Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hammer's finest hour?, May 25, 2004
FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969)
Aspect ratio: 1.75:1
DVD soundtrack: Dolby 1.0 mono
Theatrical soundtrack: Mono
Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) blackmails a young medical student (Simon Ward) and his fiancee (Veronica Carlson) into helping him with a brain transplant which goes horribly wrong.
Following a long period of cheap-looking productions designed to play as double-features on their home turf, Hammer returned to premium quality horror with FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, arguably the company's finest hour, and certainly Peter Cushing's definitive portrayal of the monstrous Baron. Instead of the misguided adventurer depicted in previous films, screenwriter Bert Batt emphasizes the Baron's ruthless pursuit of knowledge and power, culminating in an unexpected sequence in which Cushing's domination of Carlson segues from mere tyranny to rape, a scene which Cushing reportedly found distasteful. Overall, however, Batt's script allows the characters to evolve via a skilfully constructed plot which employs levels of drama and emotion largely absent from much of Hammer's output at the time, alongside the usual elements of horror and suspense. Director Terence Fisher rises to the occasion with remarkable dexterity, orchestrating set-pieces which have been compared to Hitchcock in some quarters, especially the opening sequence in which a petty thief (Harold Goodwin) breaks into the wrong house and has a truly hair-raising confrontation with its volatile owner (leading to a truly great 'reveal'); and the traumatic moment in the back garden of Carlson's boarding house, when she's forced to deal with a corpse (one of Frankenstein's cast-offs) ejected from its makeshift grave by a burst water pipe.
Freddie Jones adds pathos to the proceedings as the helpless victim of Frankenstein's latest experiment, his brain transplanted into another man's body against his will, traumatizing his incredulous wife (Maxine Audley) who refuses to accept his new identity (a scenario echoed by a similar plotline in John Woo's FACE/OFF in 1997). The period decor may look a little cramped and cut-price in places, but this is Hammer/Fisher/Cushing at the very height of their creative powers, and the film is a small masterpiece of British Gothic.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of Hammer's greatest on DVD at last, January 29, 2005
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed represents one of Hammer's most delicately crafted productions. Production values are above par. Bert Batt and Anthony Nelson-Keys deliver an excellent script. Arthur Grant's photography, James Bernard's score and Terence Fisher's direction are all exemplary. The talented cast includes Peter Cushing in one of his greatest performances, an amusing Thorley Walters and an early appearance from Freddie Jones, as the screen's most tragic and pitiful Frankenstein's "monster" since Christopher Lee (1957) if not Boris Karloff (1931).
Central to the film is a pervasive irony: The irony of a man whose everyday manners are impeccable and gentlemanly, but whose total contempt for human life will lead him to murder and rape without a second thought; the irony of a man given back life only to be cheated out of the one thing in life he loves. Never is this irony more clearly captured than in the very first scene, in which a lilting ballad accompanies a beheading, or (a few scenes later) the quick cut from Anna's words, "You'll find it very quiet here," to a screaming patient in an insane asylum (a surprisingly effective shock moment).
Baron Frankenstein here is no longer the ambiguous anti-hero of sorts that he was in Hammer's previous Frankenstein outings (excepting The Evil of Frankenstein). In Fisher's Hitchcockian opening sequence the camera follows a pair of black and white shoes, suggesting a certain ambiguity, as they make their way through the Victorian streets, but when the owner of the shoes (having just committed one murder and an attempted murder) tears off his hideous mask, it is revealed to be none other than Frankenstein himself. Now the Baron is clearly the monster, and it is he who must be destroyed.
The Baron here takes on god-like dimensions like never before. In Fisher's series there were always clear allusions to the wrongness of the Baron's attempts to usurp the place of God; here Frankenstein's spiral of descent into degeneracy, tyranny and blasphemy is complete. With great command, he exerts an almost supernatural force over the two young lovers he blackmails into assisting him in his experiment.
The first hint of his demise is towards the end of the film when Karl (Simon Ward) watches him, unbeknownst to the Baron, and discovers his plans, which information he then uses to foil the Baron. Thus for the first time, the shoe is on the other foot: Frankenstein is no longer in control, and his destruction is imminent.
His destruction is one of the film's finest sequences. The shoe really is on the other foot now: "I fancy... that I am the spider and you are the fly," says the creature. Frankenstein is trapped inside a burning house with the police waiting outside. In the words of his creation, he must choose between "the police and the flames." The implication is clear: Even if Frankenstein manages to evade human justice, "the flames" (a symbol of divine judgment) are totally inescapable. In a finale that harks back to Mary Shelley's original novel, the embittered creature himself carries his creator with him to their shared fate.
Other fine sequences include the water-pipe bursting, forcing the cadaver of one of the Baron's victims to resurface, as well as the forceful scene in which Professor Richter, transplanted into the body of Freddie Jones, and hidden behind a screen, pleads with his frightened wife to believe his story.
Don't miss this now it has received a long-awaited DVD release.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bloody Baron, August 5, 2000
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is one of the finest in Hammer Horror. This is the fifth of the series with the master horror thespian Peter Cushing as Dr. Frankenstein. The film starts off with a quick little beheading with a scythe, then it's off to the lab. A drunk intruder, looking to burglarize the good doctor, foils Frankenstein's plan forcing him to find other accomodations. He moves into a bed n breakfast and terrorizes a young couple, and blackmails them into doing his bidding. Frankenstein gets the young man to murder, rapes the girl, and steals a colleagues brain, all in the name of science. This is by far the darkest of the Hammer Frankenstein series, and the best. We see that the doctor will stop at nothing to prove a point . Lots of suspense, blood, and lots of the beautiful Veronica Carlson. My only complaint is the reproduction is not the greatest. I only wish Anchor Bay would get off their butts and put ALL the Hammer movies out WIDESCREEN! Seeing a good brain drlling just loses something in pan-n-scan.
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