is the fantasy of shoving his creation in the faces of everyone who have ever called him arrogant, crazy, or blasphemous. “I will
have my revenge,” he predicts.
Karl has dreams too. For long stretches of
Revenge, they overshadow Dr. Stein’s plans and
schemes. Karl is someone you relate to—you feel for him
a lot.
Not that the idea of putting someone’s brain in a new body was anything original. This theme was used several times in the Universal Frankenstein series of the 30’s and 40’s. But I cannot recall any scene from Universal with the power of this one in Revenge: the contorted Karl looks upward, longingly, at the body he dreams of inhabiting. It’s not a long scene, but you find it sticks in your consciousness.
The body Karl dreams of inhabiting
Anyone who has ever felt a dislike or hatred about the way they look can understand what is in Karl’s heart. You find this theme in
The Glass Menagerie, Cyrano de Bergerac, Mask, the Ray Bradbury short story The Dwarf, even the Springsteen song Dancing in the Dark (“I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.”) and countless others.
To Stein, his plan seems simple enough: remove Karl’s brain, place it into the new body he has constructed, wait for Karl to recover from surgery, and receive his due credit from the world’s scientific community. But outside forces will take this quest in a different, horrible direction. It is as if the world means to stop him cold. As brilliant as Stein is, he is helpless to control all the variables in his complicated world.
Margaret, a beautiful woman of much wealth, insists on volunteering at Stein’s clinic. Stein, afraid of alienating her powerful father, allows her to do this, within his limits.
But Margaret’s presence sets off a deadly chain-reaction. A sneaky, manipulating servant at the clinic (Richard Wordsworth, so powerful in Curse of the Werewolf) tries to impress her. He tells her Stein is doing surgery in secret on clinic patients, and shows Karl to her, in his new body. To complicate things more: Stein’s assistant, Dr. Kleve, talks to Karl about how famous he (Karl) will be as a result of Stein’s scientific triumph.
Karl had met Margaret once before, in the days when he thought of himself a cripple and nothing more. Immediately he felt a strong infatuation. Now, the chance he has for a real relationship blinds him to every other possibility. He is genuinely afraid that Stein will use him, like a personal trophy, in the victory celebration for his
achievements. A basically shy man, Karl has no desire to show off his new body (“I’ve been stared at all my life.“)
Karl–His surgery goes according to plan–but complications he
never planned on
Without much advance warning, Stein finds everything he worked for slipping away. You feel his disappointment, then your own guilt for feeling that disappointment. But the real loser is Karl, who kept his end of the bargain (saving Frankenstein/Stein from the executioner) and finds that his new body fails him
painfully.
The aristocrats’ world abruptly stunned; Karl’s plea for help
exposes Frankenstein
It’s not a surprise that the Baron’s failures make him more bitter as he ages.Frankenstein Must be Destroyed and
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell show him as meaner, less caring, even more of a user. But part of us somehow continues to root for him. At least one critic has written about the scene in Psycho where Norman waits desperately for Marian’s car to sink into the swamp. Suddenly there we are, like Norman hoping that it sinks too. At its best, Hammer’s Frankenstein series has a similar effect.