Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

Much-admired Hammer Horror pic rebooted a whole genre, resurrecting FRANKENSTEIN before waking DRACULA and other frights. The films now look something of a curate’s egg, only good in part, with Hammer house director Terence Fisher’s steady-as-she-goes helming letting the narrative rhythm sag between the big shocks. (Jimmy Sangster’s suspense-robbing flashback story structure also hurts the cause.) Fortunately, Peter Cushing carefully lays out the falling arc of Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with his monstrous creation, playing the madness close to the vest. No one else in the small cast is particularly memorable, even Christopher Lee’s gruesome creature misses the sense of pity so famously caught by Boris Karloff in the old Universal classic. (Lee passed on the role in the Hammer sequels.) The current DVD also misses the vibrant EastmanColor density of later Hammer releases. Perhaps a richer looking edition would bump things up.

DOUBLE-BILL: Some of these Hammer Horror Pics feel a bit long in the tooth (and not only DRACULA). Non-afficionados might first try THE MUMMY/’59 which finds strength in the very filmic longueurs that weaken other titles.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Hammer Horror pics (and Roger Corman’s A.I.P. films) probably got a boost from the perfectly lousy physical condition of the great ‘30s Universal horror classics circulating at the time. Battered, grainy prints, with murky looking close-ups and suffering lost footage from past censorship and tv time limitations. Now beautifully restored, they look far more stylish (and stylized) than these redos.

No comments: