FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 83 Minutes
Audio: English DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: B&W 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Howard W. Koch
Cast: Boris Karloff, Don Barry, Jana Lund, Charlotte Austin
Directed by Howard W. Koch this slice of Franken-schlock was made in 1958 but set in the then futuristic year of 1970, opening with an awesome pre-credit sequence of a largely unseen monster pursuing a frightened blonde through a fog-shrouded woods and into a lake where he drowns her. The film then reveals that what we are watching a movie within a movie, this is a scene in a film that is being shot by a American TV film crew who are in Germany making a monster film in the castle of Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff, Targets), who is a direct descendant of the fabled Victor Frankenstein.
Karloff's Baron Frankenstein is disfigured with a rather large scar running down the side his face, we're told he received it while being tortured by Nazis during WWII. Not unlike his infamous relative he too has a secret lab down in the bowels of the castle where he is using new fangled atom-age technologies to create a monster in the image of his younger self. Atomic energy however is not the only thing he requires to create his monster, in keeping with the Frankenstein mythos he also needs human body parts, so having a film crew around will certainly prove to be useful.
Baron Frankenstein begins by murdering his own loyal servant for his brain, what better mind that that of a man who has served him loyally for years to drive his new creation! He then sends the monster, wrapped from head to toe in bandages for nearly the entire duration of the film, after members of the unsuspecting film crew to complete his creation, leading to a handful of corpses piling up, drawing the suspicion of the surviving cast and crew. Eventually the monster turns on it's creator and both die in a blast of radioactive steam in the laboratory.
This is a trashy Frankenstein film no doubt, but it has it's charms, the meta opening is particularly well done, but the film falls apart soon after with some truly awful supporting roles, and way too many scenes of people just talking, there's not enough monster mayhem here for my tastes. The look of Frankenstein's monster is a real turd, wrapped in bandages from head-to-toe, looking more like a big-headed mummy than anything resembling Karloff's classic creation.
That's not to say the film is without it's share of bad-movie thrills, Karloff really camps it up here in the role clearly having fun with the pulpy silliness of it all, the man who was the original Frankenstein's monster now playing the diabolical Baron Frankenstein!
The Gothic castle setting offers some good atmospheric touches and the lab is a fun modern update, adding an atomic reactor as one of Frankenstein's life-creating toys, though it's a fairly static item, offering none of the electrical-pulsing charm of Frankenstein's lab in the original film. Though set in '70 the film still feels like a cheesy film from '58, filming it in black and white certainly didn't help make it feel more contemporary either. There's a lot of meta-horror happening here, from the movie within a movie opening scene, to Karloff modeling the monster after himself, even sort of prefiguring the idea of reality-TV to a degree, but that's probably giving the film a bit too much credit, but there's definitely some interesting ideas here, they're just not explored or executed with any amount if ingenuity.
Sure, this is a bad-film but it also stars Boris Karloff, and on that level it's a bit of a treat seeing him play the creator of the legendary monster he once played, it's a film that is ripe with z-grade schlock and charm, and I think monster kids of all-ages will be able to enjoy it for what it is, vintage Franken-cheese.
Audio/Video: Frankenstein 1970 (1958) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from the Warner Archive in 1080p HD framed in the original 2.35:1 widescreen CinemaScope. The black and white image is generally very pleasing to look at with well managed grain and solid contrast. From time to time source limitations like some minor flicker occur, but generally it's a pristine looking presentation with modest depth and a nice velvety looking presentation.
Audio ion the disc comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono presentation with optional English (ALL CAPS) subtitles. The track doesn't have a lot of heft or depth to it, but overall it's a clean sounding track, plus the robust scoring from Paul Dunlap (The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake) sounds terrific.
Extras are ported over from the previous Warner Archive DVD release, these include a fun 1-min TV spot for the film plus an audio commentary by Commentary by Historians Bob Burns and Tom Weaver, who are joined by actress Charlotte Austin. It's a fun and very chatty group commentary full of anecdotes about the making of the film, the cast and crew and some historical context.
Special Features:
- Special Feature: Commentary by Historians Charlotte Austin, Bob Burns, and Tom Weaver
- TV Spot (1 min) HD
Frankenstein 1970 (1958) gets a great-looking Blu-ray from the Warner Archive, while this may not be prime Karloff it's certainly a fun Saturday morning watch, so cozy up to the TV with a bowl of sugary cereal and a cup of strong coffee, and enjoy the z-grade charms of this vintage slice of schlock.
