Customer Reviews

Frankenstein 1970 [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I liked this movie because it was creepy. Every part of this movie was my favorite part. I liked the way Boris Karloff was in the movie. I'm glad this movie was fake because I wouldn't want to see "Frank" take a brain out of someone for real. I felt sorry for the servant named Shuter. I think "Frank" was a very bad boy for turning shuter into a monster. I felt sorry for "Frank" because he was tortured by the Nazis. However, he still did a bad thing. Poor Shuter. When my Dad watched this movie in the old days, he was afraid of the movie.

"Frankenstein 1970" is another guilty pleasure for me. It gave me the creeps as a child, and still does. Yes, the film is slow moving, and you don't get to see the monster's face until the very last shot, but the film does make me very uneasy. The great Boris Karloff plays Baron Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant Dr. who was tortured by the Nazis, and a descendant of the infamous Mr. F. Having fallen on hard times financially, the Baron permits a television crew to film a show about his illustrious ancestor at his castle for a hefty fee. Unbeknownst to the American dumbkopfs, Boris is carrying on in the family tradition, having constructed a creature out of corpses, and is awaiting fresh "parts", as well as a "nuclear-powered unit" to complete his science project. When his faithful manservant Schuter accidentally discovers his master's "workshop", the Baron kills him, transplants his vital organs into the creature, and revives it. However, the creature has no eyes- having accidentally dropped the eyes on the lab floor, the Baron now decides to get new ones-at the expense of the television crew. The usual havoc ensues. The opening of the film is really the best part-perky Jana Lund being pursued by the monster, face unseen, and is strangled to death by it in a lake-and it turns out to be part of the television show! So, if you have an hour and a half to kill, you could do a lot worse-oh, and by the way, my favorite line of dialogue is when Boris revives the creature and utters,"Schuter, yours is not the brain I would have chosen, but at least you are obedient!"

A friend and i got all set up to watch this on TV one Friday night in fifth grade, popcorn and bottles of Sprite on his screen-porch, but the intro was so frightening I made him turn it off. Since then (1962) I've always wondered what I missed. Seeing it now, I laughed when i realized that the part that frightened me is a movie-within-a-movie: the director yells "Cut" about 15 seconds after the moment when I fled. (I'm not the spoiler here-- this info is in an earlier review). (But that first part is still very scary.) Now as a grownup I enjoyed the movie a lot. Karloff's great, chilling and funny at once. Watch for his melancholy soliloquoy over the bodyparts dispose-all. 5 stars for me.

A fun movie to watch......I loved it when I first saw it a a kid in the 60's. Hopefully they'll come out w/a widescreen DVD version as the movie was filmed in CINEMASCOPE w/an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The VHS version I have starts out in widescreen but when the credits end it reverts to the usual pan & scan junk that we see so often on VHS releases of widescreen films.

The story opens as a terrified young woman is running through the woods, the monster seen here with sharpened nails like claws giving chase, tracks her down, finally cornering her at a lake where she stands frozen with fear as the monster slowly lurches toward her, lurching into the water and grabbing her by the throat and finally strangles and drowns her holding her under the lake's murky water.

Suddenly there's yelling and the girl begins screaming that he's really choking her and someone yells "Cut!" Alas, it's only a movie. Poor Fund barren Baron Frankenstein leases out his ancestral home to a movie production company making a picture about his infamous ancestor's monstrous creation. But something's afoot, and also an arm and a leg and a few other body parts as the Baron is up to his predecessor's old shenanagins. Rest assured this film is shlocky, but it's a bit better than you might imagine because of its premise. Boris plays an aged sickly relic and the last remaining member of his family. Despite being distainful of his benefactors, he needs them or rather their money for he's putting together a creature of his own. He carefully journals his progress by tape recording his experiment - the method to his madness carefully preserved for all time. As a child this one scared me, primarily because of its beginning and the surprising ending (look closely). Given the underlying storyline this could have been a much better film had someone spent some real money on this flick and worked more on the script and maybe hired a few more actors capable of playing along side the likes of Karloff. Rent it first if you want, then you decide for yourself or selves(?).

From a celluloid perspective, the 1950s were a terrible decade for Boris Karloff. Though he blazed new trails on television and stage, the Hollywood studios could not provide a memorable vehicle for this truly great actor. "Frankenstein 1970" (1958) represented the worst of a largely forgotten lot. Portraying an atomic-age, Nazi-scarred version of Baron Frankenstein was an opportunity Karloff should have avoided. The only interesting aspect is the bizarre "twist" ending - if you can wait that long. Happily, the 1960s would provide more rewarding film roles for Karloff, culminating in his masterful triumph as Byron Orlok in "Targets."

I love this movie! It even has the orignal frankenstien. Well...I dont want to give the movie away so i'll just say this.. I would reccomend this to any horror fan.