Taglines: A beautiful woman with the soul of the devil!
Frankenstein Created Woman movie storyline. A dead and frozen Baron Frankenstein is re-animated by his colleague Dr. Hertz proving to him that the soul does not leave the body on the instant of death. His lab assistant, young Hans, is found guilty of murdering the local pub owner with whom he had an argument where he foolishly swore to kill the man and Frankenstein acquires his body immediately after the execution.
Hans had been quite friendly with the dead man’s daughter Christina who returns just in time to see him guillotined. Distraught, she commits suicide and is brought back to life by the good Doctor but with Hans’ brain replacing her own. As memories return to her – Hans’ memories in fact – she sets out to pursue and kill those responsible for having sent him to his death.
Frankenstein Created Woman is a 1967 British Hammer horror film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Susan Denberg as his new creation. It is the fourth film in Hammer’s Frankenstein series.
Where Hammer’s previous Frankenstein films were concerned with the physical aspects of the Baron’s work, the interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body.
About the Story
Abetted by the elderly Dr. Hertz (Thorley Waters) and handyman Hans (Robert Morris), Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) determines that the soul does not immediately leave the body upon death, and can be transplanted from one body to another with a special apparatus he has developed. Hans is in love with Christina (Susan Denberg), the disfigured daughter of a local innkeeper.
Christina’s father disapproves of their relationship because Hans’s father was executed for murder — an execution Hans witnessed as a young boy. One night, while visiting Christina at the inn, Hans fights with three upper class snobs — Anton (Peter Blythe), Johann (Derek Folds) and Karl (Barry Warren) — when they insult her. Later that night, the three snobs sneak back into the inn and assault Christina’s father, killing him.
Hans is arrested for the murder. Despite the sterling character references of Dr Hertz and Frankenstein, the testimony of Anton, Johann and Karl persuade the jury. Because Hans will not reveal his whereabouts during the time of the murder — he was making love with Christina — he is sentenced to die at the same guillotine that killed his father some twenty years earlier.
Frankenstein sees this as an opportunity to test his new machinery on a human, and he has Dr Hertz arrange to receive Hans’s dead body. Christina, unaware that Hans had been sentenced to death, stumbles upon the execution site and sees Hans die. Distraught, she throws herself off a bridge and drowns. Frankenstein and Hertz successfully trap Hans’ soul. The authorities bring Christina to Dr Hertz’s office. Frankenstein persuades Hertz to trap her soul; once they have healed her injuries and facial disfigurements, they will restore her soul to her body.
The procedure is a success. At first Frankenstein refuses to reveal to Christina who she really he is or allow her to leave Hertz’s house, but after a few weeks he takes her to see the guillotine. When Christina sees the device she cries out “Papa!” and faints. Frankenstein’s suspicions are proven: both Hans’s and Christina’s souls are in her body. As Frankenstein devises more experiments, Hans’s soul overtakes Christina’s and urges her to avenge her father. She dresses up like a promiscuous woman, seduces Anton and Johann and kills them.
Christina scrawls “Hans” in blood next to Johann’s name, leading authorities to assume that Hans had sent someone else to the guillotine and had survived himself. They go to Hertz and Frankenstein, assuming their complicity. Frankenstein reveals the truth: Hans’s soul is controlling Christina. He then tracks Christina to the woods where she has taken Karl for a picnic.
He arrives too late: Christina has killed Karl and is now “speaking” with Hans’s severed head which “informs” her that her work is done. Shocked at what she has done, Christina’s soul resumes control and rushes to the river bank. Frankenstein promises to help her, but she cannot endure her guilt and throws herself to her second watery death. Frankenstein walks sadly away.
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Directed by: Terence Fisher
Starring: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Walters, Robert Morris, Peter Blythe, Derek Fowlds, Duncan Lamont, Alan MacNaughtan, Peter Madden, Philip Ray, Alec Mango
Screenplay by: John Elder (Anthony Hinds)
Production Design by: Bernard Robinson
Cinematography by: Arthur Grant
Film Editing by: Spencer Reeve
Art Direction by: Don Mingaye
Makeup Department: George Partleton, Frieda Steiger
Music by: James Bernard
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner-Pathé (UK), 20th Century-Fox (US)
Release Date: March 15, 1967 (USA)
Views: 237