The Curse of Frankenstien is note worthy for launching the Hammer Horror cycle, which resulted in some of the finest horror films (heck, finest movies) of the 50's and 60's. I first saw the film in high school, and was dissapointed, and watching the movie again now, I still am. It is a weak movie, badly written, boring and with a bland, pastel look.
Although Mary Shelley's novel was in the public domian, Hammer had be excedingly careful to avoid similarties to the 1931 James Whale version, which was owned by Universal. Howver, it's debateble as to whether anyone involved with the production even read the book, because their are heavy differnces. Like Universal, the Creature (Christopher Lee) is still a mute monster, and there is a love story (not in the book) between Frankenstien's associate/friend (Robert Urquhart) and his cousin, Elizabeth (Hazel Court). The new changes are all for the worse: Dr. Frankenstien (Peter Cushing) is just plain evil in this movie, and the philisophic concerns of the book and archytple imagery of Whale's film is replaced by the lowest form of horror, gross out gags.
Cushing and Lee are of course both great actors, but neither is allowed to show thier range, with Lee as a glorified zombie and Cushing having to play a one-deminsional cartoon character. Cinematograhper Jack Asher and director Fisher, who would use the muted tones of Eastmancolor to great effect in The Horror of Dracula, clearly hadn't yet figured out how to make an effective image with the technique. It might be said that The Curse of Frankenstien is a black and white movie shot on color film.
All this wouldn't be a problem if the movie was fun in a stupid kind of way (like Scars of Dracula) but it's just plain boring. It doesn't say anything, does make you feel anything, and doesn't even look good. It would spawn a lot of more enjoyable movies (including the masterpiece The Horror of Dracula, which used Lee and Cushing as well as most of the same crew), but the film itself is really a drag. Bummer.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)